Category: arbit

Yet another movie

Vera,

I think it is time to tell you a saucerful of secrets. I have been on the run of late but after you defended me at the trial last week, there seem to be signs of life.

Remember a day, at the grand vizier?s garden party at Grantchester Meadows, when I was marooned, and lost for words?
When I was anything but fearless and just
short of suffering from brain damage?
When all I wanted to do was to run like
hell? And then you were in, riding a
pillow of winds, to defend me? When you asked me to just have a cigar while you took them on?

The echoes of that see-saw debate still haunt me. It had such a dramatic theme that even though it lasted just four minutes, I could see that the difference between us and them was like apples and oranges. When Corporal Clegg quoted Chapter 24, I felt comfortably numb and I went to meet mother. Though there was nobody home, it was definitely a great day for freedom.

After you
helped me get outside the wall, I
feel as if I?m coming back to life. At
last, I seem to have enough time to breathe. Now, I want to keep talking to you! The show must go on.

Hey you! It would be so nice if you don?t
leave me now. When you are in, I
know they would be the happiest days of
our lives. It is true that we are poles
apart, but I have high hopes that
we can easily fill up each other?s empty
spaces.

More about it
when we meet in the flesh. Till then,
shine on, you crazy diamond! And
don?t forget to speak to me.

Wish you were here!
Arnold Layne

PS: One of these days, I want to go on an interstellar overdrive and want to
borrow a bike, preferably a new machine. Any color you like. You can take
it back whenever you want. What
do you want from me in return? Not money, I
hope!

poem about me…

After the fan mail and stuff, Beedi has been kind (??!!!?) enough to write a poem about me. really takes my case. really rapes me. still somehow I thought it needs to be displayed here so i’m putting it…


He went through so much pain
for a a girl named ________
if only he had not tried to get her

He waited a whole year
without shedding a tear
fo surely then next batch of AVB scholars would be better

And then came the L square
with a red bandana in his hair

he twisted aroun and began to shout
he got drunk on a peg of whisky
and began to dance about

skimpy and the avb scholar
as he tried call out to her
there was a simple twist of fate
and in came sharad seth

poor skimpy was dejected
he said “i have a fear of being rejected”
Never mind said ramnath
just remeber to take a bath
and about the girls do not bother
for you are your own avb scholar

non-IIMB people would definitely have a problem relating to a lot of things mentioned here (sharad seth, ramnath, L square, etc.) but never mind…

Manasi (the scholar in question) replied

In vain tried the detractors to drag Skimpy’s name thro the dust,
Without realizing they were being both unfair and unjust.

For, while they were busy making their arbit allegations (please note
alliteration and pun on arbit :))
Never did they consult other parties involved in the investigations

Never did he try to woo, never did he try to entice,
All Skimpy did to the AVB scholars was give them friendly advice

Therefore, ye all, who so delight in barbed taunts,
Consider this – Skimpy neednt try; he can get any girl he wants 🙂

then Beedi produced what is now considered as perhaps the greatest piece of poetry to hit our discussion boards…
And the prosecutor rose
to put his arguments into prose
though you may shout and though you may twist
the truth shal not be covered in mist

according krishna kumar t,
(who i hope gives me atleast a C)
to take a decision
of any presicion
one must use all relevant information

i have a list of long witnesses to testify
and my accusations they will justify

i call upon the president of the student’s union
and use his formal appointment
to tell us what wimpy claims as his only dissappointment

as my next witness i call
someone who is very tall
can u sir not elucidate
the matter on which we meditate

i now call upon all my batchamtes
who were present for those L2s, no matter what their states
to tell us about those fated dates.
tell us how you all watched,
as wimpy had his wooing botched

as my finall witnees i call upon
wimpy’s red bandana,which was worn
please sir tell the law
what you really saw

i could call the spirit of kodi
a memeber of the press and so almost holy
but that i will not try
for he has his own avb scholar to fry

with this i could rest my case
but i am not one so base
as to overlook
all the good in wimpy’s book

a guy with the best brain
who refused to let it drain
by a man named morgan with lot of cash
but with work which he thought was trash

wimpy, the quizzer,
is defenitely not a looser
if you have seen spidi you will see
how great wimpy can be,

but when it comes to scholars of the avb type
wimpy doesnt live up to his hype

and so i request that sentence be mild
for wimpy is not one so wild
so that we can all be the winner
i petition that wimpy take us out to dinner

I will be taking him out for dinner today

breaking up…

You are an investment banker. Company A comes to you saying that Company B is trying to take it over and asks you to assist in the process. After due valuations, you tell Company A that Company B is really lousy and not worth going to. And design a wonderful formula to prevent a hostile takeover.

She was my childhood friend. Knew her for ten years – from 1st to 10th standard. Haven’t met her for the last seven years though. However, we’ve come into contact recently through yahoo messenger. Yesterday she asks me about my opinon of a certain guy, an acquaintance of mine. He happens to be (IMHO) one of the most detestable guys and one of the few people i *can’t stand*. Tell her that.

She then tells me that she’s been in touch with him through phone and chat over the past couple of years and fallen in love with him. Asks for more info about him. After an hour of going round and round in circles, a GTalk conversation and 2 phone calls she decides to ditch him. Results of her ensuing phone conversation with him are awaited. Have just received a short message so far: “feeling horrid now”.

Feeling slightly pathetic about the whole thing. Why is it that I shoot off my mouth at every given opportunity? What right did I have to nip in the course of an hour a two-year long relationship? I know messing up people’s minds is right. But why did I have to mess her mind so much that she immediately decided to ditch him? Why did I have to be so blatant about my opinion about this guy?

I know what I have done is right, though. She definitely deserved someone better. But couldn’t I have conveyed it to her better and more gently so that “zor ka jhatka dheere se lage”?

more on simulated annealling

This time, I pick one of my favorite topics: Indian Politics.

Simulated annealing is a popular heuristic technique. I’ve written some preliminary intro about it here . Read it before you go ahead with this… for those who are too lazy to do that, here goes… as for those who already know what simulated annealing is, ignore the next two paragraphs.

Continue reading “more on simulated annealling”

Gopi Gupta, Vegetarian

It was my first day in IIT Madras. As I walked into class, Prof. Iyer was taking attendance. ?Satan!?, he called out. I could see all my new classmates shuddering at the thought of having the devil himself in our class. Fortunately no one answered (one could clearly hear the collective sigh of relief). I started talking to the fellow next to me. Found out his name was Chetan and that by some quirk of fate it wasn?t called out during the attendance.

Welcome to Tamil Nadu, the land of muffed up pronunciations and spellings. The inventors of the ancient Tamil language must have envisaged the difficulty kids have in learning an alphabet. Hence, they decided to keep the alphabet of Tamil as small as possible and assign a multitude of sounds for each character. They even designed the words in the wonderful language such that there would be absolutely no ambiguity in pronunciation.

But this unambiguity was limited to Tamil words. What these scholars did not envisage was the invasion of Tamil Nadu, Chennai in particular, by people hailing from north of the Kaveri. In most of the rest of India, there is a beautiful phonetic alphabet, with each character representing a distinct sound. Sounds that are not represented by this phonetic alphabet are altogether excluded from the language. This system may have its disadvantage that kids need to learn to write 50 different kinds of characters rather than the 20 of Tamil but in the long run, its use is very efficient.

Now, with non-Tams and non-Tam words being an essential part of Chennai, we have a few delightful misspellings and mispronunciations, mostly by the locals. Thus you can have Sappadhi (chapatti for the uninitiated) for lunch and can do your project in Network Lap (network lab). And your favourite spinner may be M. MuraliTharan (a name that sounds extremely alien to one who thought MuraliDharan was one of the names of Lord Krishna). Just stand at some arbitrary location in Chennai and look around you. There will be atleast a dozen words which seemed grossly misspelt but the local goes about as if nothing is wrong with it.

Now what does Gopi Gupta, Vegetarian have to do with all this? For starters, Gopi Gupta is not a ?he? but an ?it?. It was on our hostel menu last week. On one hand, people wanted to taste this exotic sounding dish but on the other, they didn?t want to be cannibals. Finally, a few reluctantly took a few spoons of it. It was neither exotic nor human flesh. It was just our good ole? Gobi Kofta! So much for spellings.