Sunday, August 30, 2009

My views in yours words

"Blogging won't make you a millionaire, so you should only blog if you love doing it. If you don’t enjoy yourself, your readers won’t enjoy reading your blog." -- Unknown.
It is the first step for start of writing original writeup only. This post is written in the series of flushing collection of other peoples writing from my mind. Reminder, this post is full of plagiarism.

Education-- Tell me about yourself: a brief introduction, talk about your skills relevant to the position, experience are transferable to position available and career objective. It is the sort of basic questions faced by us. For me, a college degree shows not that its holder has learned something but rather that he is the kind of person who could learn something. Today, a hybrid talk on education.

Schools or Universities are places where most young people come together crossing the old boundaries of religion and caste. It is here where the new nation is being constructed in the minds of coming generation.

"Universities, are no longer ivory towers. They were meant to remain above politics, but are very at the very centre of it." -Deepak Nayyar former VC of Delhi University.
In the process of discovering alien side of things, one begins to lose one's identity and falls into the trap of becoming an alienated person contemptuous of everything natural and uniquely inherited in him. Rote memorizing involves the brutal repetition of material just as it stands.The fidelity of memory is greatly affected by the intention. Students like me make a great mistake when they study for the purpose merely of retaining until after examination time. We retain facts after they are once impressed. The ability of retention purely depends upon the way it is impressed onto the brain. Recall is the stage at which material that has been impressed and retained is recalled to serve the purpose for which it was memorized. Recall is thus the goal of memory. Whenever a remembered fact is recalled, it is accompanied by a characteristic feeling which we call the feeling of recognition. It has been described as a feeling of familiarity, a glow of warmth, a sense of ownership, a feeling of intimacy. I learned in graduate school that "knowledge is power" but found that it is not correct ! Knowledge is 'potential' power depending upon how it is applied (if it is applied at all.) It's not what you know, but how you use what you know !!!

Work environment of the place can make any job or academics interesting or boring. Choosing a field and being adamant about it is just restricting yourself unnecessarily. Interest is not something which a profile can develop, it depends more of on the work environment you nurture your mind in. When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.

Cinema--
The majority of people retain better things that are visually impressed. Hence, cinema can be consider as more effective tool than literature for spreading awareness. The idea is to engage an audience and uplift them in some way and take them into an experience which is emotional at many levels. Cinema no more reflects the society because we no more live in a society. Today we live in a market. And like all other products the market forces also control cinema. In the words of Sudhir Mishra - A great film is a film where you lose the distinction between how a tale is told and the tale itself; where there is an investigation into the truth but simultaneously the idea of being wrong is also present. You want to know the truth but when you reach it you also have an idea that maybe that’s not it. A genuinely vibrant cinema that does not necessarily have to be realistic or naturalistic. All we have to do is not to succumb to those who force to mimic or imitate in the name of 'inspiration'.

Cricket--
A wise team does not depend on recoveries. Cricket is a simple game that can be made to sound very complicated. The people who do the simple things well are the people who are most successful. Simple is repeatable and repeatable is successful. Cricket is execution not a game. Cricket is an isolating and yet public game. Soccer players suffer when they miss a penalty. Cricketers risk that collapse every time they go out to bat. It is not a sport at all, it's an execution. --- Peter Roebuck

Monday, August 24, 2009

All about Kanpur

This is an aspirational information-gathering article. Don't consider it an inspirational or nostalgic write-up for the land of the leather industry, Kanpur. Kanpur is a big city rich in history. The summarized details are available on Wikipedia and the unofficial Kanpur website. For highly irrational opinions, take a joy ride with me.

Tourism: Places of Interest in Kanpur.
For more queries, contact: Official blog page of the District Magistrate, Kanpur Nagar.

Hotels and Food:
A lot of hotels are established to cater to thousands of guests yearly. The Landmark Hotel, Kanpur with Mehak Restaurant serves authentic Chinese and traditional Indian dishes. The names are like this--Angithi Restaurant, Little Chet Restaurant, Chung Fa Restaurant. One person has taken a taste & reviewed nearly all of them. FYI, it's not me. Reviews are at --- My experience with Restaurants in Kanpur.

Cuisine:
Dish name: Kanpur Chapathi.
The processing Technique is explained with photos here.

Scholarly works on Kanpur History: (Videshi University se bhaiyaji)
Forgetting the Violence, Remembering the Report: The Paradox of the 1931 Kanpur Riots by Priya Agarwal.

FM radio is now more popular than Vividh Bharati ki prasaaran seva ka kanpur kendra. Times have changed now.

IIT Kanpur:
In all my posts, I have not described in detail a heaven on the land of Kanpur, especially for me. That was indeed IIT- Kanpur. It has a huge campus with a peaceful environment where a feeling of respect & humbleness arises inside the heart. It has sent out many distinct students to the world to spread the name of India.

Official website of IITK.
Again, take a look at Kanpur and IITK from a foreign angle: Kanpur and IIT.
Excerpt of the talk with Prof Ashok Jhunjhunwala about IITK history.
Forgotten chapter of the History of IITK & MIT together.

Cricket:
Kanpur is also famous for the exaggeration of a simple line. Sahara was once in talks for an IPL franchise before the recession. Nothing is yet final, but people are damn sure about Subrato Roy's IPL Kanpur franchise. And forget to mention a special series of incidents a few years back would be Crime: A take on Green Park Stadium. The incident was the entrance of a dog in one-day matches. It has happened at least 3 times in front of me. Pretty Hilarious interruptions of the whole police squad running after one dog. Also, GP is a brown park wicket for Ranji teams and turns into a lush green for international matches. Enjoy the account of Ken Herr about watching a match in Kanpur. You will be amazed at why I always give the point of view of foren baba's about Kanpur? For introspection, I am here now with Kanpur Series !!!

Friday, August 21, 2009

24 years of my life

I have became 24 years old today. My birthday is like gentle reminder that I am much more nearer to death and consequently I have that much less time to do whatever I want to do. With each passing day, the indefinite future grows a little bit darker, but the past just keeps getting brighter with nostalgic and sweet memories.

Girish Karnad had written his first renowned play 'Yayati' when he was a 21 year old in 1962. Orson Welles made "Citizen Kane" at age of 26 and Bhagat Singh became martyr at the age of 24. Here, I am inheriting this earth, still offering my service to a foreign company for livelihood rather than solving problem of un-proportionate distribution of power and wealth in my country. It's faith in something and enthusiasm for something that makes a life worth living. Still searching for that missing something !

What better to quote something bhokali on birthday:

In life we all have an unspeakable secret, an irreversible regret, an unreachable dream and an unforgettable love. ~Diego Marchi

All above philosophy is worthless without the joy of celebrating birthday for a moment. Happy Birthday to me and Murali. This year celebration was good but the bumps were drastically reduced in comparison to college. Remembered Tintin's kick ass at GPL ceremony at birthday of each person. Great Days of friendship and feud...