So close, yet so far

Let me narrate a dream.

You are in the semi-final of a Super Series Premier event. You just got there after beating the reigning world # 1. What is more, you are up 19-16 in the 3rd set. And then, in your dream, something happens. A string on your tight high tension racquet breaks. Snap. You  realise this might not be a dream. While you are walking back to get a new one, you are now aware of noises around you. The nerds among us have a word for it; Hypnagogia i.e. waking dream.  Before you know it, the score is 19-21, and you wake up - An also ran who has never won a super series.

****

This is the reality of Parupalli Kashyap. An ever affable and talented work horse, his career is littered with similar stories. In the 2012 London Olympics, he went as far as the Quarterfinals, the best performance by any Indian thus far. In almost every BWF event (of last one year), he has been a perennial fixture of the final 32 or better.  Only once did he cross the Semi-finals to win the trophy - Syed Modi cup in Lucknow India. He did so by beating a younger, more dynamic, and arguably tired Kidambi Shrikanth. That, however, is a story for another article.

So how does a player as talented as Kashyap fall short, time and again, at crunch moments? In those situations, it is not about skill anymore. The game becomes a psychological warfare. To play a drop or a smash, to expect your opponents move, to be ready and be unfazed, to be in the game, to go for the $ 1 M pot of World series. Summing it all in one word -  Mental Toughness.  It is what seperates the champions from wannabes.

An interesting tit-bit here is that Kashyap is an avid poker player ala Rafael Nadal. He knows how to defeat demons within himself - He overcame Ashtma.  We are betting he will defeat the mental demon in the upcoming world series championships and come out a winner.

Our team wishes him all the best

Career paths and confusions

Here is a small mail chain with long replies. I seemed to have touched a spot for Sriram to write such a detailed mail on his view on PHD, but nonetheless, thought his gyan needed to be shared with broader public*

*Permission pending. And for the uninitiated, Sriram was the IP 3 (Insti position 3) from IIT M and got into Cornell for PHD.


------------------------

S Sriram 16	Apr 4 (7 days ago)
to me

11:35 AM me: 16

  u must have read the phd rape article on economist na?

  wat ur opinion?

  http://www.economist.com/node/17723223

                   

S Sriram 16	Apr 5 (6 days ago)
to me

I read the article a long time back, just skimmed it again. I agree with the main point that there are perhaps more PhDs being produced than can be absorbed, but that's probably true today of every kind of education and job. I'm one of those people who feels the luddite fallacy isn't really a fallacy (wow the wikipedia title has changed since a year or so back when i read it). I'll leave this technology unemployment digression for another day. Back to the issue of PhDs. This article probably speaks from the perspective of americans or europeans. But from my perspective, and probably that of insti junta and even other Indians, the big issue is probably the very limited back flow of info on PhD from current students to 3rd/4th year undergrads. Then the assumption was that if you are a maggu and generally like to study/learn you'll fit into a PhD. That's somewhat true for science (physics, chem, biology, may be computer science) PhDs, but a lot less true for engineering PhDs. In engineering, the goal is to mix and match known concepts from physics using real phsyical objects to make something useful for people.  

A fundamental realization for me was that no one will pay for you to learn stuff for yourself. Learning something will be of value to society only if you are the very first person to "learn" it, in which case you are what you are really doing is discovering/inventing that piece of information rather than learning/understanding it. So you can't simply sit and keep reading about one subject after the other on things you don't know. You have to contribute useful ideas. The process of sitting and understanding some piece of knowledge (maths theorem, physics equation, or engineering concept) is very different from inventing a new theorem, new equation or new device, or more generally, any new idea. Coming from the indian system, we are fairly poorly trained in open-ended thinking where there is simply no "correct answer" to get to. Like the article says, only a handful of PhDs make go on to become profs. But what i can tell from the inside is that those prof-level students are those who are both extremely intelligent and highly imaginative. They are creative enough to come up with ideas and smart enough to know how to test and execute it. Many grad students like both studying and explaining/teaching but this is not enough to get you a good professorship. 

Others like me are good enough at problem solving to execute an idea but draw a blank on new ideas and probably end up doing industrial D (from R&D :).As a prof, at least in the US, you need to constantly come up with ideas for grants and enough of them should be viable that you have a reasonable stream of money flowing in. Even in India there's growing focus on research output. In that context i realized that we have a disproportionately large number of pure science research happening in India as compared to engineering research. Most govt research institutes, your IICT, CCMB, IISER, TIFR, RRI, HRI... all mainly work on pure sciences. ONLY IISc and IITs do engineering. Like i said before, a lot science research can be done by simply studying something that someone else hasn't studied before. But that's typically very "academic" in nature. Only if you have enough engineering happening, or "innovation" to use the latest buzzword of the HRD ministry, can you translate some of that purely academic knowledge into something that people will pay money for. So coming back to the topic, my biggest PhD gripe is that it's not about learning but about imagining. I know i'm not terribly creative and would not really mind executing someone else's ideas. But i'd like to think i'm incrementally better at open thinking now than i was three years back. So hopefully i'll have some useful idea some day. 

That's enough ramble for the day. Should put vid call next time to avoid this pain of typing.  :)

Anupam Chakilam	Apr 5 (6 days ago)
to S

haha..dood. seriously. Long arse mail. Strong opinions you have. I'm familiar with luddite fallacy. Suresh Babu mentioned it during one macro economics class. I have been reading similar articles on MBA. My biggest worry is, no body seems really happy you know. Like, people say MBA is not worth it, PHD is not worth it, staying in Job is not worth it..then what the hell is? I know I'm painting everystream with same brush, but the future seems kind of scary

Out of interaction experience, the only ones I have seen little mellow and happy about career path are entreupreneurs, but I guess that is not everyone's cup of tea. Have you read this about U bend of life? This kind of gave the answer.Read if you have time.

And yea, you are right, we'll put vid chat. I'm going home for Ugadi for a week. And apparently mattu's marriage is there sometime next month and India juntha are planning to put meet. Wassup that side of the world? My MBA applications cupped spectacularly. Thinking of applying locally next year. I'll 99% stay in India and make a career here only looks like, which I'm kinda happy about as of now. Lesse.

Invite

I wrote this for a dear friend when asked for a creative invite. Do let me know your thoughts:)

***********

There was once a Sage, peaceful and nice. Of men and mice, he had great knowledge

He set out to write an epic, but no story seemed wise. So he thought of seeking intelligent advise

Write about "dice", said the advise. "That's a strange choice", said the sage in soft voice. 

"How about kings and sacrifice?", added the advise. The happy and hungry sage loved it. "Good. I'll combine all three like pulav rice" 

Thus came the Company Bharatha, the greatest book ever written. To have a bite and be a part,

Please be gracious and accept the invite.

Calling Y'all for the big prize

Greenery, Scenery and the Great Godavari

This is going to be one of my(or only) long blog post. So if you've just wandered here to pass time between running codes or bored of seeing the same facebook updates and looking for more excitement in life or just stumbled here because of my brilliantly worded blogsite, which draws a lot of Akon fan traffic here, I advise you just skip the crap and directly go to the pics. On the other hand,if you are serious about taking a boat ride on Godavari or most likely just too jobless in life, go ahead.

*******

I've always wanted to go explore places (I know. Like who doesn't?). Went to a few with family. Let me see now: Ooty - Coimbatore, Mysore - Banglore - Hospet, Kothagudem - Kinnerasani, Kurnool - Ahobilam - Nandyal, Mumbai and around: all mostly when young. And then there were the trips I put to Banglore, Pondicherry, Goa, Delhi with dosths. I know, not very extensive. A regret of my life. But a deeper and greater regret has been not seeing the Andhra part of my own state. So when my mom told me that they were shifting base to Vizag, I was actually kinda glad. Finally, the coastal districts. I can now tick off one other part of A.P.

Clouds, Hills and the Great River

Vizag was a nice change from Pune and I loved the August weather there (pun intended). Our house was on the slopes of a hill, in a place named Seethamma Dhaara. For a person so very used to the corrupted names of Hyd localities, the names here sounded like poetry.(The names of localities in Hyd actually deserve another post. Will do that in future. And don't get me wrong, Hyd still is first love. No body can beat names like Neem Bowli Adda, Kacheguda, Koranti, Seethaphalmandi, Tirumalgherry and such)

So you are right, this post isn't about Vizag and Hyd and the never ending debates which usually crop up while comparing cities. Its about this launch (Boat) ride I took from Rajamundry to Perantalapally (If you are a Gult, lol with me). We started from a place called Pattiseema. Now if you come from a parched placed like Hyd and have only seen villages in an around there, this place looks like a green paradise. The closest I can compare this place is with the pics of Kerala backwaters. The greenery just overwhelmed me. But this was nothing. The actual boat ride was even better.

The boat was good. So was the food. We took an A.P tourism managed one but you can choose from other private operators too.The first stop was at a small Lanka (Island, in the river). There was a Rama temple there, but I spent most of the time strolling on the river banks, trying to soak in the rivers vastness. Man it was huge. Like a giant moving lake. The tour guide was telling me that the best time to undertake the journey is when the monsoons aren't too rough. The river usually has very strong current after a good monsoon and the steamer cannot navigate or its usually dry during other seasons and the steamer anyways cannot navigate in shallow waters. So usually August to November is a good time to be there.

The lake like river, after about an hour jounrney became a vast but stronger moving current. There was an opening, about a kilometer wide in between the hills from which the river comes from the valley. That's the Paapi hills welcome gate. I originally thought the name had something to do with some guys sin, but apparently, it comes from the telugu word "Papidi", meaning the hairline partition of a woman. The river is like the "papidi". I remember another story the guide told me about the hills. There were some hill rocks on top of one of the hills making it look like a man, with a long nose. The story he told is long and like most mythological stories involves Rushis' and curses and rakshas and Godavari cleansing sins etc (Ok.Ok Guilty. I forgot the story.Sorry!). The guide made a snide remark saying nowadays they are calling it the K.C.R hill (refer long nose part:D).

There were some people on the river banks making small pits in there to collect water. They were using it as some sort of filtration technique. It was a tough life, filtering water like that and then transporting uphill. I din't understand why they were doing it until I realized that was another river island. The journey upstream next took us to Parentalapally, which contained a Rama Krishna ashram. The setting was absolutely serene and I wasn't at all surprised to see an ashram there. In fact, I was kinda expecting more baba's at those locations. There were also lots of "Tribals" , mostly selling forest/tribal stuff. God how I hate commercialization at such places. But guess we got to accept them with the journey

The journey down stream was much faster. All those CAT problems about upstream downstream boats suddenly made sense;). Since there were no stops, the guide was playing very loud music from the PA system. I soo badly wanted to just spend time sitting and staring at the never changing hills and the fast flowing water. But the boat setting made me think. Instead of going to Goa or a costly resort for office parties et all, hiring a boat on Godavari makes lot more economic sense, and trust me, with enthusiastic people, it is great fun. There is one small island in between which has lots of tents and stuff by AP tourism. A stop here can make the whole journey two days long. Ofcourse, even with my parents it was good fun. In fact, I would term the experience a perfect family time.

At the place where we start, i.e Pattiseema, there is the huge Polavaram project coming up. I don't think there is any danger of the journey being spoilt because of the damn cuz,come on, the political situation makes sure the construction just won't happen. The dam may spoil the fun by cutting short the journey once its up so I'd say the next 3-4 years are the best time to undertake this journey.

Although I'm not much of a photographer, I'll still leave you guys with some pics. The place has great scenery, good food and will give you some peace of mind. An experience worth trying and especially for Rs 600, its a steal. My only regret was that people around used plastic bags and cups indiscriminately in the river and in the islands. There isn't much littering yet, but I can see that once tourists pour in, these places are bound to get screwed up. We as a nation should collectively improve our civic sense.

I wonder why they don't have races on Godavari.

The place looked very pretty

Early morning clouds on mountains

Bhangima:)

The Polavaram project. Somewhere here

Reading it wrong

The starting was simple

He was reading a page now and a page then

When there was free time, it was always there

He din't understand all but he was sure he was going to read it again

Spending time with it became a daily affair

The chapters were humble

Each giving him a new outlook

He went with the flow

Enjoying both happiness and grief of the book

Greeting every new turn with a happy hello

But then there was this rumble

The episodes became slow

The thrill was low and the depth was more
It made his impatience grow
His brain was clouded and feelings were sore

He took the gamble

He could not contain it any longer

He wanted the pages to turn fast
That nothing would be lost and things would be stronger
Desperate to get to the excitement of past

----------
There was a lot of fear

He was here, she was there

The things between them were never really clear
The book ended because they could not persevere

The Indore Incident

Reshared from FB:

This happened while I was coming from Indore to Hyd on a Jet Konnect flight. The flight was completely full, with a marriage party, a bunch of IPS trainees and some random other people like me on it. The Airhostess was a Punju, strong looking, teacher types.

The marriage party was apparently travelling for the first time in flight. They were very noisy and moving all around the flight immediatly after the take off. The airhostess, irritated, was trying hard to calm them. She lost her cool after a while and started scolding an elderly man in the group, pointing out that there were other passengers who also paid and needed their peace of mind.

There was one guy in the group who took extra offense with the airhostess. He kept pressing the "call stewardess" button above the seat and started asking for water, permission to roam around and permission to go piss. It was as if she was the teacher of a school struck with a bunch of naughty boys. She wanted to scold them, at the same time, had to comply with her fake smile duties as an airhostess.

Since this was an budget flight, the food was being sold on a trolley. Also, this being an ATR , there was no microwave/heater and hence no coffee/tea. The Punju lugged the food trolley and these people insisted on chai. They were positively agitated when she said there was no tea. It was as if she was denying them chai on purpose.Then they asked for a sandwitch. She said it was Rs150 for a veg sandwitch and Rs 200 for a non veg sandwitch. Shocked, they again looked as if the bloated prices were a ploy by the airhostess to keep them from eating.

As soon as she left, our group hero went for his cabin luggage and took out a huge bag, containing lots of chips packets and buiscuit packets amonst other things. He openly shared all the food with his group and started walking down the aisle saying."1 packet, Just 100 ruppees. Khareedoge?". There was wide spread laughter in the flight. Everyone was enjoying the show.The airhostess came running down to him. She was totally helpless. She then ran towards the headmaster(pilot) and came out of the cockpit after a while, came to them and said "Abhi captain tak pahunch gayi baat. Meine complaint kardiya".A few moments later, there was this annoucement from the captain saying they were expecting heavy turbulence and that all people should wear their seatbelts and stay put. Since it was official sounding, every body went back to their seats.

Ofcourse, there was no turbulence. What could have been an even more eventful journey was cut short by that wily pilot. But still, it was my best flight journey ever. Go Indori's.

My first rage attempt

Neutral Gear

He was in love with his new cool bike. This bike, he thought had everything. Amazing power, great torque, unparalleled stability, 6 gears , spot on disc breaks and so on. Above all, it had the looks to even make a lean guy like him look good.The only problem he felt was with the neutral gear.He used to achieve awesome speeds on the bike. He felt as if the other vehicles on the road were stationary when on it. Lightning was the nickname he gave it.

Inspite of all its awesomeness, he always thought about the neutral gear. True, the gears changed ever so smoothly on his lightest touch., but getting on neutral gear was always tricky. It was somewhere between the 1rst and 2nd gear and always needed that perfect touch to get it into neutral. At signals and intersections, he used the clutch and first gear instead. But damn, he so badly wanted to master the neutral. So badly wanted to see the green neutral light on the bike display glow.

And then one day he was again on his godly ride. Whizzing past vehicles without care. But as is usual with the Indian traffic, there came a bunch of buffaloes on the road. He stopped, for he was experienced enough to know the whims and fancies of the animals made them unpredictable.One of the buffaloes, a young one, caught his eye, and even it just kept staring at him. There was something about those eyes which caught his attention and even he stood transfixed momentarily. Beyond them was a speeding truck, demanding the animals to move by showing of its sheer size. The solitary buffalo , quick in its senses moved aside. Coming back to the moment, he observes the speeding truck coming out of nowhere. He knows he has to move , but somehow the bike doesn't budge. A second before the inevitable end, his eye catches the bike display. The green light is on. He finally figures out the neutral gear.

Song of a regretful heart

If you are reading this, I urge you to read without stop or start

For this is the song of a regretful heart

First of all, to write this verse, I do not have the right

For trying to redeem, I should not even be in your sight.

Even if I sing this sad tune and shout my voice hoarse,

I don’t think It will convey the tiniest bit of my remorse.

On that fateful night, on the way there were warning bells,

My mind stopped processing, mistaking mere banter for all wrong signals.

With a remorseful sigh,I took an ugly bend,

And forever I feel lost a fabulous friend

Hopefully one day, after we put between us enough miles,

On your face there won’t be any anger or hurt, but bucketful of smiles

I know you will become big and conquer the mighty and the rest,

I’ve known you since long and wish you all the best

If u still feel bad, banish me and hate me, for what I did was totally wrong

It’s a sad but the right way to end this regretful heart song.

-- Anupam Chakilam

Death of Cities

No, this is not about the whole traffic congestion, abuse of resources, water problem..basically problems caused due to ultra over population in big cities. This post is about the death of cities identity.

I happened to chance upon this article from outlook which was moderate in its approach and this absolute shocker frm CNR Rao. Both these articles got me thinking. Having spent my childhood in Hyderabad, college days in Chennai, the few working days till now in Bangalore and Pune, I feel I'm fairly qualified to comment on the state of these cities.

It is obviously an undisputed fact that the cities I've spent time in are growing , and mostly for the good. But they are also fast loosing their charm. Each city is looking more and more like a clone of the other. The individuality of each city , the charm that they have been famous for are fast being forgotten or lost.

It was in my second year I think when I went to visit good friends Sundar's house near Chitrakulam in Mylapore. The whole place reminded me of scenes from some period movie. There were age old agraharam houses , two ancient Vishnu temples , and temple Elephants on the street!! The maruti car parked on the narrow street looked soo out of place. Forgot the British raj built buildings and corridors. I felt this place deserved the tag of heritage area more than anything else.

Another place that immediately comes to mind is Laad bazaar , one of the four annexes of Charminar. The place hasn't changed in breadth or businesses done in more than 200 years, except for the fact that the road is always jammed with traffic. I've always felt the four roads leading to Charminar need to be cordoned off, atleast for buses. It has the potential to be something like Taj Mahal, but is right now no better than most of the slums in old city.

Although I havent explored Banglores or Pune streets to know enough about their respective heritage , Im sure they have enough and more to preserve. The glass facades and KFC's are all good , but they get damn boring after a point of time. Im really happy about each cities rise , but I do want to feel proud of how people before felt proud of their cities. Hyd as the Nawabi place, Chennai as best place for well preserved temples, Bangalore as the beautiful city and Pune as pensioners paradise.

Phew, a blog after really long. Need to keep this alive by posting atleast once a quarter.

P.S:1) Sundaram, you live in an amazing place with all modernity.
2) I'm not sure what the present situation is in Laad bazaar. My memory of that place is from about 10 years ago.

Hitchhikers Guide To Hitchhiking

Recession has affected a lot of things in my life , but there is one positive aspect of it which I need to appreciate. It has made people more sympathetic to poor lift takers like me. I used to take lifts during my intern time at Hyd and now to go to my office. And man, is there a differance!!

Anyways, Hitchhking a.k.a lift taking.The most obvious reason why you would Hitchhike is due to lack of decent affordable transport, or like in my case , you are just a born prudent cheapo who hates giving the auto guys 30 bucks for the minimum distance. Here are some more reasons why you should give lift a try.

• Savings: on petrol, pollution and the whole Go Green thing.
• Contacts: You can start a conversation with them . And you never know. He could be a big shot in that next door posh company in ur Sez into which you've always tried getting into but felt they would not even allow you from their backdoor cafetaria entrance. And he gave you a lift implies he is in a benevolent mood. Take its the refferal I say.
• Timepass:Quite a few lift givers are expansive talkers, boring at that. But still, the poor guy is giving you a lift dude. Acknowledging them by atleast nodding your head is minimum courtsey.
• More timepass:You can meet a good open minded person of the opposite sex, making for atleast an addition in that fast shrinking single girls/boys list of yours. How you take it from here and form further scope entirely depends on you.( Ok, even this almost never happens)
  

Here are a few things i found helped me get faster and easier lifts.

• Dress properly. A sincere attires helps.
• Show of your office tag. This is the only time outside office that I show my office tag, so that the person knows I am new age Indias corporate slave dog .I mean, a harmless liftable person.
• Try taking lift at junctions or road bends or speed breakers or wherever vehicles go slower than pedestrians. People almost never stop for you if they are already going at high speeds.
• Taking lift near temples. About 50% of the people somehow slow down when they pass a temple, giving a silent prayer hoping the client will be more reasonable this time around atleast. Although that never happens, it presents an oppurtunity for us lift pouncers to lift that much tired left hand with thumbsup for the lift call. They will most certainly give a lift, assuming they are doing a good samiritan deed. Nice dumbos they r.
• Avoid cars. they almost never give lift. And even if they do , it will b some call centers cab returning from work and hoping to make a quick buck out of you. Bikers are soo much better.

Ah, felt nice blogging after long:)

Identity

Before getting into the whole cliched and senti 'experiences' post , lets just take a break here. yesterday, I wrote about how I am a alak a3 guy first... ad finally and IITian. This branding got me thinking, as to what exactly is my identity.

Then it struck me. I( and i'm guessing most) view themselves as a part of subset and then the bigger set and so on. For eg,. I view myself as a Telangana guy, then a person from AP, then from South India and finally an Indian, necessarily in this order. But this alone will hardly complete my identity.

So what exactly makes up for identity? Googling a lil , i found this satisfactory asnwer for identity. Identity is 'what' or 'whom' you identify with. Wiki says "in lay mans terms, what ever makes a quanity same or different". Any1 sensing a problem with the definition? Infact there are some random meta physical and logics of indetity at wiki.

Yes, Yes.. I am writing all this because my project report is done, and have nothing better to do and so felt writing random blogs kills good time. Although I did seriously think about Identity, and I still am. So, care to leave your identity below and give new insights into your identity? I'll be glad.

Ok, end of break

End of days

Well, it's over. Or almost so. If I do a decent viva voce (is likely), and the good Rajendran doesn't pain with no dues ( heavily heavily unlikely) , I should be through with insti in at most a week. 've been itching to write about take aways, you know, final words. But there are too many aspects in insti life to cover.
I see myself as an Alak A3 guy first, a civil 05 batch guy , a finance core , a gult and an IIT Madras man , mostly in this order. Had quite a few interesting experiences being all these, independently and together. Will narrate each. Check out this blog for the Alak A3 guy first. Its about 12 now, Lan cut, so will update tomorrow.

Wind

There was no wind .

It was a chilly day. Not a bristle moved on any of the trees that lined the road. Trees which became conspicuous only on ardent observation. It was not like there was no activity on the road. In fact, there was an abundance of it. In the morning, it was a whore to the countless people using it for their morning walks , their morning squats and their morning solitudes. Only the shabbily laid footpath knows the number of love birds it played host to , the number of make ups and break ups it facilitated. Hawkers slowly creep along its length as the Sun grows stronger. It becomes busy , or so it would want us to think, as the asphalt becomes hotter and shade becomes meagre. But the actual business , like on most roads like these , starts only when the brighness wanes. Hawkers one by one give way to hookers. Ordinary shops become opium dens. The trade that goes on can be done only by the night. The world sleeps at this time, or chooses to look away, conveniently blaming the darkness for this so called filth. The road does not understand the reason, nor does it ask for one.

Amidst all this activity, no one notices the trees. Their only shot at perceptible recognition is when the wind blows and a leaf quivers , and nature willing, falls on the road.

But still,
There was no fking wind that day.

1 less thing on wish list.

Im sure 90% of u reading this blog would have sometime or other exclaimed during the quiz week , " Fuck quiz. I'll go to write with zero preparation.For 20 marks and all too much pain these chunde quizzes". After puting marathon of " liars game" yesterday, my state was excatly that. I've said this like a million times but always ended up mugging something, just enough to see me cross the E line. But yesterday was different . I could feel it. Final year mama. And I did it. Put marathon animated fart session courtsey kkt, c3 and dalal in Jam till 2 and crashed like a Taramani toddy addict after that. Bliss.

To be frank, I chose a very convenient 'estimation of construction' course, which any arbit 8th class drop out in this country could have easily managed to pass. So plan to repaeat the same, but this time properly for P slot. Some arbit self study course.Anyways, Adios.

A Brief History of Name

For the Uninitiated Reader : TNR= Totally Not Required .

Ps: Contains 100% pure and senseless fart.

Although most of you have discounted my naming of the blog " It dont matter no more" as another of my whimsism , it does actually carry a significance. I wanted to write things which as the name suggests dont matter anymore. And i solely (obviously) would be the judge of what doesn't matter. "TNR Thoughts" would have been a better title for what I had in mind, but that would be torturing the cliche. 'T Thoughts' would have been even better , but that would only appeal to an iitm specific blogger audience and i wanted to have a general appeal. Hence, keeping in line with my rap influenced ethos , I chose It dont Matter no More. It most definitely is not meant to be a rape-whomever-u get-pained -with type blog , although it may contain elements of it. Its just supposed to be vetti tirades at things that are trivial .

I was also grappling with some more alternate names. " I knew Pam " was an option. I liked " A new Pam" too. A frnd of mine once said," Macha, if u just keep thinking about names, nicest of tries u r ever gonna start the blog. Start the fart and then put name". He had a point . And it dont matter... was always something i wanted to say to any1 hu would care not to listen . There goes the history. Anyways, im sure many would agree when i say 'enough said':D. Im sure many would also be tempted to write 'TNR' in the comments section. I would ;)

Peter Principle

I was randomly wiki'ing the other day and found this lol called 'Peter Principle'. If u r a Tam and dont even grin, go die.

The Principle as such is brilliant though. It states,"In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence." Looks a lil deceiving , but it basically says that if u dont work, u can kiss growth in that field good bye.

But i liked the way he phrased it. It looks at things in a different, optimistic perspective. He made it sound as if incompetence was a virtue. My appreciation .
btw, more fundaes can be ob found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
haffun.

Writing and Advertising

Yes , folks. I have at last dis joined myself from that ever shrinking group of people who can read , write but don't blog. Hurray to me and Hi to the Bloggin Globe.

The point of this first true post is to ask these pertinent questions . I always keep typing fart from my keyboard, but in the unlikely event of my writing being something actually creative( ala that million monkeys on a typewriter producing Shakesphere ) , i would like the world in general to know about it. I know , that's exactly why im blogging, But how exactly will the world know that? What r the effective/creative ways of advertising this blog. Er., im obviously looking for answers beyond gtalk status msgs and orkut/facebook profile pastes. Experienced bloggers and even not so successful but passionate bloggers, please enlighten me. Of course , even others who r stunned at the fact that even i started blogging can comment once u r out of that shock.

And btw, the comments section allows anon posting . Like they say in good old gult.., "kummei mama comments section ni .."
Traslation: Dude, Tusk my comments section :)

My first piece.

As is the norm, im starting my blog with a poem/rap/song i wrote while shitting in my bog. Although i wrote it in a shady setting, i still think its decent piece and deserves at least one dekh :). Go on. Its not that long.


I never really could convive. All i wanted was to survive

I was always in a hood. Was i ever really good

Was i ever doing it right. I searched but with no sight.

Its so easy to feel, the agony reel
So hard to get back and reinvent the wheel

I wanted to do it again. was ready for bargain

I haggled hard.Wanted to get back to the start

And feel free again

But the price i paid was beyond my baseI could see my life, all flashing by.

I knew then what they meant by die

Cuz i took the bend. i paid a price

And that was death, my friend

I always could convive, but i never really did survive

For ppl hu havent yet started studying for GRE, heres a useful link.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Convive