How to use a bike on a date

Ahoy there! It's been a while eh? Well, back again to try and amuse you, I am.

So this article, is a collection of thoughts of things that you could do with a bike on a date. I'll be talking about how different bits of a bike can be used on a date. For the guys, take this with a heap of salt (the author's never tried any of this). For the girls, if you notice your guy following this post like a textbook on your date, you know what to do (or do you?). So here we go:

1. The headlamp [L]
It could help you get her attention before you're out on a date, but not much use on a date.

2. The horn [H]
You might need it when you go to pick her up. A nasty loud blaring horn (that sounds like a Punjab da trukkk oye!) will probably not go down very well, but if you've got a wimpy horn, you'll sound sound like a, well, wimp. Now you know.

3. Torque [T]
If you have a torquey engine, it's a nice tool that you can use. On the first few dates, use the torque to overtake the other jerk with the chick behind him. She (the one behind you :s) ought to be a little impressed. On later dates, open the throttle suddenly to have the bike leap forward. Likely to have her clutch at you as a knee-jerk reaction (Though it's pretty sad for a girl to be clutching at a jerk like you).

4. Engine roar [E]
I suppose it looks better if your engine roars more than it purrs.

5. The front brake [B]
Nothing, I repeat, nothing will bring two people closer on a date than a well disguised and hard brake (the verb brake, not the noun brake). For this, you need a strong front brake. Ought to work like a charm.

6. The size of the rear seat [S]
A small rear seat leads to obvious consequences... the less said (by this author) the better *cough* *cough*.

7. Riding gear [G]
No idea how this impresses the ladies. Jerks tend to believe that they look more macho without riding gear on. I tend to differ on that view. Your take really.

8. The grab rail [R]
If you have a nice big grab rail to hold on to, your girl will hold that. You have a bad grab rail to hold on to, the lady will hold on to you.

9. The shock absorbers [A]
Bad shocks will make the pillion clutch harder at whatever she's holding, so bad shocks + #8, the maths is simple.

Now that we have eight parameters, let's rate bikes on these points. Scores out of 70, converted to a score out of 10. Higher scores are good for the desperate guys, lower scores good for the ladies. I'll only be rating bikes that I have used.

The results:

So there you have it.
Ladies, you know you can trust a guy on a Unicorn. Guys, Pulsar 200 for the win!

Disclaimers:
1. The author has never tried any of this. (What did you think?)
2. Guys, if the girl has (unfortunately) read this post, best of luck on that date.

The author wishes to acknowledge that the probability of him going out tended to zero before this post was published. After publishing, the probability now stands at zero. If you were amused for one moment by this article, please observe a microsecond's silence for this tragedy.

Dhak Dhak NO!

Dear Hero Honda,
I'm writing this letter because as a part of the market section that you're trying to target, I'd like to make a suggestion.
FIRE EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN YOUR MARKETING TEAM.
No? Again? Okay.
FIRE EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN YOUR MARKETING TEAM.

What was your HR team thinking when they employed the marketing team?

Please answer a few questions for my satisfaction:
1. Why did you name an otherwise okay bike 'HUNK'
2. What makes you think men want to ride a hunk?
3. Does a rider on a hunk really turn into a bison at will?
4. Does Hrithik Roshan's Karizma really have a nitrous oxide system?
5. What made you think a red bike with checks on it looks cool?
6. Did you actually think before you agreed to make a PINK Passion?
7. Did you actually even think before naming a bike Passion? Or pleasure?
8. Does anyone of the Next Generation really ride a Splendor NXG?
9. Does anyone ride a Splendor NXG?
10. Does the 'new' CBZ extreme have anything different from the old one other than red rear wheel rims?
11. How does the new CBZ extreme spin about two axes in one jump?

Enough? Really, you people ought to be banned for the mental trauma your rubbish adverts cause to billions of innocent people. On another note, the people at TVS who dreamed of 'jab angoothe se kaam chale to laath kyon maarna?' for the self started TVS Star are snickering at you about now. You should be ashamed.

For the lucky uninitiated, here you go:
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=i0ZhYYSrf_8

A town of many Tales

It's a friday night - and I receive a call from Abba (known in certain circles as the holy baba). He tells me that we should go for a biking trip the next morning. I'm a biking enthusiast myself, so it wasn't long before I said yes - with one caveat - no pillion riders. When you want to just have a flat out blast on a bike, I just feel that the pillion gets in the way. After a little argument, he agreed.
Too bikers is two few (or is it two bikers is too few?), so we needed more people. The only other person with a bike is the fair Encke. We gave her a call, and a little while later she was on board.

Later that night, frantic plans were made. 'We should go to the Talegaon MIDC area,' I said. It is a beautiful place. Then on the spur of the moment, we decided that it would, in fact, be Lonavla that we went to. All fixed up, we were to meet the next day at 7:30.

Trust Abba to be late. To add more chaos to the mix, Encke turned up at 7:10 and called the two of us. I got to the rendezvous point around 7:30, and Abba at 7:50. We're finally set! Off we went then, riding out. We'd go through Khadki, then Pimpri and Chinchwad before we hit the open highway. About 50-60 km from there would get us to Lonavla. Of course, there are traps in the best laid plans. Abba's Enfield developed a front tyre puncture in Khadki, and to worsen matters, the mechanic broke an axle clamp while fitting back the fixed tyre. Game over for Abba. Crucially, it had cost us more than an hour.

Abba vehemently insisted that we go on. I wasn't too sure, and left it to Encke to decide. She said, 'We've come this far, we might as well finish the trip.' We decided to drop the idea of Lonavla and go instead, to our original destination, Talegaon - the town of many tales (geddit?). Leaving Khadki at 9:45 (we had expected to be eating chocolate fudge in Lonavla by this time) we had a stonker of ride, covering 30 odd km in nearly as many minutes.

Once out of the twin townships of Pimpri and Chinchwad, the highway is open, empty and fantastic. For a stretch of about 5-6km, we were doing speeds in excess of 100kmph. Once in the MIDC area, the photographers in Encke and me took over. A few beautiful flowers were snapped, the panaroma featured in some of our photos too. There were a few pics of Encke and a few of me, a few of us both. Take a look at the pics we took, or head over here to see all of 'em in a better res.

The journey back home was good as well. I even took a turn at what could be called an outrageous lean (on a public road of course. On a racetrack, that very lean would be outrageous, for different reasons!) of 25-30 degrees to the road! Encke was a little more circumspect at that lean. We hit over 100kmph again in a couple of spots and made it back to Pune in about an hour's time. Tremendous fun! Will certainly do again!

The link to the pics again - if you missed it

Helmets

I've been wondering why people in our country so dislike wearing helmets while riding two wheeled vehicles. So I decided I should list the benefits of not wearing helmets - as compared to the benefit of wearing one. Here we go -

The benefits of not wearing a helmet:
1. You can spit on the road (That is of course, much more important than safety)
2. You can show off your 'skills' and try to impress people (Really! What's the use of being safe? Much better to be cool!)
3. You won't lose hair (Imaginary studies conducted by idiots conclusively prove that 98.671045% of all people who regularly use helmets lose all their hair after an average 6.43 minutes of helmet wear. Why take a risk with your hair? The hair is more important than the head!)
4. You can feel the wind rush through your hair. (Even if you run the risk of tasting asphalt once in a while, it's bloody well worth it!)
5. You won't run the risk of getting neck aches (Other imaginary studies state the 143% of helmet users suffer from chronic neck pain that makes them look like dead people from Zee Horror Show. Better to live short without neck ache, than live long with the hypothetical pain!)
6. You can give people horrid looks, and make your insults and abuses very clear (You can't really do that effectively from the confines of a helmet. Without a helmet, you can express yourself better.)
7. You don't have to tire yourself carrying the helmet around (More imaginary studies show that the stress felt by your hand carrying the helmet is about 4,692,120 times more than the stress your head will feel if it hits the ground in a biking accident.)
8. You save money! (So what if you might have to spend much more on medical treatments?)
9. You don't feel hot under the helmet (This one is the absolute truth. Obviously, direct exposure to sunlight keeps your head cooler than being shielded by an inch and a half of insulating material.)
10. You can hear things on the road better (And that matters. If you don't notice people, how will you go about yelling at them and making faces?)

The benefits of wearing a helmet:
There's just one, primary benefit - you remain a lot safer with the helmet on, than without it. (Safety? THAT'S FOR LOSERS! Real men/women aren't gutless worms who need helmets protecting them!)

So as you can see, the benefits of not wearing a helmet outnumber the advantages of wearing one 10:1. No wonder. I always knew that most of my countrymen had done the maths had opted for the more 'sensible' choice!

Why I don't want to drive

Recently, almost everyone has been nagging me to learn how to drive. People keep telling me things like 'It's good to know how to drive...' (Yes it is), 'It'll be a lot of fun!' (Maybe so), 'It's much safer' (It is)... I've lost count. But I'm not going to learn how to drive. Not just yet. Primarily because I'm having too much fun on my bike.

Driving cars maybe fun, but it can never be as thrilling as a bike can be. And the reason is one of those I mentioned above. It's not as safe. Riding a bike is a lot riskier than driving a car is. Even if you don't count the state of our roads and the behaviour of our motorists, I still think it takes a phenomenal amount of skill and guts to have the same amount of fun on a bike that you can have in a 'safe' car. Cars have a ton of safety features in them - ABS, Airbags, Seat Belts etc. On a bike, all you have for protection are a helmet (don't consider yourself worthy of a bike if you do not use a helmet) and less often gloves, elbow/knee guards and suchlike. In spite of all the protection you wear, you're still going to take a beating if you have a fall. In a car, there's little risk of hurting yourself if you muck something up.

On a bike, therefore, you have to be completely in control of the vehicle, and yet let the vehicle control you. Know the vehicle's limits, but it must know yours too. When you try something spectacular on a bike, you put your faith completely into the bike and your skill - there's no steel cage, no seatbelt to protect you. Which is why when you succeed in doing something exhilarating on a bike, the high that you get can be rivalled by little else. It is the union of man and machine that gives you such a rush- each dependent on the other for safety. I've done it a couple of times- pushed the bike a little further than I thought it could've gone. Both times, on razor thin margins, the bike held on. Once, I've returned the favour, using skill to overcome the bike's slip. It's a symbiotic system - man and machine.

Another thing that irks me about cars is that you have to get pretty high up to get a car that is fun. A road ripping bike can be yours for a fraction of that money. As far as I know, the swift is the only 'fun' car a reasonable sum of money can buy. The next stop comes at nearly double the cost - the Mitsubishi Lancer. That, is my dream car... Maybe then I'll want to drive... Even if I'm 40 by the time I can afford one!
Till that day comes, I might learn how to drive, but I'm going to be on my bike more than I'll ever be in a car.

Anti-Friendship day

I've been inactive. If only I had brought my self to type out things I've wanted to... but suddenly, I feel this surge. I want to write. From now on, I want to write frequently. Write about something significant rather than meaningless, poorly written posts like this one. From now on, I will try to rattle off readable blog entries at a lively pace.

So off again. My tirade today, is against friendship day. It's wrong for a few million reasons, (there is of course the small probability that I have grievously underestimated that number) I'm going to try and talk about a few of them.

Let's begin then. I'm sick of the sheer number of days in a year dedicated to this person and that... this concept and that... COME OFF IT ALREADY! How hard is it to see that this is just a crass marketing ploy on the part of the greeting card companies? With the spread of inexpensive cellular technology, the mobile companies too have it all to gain. The entire concept of having these days is to honour something or someone that you normally take for granted, or say/do things you normally wouldn't. So lets rattle off with the ones that come to my mind now...
Mothers day - Mothers are underrated. I think it's good that there is at least one day in the year when the things she does for you and me are respected.
Fathers Day - Fathers are not underrated. I love my father too, but it is simply silly to celebrate a fathers day in a society such as ours, where the male is so predominant.
Doctors Day - WHAT? WHY? I think you feel enough gratitude for the good ones, and hate the inept ones enough all through the year.
I could go on forever... but the list will never end. We need to stop. Stop playing into the hands of these pathetic marketing ploys. I mean, for our example, friendship day... What makes any of you think that it matters one teensy-weensy little bit? The good friends will be standing by your side, the fickle ones will leave you, friendship day celebration/cards/bands or not.

I consider the whole ordeal entirely farcical... I will not wish anyone a happy friendship day in my life, but you are more than welcome to join my anti-friendship day crusade.

Until next time, !X!

How much longer?

A letter to ESPN Star Sports

How much longer will you deprive us of Marat Safin's matches? What will you telecast instead of the Wimbledon Semi-Final? The whole idea of two channels is that no one ought to miss their favourite sporting action. And yet, you insisted on not telecasting Safin's matches, instead telecasting anything you could lay your hands on. So again. WHAT WILL YOU TELECAST INSTEAD OF SAFIN ON THE WIMBLEDON CENTRE COURT?

-Disgruntled Safin Fan

Marat Safin

I don't consider myself a tennis fan. I know most of the rules, know the current world #1s. But that's about it. On a fine January morning in 2005, I happened to read an article celebrating the twenty-fifth birthday of (to me) little known Russian tennis player. That player was of course, Marat Safin (And if you didn't see that coming after the post title, YOU'RE A DOLT). I remember being extremely fascinated by this man. I loved the fact that he wore his heart on his sleeve, wasn't afraid to say what he thought. His temper amused me too - he'd break racquets and berate himself in multiple languages... His only stumbling block was his form, which varied as erratically as weather forecasts vary from reality. I decided that I had to see this man play. It was convenient that his birthday, and consequently the article, were around the time of the 2005 Australian open. I saw all of his matches during that Australian open, and was immediately a fan. He defeated Roger Federer in an epic semi-final and the went on to beat the fan favourite Australian Lleyton Hewitt in another fabulous match. I'd finally found a tennis player to support.

It all went downhill from there. Plagued by injury and a lack of self belief, Safin hardly ever made it past the initial rounds of most tournaments after that. I gave up watching tennis too. Roger Federer was too boring and I didn't really like Nadal. Fast forward to a couple of days back, and I see a news article that said that Safin was through to the third round of Wimbledon having beaten Novak Djokovic. That got me excited, I made every attempt to get the time for his third round match. A prolonged search got me a time of 6:30 PM IST, yesterday. But then, one must not forget that Wimbledon is in Great Britain. Thanks to the weather, the match only started around 11 PM IST. To cut a long story short, he won. What excites me is that last night (I stayed up to 2 AM, watching him win) he was the vintage Safin. There was a little bit of everything that makes Marat Safin what he is. There was a racquet thrown, frequent yelling, multiple expressions of disbelief at how he'd been cheated by providence over one shot or the other. Coming up to the what had to be the last game (he only had to hold serve), him leading 7-6, 3-6, 7-6, 5-4, the crowd was going crazy. There was a spectacular Mexican wave that went around Court 1 thrice before he could even start his serve. And then, just to prove that this was of course, the ever erratic Marat Safin, he went on to trail 15-40. Everybody (me included) must have groaned inwardly at this juncture. Could he blow it all? Having done all the hard work, would he stumble now? And he didn't. The crowd went beserk as he took victory from an increasingly panic stricken Andreas Seppi.

Safin is quite the fan favourite. The spectators gathered at court 1 braved chilling weather, seated till after 9 PM local time, to see another Safin epic, and they were rewarded. Safin was gracious enough to sign a multitude of autographs after the gruelling three hour match, and left the court to loud cheers from the spectators. What is it about this Russian that makes him such a favourite with the fans? To be really honest, I think Safin's rollercoaster career appeals to this feeling we all have inside us. The tragedy of unfulfilled genius. Safin embodies that unfulfilled genius. That's why, his win is our win, his loss is our loss, his heartbreak is ours and his jubilation is ours too.

One of the commentators said something about destiny. If ever Safin was supposed to win Wimbledon, it had to be now. Can he win? Of course, when he's mentally fit, it doesn't matter who the opponent is. It just doesn't. He can steamroll the best into submission. Will he? That's another matter altogether, for Marat Safin always plays with a handicap. Only one man is trying to defeat his opponent. Safin. However, two men are trying to defeat Safin. His opponent and - Safin himself. I'm sure there are millions of fans worldwide who'd like to see him overcome himself in the coming days. If he can do that, I truly, from the bottom of my heart feel sorry for his opponents.

Like another commentator said, "It's ridiculous really, that a man of such prodigious talent last won a grand slam at the Australian open three years ago."

The Chronicles of Abba: The Cult of Baba

The way Abba's going, he'll soon be the most famous person on the planet (for *ahem* the wrong reasons!). The third chronicle of Abba takes us to a pre-Seamen (* cough cough*) Abba. There we all were - just having returned from the star party. Abba had been awake the whole night, clicking away to glory... Understandably, the lack of sleep did not agree with his constitution. The responses from his began to get more and more vague, until this happened:

Enthu: (Mocking query) Can we expect any good photographs from you at all?
Abba: Arre just go to Katraj.
Enthu: What?
Decibel: Hahaha... What's wrong Abba? Horrid pics?
Abba: Why don't you too go to Katraj and have milk?
Enthu: Look now... he's lost it so bad he's going to send you to Katraj no matter what you say...
Me: Hey Abba - You suck!
Abba: Just go to Katraj, dude.
Enthu: This is going to become a legend in our college... Part of college lore... Telling someone to go to Katraj will be like the biggest threat you could give someone... Imagine-
Senior: Junior1, you're going to go to Katraj today...
Junior1: NOOOOO!!!
Junior2: (to Junior3) My God Junior1 has had it today...
Junior3: Agreed... He's in for a drubbing today... Hope we see him tomorrow...
Me: Hahaha!
Abba: Arre shut up dude! Don't you want to drink milk in Katraj?
Enthu: I've understood I think... I think Abba is the Doodh Baba. He's a baba who's sole devotion is to milk... So it follows that 'Go to Katraj' is his way of saying 'Go to Hell'.
Me: Hahahaha what the random!
Enthu: Please forgive me Baba, I have grievously wronged you by making fun of you... Just don't send me to Katraj!
Abba: What? Uhh?
Enthu: No baba, forgive me, I have made a mistake...
Abba (transformation to Baba now complete) : Hmm... I shall consider...

More followed, until the Doodh Baba became a part of Astronomy Club lore...

Next post: Hymns to Baba; Facts about Baba that you did not know.

It pays to do the right thing

Long time, no see eh? What? You were happy I wasn't blogging much? No I didn't quite hear that. Stop mumbling and go on to read the next post.

This happened a few days back...
My cousin and I were returning home one night. It wasn't what you'd call a long ride... about 10km or so. I hadn't been sure of the amount of fuel in my bike, so while I was checking that, he left. He had a headstart of 5 minutes or so. Once I was convinced that there was sufficient fuel, I was off. I'm the younger one here, and the one with the smaller (engine displacement) bike. Thought it would be fun to catch up with him, and ten km would be a long enough distance to make up the lost five minutes...

Six odd kilometres of fast riding (not rash, mind you, fast and rash are different), and I'd finally caught up with him at a traffic signal. A bus separated him from me... As the signal went green, he got off to a nice headstart again, and I got bottled up behind the bus. By the time I'd overtaken the bus, I'd lost sight of him again. Now, this is the part where you need to refer to the map. I caught up with him again, at another traffic light (The orange dot on the map). Now, to get home (blue dot), I could either take a right turn, and ride up a one way, or I could follow traffic rules and go straight. The straight was obviously longer. I hoped against hope that he would pick the straight road, giving me a crucial kilometre or so to overtake him. But he didn't. He decided that it was late enough for him to take the right and go against the one way. So he ended up taking the red path, the shortest way home. I thought about following him. Then I didn't do it. A younger cousin was sitting pillion, didn't want to be setting bad examples... Took the straight road.

Now, the straight road leads to a junction at which some construction work is in progress (It's been on for a while, no one has any idea what they're up to) . Due to this, the way home is the yellow path. Very long as you can see, not a chance in hell of making it home first. Resigned to my fate, I proceeded. And then, the gift of the gods! That very day, a straighter road had been opened up for traffic (the brown part). Suddenly, I had another path, the green one. It wasn't as short as the red, but it would defintely cut a couple of hundred metres and eliminate the time consuming U-turn. Yelling and whooping (I'm afraid I must've made quite a scene of myself that night), I made my way home. My heart was pounding in my chest, adrenaline pumping through my system... would he have made it home? Would the ride up the one way have delayed him long enough? Nervously took to the right turn, and then the left... to see...

No bikes parked in front of my house! I'd beaten him! In spite of the five minute handicap, in spite of the fact that I took the longer way home, I'd beaten him home! It was a good two minutes before he arrived.

It's a valuable lesson... Don't break traffic rules. It's dangerous, not only to you, but to countless others on the roads around you. There is no time limit for traffic rules. They're always in effect. I'm happy that nothing went wrong that day, but how easy would it have been for a car to be speeding down the one way, and to have hit my cousin?

(At this point, I'd like to make it clear that my cousin is no slowpoke on the roads, and that the displacement difference was a good 40cc (or 25% more) , which is large enough on Indian roads)

Remember, it's good to follow the rules. The gods will bless you!

Flickering thoughts

I use a gmail account. I blog on a google owned site. I regularly use google docs. Google search is of course a given. But enough is enough now. At this rate, google is going to take over the world. In my scathing (not really, but cool word, so there!) counter attack to google, I've signed up to Flickr.

You've probably guessed by now that the first part of most of my posts is generally meaningless. So yes, the real reason why I chose flickr over picasa. Simple. Flickr is intuitive, better managed and has a superior layout. And the most important thing. I can middle click images on flickr. I hate picasa more than anything else because it won't let me middle click and open many images in different tabs. I mean, WHATS YOUR PROBLEM, GOOGLE? IS IT WRONG TO OPEN A COUPLE OF IMAGES SIMULTANEOUSLY FROM THE SAME ALBUM IN DIFFERENT TABS? And those of you who tell me to open two instances of picasa and do what I like, zur Hölle gehen.

So yes, I like flickr because I can middle click. Go figure.

Oh yes, the link. Here it is.

Foot in Mouth Disease

Foot in mouth disease is a dreadful thing. Symptoms include talking before you think, blabbering nonsense, unintentionally revealing things that must not be revealed, etc. Now take the example of Abba (yes, of KrackJack fame). On the way back from GMRT, we were having lunch at a highway dhaba. The whole bunch of us had been divided across two tables. Abba and a couple of other guys sat at one table with a bunch of girls, while our table had mostly guys, with a sssssolitary girl. Abba's table was finished with lunch much earlier than ours, but the guys at that table were still hungry. So they hopped over to our table.

Now Abba is a jolly nice chap, who like most ten year olds, imagines himself to be a noble king one day, a resolute knight the other, a brave pirate hunter the next and so on (there is the small problem - the fact that Abba is all of nineteen, not ten, but since he's a nice chap we'll overlook that). On that day, (probably influenced by the number of girls surrounding him) he decided that he would be the Pirate Hunter. Like I said, Abba hopped over to our table halfway through lunch. He must've thought that a proclamation of the state of affairs would go rather nicely with the whole Pirate Hunter thing. But a simple 'I'm coming over there to join you guys' just would not do, would it? Of course not! So he said:
Abba : My seamen have deserted me!
Enthu (eating, bursts out laughing) : WHAT? HAHAHHAHAHAHA
Me (eating) : What? What seamen are you talking about? (to enthu) What on earth is he talking about?
Enthu : HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Me : * Puzzled *
Abba : * Puzzled *
Enthu : HAHAHAHAHAHAHA... Pune Mirror Page twenty-five... HAHAHA
Me : What in the blue hel... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Abba : * Still puzzled *
Me : Pune mirror page twenty-five HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Abba : Arre what's going on here?
Enthu : We are verry sorry, but we cannot help yo...HAHAHAHA
VRD (Realisation dawns upon him) : Arre sheesh... hahahaha
Me : hahahahahaha
Abba : * Still extremely puzzled *
VRD : Arre its just a difference in the stress on pronunciation... like say - please and plizz.
Abba (Now, finally out of the storm) : Oh god! NO!

We continued laughing for a while after that, all of which cannot be captured on this blog.

Will Durant once said, 'One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.' To put it in simpler words (for the benefit of Abba), 'A closed mouth gathers no foot.' Pay attention Abba, pay attention!

Credits
I cannot leave the credits out. This post here ONLY by public demand. The public in question is anu, from here (Yes, only her (and her only, even though that's wrong english)). Form your own opinions. The greySith has said (and laughed) enough.

Salt In My Wounds

You've probably heard the old proverb about how 'rubbing salt into one's (no offence to enthu) wounds' is a bad idea. Well. My doctor did just this. He rubbed Copper Sulphate into an open wound in my thumb. He's not a maniac or anything (despite the fact that he rides a red bike with the registration number painted in a manner akin to dripping blood ). I've had this weird muscle growth around my thumb, and he used the blue vitriol to kill the growth. Now, having rubbed CuSO4 rubbed into my wounds, I am officially the coolest person on the planet. MUHAHA!

Off to GMRT

GMRT. That's Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope for those of you who don't know. It's the world's largest metrewave radio telescope. We went there last friday to have a look. I'd initially thought that the radio dishes were fairly small. I was horribly mistaken of course, and the realisation dawned upon me when I saw this.



'What it do?', you might ask, if you actually like the song by Li'l Flip and Mannie Fresh. The sane ones, though, tend to wonder what it does, and how. So I'll tell you. There are thirty dish antennae like the one you've just seen, set up in a Y shaped array. This behaves like a very large receptor for radio waves. These radio waves are broken down and processed. What you get is a picture of the universe (or you, if you somehow manage to hang in front of the array for long enough), in the radio band. Radio waves travel through dust clouds, so you can actually see behind stellar obstructions. Additionally, radio telescopes are active twenty-four hours a day, as compared to the total darkness required by optical telescopes. Fascinating stuff, such as pulsars, has been discovered by use of radio astronomy.

We visited the control room, from which the entire array is, err, controlled. There was this massive server there, that we have grand plans for. We plan to use it as a large bandwidth gaming server. No really. Why do you laugh?

As usual, there was also the major distraction. Photography. Very conveniently, the site
had approximately infinite scenes that make for brilliant photography, but time only allowed for a few snaps. Here are a couple.

Star Party

You can accuse me of not updating the blog regularly, but no court is really going to hold that accusation up, so HA! Anyway, we'd gone to a village called Pusane for a star party (Go here, if you want to know what a star party is). We set up our telescopes (shop?) on the outskirts of the village to eliminate the modest street lighting.

Oh wonder of wonders! What a sky we saw that night. I, a veteran (not really, but it sounds cool) of three star parties, well past the jaw drop factor that accompanies a fabulous sky, still ended up looking up to the heavens with a sagging jaw. Apologies to you, since it seems the camera shook just a little, but have a look anyway:


Then of course, there was the tea. We were the organisers (again, not really, but it sounds cool to use big important sounding words), so we had to ensure that everybody else got tea. Someone conveniently forgot to bring fuel for the stove, and we were left to make do with this:


Ah well, you can't have it all. And as Darth Sidious (once, famously) said, 'Do what must be done. Do not hesitate, show no mercy'. Forty-five minutes, a few burnt maths assignments, lots of burnt hay (we burned hay when the sun didn't shine), some unburnt wood later, we actually had palatable tea. The whole process was rather complicated, but head over here, if you still want the gory details.

On our way back, I encountered what has to be one of the best sunrises I've seen in a long long time. Does this substantiate my claim?


It was fun, and you can contact me (only through the force, lower forms of communication not entertained) if you want to join us the next time we go.

Contradictions

It seems to me, that having a blog is taken as an allowance to talk utter rubbish, which seems to be brilliantly funny (or smart, insightful, etc.) at first. However, if you'll just look at it a little harder, and think a little harder, you'll see it for the stupid thing it really is. Now, as you know from here, these thoughts that I have, critical of what other people seem to do, in general either begin with myself, or end with moi (pronounced mwaah by the way, it's French for 'me').

So to get on with the so called rubbish that I've (just) spoken about, let (me read a letter I recently received... It says... (If you haven't played Half-Life 2, don't even bother with this)) me quote myself, which I believe, GB Shaw thought was a pretty cool thing to do (not quote me dopehead, quote himself).

From 'Language'
"Language is a gift. A gift that has led mankind to where we are now. We must not, must not, let this gift go in vain by terribly mutilating it.
< /Rant >

*Sigh*. Like that will make any difference."

If you read that post, you'll see me waxing eloquent about how wonderful English is, how nasty we are being by decimating it etc. And I ended it with that nugget of irony right there. I've used an HTML close tag to signify an end to my ranting.
And isn't the use of HTML in English to express thoughts a corruption of the language too?

Credits:
The aforementioned KhaGaM, for pointing this out to me.
Anu, from here, for inadvertently reminding me that I was supposed to blog about this.

Peer Back-Pressure

Peer Back-Pressure. Queer little term isn't it? I've been in a bit of a contemplative mood lately. And that's a term I've come up with. Yes, I will eventually (The author wishes to explain that 'eventually' happens to be a few lines down the post, but rather likes the indefineteness (is that a word?) of 'eventually) explain what that means, but for now, I'll lay a little bit of the foundation.

We all know what peer pressure is (And the author's unequivocal opinion is that you're a dolt if you don't). It's the implicit (or explicit) pressure exerted by a peer group on individuals, almost forcing them to change their views, likes, dislikes etc. to a stance in line with that of the peer group. Most of the time, the individual succumbs (knowingly or otherwise) to the pressure and changes. That's simple isn't it? Now, onward to the back-pressure bit.

Now, (Yes, the author understands that you're getting quite annoyed, but he's enjoying this. Be a little patient) back pressure is this term I came across while reading a bit of hydraulics. And being in the contemplative mood, it just sort of fit in. So yes, the point of this post. What I mean by back-pressure is the pressure the individual exerts upon himself to change, when his views on anything, agree with the views of an unpopular bunch of people. This sort of thing is what I've noticed around me recently. What I fail to understand is, why must the individual change if his views agree with those of an unpopular group? Surely, views and nature are not necessary or sufficient conditions for each other. Liking a particular band/book that is liked by the aforementioned groups does not make you a member of that group, and similarly, the other way around. In my opinion, the individual should stay as he/she is, and not be influenced by this peer back-pressure.

Whew! Did you get all of that? When I wrote this, it was with a few people I knew in mind. But all the thinking has led me to quite a conclusion! I've discovered, over the past day or so, that I've been as guilty of succumbing to peer back-pressure as the people I had in mind. Aren't we all?

The IPL...

I've not been blogging for a while now... You might have thought, 'Ha! this guy is out of ideas already!'. But I've just conned you! (Not really, I did run out of ideas, but that's just not for YOU to know).

So now that that's been settled, let me get (re) started with the blog. I saw the first IPL match yesterday. The Kolkata Knight Riders completely decimated the Bangalore Royal Challengers (who, I could not resist this, did not put up much of a challenge!). It was good entertainment, the crowds loved it and so did the commentators. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, but it worries me. This is far too short a version of the game to bring out it's glorious possibilities. It just got me thinking... No matter what the players out there do, there some events that will never happen in T20. In no particular order, here we go:

1. Sachin checks into heartbreak hotel.
What Indian fan can forget the heartbreak of losing to Pakistan in Chennai in 1998? Chasing 271 to win in the fourth innings of the first test, only two Indian batsmen got to double figures. One of them was Sachin Tendulkar. Battling severe back spasms, he almost led the inept Indian team to a what would have been a fabulous win. Too bad there was nobody else to score those remaining 13 runs.

2. Yuvraj and Kaif lead us home
Netwest series final, 2002. In a T20 game, after the start India had had, there wouldn't have been a chance in hell of winning. It takes a longer version to separate the men from the boys.

3. South Africa bt Australia by one wicket in 2006
It was what has been called one of the greatest games of all time. The sheer nerves required to chase that target... WOW! Nothing of this sort will ever occur in T20 for the simple reason that T20 is too short. It's possible to maintain that sort of momentum for twenty overs... but fifty? I'd have said not a chance, if I hadn't seen this innings that is.

There is of course a lot more you could add to this list. But then again, I can only talk of what I've seen. I'd be truly sorry if T20 kills tests or ODIs...

Trek to Visapur

I'd gone to Visapur last Sunday with a bunch of friends. It was a nice trek... The landscape is quite nice. We took a hell of a while to get there, but that was expected. You cannot expect to be quick when you're stopping every 15 min for clicking photographs.

The trek was entirely worth the time and energy spent. Not for the experience of trekking or anything though... It was worth it because I had the chance to listen to a hilarious conversation between one of our group and his friend. And I'll narrate it!

The rest of the group had gone off to see a temple, after we'd climbed the fort. That left three of us at the place where we'd had lunch. The three were (... with Gandalf, Galadriel and Elrond!) Me and a couple of guys I'll call Abba and Enthu. Abba was half asleep when his friend called. After the customary exchanges of greetings, this is what transpired...

Enthu: I need a place to lie down... My leg hurts...
Abba: Here, you can lie down next to me.
She: Who're you talking to?
Abba: Ah that's just my girlfriend. Asked her to lie down next to me... Hello?
She: ... (static) ...
Enthu & Me: HAHAHAHAHAHA. Due you have no idea how to talk to a girl.
Abba: Arre but she's not even my girlfriend or anything for her to just cut the call like that!
Enthu: Dude are you mad? Why would you say something like that to any female?
Me: Really. You're mad!
Abba: Arre damn. What do I do now?
Enthu and Me: (still laughing) Call her and patch up.
Enthu: By the way, the first response you're going to get is 'WHAT?'.
Me: Hahahaha
Abba (calls): Er...
She: WHAT?
Abba: Er that was just my friends playing a prank... There''s no girl here...
She: Hmm... Have you reached the top of the fort?
Abba: Yes... It was fun.
She: Have you had your lunch?
Abba: Yes...
(Enthu and I are still snickering at the poor chap)
She: Are you tired or anything?
Abba: Nah I'm alright. How's your program going.
She: It's not really working... There's some debugging to be done. When will you be back?
Abba: Er I'll be home by around 4...
Enthu: Arre you might as well forget about getting home before 6:30
Abba: SHHH! er...
She: You're not going to be here by 4 eh?
Abba: Er... we might get a little late...
Me: (to Enthu, both of us still laughing) Look at him... She's so concerned about him... He hasn't even asked her if she's had lunch or anything...
Enthu: Really re... What a pathetic fellow.
(The conversation went on a little, in this manner. Then, there was this uncomfortable pause)
Abba: ...
She: ...
Abba: (Now desperate to get conversation going again) Tell me one thing... Have you ever had Krackjack with jam?
(At this point Enthu and I started doubling over with laughter)
She: Krac.. What? What is wrong with you?
Abba: Er nothi-
She: Are you alright?
Abba: Er..
(We were still howling with laughter)
She: ... (static) ...
Abba: (To us) Look what you did! She cut the call again!
Me: HAHAHAHA that wasn't us... you did that yourself... KRACKJACK AND JAM HAHAHAHA
Enthu: Is that really something to ask her?
Abba: Arre I was just... damn... just wanted to talk to her about lunch...
Enthu: So you asked her if she'd had krackjack and jam? HAHAHAHAHA
.
.
.


And so it went on for quite a while... He even called her again, and we had more cruel laughs at his expense!
The whole trip was justified, just by these 15 minutes!

A Small Trip

I've been wanting to go biking someplace for a while. Last Sunday (i.e. not yesterday) that's just what I did. Took a couple of friends and another bike, and off we went to the Khadakwasla dam near Pune. I was disappointed by the length of the journey. It was rather shorter than we'd planned for...

Nevertheless, it was fun. Three of us. Two bikes. And the (mostly) open road. The area around Khadakwasla is quite a place... It's alternatively full of lush green vegetation and dry deciduous trees. Sets up the landscape quite nicely.

Those are of course our bikes. I rode both of 'em for reasonable while (not at the same time of course!). The Unicorn is a silent performer. The gears almost never run out, the engine is noiseless, the ride is smooth. The Apache on the other hand is agressive, racy and just dying to surge forward. We nearly went around the entire length of the dam reservoir.

I've got a couple of other pics as well:


Khadakwasla, in hindsight, is a nice place to go if you just want to spend the morning for a short ride. For a longer ride though, I'd strongly suggest a longer distance, say Panshet Dam or Pavna Dam (The author wishes to let you know that there are other places you can go to, around Pune, but just don't ask the author. He doesn't know... not just yet anyway).

It was my first taste of biking, my first baby steps into a wonderful new world. I rather like it!

Poetry in Motion

Bajaj is really pushing stunt biking in India. At least that's what I think. So what kind are you? Do you believe that bikes are a thing of beauty and can be graceful when desired? Or do you believe that they're just machines. Lifeless and soulless entities capable of only brutishness?

If you're part of the latter, I strongly suggest you look at this. You will be converted.



I really love the part where they catch hold of each other's hands. That is poetry in motion, if there ever was such a thing.

And you might want to check out the Pulsar 200 advertisement, which is in my opinion another piece of brilliance.
Pulsar 200 Advert

Abstraction

I have this feeling very often. When everything I see becomes fodder for abstract thoughts. All sense of reality is shred away from the smallest things... becoming more and more unreal as I think about it. Words. They're a favourite theme for abstraction. The word in question swiftly loses all sense as I drown in my sea of abstruse ideas. It goes on until I have no clue what the word means, or how I spell it. Then, my mind blanks out and reboots.

It gets worse with things I see around me... The IC engine dissolves into a piston reciprocating in thin air. And then details are added in, without there yet being a cylinder. And then my mind overloads and reboots. The maths equation gets split into a thousand small pieces. Each piece, my mind tries in vain to define. And fails spectacularly after heroic attempts to make sense of half of them. And again, the reboot.

I try to read a book, and the thermodynamic problem I decided to give up on more than a year ago, waltzes into my head. And it will not leave me. Till I've exhausted all my mental faculties. And all that remains is the reboot.

Sometimes I think it's too much for my tiny mind. I do not possess the mental powers to sustain long period of abstraction. But then again, if the powers that be were listening, I wouldn't even have the small periods of abstraction.

It doesn't really matter thoug... *Reboot*

Language

The English language is beautiful. To be more precise, the Queen's English is a beautiful language. It's really sad to see these days, the way this language is being murdered. It started with the Americans, who insist on making perfectly good English spellings agricultural and crude. A case in point is the word manoeuvre. As I type this, my American coded Firefox browser displays this as a spelling mistake. Of course, the Americans would want to spell it as maneuver. That, is a terrible spelling. It just takes the whole finesse out of the word. And so, a supremely crafted spelling becomes crude. This is a worrisome trend. The larger problem is that many people who use spell checks in British English speaking countries, end up with the 'corrected' American spellings.

And then we have SMS. In India, the youth takes pride in decimating the English language, wth sn10ces lyk these. AAARGH. That probably makes the Queen cringe and Shakespeare turn in his grave (The author is well aware that Shakespeare couldn't even spell his name right, let alone other words. However, he is unable to think of a suitable name to use. You are requested to pick an English great of choice to replace the poorly chosen Shakespeare.). Even a purist like me is willing to accept such spelling in short messages, but it starts becoming scary when you read these spellings in official letters. And Examination Papers. And on the News. And in magazines. Where will this end?

Language is a gift. A gift that has led mankind to where we are now. We must not, must not, let this gift go in vain by terribly mutilating it.
< /Rant >

*Sigh*. Like that will make any difference.

New Display Pic

Finally, it is complete.

What you see to the right (or the left, if you're a bat (that isn't flying)), is my new display pic. A friend (who the author would like to call KhaGaM, since he is unsure how the said friend will react to use of his name) drew this brilliant sketch during an english lecture, a long long time ago (in a galaxy far far away...). In a weird sort of way, this pic is the inspiration for how I define a Grey Sith. The sketch was drawn during an english lecture (delivered by a teacher we shall call 'Ric Flair'), in a borrowed textbook. The borrowed textbook belongs to another friend (who, for similar reasons will be referred to as L) Here's a better look:

Credits for this nice bit of art roll as follows:
KhaGaM (of course)
L (The nice guy who spent a lot of time taping together the paper on which this was drawn and the photographing it from "odd and awkward angles to get the lighting right")
Ric Flair (Without whom KhaGaM wouldn't have been bored enough to attempt this)

Drive

Drive. It's an important sort of thing. And it would be, since the drive(train) connects the engine to the rear wheels and that's what finally gets you motion. A good drive(train) will give you a fabulous sense of acceleration. So the thing about drive(tra...

Naah. Just screwing with you...
What I really feel like writing about is drive. Others ofcourse can call it desire. But I'll stick with drive. It's what really gets you to work. I remember, not so long ago, when the all-important drive was ever-present. No longer. If you were to plot a graph of my drive vs time, (The author is fully aware that you, the reader are most likely a sane person, and wouldn't sketch such meaningless graphs for yourself, let alone for him.) this is what you'd end up with:

It's not that the drive deserts me. It doesn't. It just behaves of it's own free will. Does what it wants. Drives me to work one moment, and then *poof* it's gone. Like it were never there. And I can't even work with the reduced drive, by taking say an arithmetic mean, or the root mean square of the drive you see on the graph. I can only work in that little window provided between the red lines (And thank god for that. (Thank you, god!)).

But aah. This probably made no sense to you at all... Which is fine. A little madness is what I need.

Riding Fit!

I had a fit while riding my bike. No I didn't. Just joking. Couldn't resist the pun on fit.

So finally! Fit to ride a two wheeled vehicular object safely on city roads again! It's been a while (since I can hold my head up high (sorry! It's an amazing song. Later) ) coming too. Makes you appreciate how much of a gift a fully functional body is. As I type this out, I'm still unable to lift heavy things... But it's an improvement. There was a time, not so long ago, when typing one handed was my only option. And that I can assure you is painful. And slow.

It's been a long road to recovery. Its not the big things that irk you, it's the small ones. Like not being able to squeeze out toothpaste. Like not being able to tie shoelaces. That's changing now. The hand is recovering. I'm going to (reload,) rev up and ride out! Have learnt a few things too.

1. Wear a helmet. Always. Even if you're just popping down to the grocery store half a kilometre away.

2. Keep your eyes peeled. Frequently, it's not your mistakes that will get you on the road, but those of others on the road.

3. Realise this : Bad luck will catch you before your lack of skill does.

Oh and the song! That's a Staind song that goes by the name of 'It's been a while'. Give it a listen sometime.

Coincidences - Part 2

It's really odd. Yesterday, I'd posted about coincidences. And surprisingly (not?) I stumbled upon another coincidence, within a matter of a few minutes... What's going on?

This time, I was reading up on the 'Drake Equation'. It's a famous result, that gives the number of alien intelligences that may be present in our galaxy. It is based on as many as seven factors. Needless to say that the values taken for these seven factors are mostly based on the guesstimates of Frank Drake, rather than any scientific data. It is still an interesting result. According to Frank Drake, we should have about 10 communicating intelligences in our galaxy. Current estimates of the values put the result at a dismal 2. Then again, at least 2 is a number that doesn't really disagree with the Fermi paradox, which I might talk about later... For now, here's the Drake equation:

The coincidence rises from the fact that yesterday I was reading my favourite web comic, xkcd, and what is the first strip I see based on? The Drake Equation of course! It puzzles me a little, the rate at which these coincidences are happening. But ah well... Here's the comic:


Oh and by the way, xkcd is a really great web comic. Give it a visit once in a while. You won't be disappointed.

Coincidences

Coincidences. They happen all the time. Like Now. I have really no idea why I wrote about chaos and fractals the other day (And if I did, I wouldn't tell you. That would make this post a waste, no?). I just did. And then the next day, I up reading about Ultra Fractal. So yeah, what's Ultra Fractal?

It's a nifty bit of software, that makes graphs out of fractals for a living. So you, can now make art out of maths. And it works. You can make truly wonderful images from this software. And the best part is, you can even add your own fractal equations. And if you're not into maths, you can get many equations from the community.

Though you know why this post is really here. It's because ultra fractal incorporates the Mandelbrot set. And I love the Mandelbrot set.

A few samples of Fractal Art...

This stuff I found... Jawdropping eh? Especially for maths.

The Weather is not simple

I'd said before that weather was simple. And then said it wasn't. So that needs clarifying. Weather is, in a word, complex. Scientists have been working out ways to predict the weather for a looong time. And a pioneer of this field was a guy named Edward Lorenz. He started out trying to find patterns in meteorological data. As Lorenz studied weather patterns he began to realize that the weather did not always change as predicted. Minute variations in the initial values of variables in his twelve variable computer weather model would result in grossly divergent weather patterns. And that's only (yes, only) twelve variables. The man wasn't even close to predicting weather (Man still isn't). Instead, for all his effort, he got a graph that looks like this :

That is a part of the foundation of a subject now popularly known as chaos theory (At this point, the author would like you to understand that he has no idea what chaos theory is. He only rather fancies the Mandelbrot set, which he shall talk about in a bit). Chaos theory is the study of dynamical systems that are very sensitive to initial conditions. They never (ever ever) reach a steady state. Basically, there's no random element. Any state of the system can be calculated from the initial conditions, but the differences caused by a slight change in these conditions cause the system to change so wildly (exponentially) that it gives an appearance of chaos. This state is known as deterministic chaos.

Later on, another mathematician working in the field of dynamics came up with the Mandelbrot set. That man, was Benoit Mandelbrot. And this is the Mandelbrot Set :
Its what they call a fractal. It's not really related to the chaos theory anymore, but it was once. The beauty of this fella here is that it's the graph of a simple function. The brilliance is in the fact that the graph is infinitely complex. You can keep zooming in, and you'll keep finding beautiful patterns...

Well. Ya. We started with weather. But the idea was to come to the Mandelbrot set eventually... Beautiful isn't it?

It's Such a Beautiful Day...

It was last Monday. The most beautiful day I'd seen in a long time. And I couldn't ride. That's because my hand was hurt. But back to the day. It was really fabulous. Clear skies. Not too cold, not too hot. Just perfect. One of those days even Jughead would want to spend out in the open. One of those days when you just have to just look up at the heavens and mouth a quiet "Thank You".

That's what I thought anyway. I mentioned this in passing to a couple of friends. I got a sarcastic "Yes it is" *mocking grin*. Another said "Ah so she spoke to you today!" *cheeky grin* (The author would like to make clear that the aforementioned "she" is unknown to him and probably a figment of said friend's imagination). I was even scoffed at by my mum, when I made this suggestion.

No seriously. What is it with people these days? Are they so tied up with work that it's impossible to appreciate something as simple as the weather? (The author would also like to let you know that he is aware that weather is not a simple thing. He will clear that bit up with a forthcoming post.) So lost in their own world that not even a grudging look can be spared for the sky?

It's scary really. Where are we going with this? It's bad enough people won't even notice the weather (Unless it's raining. In which case the weather notices you. Not the other way around), but how can you not notice it when it is pointed out to you? Can you really miss the blue skies? Can you really overlook the pleasant breeze? I thought not, but I've been given a sudden jolt back to reality (ironically, one that jolts me away from reality). There's no time for this anymore. I'm in shock really. There's only one thing to do. The next time I'm blessed with such a day, I'll make polite gestures at the world. And go off on my bike... to wherever the road may lead me.

Pilot

So this is it then. The pilot of Grey Sith. Those of you who saw Err? and thought it was the pilot, well it wasn't. It was my 'What the Random?' moment of that day. I'm allowed those you know.

So yes. Pilot. Focus. Yes. Focus. Focus is vital in the force sensitive. And it fails me. All the time. Like now. What is focus then? *Suffers greater loss of focus*

Grrhk.
I'll talk of the Grey Sith then. The Grey Sith is a new sith order, formed by me, Darth Krijn. The basic principles of a grey sith are simple. A grey sith is a moderate sith. One who imbibes the principles of the sith, but does not practice them to the hilt. The right word probably is dispassionate. Almost in contradiction of the Sith code.

And with that slice of think-pie, I'll leave you for now. To Meditate in my chamber. To Focus.