Every minute Zen

Amma always reminds all who come to Her to be aware of each moment. Amma compares living in this world as to sitting in an exam hall and writing the exam. You should be really alert. And when the bell rings, you have to leave. Amma's examples are always very simple. Sometimes they are so simple that we miss the whole point. But the great masters explain things in a lot of different ways.

Zen students are with their masters at least two years before they presume to teach others. Nan-in was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship, had become a teacher. The day happened to be rainy, so Tenno wore wodden clogs and carried an umbrella. After greeting him Nan-in remarked: "I suppose you left your wooden clogs in the vestibule. I want to know if your umbrella is on the right or left side of the clogs."

Tenno, confused, had no instant answer. He realized that he was unable to carry his Zen every minute. He became Nan-in's pupil, and he studied six more years to accomplish his every-minute Zen.

Let the sleeping dogs lie

Dogs don't have to go to class
They can sleep all day and night
They don't have to take gate pass
To go out of campus for a bite

Dogs don't have to take exams
Nor sit in classes bored
Dogs don't get stuck in traffic jams
When they go to Coimbatore

Dogs dont have to take seminars
With professors sly and mean
Dogs don't have to go to war
With staff in the canteen

Everybody just love dogs
They are so nice and cute
But the reason that I love dogs
Is they just dont give a hoot

The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have assignments to keep
And miles to code before I sleep
And miles to code before I sleep.

My third semester final exams are due next week. I dont think I will be able to post anything until Jan.

A Denial

unsealed on a west side a letter said,
i don't have to ever write this again, no no
on the west side, on the front side a letter said,
i don't have to ever feel this way again, no no
on a west side i want to wish it all away
and i sigh and i fall and i know that i'm never going to see this again, no no

yeah, can you see them?
out on the porch yeah, but they don't wave
i see them round the front way, yeah
and i know and i know i don't want to stay
at all...
i don't want to stay
i don't want to stay
i don't want stay, no no

Sojish in some resort in Lakkidi.

I could'nt help editing this picture when I came across it. Biking was always fun. If I remember correctly, this was my last biking trip.

Young boy in a University in a small town.

He passed me by on the way to the MBA block. I was not able to see his face clearly, but the glance was enough to make me pause and slow down my quick pace. That face was hauntingly familiar.
I swore I knew him from somewhere.

"I seem to recognize your face
Haunting, familiar, yet I can’t seem to place it
Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name
Lifetimes are catching up with me"


I saw him again in our mess. I had just washed my plate when I saw him sitting just a couple of rows ahead. I waited arguing with myself whether to go over and say "Hi." I watched him for sometime. He was neatly dressed. A dark blue shirt, khakee pants, neatly combed hair - all the features that distinguish a management student from us MTech dudes.

I finally go over and say "Hello". He pauses, his hand full of rice, sambar and curd freezing halfway from his mouth. I apologised for my intrusion into his private space and said
"Excuse me, but you look so familiar to me. Can I know your name."
He drops the rice back into his plate, and begins mixing it again, this time with more sambar. Either he really likes the mess food, or his taste buds are extinct.
"I am Shankar." He replies... "And you ?"
"My name is Shivan, Shivapratap."
His eyes light up momentarily. "Shivan, from Vidyodaya?" He asks.
Soon everything comes back to me. Good old Shankar. I knew him very well. He was a small kid back in school about two - three years younger to me. Quite a character he was, and an excellant dancer. He asks me how I am and what I am doing here. He was also kind enough to ask about my mother and brother. I promised him that I will convey his regards to them. As I sat down next to him, he apologised for not recognising me. Its no big deal, I tell him.

"Me you wouldn’t recall, for
I’m not my former
It’s hard when you’re stuck upon the shelf
I changed by not changing at all, small town predicts my fate
Perhaps that’s what no one wants to see"

He had changed a lot. No longer the small thin boy with ill fitting shorts, he now goes to college impeccably dressed with an english vocabulary that would put Merriam-Webster to shame.

I did not see much of him from then on, but we exchanged greetings whenever we saw each other. Apparently, that was the only conversation that we ever had. He was too busy with his schdule, and the same was true for me.
I finally saw him during the passing out ceremony with his Mother where we said a quick good bye to each other. I found it surprising that the meeting of two students from the same school, who had been together for a little more than 5 years, could be so emotionless and plain. Or is it that we have become mature ?
Anyways, I dont think about it now.

"Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away...
Hearts and thoughts they fade..."

Yeild

Angels
Oceans
Hopes
Wishes
Fear
Love

Infinite Compassion

The scriptures say that it is very difficult for a liberated soul to remain in this gross physical world. But the reason that they choose to stay back is because of the compassion towards the whole of creation.

So it was very natural that Amma reacted like this when a man approached Her, weilding a knife. Little did he know that his target was none other than the One who is beyond life or death.

The Divine Play

Azhikkullil dinakaran maranju
Alayunna pakalin tengaluyarnnu

Vishwa shilpiyude vikirthikallalle
Vishaadamenthinu nalinangale

Akhilandaraajante vinodarangam
Ee lokam shokapoornam

Kalimarappavayai njannum karayuvan
Kannuneerillatha shilayai

Send me an Angel

The wise man said just walk this way
To the dawn of the light
The wind will blow into your face
As the years pass you by
Hear this voice from deep inside
It's the call of your heart
Close your eyes and your will find
The passage out of the dark

Here I am
Will you send me an angel
Here I am
In the land of the morning star

A room with a view

I am going to change my room. When you look out of the balcony, what you see is this.

The Garage: A Photo Blog

Girish's car, or more popularly known as "Vada Vandi" gets really moody at times. The old Maruti Esteem VX has taken us to a lot of garages in and around Coimbatore but nothing was as exciting as this one. It all started when Sachin said that he knew a garage where they deal with all kinds of vehicles. And sure enough, this really turned out to be an "all the kinds" garage.


They had a sizeable amount of cars inside. But what caught my eyes (and then the lens of the Pentax in my hand) were some BSA motorbikes carelessly parked in the corner.
I was not able to make out the model, they looked like they had a 250cc engine.

Walk in and a little to the left you will find a couple of bikes from a british company called AJS.


The AJS looked like a vintage bike. They had a couple of these and all of us took turns to sit on the bike and have our photos taken. They even let us kickstart one 500cc monster.






The speedometer of the AJS is caliberated in "miles per hour" and has a maximum reading of 120mph. The odometer inside had not registered much distance. Anyways, the workers assured us that the bike is in good running condition.

This last bike that I came across was sitting a little towards the end of the garage. The workers had just finished a paint job. There were no markings on the bike with regards to the model or the manufacturer. It could well have been an old Rajdoot or Enfield. I decided to call it "Spirit of Tamil Nadu".



After about one hour, they suggested that we take the car to a Maruti workshop nearby. Apparently, after laying hands on everything from the first bicycle ever made to the second world war machines, a 98 model Esteem seemed a little too advanced to work on.

My first model shoot

My friend has a Pentax Optio 30. No matter where we go, we always carry it with us. So it was not a coincidence when a person from the multimedia department came running inside the lab that evening asking if anybody had a camera. I proudly pointed to the Pentax connected to the charging unit in the corner of the room.
"Good. I need you to take the camera and come with me."
I was a little surprised. Why did the multimedia people want me? Maybe they had seen my collection of abstract photographs about the campus. Maybe this was my big break. He was in a hurry, so I quickly collected the camera and batteries.
As I followed him down the stairs, I put on a deliberate casual attitude and asked him, "Well, whats up doc? Are you taking me to photograph something?"
"Yeah" he replied as he walked down two steps at a time. "The management wants it done quickly and nicely."
My stomach suddenly went hollow. "The management? The college management wants me to take photos for them?"
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs, out of breath from excitement.
His only reply was "Get on the bike. We have no time."

While on the bike, I was desperately trying to calm myself. I explained to him that the camera was just a simple point and shoot and I will need an SLR to get a real professional image. I also pointed out that the flash on the camera might not be sufficient. For all my efforts, I only succeeded in irritating him more.
"Hey!!", he whipped his head back at me and said "Your camera will do just fine."
The remaining journey was passed without comments or conversation.

We went on a route that goes behind the college and around the mountains. The scenery was breath taking. All around me were small green fields sometimes lined with brown huts made from coconut leaves. I was not sure if I could do justice to all this with the Pentax.

We soon arrived at a place, which I quickly identified as "Goshala", the cattle farm run by the college. Some local farm hands had assembled there to meet us. We were led to a lone shed near the farm. I could make out something covered with a huge blanket lying in the center of the shed. I looked at my friend and he motioned me to go inside. I understood that I was to photograph this thing under the blanket. As soon as I entered the shed, one of the workers came forward and removed the blanket.

I was to photograph a dead cow!!! I gave my friend a "You better explain this to me NOW" look. He got the message for he quickly replied
"The cow died of old age. We need to apply for insurance and the insurance agent needs a full photograph of the dead cow. All of our people are busy with projects, so the management asked us to get somebody with a camera and finish the job."

I managed a weak "Oh!!" And so the talented and promising young photographer was instantly reduced to a "somebody with a camera".

I went over to the cow. It looked like it was having a siesta. I switched on the camera and got the cow into frame.
"Thats a nice looking dead cow." I exclaimed in broken tamil to one of the local workers. Immediately he raised his hand asking me to stop, went over to the cow, pulled its mouth wide open and wrenched its tongue out.
I almost fainted.
Fifteen minutes later, a very quiet and shaken "somebody with a camera" was taken to the multimedia lab to deliver the photos and then was left to find his way back to his room in the MTech lab.

The nice looking dead cow

Look Ma, I am studying

Serious Shiv

I wanted to show this to my parents. No matter what I tell them, they always had this feeling that I was a loafer.

Notice the bearded face which signifies that the student has no time even to take care of himself. Notice the faded jeans which highlights lack of money to buy good clothes. Fortunaltly some people also tend to call it as a fashion thing.
And that look of concentration and dedication on my face (I think I am getting good at this). A picture of a model student.

Short Break

Dear All, ( that means Sajith, Sojish, and Amar)

I will not be able to blog for some time because I will not be able to access the net for some time.
Things will be back to normal probably in 2 weeks........

Sojish,
We definitly have to meet. Was not able to make it last time.

TS,
We have to meet too. :)

Amar,

well... hope ISPCON is going great. Looking forward to seeing you.

The saga comes to an end

Its finally here and I am really excited. I am so excited that I spend almost all the time reading and re-reading reviews, watching the micro series, trying desperatly to catch up with the greatest sci-fi epic.

Now I am not all that crazy about star wars. I would rather spend my time travelling and seeing places rather queue up in front of some theatre for months. But I am hugely attracted to the philosophy and the way of the force that is characteristic of star wars.

Most reviews compare the saga to a greek tragedy. While the initial triology, episodes IV to VI, gives us an impression that the story is about a freedom struggle by the rebels against a cruel and unrelenting empire, watching the saga as a collection on all the six episodes will reveal that the story is really about the rise, fall, and final redemption of a jedi knight named Anakin Skywalker.

Can't wait to catch the movie when it comes to Coimbatore.

There are a number of sites on the web that has a wealth of information on star wars:
Star Wars Official Site
theforce.net
Some humorous blogs:
A really funny and insightful blog of Darth Vader
Mater Yoda's Blog

A Random Thought

Kabhee laut aaye to poochna
NaheeN dekhna use GHaur se
Jinhe raaste pe khabar huee
Ke ye raasta koi aur hai

Tujhe dushmanoN kee khabar na thee
Mujhe dostoN ka pata na tha
Teree daastaaN koi aur thee
Mera vaakaya koi aur hai

A Rainy Sunset

This one was taken with the other evening rain photo. I deliberatly wanted to get over the B&W addiction. B&W can hide your flaws and make your picture look classier.

When the sun goes behind the majestic western ghats, the whole campus is bathed in pale yellow. You forget time and you feel like you are part of a big painting, a painting that streches about 400 acres. I am standing in front of the college taking shelter from the rain. The sky looks vast with light blue blending into golden yellow near the towering mountains. Anamala hill stands proudly with its head high in the clouds. There is so much beauty and so much detail that suddenly you feel insignificant. The whole creation silently looks at you and you feel so insignificant. You are reduced to nothing but a helpless observer, a beat poet who has neither the rhymes nor the metaphors to describe the unveiling of nature in all its glory.

Blacks, Whites, Colors

Okay I admit. I am seriously in love with black & whites. I have never really played around much with photos, but I think I am getting the hang of it.

I am usually a person with a short attention span and I dont like to do things on and on for hours; especially studies. But now my friends find me looking at the screen for hours trying to decide if "Sepia" is better than "Filtered B&W". Having too many options on Adobe or any kind of software for that matter, can be pretty frustrating. It takes so long to make up your mind(that is if you ever make up your mind). Picasa is nice, but sometimes you think you need more options.

I had many ideas about building my career during the past six months, like starting a Dhaba near the college, starting a marble business by importing marbles from Rajastan, smuggling cocaine in and out of Tamil Nadu, killing Chota Shakeel to become the next don.... the list goes on. But there are two things that always tops the list:
1. Enroll myself as a Volvo truck driver somewhere in Europe. ( I always liked huge vehicles, and I love travelling)
2. Take over a really huge studio.

Some people say that I dream too much. Well, I ask those people,
"How do you expect me to stay awake through five hours of calculus of variations, finite element modelling and wavelet design?"

The Evening Rain

It finally rained. It was not exactly a downpour but it was enough to cool off the merciless afternoon sun. Some of us started walking in the rain, a luxury which is seldom available. Fortunatly one of my friends had a camera.

I took this photo in front of the college. B&W gives a timeless look.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

There is more to Unix

This was taken from Dennis Ritchie homepage.
This looked too good so I decided to post it.

Click to find out what else is Unix.

I doubt if all products mentioned above have the "Unix nature". (wrt "The Rootless Root")

Off he goes

know a man, his face seems pulled and tense
like he's riding on a motorbike in the strongest winds
so i approach with tact
suggest that he should relax
but he's always moving much too fast
said he'll see me on the flipside
on this trip he's taken for a ride
he's been taking too much on
there he goes with his perfectly unkept clothes
there he goes...
he's yet to come back
but i've seen his picture
it doesn't look the same up on the rack
we go way back
i wonder about his insides
its like his thoughts are too big for his size
he's been taken... where, i don't know?
off he goes with his perfectly unkept hope
and there he goes...
and now i rub my eyes, for he has returned
seems my preconceptions are what should have been burned
for he still smiles...
and he's still strong
nothing's changed, but the surrounding bullshit that has grown
and now he's home
and we're laughing like we always did
my same old, same old friend
until a quarter-to-ten
i saw the strain creep in
he seems distracted and i know just what is gonna happen next
before his first step
he's off again

Zen strikes again.

Look what I found:
http://amarjyoti.com/displayarticle42.html
http://amarjyoti.com/displayarticle43.html

Amar told me that he was into it. I had no idea it was so deep :)
Perhaps you should now rename your blog to the Blogless Blog.

Snack Attack?

Sachin the bodybuilder is happy today. His parents have gone over to his sisters place and the house is free. He has generously invited other builders and a famished student to his house for a "cook-yourselves-and-eat" bash.

Sachin: "Hey, we can buy eggs. How many eggs should we buy"
Shiv: "Well there are four of us. So maybe we can buy 5 or 6"
Sachin: " 5 or 6 ?? HA HA HA HA"
Shiv: "Well, Whats so funny ??"
Sachin:" We will need at least twenty to thirty!!"
Shiv: "THIRTY!! HA HA HA HA HA "
Sachin: " I will go and buy the eggs. You guys start chopping vegetables"
Shiv: "THIRTY!! HA HA HA HA HA "
Others: " Maybe you can buy some milk so we can make coffee"
Sachin: "Good idea. Will be back in 15 minutes."
Shiv: "THIRTY!! HA HA HA HA HA "
Others: " I think he is losing it. Maybe we should take him to the gym less often."

Will code for food

A Sunset

It rarely rains here. But it sure does get a loud cloudy at times.
And one of the things thats really worth watching when it gets cloudy in the campus is the sunset.

The whole place gets so transformed. I am walking down towards my hostel from the lab.
The lights has become noticably dim. There are not many people on the campus on a Friday evening. Once you turn to the road that leads to the hostel along the football field, it becomes somewhat narrow, lined with neem trees. I could see till the end of the road, barren and silent. The sky has now turned into a kind of yellowish orange. The Great Artist has painted long strands of cirrus across the great canvas. The whole atmosphere is reflecting yellow. Those of you who have worked with Adobe Photoshop or similar software will instantly recognise the tone as Sepia.

A small breeze blows caressing the trees and blowing the neatly piled heaps of dead leaves back onto the road. The cracling noise of the dry leaves on the asphalt somehow makes me feel good. I throw my head back to take a deep breath. (Col. John, if you are reading this, I still don't get the warmth of friendship when I do that.) The silence is only disturbed by the occasional shouts of a few students playing on the field. I pause to watch the game for a few minutes. Most of them are northies. They dont get to go home on weekends. They have to wait for the longer holidays. I catch the nearest one and ask him in my south indian hindi.
"Score kitna hua".
He looks at me for a moment and answers "Pata nahi. Bas aise hi khel rehe hai."
I point to the sky "Mausam badiya hai".
"Hmmm" He replies with a disinteresed look. He must have been irritated with my hindi, or my intrusion into the game (or both). I don't want to find out. So I keep walking.

I have now crossed the football feild and I am walking towards the students mess. The concrete in the adjacent basket ball court is glowing bright orange. I walk across to the lawn near the hostel and pause to look at the sky one more time. Everything looks like part of a big painting.
I dont know why but I begin to feel happy and peaceful for no particular reason. The Swami has told me that you should always look into nature and observe. I never knew that this has such a profound impact on the soul.

As I begin to walk into the hostel, I notice some people sitting in the balcony and looking at the sky. Almost everybody here are waiting for the rains.
Jagjit Singh keeps playing in my head:

Garaj Baras pyaase dharti par, phir paani de maula
Chi.Diyo.n ko daane, bachcho.n ko gu.D-dhaanii de maulaa

Do aur do kaa jo.D hameshaa.n chaar kahaa.N hotaa hai
Soch samajh vaalo.n ko tho.Dii naadaanii de maulaa

Zen and the art of Living

The canvas of life is too wide to be painted all over with the small brush we are born with. Its only when you learn not to make an effort to paint it, but to let the color of the canvas be the color of your paint, that you'll be able to attain the pleasure of completing the task.

Perfection, in any walk of life, is about the stillness thats inside the artist and his work. Its about calm. Where, there is perfection, cant be any turbulence.

----
Shibumi - The art of effortless perfection.

Taken from: braveheart-blog.blogspot.com/2004_10_01_braveheart-blog_archive.htm

To esteem or not to esteem

My classmate has an old type 1 esteem. It has virtually no suspension. The power windows need a lot of power. And the A/C is a joke. But it can go fast. Really fast. I personally hit a max of 160kmph on the L&T highway.
After a a few hundred kilometers inside the car, we all convinced him to repair it. He thought for a moment and said, "Why not convert it to the new esteem Type 3".

Coimbatore is really famous for second hand goods and fancy stuff. All the fancy stuff in Kerala and surrounding places come from here. My classmate and a friend of his went to this place which kinda looks like an NFS underground garage.... Full of neat stuff... and got themselves a type 3 bumper for just about Rs 850.
Cool huh ?

We then went to some local stores here to ask about a complete restructuring... Type3 fenders, headlights, tail light assembly, and spoiler. While my friends were asking about the prices and stuff, I was walking around the shop looking at all the accessories. Personally, I dont like cars. I'd rather been seen in a scorpio or something of that sort.

We then went to some local workshops to ask about the price of servicing the whole car including paint work. I fell in love with one of the local garages. They had a lot of vintage vehicles. An old US army jeep, a couple of BSA 500cc bikes and stuff like that.



Esteem is a really nice car. Its also easy to maintain. All the spares and upgrades come cheap. The only problem is that at higher speeds the car becomes unstable. How do you expect 800Kg of metal to be stable at 100kmph.
Anyways I am waiting for the car to come out of the garage. It will take a month or two.

Debian Swirl

Date: Thu, 25 Mar 2004 13:41:44 -0800
From: Bruce Perens <---------------->
Reply-To: ---------------------------
To: ---------------------------
Subject: [Discuss] Meaning of the Debian Swirl

Fabio asked what the Debian Swirl means.

It's "magic smoke". Electrical engineer lore is that when you burn out
an electronic component, you cause the "magic smoke" that makes it work
to be released. Once the magic smoke is gone, the component doesn't work
any longer. Debian is supposed to be the magic smoke that makes your
computer work.

Thanks

Bruce

-------------------
That is soo cool.

Zen

The Heart of Zen is a calm mind that is focused on the Buddha.

Time Pass

How do you spend an unexpected day off in Ettimadai...

Well you take your friends car and go out and eat " Kothiya Porotta" at some Dhaba. Be sure that the TV is switched on and you are watching KTV or SunTV. Experts say that aids in digestion.

Then you go to the local Dosha kada and have some doshas.
"Aaaa sappadu sappadu"
Cross the road and go to the local bakery for some hot and strong coffee.
"Aiiiiiiiii suuuupper suuuupper"

Drive back with the car stereo screaming some local Tamil hip hop....

Pagalile colorgal poraamal
Iruttile kaNNadichchenna payan
Sudhandhiram mattum illaamal
Swargane irundhum enna payan
Figurigal yarum illaamal
Vaguppugal irundhum enna payan
Iruvadhu vayadhil aadamal
Aruvadhil aadi enna payan

The Eternal Stranger

ALAS, I cannot stay in the house, and home has become no home to me, for the eternal Stranger calls, he is going along the road.

The sound of his footfall knocks at my breast; it pains me!

The wind is up, the sea is moaning. I leave all my cares and doubts to follow the homeless tide, for the Stranger calls me, he is going along the road.

--------
From "Fruit Gathering" by Rabindranath Tagore

Master Foo

To err is human, to forgive, beyond the scope of the Operating System.
- Master Foo

Universal blogger: The Return

I thought I will never be able to blog again. The HPC conference> and semester exams were too taxing for my modest intellect. The HPC days still gives me nightmares. The whole batch had spent many sleepless nights organising the whole thing.

A few surviving members of the organising commitee:



The only thing that kept me sane was the the time when I get to have coffee sitting outside the hostel. Who says money cannot buy happiness. Happiness comes in two flavours: Nescafe and Nestea

For Sojish:
I still did not see Swadesh. Please note that the "bulb song" is not under GPL. The right to modify the source code lies entirely with the Poornam people only. Any violators of the license will be made to watch "Padaiyappa". The survivors will be made to watch "BABA".