Self-Identity

I have often known and heard of women who would at their own will or under so-called cultural norms or family customs change their lastnames to the one of her husband's family. It is no doubt a personal choice: but one question always comes to my mind- why is this required?

On one hand, we have always tried to stick to the philosophy "Live and let live"; and on the other, we know that at the end of the day, all of us are, in some manner or the other, bound to societal ethics, established practices and notions. There is definitely a trade-off, and the reason the human civilization has been able to traverse a journey this far is because our ancestors had been able to strike a balance between the two poles. Then why is it so, that for women, the second proposition holds and not the first? I am not implying the loads of social injustice done to women: probably they are persistent amidst the folk of illiterate people in remote areas; but this is a more grave issue. I have known so many educated women from well-off and socially reputed families changing their lastnames.

The reason behind this is unknown to me: and that is the reason I find this to be illogical. I believe, when a man marries a woman, it is the beginning of a journey together- and not the women losing her previous identity. I believe, a marriage involves two different families, and therefore both the families would have equal representation and respect for each other. Then why should the daughter of one family lose her original identity?

It this beyond a typical feminist issue. It is about something our civilization had branded as 'morals'. I find it extremely objectionable that the women has to give up her lastname (and in certain situations her first name as well). As human beings, man or woman, we grow as a individuals and often the ultimate goal in our life is to build our own identity. How does it feel to lose it one fine morning you wake up?

I would not protest against the practice being following at a time forty or fifty years back from today. For, then, women were less educated, and therefore their sole identity was their husbands' identity. But the woman of twenty first century has broken free those shackles. Amidst all odds, she has earned her self-identity.

I strongly detest customs and practices that compel one party to sacrifice an abstract feeling close to their heart. Neither men nor women should be a victim to this. It is not about disobeying culture: culture is a set of norms that characterizes a society for the good on a road which can take it far towards prosperity, happiness and bliss.

Romeo-Juliet

Nothing ever has befuddled me more than the cliched tendency of all couples and love stories to consider Romeo-Juliet's as the archetype of all times! Just listen to your conscience: do you want your own or your loved ones' love stories to end in a tragedy as theirs? I am sure you will not; and herein lands the irony! The never-ending perplexed human being you are, you roam around the world and shout 'you' are the architect of your own destiny; and still at dusk, you avert the dark starry sky relying on acts which you do not really approve of! You do not want your love story to be tragic; and yet you go about idolizing Romeo and Juliet: and you say you are the most reasonable being ever on Earth - where is the contradiction, inside you or in the rest of the universe?

The Answer of the 'Rebel'

Many of my friends and acquaintances, especially the ones from my undergrad college back in India ask me,
Tu abhee bhi padh rahi hai?
Aur kitna padhegi?
Kitna research karegi?
PhD kyun?
Kitna time hai tujhe graduate hone mein?
Tu bore nahee hoti padhai se?

The translation being,
You still in school!
How much more you want to study?
How much more research do you want to do?
Why PhD?
How many more years to go to graduate?
Don't you get bored of it?"

These folks are the ones who are quite 'settled' in life right now: earning a decently fat salary, with or without an MBA from somewhere in India. Now they are desperately looking for some pretty and hot girl whom they can date for sometime and then marry. Dwelling in the Fool's paradise that they have achieved almost everything in life, they loathe the very idea of continuing an academic career. To them, probably, being in school at 25 is so uncool! To the girls, the time is ripe to find Mr. Perfect, a guy who is reasonably handsome, earns a fat salary, owns his own flat and/or a car in India, or lives in US or been to US for considerable time and has reasonable bank balance so that he can buy her a diamond necklace every year on her birthday.

I am not being mean describing them this way: some of them are people with whom I have spend quality time in the past and I like them. Also, I totally respect their decision to feel complete with a bachelors degree. It is after all, a personal matter of choice and everyone has his or her liberty to take decisions for themselves in life.

The conflict occurs when the personal decision accrues the shape of a generic judgment which they seamlessly attempt to fit into one and all. And that is what flows out from these questions that they have been uttering all this while.

Joining the PhD program and the decision to go for research has been one of the best decisions in my life. I have forever been a risk-taker, right since I was 16 years old: I loved to do things which no one else would do; I loved the joy in doing those things and marking myself as different from the commonplace crowd. But just the desire to be different was not about it. As far as my mature conscious takes me back, I remember I liked pure sciences, I loved to question things around me and think crazy if any of the established truths weren't true today. When I was in 4th grade, I came to know about something called a 'scientist'. I participated in a painting competition and came out first rank holder when the organizers gave me an interesting prize: a biographical account of several renowned scientists in the world. I would read that book for long, discuss those scientists with Dad and then feel so happy that certain people can rise against appartently impossible odds and still be so much successful! I also wanted to be a scientist from then onwards, and make a mark in the sands of time by thinking the world from an altogether different facet!

Half of my dream has come true the day I joined the PhD program! While this feels so placated to me several times, I know each new day brings up a new vista of challenges to me. In an academic program spanning over at least five years, you are answerable to several people and several questions: ranging from these friends, to parents, to relatives and to professors and the advisor. Nevertheless, therein lies the real charm of life!

Research has taught me several things larger than academics and sometimes larger than life. It is no longer the pre-conceived notion that those friends possess about studies: research transcends studies. It connects you directly to your soul: a means to think beyond the constrained realms of mundane world. It teaches you perseverance, teaches you tenacity; above all, teaches you there is something beyond earning a fat salary and marrying a pretty girl or a handsome guy, and so called living happily ever after. The meaning of life has more to it: and research reveals this truth to you.

After all, life is not an algorithm where you execute certain steps and finally terminate into a stable state. It is stranger than fiction, as you know. And research and PhD just add a new degree of zest to it: you learn life, beyond books, alcohol or credit cards. Research is the tool of the rebel of today...

The Metaphor of Hypothesis Proving

Seldom did it happen that a bad weather outside your window made you morose and pensive to the extent that you were pushed to reflect on the life you have been leading. And ironical, how certain days turn out to be so difficult than some others!
One of all of us seem to running after some goal or the other in life: we fight, we strive, we sweat our brows day in and day out. Nevertheless, it is on those gloomy days when all your colossal efforts sever making much sense: the journey seems to have got lost in the meandering terrains of the zest to excel and 'achieve' the goal.
Where do we stand now? It is the 21st century: a life adorned with all the technology, intelligent-wares streamlining every work in our homes, work places, restaurants, gardens etc. A life with all the grandeur, if you have the cents to be the spend-thrift! A laptop, a modem, a DVD and a Heineken: you are all set to spend a wonderful exhilarating weekend, a drive away from the immensely bone-weary work.
But, wait a minute: are we missing something in this marathon of running after these mundane goals?

I feel I have lost the actual meaning of life somewhere. I had it once upon a time; but lost it as of now and as I stand today here at this juncture of my life, I only see myself running after some goals which probably will not make a difference to another person than me tomorrow. Because I am trying to spend my life doing something which probably I might not be good at; however much efforts I put, they are never enough for excellence. I am still running after that excellence which probably might be too far a land to swim to!

But the next moment, it dawns on my mind: I loathe being the ship without the rudder, running toward the excellence is necessary for getting the best out of ourselves, after all!
Life just seems to be a contradiction: we begin with a hypothesis; but ironically, move forward in life with all the evidences to disprove that initial hypothesis! What happens next? Only time will tell.

The Story of the 'Inside'

Perplexed I was the entire gloomy afternoon,
Though an overcast day with the breeze swaying the skin so cool;
But nothing was as beautiful to me as it actually was,
A morose soul amidst the aphotic bleaky ambience of virtual wars.

A leap I took to look beyond the pensive tyranny of dingy daylight soon after,
Not a sense of withdrawal could further stop me thereafter,
Deep forest, monstrous ocean, mammoth mountain: none could put a bar towards that 'pasture',
The hunt: the search for the ultimate source of ecstasy and laughter.

Variegated folks did I all encounter,
In that voyage of the key to fun and banter;
But none could endow me with a terse answer,
I was depressed: only more eager to uncover the mysterious universe of all wonder.

Days passed, years dwindled, without a ray of hope,
The hope for the key to the sweetest of my dream that round the clock I wanted to grope,
Soon after, did dawn a 'sun' into my mind's realm,
Where is the hunt: where in the universe is happiness as it might seem?

I knew then, that all these years, I was wrong,
After all, happiness was just another habit which you adorn inside, not in some special throne,
I knew, the storm was 'within',
And I geared up with all new vigor to cull out the zealous, without giving in!

The world you live in, is an APPROXIMATION!

The physical world we live in is highly approximate. Consider the definition of a point in space: "a point is a physical entity which has no length, breadth and height but has existence only".

Can a point have a fourth dimension, like time? may be. But how do we justify this? Will a point travel in time? No it cannot. Since it does not have length, breadth or height, it cannot have physical properties that characterize other things, e.g. can point characterize temperature? No. So point is just an existential quantity in space, not time.

Consider the definition of a physical object:
"an entity that can be perceived by human beings in one or more of their visual or auditory senses".
This means a physical object will have existence as well as stability or volatility across space and time.

Now the connection between a point and a physical object which hints at the subtle but highly approximate definition of the physical world. This theory of approximation is demonstrated by the fact that physical objects can be considered an assembly of points and point does not have any dimensions: no length, breadth and height, only existence; then how do physical objects have dimentions? This is a contradiction which can only be supported by the fact that the objects themselves are approximations and points do have dimensions. Because, if it was not true, then, the following will always be true:
0+ 0+ 0+ 0 = 0 always. No physical object that we see around us can have dimensions.
Hence the universe and its contained physical objects are merely approximation of a bigger assumption that dimensions are inherent to entities around us.

What are your plans for Christmas? :P

Here are some interesting vacation spots for you this winter (okay for me; I want to go to these places some winter). Enjoy!

1. Grand Canyon, Arizona: Beyond its fame as one of the seven natural wonders of the world, its beauty is multiplied in the snow covered gorges, mountains, semi-frozen waters of the Colorado river and the vegetation.

2. New York City, New York: The real USA: it has always been Hollywood's and Bollywood's favorite shooting place in winters. PS: Karan Johar's favorite site for shoots :P. While on one hand it brings out the harsh life in the depressing sun-less mornings, the flaky snow and driving through snow covered terrains is altogether a different adventure.

3. Hawaii: The hot honeymoon- perfect place for many people! Winter is a great time there to enjoy the warmth of the Central Pacific. Just checked farecast, great ticket prices to Honolulu.

4. Kerala, India: One of the most interesting adobes of natural sea-side beauty in India. Be ready for some interesting coconutty food!

5. Istanbul, Turkey: Istanbul is a great cultural and financial center in eastern Europe. Wikitravel says, "Located on both sides of the Bosphorus, the narrow strait between the Black Sea and the Marmara Sea, Istanbul truly bridges Asia and Europe both literally and figuratively." Winter is a great time to visit this cultural hub. The palaces, mosques and cisterns are a wonderful relax out of the din and bustle of the cities in US.

6. Mexico: Of course you cannot leave this out! Wikitravel says, "Mexico has nice and warm people, unique food, art and archeology, pyramids, museums, Haciendas, 6,000 miles of shores, superb architecture and cities, weather from snow mountains in the Sierras, to rainy jungles in the Southeast and desert in the Northwest, more than 50 golf courses, excellent fishing, world top destinations like Acapulco, Cancun, Cozumel, Los Cabos, Patzcuaro, among others amenities. Mexico is ranked 8th major destination for foreigner visitors, according to WTO." And how can you forget the most authentic Margaritas!

7. Canary Islands, Spain: The Canary Islands are an Atlantic territory of Spain on the west coast of Africa, near Morocco, Cape Verde and the archipelagos of the Azores Islands and Madeira Islands, both Portuguese territories. Abounded with wonderful honeymoon-like vacation resorts!

8. Fiji: Fiji is characterized by the combination of volcanic mountains and warm tropical waters. Its majestic and ever-varied coral reefs today draw tourists from around the world. Very close from US west coast and Hawaii.

9. Taiwan: One of the greatest tourist destinations in eastern Asia. It is amazing to see tradition, culture and westernization all in the same vista! Don't forget about the semi-American and Chinese-Japanese fusion of a variety of classic foods!

10. Miami, Florida: Check out some of the most soothing warm climates in US! Proximity to Cuban culture as well as the great sea coasts of the Atlantic make the vacation more than just enthralling and enchanting. Miami has the largest Latin American population outside of Latin America itself with nearly 65% of its populace either from Latin America or of Latin American ancestry. There are also some great Spanish monasteries and meseums and gardens.


Do you have any more suggestions? :P
Photos: Courtesy, Flickr

Om Shanti Om

I would make a very honest statement: I really liked Om Shanti Om. And I mean it. Reasons are numerous: please get rid of your self-notion imagination that it is because the King Khan is there. Of course I am a big fan of him; but I believe there are reasons beyond this liking that makes this movie a nice watch (without any sort of cursing) to me.

If you would hunt for logic behind the happening of the movie, I am sorry: you make a bad pick. Probably a movie like "The Pursuit of Happyness" would suit you more. Well, let me clarify: I am not comparing the two movies at all. Just pointing out a contrast in movie taste: the former a true fiction, the latter bringing you face to face to the hard reality.

It is the story of an aspiring actor who falls for a big star. And how his failure in that birth leads to his reincarnation to fulfil his dreams, one and all. I personally don't believe in rebirth and the genre. But I really liked the movie. Reasons:

1. The movie is a complete fiction: a drive away from reality. It is not just reincarnation, but also things like a commonplace guy coming into the notice of a superstar, and the girl coming out to spend an evening with the guy. These things are far away from reality. But what makes this movie beautiful is the intricacy with which these fictional events have been rendered.

2. The actors do their jobs. SRK gives 'life' to the character so much so that you yourself feel that something should happen even if out of the blue to fulfil his dreams! And that's what happens: when it comes, it is no surprise to you!

3. Deepika is not just another new comer with a great deal of item numbers and skin show. Her acting skills, if not the great ones, are appreciable with her experience in the acting arena. Shreyas and Kiron Kher are good as ever.

I strongly feel why this fiction succeeds and why others (like No Smoking) fails. Om Shanti Om does not attempt to make a connection with the reality. For those three and a half hours you are transported to a surreal world. And the credit probably goes to the director Farah and of course the producer SRK.

Bollywood really needs to understand that a movie success doesn't necessary happen because of:
1. focusing on just classy and expensive sets (e.g. Saawariya).
2. characters have a great role to play. They need to be true to themselves in rendering their job. Kudos, OSO does it very nicely!

Consider any fiction movie in Hollywood: from "being John Malcovich" to "Matrix" to "Jurassic Park", all were fictions. But they came out a great movies. The reason being: they did their best jobs 'inside' their realm of the fiction!

Relativity= Compromised Perfection?

I was reading a research paper the other day when I ran into this really strong statement and eventually provoked me to think: Is relativity a compromised perfection? The author was trying to press upon the implicit relative success of several methods in a certain research topic (Human Computer Interaction) and was trying to brain storm on newer ideas. But his approach was interesting. He was telling that the reason these methods have been successful so far is because we have not been able to devise better ones. Ironical, but agreed: this is true. Certain things around us seem to be pseudo-successful or nicer simply because there are no similar better things around!

There is a very famous quote made by Churchill when he lost the elections in 1946-47 after the war. He says, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." (from a House of Commons speech on Nov. 11, 1947)

It is not just about democracy. We often seem to be happy with what we have. We live and die to 'maintain' this so-called implicit perfect world. But is it really perfect? Isn't this sense of relativity: the fact that we don't have nicer things just dwindling into a hollow sense of compromised perfection?

Although there is of course a thin line between being ever-greedy for better things and being a little non-complacent with the current state of things. While the former is definitely not advisable nor is meant in this blog, yet I believe the latter is the key to a race's ever-lasting journey towards a more prosperous civilization.

Are you growing old?

Since quite sometime, I have been feeling a soothing placidness inside me: as if I can see the implicit signs of aging in me! Some of the signs I could decipher: may be you want to check them out for yourself!
1. I am enjoying tragic movies more these days compared to my ever-favorite: Sci-Fi. I somehow get this intuition I will like watching Saawariya although the movie is a commercial disaster. Hope I do that soon. Probably the bluish-greenish surreal ambience will match my state of mind (age?).
2. I am more into softer romantic songs now: for example, Hindi: Jab We Met's Tum Se Hi. Days are gone for the Hip Hop numbers of Dus or Bluffmaster's Talk To Me.
3. No more Rap or Hip Hop in English genre. I feel suffocated in the sweaty congested environment of dance floors in clubs playing loud Hip Hop. Jazz takes me away; especially of The Kenny G. kind. I only log on to 95.5 FM smooth Jazz or 107.9 FM KMLE Country radio in my car stereo as well while driving.
4. I kind of have shrugged the desire for alcohol. No hard stuff other than beer sometimes, very very rarely.
5. I have also grown increasing fondness for cats.
6. My finickiness for cleanliness is ever on an exponential increasing note.
7. Art always captivated me: but I find tremendous match with my sometimes' pensive mood in appreciating art pieces anywhere around Tempe. The USPS building puts up the current exhibits of fine artwork in the city.
8. I want to attend Jazz concerts, pretty often on Sundays in Phoenix.
9. And yeah, I am not going to miss the next Broadway Musical that is going to be played in the Gammage at ASU next time!
10. And last but not the least, I am developing a much mature insight into my research. After all, I have started to believe, that is how I can contribute to the progress of the human civilization!

I am only (?) 25 though: what do you think? Is it too late? Is it too early?

"What is Intelligence?": Food for the AI Folks...

Wikipedia describes intelligence to be: a property of mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn.
And this is simply not what wikipedia thinks; some of the great talks by renowned computer scientists I have ever attended (including Turing Award winners like Fran Allen) talk alike. Nevertheless the question is, it is really sufficient to describe intelligence by these skills? Haven't most of the work traditionally in AI starting from propositional planning to combinatorial logic always strived to inculcate one or more of these traits in the computers? If yes, then why are we so much away from even a 10% intelligent (compared to humans) computer today?
I am not sure if there is any precise answer, or actually if we ever will have the ability to actually answer this and make it happen in the future. But there are two things, I believe, which are typically very characteristic of humans and which the AI community hasn't probably thought of to instill in their endeavor for a super-smart computer!
These are: intuition and adaptation.
Intuition: It is the ability to take decisions or do things without being goaded by a standard reasoning process. I guess it is very typical of human beings and acts as a sophisticated ability to make judgments where reasoning cannot be applied. Unfortunately, while lot of work has been done about how to make computer reason about things, little has been said about taking decisions (under certain circumstances) when no reasoning can be applied. So here is a new direction, although the problem is difficult!
Adaptation: It is typically a positive characteristic of an organism that has been favored by natural selection. Is it not interesting to think of building systems that can actually evolve over time? Agreed, there has been some work in this regard. But the problem is more profound than judged. Adaptation is something which should enable a system to evolve in the sense can it can get rid of some characteristics, generate some, inherit some other others as well as mould and modify them to its own needs. The second food for thought!
Let's see what the next 40 years of AI research has in store for us! I will come back to this blog to compare my perceptions then...

The Four Questions...

The Grace Hopper 2007 is more than another Computer Science conference for me. What struck me most were these four pretty cliched, but ever-thought-arousing questions I heard (or re-iterated in my ears) today.
1. What is computable?
2. What is intelligence?
3. What is information?
4. Can we build complex systems simply?
I am trying to figure out these answers. Of course it is not easy: even many of the Turing Award winners have met many stumbling blocks on the way. But I will strike a take on it! As rightly said, "I Invent the Future" :)

'Meaning'...

Life just moves on, whatever happens, however unfavorable circumstances might be. It is amazing how much patience and reticence to one's self-conscience one might have that we still hold on to something as the 'center' of our lives despite all odds shattering our dreams which once used to leave us mesmerized. Everything comes and goes in the flick of a moment...

The key and the biggest learning of life is how you want to hold on to the real passion in your life in order to make life more meaningful. After all, none is born without an inherent meaning! The clue is how we or if we ever happen to unlock that mysterious 'bolt' of real meaning amidst numerous 'keys' all scrambled around us...
Life is greater than what we think of it to be. It is a long journey towards eternity: the destination of 'meaning'. And all our lives groom around just different facets of some consistent meaning. Like the rainbow is hidden all the time, lest the times when light is reflected from the clouds in some specific manner. What is that 'light' which can bring out the rainbow of our lives?
I guess it is a never-ending quest: a quest of truth. The 'meaning' of life...

Reasons why you should cook at home!

So here comes a blog which can all over again motivate you to start cooking and eating at home! A few good reasons:

1. Value-for-money (the cost factor): Home made food is far less expensive compared to the same thing you order at a restaurant. This is because the ingredients (the raw materials) that you would use for cooking is decently cheap at any local grocery store. For example, a box of brownies comes for about $5 in a standard grocery store. You probably need a $1 to buy brownie mix and bake them at home! Another good example, ice creams in waffle cone would cost you like $8 at any Cold Stone store. If you buy a huge box of ice cream and a few cones, it won't come more than $2 per ice cream!
2. Quality: You are your own chef, so you are at liberty to go for quality ingredients, especially about spices, cooking oil, butter, eggs, milk and cheese.
PS: though disputed, yet beware of buying specifically these stuff cheap, they have been known to cause deadly diseases like breast cancer. The second threat are the preservatives in all the cooked frozen food and ready-to-eat stuff.
3. Variety: And of course you have the freedom to go ahead and delve into cooking some really innovative meal! Try any possible fusion, like Chinese-American, Indian-Thai, Indian-Ethiopian or Mexican-Cuban!
PS: these are pretty standard fusions, but you can always introduce some variations!
4. Taste: Last but not the least, cooking is a passion! If you enjoy cooking, you can master the art of culinary skills and be the chef of numerous delicious recipes for your friends, family and loved ones. If you are a woman, then you know the saying "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach". While if you are a man, then you know the best chefs in the world are all men, an opportunity to be a better husband to your sweetheart!

... every little moment I live...

Of late, I have realized that life is simply about living everyday! It is all about those little petty things we do that make us happy and sad. Nothing is pre-defined before. Every moment is a surprise and living is about happily embracing all those moments...
I can see myself sitting in trance by the sea shore and watching those moments come and go by. Sometimes I would see a distant sail making its way through the unruly waves, thrashing water behind; till it finally makes it to the harbor.
Sometimes I see a homeless person downstairs in the downtown with his dog which reminds me how beautiful world is still now: some assets turn into lives themselves and no one could part them however pathetic life could be.
Sometimes I would see my fellow Asian colleagues at work, day in and day out with utmost devotion, re-iterating the fact that you don't need a God to believe in, for, work is worship.
Sometimes I would burst into laughter for no good reason at something which is far from being humorous.
Sometimes I would run after a few pebbles of happiness brought down by the rolling waves on the shore.
Sometimes I would knit my own fabric of day dreams with my joys and woes.
Sometimes I would be worried, sometimes placid, sometimes elated, sometimes pensive even though I would be clueless about the answer to the biggest questions in my life.
Life is all about what we see, learn, feel, visualize and cull out with our experiences of such numerous petty moments. It is about living every moment which caters to delivering an essence to life and its continual learning. My wish, "let me breathe in the fresh air of every moment that sweeps me by, let me drab it in, let me feel and let me live..."

'One Love'

Despite all the grandeurs of technology streamlining every segment of our daily life, if you ask me, the most common unsolved mystery that we still have not been able to solve is probably the question, "What gives me the ultimate happiness?" Do we really have a precise answer to this?
The mundane earthly life is a perennial sequence of unending desires: desire to acquire more and more; and that is what keeps us away from reaching our ultimate goal:to become happy. Imagine, every act we indulge in, right from dawn to dusk, has a lone common goal, how it can, in some manner, yield something towards our happiness. We work, we inculcate our passions, cherish our hobbies: all with one single goal. But the hunt for happiness seems never-ending!
I believe life is all about possessing 'one single thing'. And that possession 'does' it all: leads us to our ultimate goal of happiness. It is that thing which accrues the center of our life: diverges as a vivid facet to every aspect of our life. It lets us survive amidst all the odds and evens. To some, that one thing is their loved one, to some their pet, to others their passions.
I recall a few lines from the song 'One Love' from BLUE. I find it very apt how we need just 'one love' to live. It takes care of everything: paves the road to achieving happiness...

Yeah, alright

It's kinda funny
How life can change
Can flip 180
In a matta of days

Sometimes love works in
Mystertious ways
One day you wake up
Gone without a trace

I refuse to give up
I refuse to give in
You're my everything
I don't wanna give up
I don't wanna give in
So everybody sing

One love for the mothers prider
One love for the times we cried
One love gotta stay alive
I will survive

We only need to hunt for that 'one love' in life!

Along the waves of 'transitory' flow...

They are right when they say, "Life is stranger than fiction". I have always been amazed by the manner our thought process is involved with the sequence of actions and happennings in life. We are morose and taken aback when we see our hopes getting shattered; we drive up to ecstasy with the hint of a positive happenning around us.
I believe wherefrom our lives accrue meaning is the way we build magnificent domes and architectures of hopes, dreams and expectations around us. But on the rolling sands of time and life everything seems transitory. Hopes and dreams come and go, and we either watch them blooming into physical existence, or we see them being run down by the thrashing unruly waves of circumstances.
Nevertheless, life is so strange! Time and again, we would build those deck of cards for our hopes and dreams. Even when we know they have been shattered to pieces before. We never learn!
The inherent truth is, life itself is transitory. We are a petty existence of a sequence of happennings in the course of space and time. We dwindle away, and still try to groom again, with our energies. Needless to say, this perseverance to achieve what one wants in life, is what drives life. And an icing on the cake, the root to all woes in the world!
Along such never ending waves of continual transitory flow of life, when will we really grow up above these mundane hopes and dreams?

Innovative Recipes: Cooking Simplified!

I have always been a great connoisseur of food and cooking and have been always been excited about trying to cook variegated recipes with little innovations. But then cooking became a challenge when I came to US. An altogether different set of food items, new food habits coupled with the busy life of a Ph.D student made to venture into cooking in a way that the food came out tasty, while it would eat less time! Here go a few of my hand-crafted recipes. To the best of my knowledge and experience, they have come out to be nice and tasty, as well as serving to be labeled as a quick meal!

Recipe 1: Scrambled Fish (time needed: 20-25 minutes)
Ingredients: Coby Fish (any fillets would do, e.g. salmon etc), finely chopped onions, lime juice, minced garlic, green chillies, salt, turmeric, cumin seeds, corn oil, paprika (optional).
Method: If the fish is frozen, keep it outside for a few hours and let it thaw. Then heat some oil in a cooking pan. Add cumin seeds and the green chillies. Once these start boiling, sim the stove and add the fish pieces slowly. Let them fry till they turn brown and the softness reduces. Add the onions along with the salt, tumeric and garlic. Let it cook till the onions turn translucent and the spices look well blended in. Then using a sharp spatula, scramble the fish to small pieces and mix everything very well. It will come out as a nice blended in mixture of fish and onions. Touch up with lime juice and red paprika (optional). Serve hot with warm plain rice or fried rice.

Recipe 2: Thai Chholle (time needed: 15-20 minutes)
Ingredients: One can of garbanzo beans, one can of coconut milk, chopped onions, red chilly paste, salt, turmeric, chaat masala, corn oil, cilantro to garnish.
Method: Heat oil in a cooking pan and add the onions. Let it cook till onions turn translucent. Add salt and add the garbanzo beans (strained and cleaned from the can). Let it cook for 2-3 minutes and then add turmeric. Mix well and after about 5 more minutes, add the coconut milk. Mix everything very well and let it cook for sometime. Then add the chilly paste and the chaat masala. Blend well and chholle is ready. Serve hot over rice.

More to come... keep waiting!

Why?

I had a pretty weird dream yesterday night: weird to the extent that I can even now visualize some strange creature I saw in the dream, in front of my eyes. Precisely, I would describe it as some land-dwelling sharks, because of the ability of the usual sharks to thrive on land with human-like mobility!
I dreamt that my lab (AME) is (re-)located by some really beautiful beach (most probably it depicted UC Santa Barbara or UC Irvine!). Just out of the blinds in the coridoor where now I plainly see a bunch of cars stuck on the road in Tempe downtown, the view in the dream was very spectacular: a placid beautiful beach with lush green foliage, blue waters and golden sand. It was very captivating till one fine day we see two sharks coming out of the ocean and walking up through the land till they disappear in the wild by the beach! We were among the first to notice the sharks coming out of water and it was great fun to watch them, but just for fraction of a second. In seconds, our ecstacy turned into horror of what is going to happen to us given these strange dangerous animals in the city. We called '911' and tell them of all what had happenned so that they take necessary precautions to save the residents of the city from these animals. And then I quickly called one of my very good friends asking him to move to a safe place before these animals start any kind of devastation. I depict to him all that I had witnessed: the sharks coming out of the water and then disappearing in nowhere. But as unfortunate it could be, this account from my end did not fright him the slightest and he was out with his camera to capture these rare sealife! Tension only crawled up and I could feel fear tickling down by blood every moment I was inside the lab: the only assumption to me being, it is safe inside a five storied building. But soon the cops declared a crisis situation as they reported the sharks started hurting people. We were asked to evacuate the lab building. But before they put me into some safe place, I thought I will figure out whats up with the friend. I called him and made some arrangements so that we meet. But every moment I knew it was a tricky situation: photographing the sharks meant facing them and that in turn meant being a victim. I could see risk so close at hand...
The dream was long and very abrupt. But it made me think over many things. First, why did I have such a dream. Is it because I am watching too many movies which is taking me away from reality? Or is it because I fear natural disasters? Or is it a threatening to the human-kind of a changing world and changing environment? Or it is about my concern for some people whom I care about?
I don't the answer. But it is one of the dreams I would always remember. May be a reminder that the way and the rate we are degrading the environment, probably time of not far when the Nature would take on us...

Merging 'Physicality' and 'Virtuality'...

Needless to say, the primary aspect that distinguishes human beings from other living creatures on the planet is their ability to communicate in a manner which cultures semantic sense. Today's research direction in Computer Science is moving more and more towards identifying means to make our lives more conducive to our ambiance: merging 'physicality' and 'virtuality'. Nevertheless, while theory has its own beauty in itself, developing another algorithm which can solve the Travelling Salesman problem in polynomial time with an accepted error bound is not going to answer the question raised by the design of a conducive human environment. While this suggests, human beings are central to the next generation research, it is imperative to inculcate in the research the complexity of the manner in which we decipher semantics around us.
For the sake of generality in the systems perspective, let us consider the 'human machine' to be a flip-flop black box with standard input and output: we receive and collect information from the outside world via our five senses, perceive them in some manner under a personalized context, and then output them via some media in the form of an action. And the inherent media for us to interact with the outside world is communication, precisely the semantics we decipher. Such interaction via some media is always accompanied by a observable action. Consider this example. The blog I am writing today to communicate my thoughts: writing a blog post is an action here. However, beyond media and action, we encounter further hidden observables. This blog makes me mirthful and I reflect that in my email to my Mom. We accrue sentiments.
There are several dimensions to address for a unified framework that attempts to generate a conducive environment to human beings amidst the physical world and the virtualism of computers. Media, action and associated sentiments are just one of the facets. A more comprehensive analysis of deciphering the complex human semantics is what conjures up the next step of technical and research challenge.