Deconstruction

The fallen that dreams suicide; takes the needle instead of the gun.

The victim who self crucifies can't realize, Christ is a weapon that chisels at our lives. Deconstruction, deconstruction.

The martyr takes his aim, and wounds the holy man.

On the eight day, God made the art of War, and laughing planned the End.

Who will lick my wounds when the earth swallows the light, who will eat the decay when the worms have lost their sight? Can you see tomorrow if I open up your eyes, will you stand in line while the shepherd hunts his sheep?

Deconstruct my reality and watch me slip away, I am the dog.

sleep the sleep of the dead

9 and a half hours of sleep last night after a very very long time

such is bliss.

ooh, and yesterday, a walk in the rain with the immovable force. he looked so...ordinary...and *gasp* shy! like me, avoiding the potluck.

people, people. i have an important announcement to make: Testament's "Return to Serenity" is the most peaceful song any heavy metal outfit ever wrote. In fact, it's probably one of the most peaceful songs ever...take a listen at that chorus, it's like a prayer not a song. Why they went all heavy and almost death metal later on is a mystery.

But that song, I tell you. Wow.

"And I'm so alone
My head's my home, I return
to Serenity
So alone (so alone)
And I
And I
I return
to Serenity"

anybody care to read my paper on coal mines and electric utilities?

sar jhuka

Ek din, bas ek din, apne saare, zakhm gin
Ek raat, bas ek raat, tu soch kya, huwa tere saath
Khud se kahaan tak bhaagoge, subaah jaati hai kab jaagoge
Duniya ne kanta kat-te gaye, khud ko kahaan tak kaatoge
Saans lo, dum bharo, chillaakar, sab se kaho
Sar jhuka, khuda hoon main
Aasmaanon pe khada hoon main

Har sparsh mein, kheenchaav hai, har dosti mein tanaav hai
Duwa bhi mein, bala bhi mein, meri dava, mera ghaav hai
Aadhi roshni, aadhe andhere, aadhi zindagi yun na jalaao
Tum jo sochte hai woh tum ho
Socho jaago sab ko jagaao
Saans lo, dum bharo, chillaakar, sab se kaho
Sar jhuka, khuda hoon main -2
Aasmaanon pe khada hoon main


Ye sahi hai, ye galat, meri maano, socho mat
Ye na pehno, woh na bolo, ho sake toh munh na kholo
Ye pado mat, woh suno mat, main chununga, tum chuno mat
Kat-te jaao, mit-te jaao, dabna seekho, dabte jaao
Bas ab aur nahin, ab aur nahin, aur nahin, ab aur nahin
Bas aur nahin, ab aur nahin
(Aur nahin, ab aur nahin, bas aur nahin, ab aur nahin
Aur nahin, ab aur nahin, bas aur nahin)
Saans lo, dum bharo, chillaakar, sab se kaho
Sar jhuka, khuda hoon main

music is prescient.

who will answer this helplesness?

seether

has anyone seen the breathless coverage of what happened a week ago? of course you must have.

loads of people in the department office today asked me if i had any family in bombay.

i've never felt so angry about anything in my life. everything else pales into comparison right now.

Bear witness to freedom's fall
Tomorrow kiss goodbye a little more, as they watch us all
All play dead

I'll sleep in this quiet room where
no one sees, I'll play dead
All play dead

If I play dead, I am dead.

lost in the valley without my horses, no one can tell me what my remorse is

at grad pub today, comment made by one of our party: "look around us! we're the most unhappiest group here!"

please note this is a gathering of graduate students; to look unhappy amongst a group of graduate students is an achievement.

To quote George Orwell, "You know you have reached the dogs. And you can stand it. That alone, gives you a sense of peace."

RHCP's "She looks to me" is beautiful...

"down on the bathroom she searches for another light, she looks to me, she looks to me"

"It looks to me like heaven sent this for your roughest night"

Why is it that sorrow is often beautiful and happiness ridiculous?

The Kinks

The Kinks may be the all-time most underrated band, followed perhaps by Tesla.

Their songs are well-crafted, equal or better than similar stuff put out by the Beatles, with a lyrical viewpoint which puts them (in my view) above at least Paul McCartney. While the Beatles wrote some brilliant pop songs, their lyrics - though good - weren't the sort of stuff that would make you really sit up. Apart from some of Lennon's stuff.

In any case, this is a question to be asked - why did the Kinks never get the success that the Beatles did? Two reasons I think (a) they weren't as good looking; (b) most of their songs have an undeniable bitterness and cynicism to it, all this tempered by a good sense of humour, to sort of lessen the pain.

For example, here's Sunny Afternoon:

The tax mans taken all my dough,
And left me in my stately home,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
And I cant sail my yacht,
Hes taken everything Ive got,
All Ive gots this sunny afternoon.

Save me, save me, save me from this squeeze.
I got a big fat mama trying to break me.
And I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime
In the summertime
In the summertime

My girlfriends run off with my car,
And gone back to her ma and pa,
Telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty.
Now Im sitting here,
Sipping at my ice cold beer,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

Help me, help me, help me sail away,
Well give me two good reasons why I oughta stay.
cause I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime
In the summertime
In the summertime

Ah, save me, save me, save me from this squeeze.
I got a big fat mama trying to break me.
And I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime

Incidentally, this song bears a little resemblance to Green Day's virtually unknown masterpiece Misery, in that they share the same attitude to life I guess.

Satisfaction

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'cause i try and i try and i try and i try
I can't get no, i can't get no

When i'm sitting' in that chair
And that prof is trying to show
He's tellin' me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination

I can't get no,
oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what i say

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'cause i try and i try and i try and i try
I can't get no, i can't get no

When i'm drinking my coffee
And that man comes on to tell me
How my identification can be
But he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't use
The same structural system as me
I can't get no,
oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what i say

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no girl reaction
'cause i try and i try and i try and i try
I can't get no, i can't get no

When i'm spinnin’ round my wheels
And i'm doin' this and i'm trying that
And i'm tryin' to make that guy
Who tells me you better come back later next week
'cause you see this isn’t interestin’ to me

I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what i say

I can't get no, i can't get no
I can't get no satisfaction

No satisfaction, no satisfaction, no satisfaction

When an irresistible force meets an object waiting to be moved

When a raw primal force is observed, it gives great joy to those who were convinced nothing was true anymore

"If you do what someone else tells you to do, that is no way to be a good economist.

No fucking way. No fucking way.

You can quote me on that. No fucking way."

this might be worth it, after all.

When in Delhi

* go for a drive around India Gate, up towards north and south block and back. Preferably after a big dinner at a real restaurant. Eat double chocolate cornetto while sitting on your friends car and discuss how one day the sun will die out and ice cream will never melt.

*eat in Karims. Ignore the slaughterhouses on the way, past the dust and smoke in to the presence of the best meat known to mankind. Order the chicken curry, one roti and one sheermal. If your stomach hasn't started to burst, order kheer. It should now. Burst that is. Walk back to ITO to activate digestion.

*call friends and sit in random cafe in Khan. Talk aimlessly about career and love and life and movies and things. Preferably after having had dinner and watched a movie with parents. Sort of rounds out the whole day.

*go to CP and get drunk in the middle of the day in Blues. Its okay, noone will know by the time you reach home, plus the waiters tend to leave you alone. Avoid doing this on your own. Take someone special (heeeeeeee) otherwise you're an alcoholic.

*go to DU and meet up with working aquaintances, well former working aquaintances, who will take you to Barista for coffee and always pay. Chat about economics and america and profs and ppl. Walk through Kamla Nagar wondering how students afford branded clothes.

*Go to colleges - Dschool, Stephens - and try to put yourself 2,3,5 years ago in the past and realize you have forgotten what it was like although you can never forget it. You have grown now, you tell yourself. You have done what it was you wanted to do.

*Sit at home wondering what why and when will life decide to sort itself out and behave properly.

A bit heavy on the nostalgia, what? Welcome back blog. Lets see if I treat you better this academic year.

Habit formation

Read here http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/07/habit-formation.html

Someone decided to use marketing strategies to convince people to use soap, and claims:

"By last year, Ghanaians surveyed by members of Dr. Curtis’s team reported a 13 percent increase in the use of soap after the toilet. Another measure showed even greater impact: reported soap use before eating went up 41 percent."

First off, how do you calculate these statistics? I'm dying to know. If the campaign was successful in creating disgust, it could very easily lead people to over report (if they were being surveyed) the amount of soap they were using. If this is coupled with the fact that in fact behaviour did not change (or changed very little) then these statistics are more than over-statement, they are signifying behaviour that isn't happening.

Second, there is the usual confusion between the treatment and the cause. How much of the increase reported is due to the advertising campaign? And how much of the effect is due to a combination of traditional + advert campaign?

I have to say I have no problems in using marketing experts to sell hygiene. There are some idiots at the website given above that have problems like that.

As my gibbs sampling wanders over yonder distribution

So I'm running my final run of simulations, results obtained so far for the first of three specifications are theoretically incorrect for 3 out of 6 coefficients. Considering that the whole point of what I'm doing is to ensure that signs are correct, this puts things in a not happy place. Ah well, I tried for days to figure out what was going wrong. Now is time to write, not to find out why.

I don't usually do these look-at-my-life posts but considering I'm running 40,000 iterations I've tons of time.

I like Lemmy's voice; he cannot sing of course, but its in tune. Like Brian Johnson of AC/DC. It's an admirable talent - to not be able to sing but stay in tune.

Maybe my constraints aren't right, but I've taken them from a published paper in Journal of Econometrics, could they be wrong? Unlikely.

Welcome home, it's been too long we've missed you. Feel our bodies breathing as you try to stop believing.

So its a Saturday and the only 2 other human beings in the department is a Moroccan and an Italian. Italian dude is asleep in office, he frequently stays overnight. There is also at least one moth, two cockroaches I think that's it. Yes there are cockroaches.

Maybe I should get a coffee from somewhere.

Charlotte the harlot, who made you this way, to make your rent as a bloody whore?

Read Barkha Dutts article in HT on what's going on in Stephens. Its a bit saddening. But, in a way, it's good. Sometimes there is a tendency to over romanticize college. And the things that are happening now, they serve to highlight the stuff that isn't quite right. So this may provoke some reaction that could have a positive effect. It's ugly to have this stuff on newspapers, but better it to be in newspapers than hidden away.

3000 iterations left to go!

And now, for something different

Bruce Dickinson does a Peter Gabriel...not really my sort of thing but you could put Dickinson's voice to anything and it'd sound good.

Oh, and the lyrics

"My TV fills my world with light
Twenty four hours of second sight"

clap clap

I like some of the keyboard bits too...

Also, check out the prettiest guitar duet in the world.

An aging rock star can be a deadly thing

See here for a brief interview of James Hetfield, talking about the new album Metallica are planning to put out.

Given the endless controversies regarding their selling out, the suing of Napster, the fact that St Anger was worse than 99% of what most metal bands produce, you have to wonder how James Hetfield feels. Here is a man who came up - with Cliff Burton - with some of the best rhythm and melody that four men could make, a living legend, who has realized that most of their fan base although respectful of the past accomplishment has all but abandoned him and his band.

That can be a terrible thing, and listening to him talk, it's a wonder he hasn't committed suicide or something by now. You can sense that he realizes their studio output over the last 18 years has not been up to the mark, and his frustration at being unable to understand why. I don't know how many people can sympathize with this, but at some level despite my intense dislike for what stuff Metallica has put out after 1990's Black Album, I feel really bad for what this guy has had to go through.

I mean, consider this. Your business is rock, and you make one of the greatest records ever. (I mean that. I consider Master of Puppets to be one of the greatest works in music in the 20th century, yes go ahead laugh. I've been listening to this album at least once, if not 10, times a month for the last 9 years, and it still gives me goosebumps. The closest thing to it - apart from Iron Maiden and some Megadeth - has been some classical music. Western classical. I somehow get bored with Indian classical, like I get bored with jazz and blues.)

You're acclaimed left right and center, even by people who don't like your kind of music. And all this without any real pushing by your record company. So, whatever your personal opinion, this record was a big deal. A pretty big deal.

20 years on, most of your fans have left, you and your band is a running joke amongst the very people who put you on your way up, you are struggling to put together a record, and you know your last 3 records have not been great.

I can think of fewer things that can be worse for a music man.

One question - if as it is obvious from the interview, Hetfield realized that some stuff on the albums he has put his name to has been below average, why the hell did he not try and fix it then and there? He does say that "we need a little honesty, someone to smack us and say this is no good". Could it be that he and his band got carried away with their success, and just got lazy with making music, and no one told them their songs were crap? And if so, then he has only himself to blame.

Personally I believe that the loss of Cliff Burton did them in. In every great band, there is a certain chemistry that gets created, and if anything happens to alter that then the band starts falling apart. It happened to Iron Maiden, to Judas Priest, to Black Sabbath, to Deep Purple, to The Who, to Pink Floyd etc etc etc

The smarter bands realized this and work to recreating that chemistry, usually by taming their egos and asking people who had left to come back.

However, Cliff Burton cannot come back. It is this that is Metallica's greatest tragedy. They might still make a good album, I hope they do, but it will never be as good as Master of Puppets. They are trapped by their own success, now in the distant past.

And in music, unlike practically every other profession, resting on past laurels is seen as being a bad thing.

The price of everything, the value of nothing

Ha! So Zeppelin have not realized the full value of their song!

Perhaps this explains why Jimmy Page decided he must re-do Kashmir with that rapper, ensuring in the process two things

(a) He was short of money and thought this might be a cool hip thing to do to bring in the young ones, and thus

(b) Eternal disgust from me

Heavy Metal Documentary

For those interested, able and curious about the heavy metal sub-culture, please check out Sam Dunn's "Metal: A Headbanger's Journey". This is an excellent documentary that looks at the some of the social issues surrounding metal, and is highly recommended. Sam Dunn is an anthropologist by training and a heavy metal fan. This makes for a somewhat sympathetic, but insightful look into the world of metal. Recommended for those who carry typical misconceptions about the heavy metal scene.

However the most important aspect of metal - the music - is never discussed. Apart from a very brief talk about how metal grew out of blues + punk, and why metal singers (that's a funny phrase) tend to be operatic and higher pitched (this is because opera singers had to perform in massive auditoriums and thus needed to be able to project their voices to the back - thereby they had to amplify their voices. A microphone is nothing but a method of amplification. Put the two together and you have amplification squared. Now, you need that kind of voice, because the guitars are going loud, fast and with a heavy bass.)

For a somewhat deeper look into the origins of what is called "thrash metal", which is combination of punk and the more classic rock inspired british heavy metal of the early '80s, check this thrash metal documentary out. It's in Swedish; however, most of it consists of some of the legends of thrash metal talking about how they grew up as musicians.

Also a very interesting theory in Sam Dunn's film. Metal is mostly a boy's club. Less so today perhaps but still...anyway, one of the more interesting ideas put out in the film is that glam bands (with the make up and the big hair etc) came about as a result of the consistent leather-and-chains sort of look that most metal bands in the late 70s, early 80s had adopted. The best way to "show" your "manliness" was to become partly a woman...it is twisted logic, but it makes sense because really how much more leather can a guy wear?

Scream for meeeeeeeee

I went to heaven last night. It is pointless to write how good Maiden are live, suffice it to say my expectations were high and they went beyond that. It is almost machine like, their ability to play live. No mistakes, no mess ups, everything and everyone working perfectly together. Apart from their faces, it was impossible to tell this was a 50ish average aged band...

Dickinson was, as always, amusing. He has an ability to interact with the crowd which I've seen with very few other frontmen. My favourite part? "When we were in Europe, MTV came to us and said "We've just remembered something called heavy metal exists, and would like to do a show with you"; we told them to stick it up their ass! (Crowd cheers lustily) We do NOT need any favours, all right! Especially from people who don't understand our music!" (Crowd cheers more). Ha ha, sticking it to MTV.

And, this lovely dig at Metallica, who are struggling with their alcohol addictions (at least Hetfield is). Bruce Dickinson was talking about the celebrity culture that's grown up these days, and ends his little speech with "We don't need rehab! Beer and rock and roll, that's all we want!" I don't know how many got the joke, though.

Surprisingly, not a single word of profanity, (unless you consider ass profane) was uttered by anyone on stage throughout.

Maiden sometimes in their songs will get all their guitarists together in one tight circle playing, and it is such an amazing visual spectacle, apart from their music. I had to constantly remind myself that they were also playing, and there was this constant battle in my mind whether to hear or watch.

Favourite parts - surprisingly, 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. When they started that song, I was scratching my head thinking a 14 minute song has no place in a 2 1/2 hour live show. Boy was I wrong. It was unbelievable, how wonderful it sounded. There was electricity in the air when they played that...

Revelations was very powerful, and it was done very well I thought.

Of course Hallowed be thy name was an almost religious experience, and I will never forget it. Dickinson is something else when he sings that, and it was a very special 7 minutes.

They also got some fans to get up on stage and sing the chorus to Heaven Can Wait, which was a very warm fuzzy moment, for me anyway.

It is also nice to see how much the band enjoys playing live. They were smiling and running around like little kids on stage. This is one of the reasons they're so good live - they really love playing in front of people.

Things I didn't like -

Can I play with madness. Blech, I hate that song. Plus it didn't sound good at all live. Or maybe this is personal bias, I dunno.

How the sound kept cutting out of Adrian Smith's solos. Given that his solos are of such high quality, I was really looking forward to hearing it live. The constant cutting out was irritating.

Lauren Harris, Steve Harris' daughter. She wasn't in tune, and apart from one song, the other songs were all pretty pedestrian stuff. Made me wonder where the genes went.

That's it! I'm still in a daze, and am slowly coming to grips with the fact that I saw Iron Maiden live...

One last thing - all the white crowd, and it was mostly white apart from some Indians and fewer latino's, was of Southern (USA) origin. I mean, all. There was not one American who did not speak with a pronounced drawl. This was pretty interesting...and Maiden play only on the coasts of this country. Maybe they should think about going somewhere south, seems like that's where their fan base is.

One for the family album

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsuBTfaE9K4&feature=related

So, the show has ended.

The front man calls for the lights to turn on the crowd, calls for them to yell, and the whole band turns away from the crowd, grin and a photograph is taken.

"Goodnight, Sweden. Thank you! That's something for our grandchildren!"

Reason # 34478 for liking Iron Maiden.

Maiden Maiden Maiden Maiden

My most favourite band of all time, and I'm going to watch them tomorrow in the flesh!

Reasons why I like them are too many to list, but see the following video, or at least the first couple of minutes.

Bruce Dickinson gives it his all, on "Remember Tomorrow", a song about reincarnation. It's very mystical - the lyrics, at least for me. They've also changed up the song a bit to fit the three guitar framework.

They're all fifty-ish or so, and still have plans for the future! I mean, which band after doing so much for so long and earning so much, still plans for the future? The Rolling Stones? We know the Stones tour when they need money...I mean who else does this? On a consistent basis?

Their output through much of the 90's was sort of average, though at times very good. Recently, and especially with their latest album 'A matter of life and death' (with the exception of two songs) , I think they've made their best songs. Check out "Brighter than a thousand suns". It's pretty obvious what the song's about if you know a little about WW II...

And they still play to a football stadium full of fans younger than some of the songs they play? They are still relevant after so many years for a new generation. Heck, I'm part of that new generation.

And I'm going to see them LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!

Strong winds, Magic Mist

http://www.mythimedia.org/Achilles_age_of_metal.html

Dylan doesn't get it, but Manowar does. The idea of Achilles that is.

I always thought Dylan was pretentious and overrated. ha ha

Zeppelin express "a melancholic reflection about the futility of war, a nostalgic yearning for home, unusually expressed by means of a powerful sound and of a hammering use of drums"

Jag Panzer suffer from "a hasty and approximate use of rhyme"

Warlord make a technical mistake

and Manowar that most ridiculed band
"...imply a careful and scrupulous reading of the Iliad. The songwriter has focused his attention essentially on the crucial fight between Hector and Achilles, has paraphrased some passages of the poem adapting them to the melodic structure with a certain fluency and partly reinterpreting them, but never altering or upsetting Homer’s storyline."

Oh Achilles let thy arrows fly
Into the wind, where eagles cross the sky

The Many and the few

In the beginning there were many

While the many became one of two

There were left behind a few

Who would often get asked, "Well, what about you?"

Hypothesis Testing

If you put leisure time on the y axis

and # blog posts on the x

you will obtain a downward sloping curve.

From the amount of recent activity on any blog therefore, you should be able to roughly guess at leisure time available to the blogger.

So, does this mean Tyler Cowen and Paul Krugman have a lot of free time on their hands?

;-)

Drunk a lot of wine and Im feeling fine

So I got my first mystery anon commentator and Im all excited suddenly. I have a few questions for mystery anon:

(a) Do you not like your name?

(b) Have you done silly embarrasing things online?

(c) Do you eat children for breakfast?

(d) Do you enjoy listening to Arthur Brown's "Fire"?

(e) Have you dressed up in white and walked around at midnight spooking people?

Check this out, by the way, I mean everyone, not just mystery anon number 1. This is Arthur Brown, with "Fire". Done back in 1968. Genuinely scary, if I was kid this would have freaked me out a bit.

lost lonely blog

If I write a post no one reads

who's to say I've written a post?

Market failure

There is no market failure.

All instance of the market failing are actually instances of the market working, but not toward the socially optimal outcome.

The failure of the market is that it works badly, when considering social optimum/first best. But it works! For evil, not for good!

IPL and other monkeys on my back

So Mr Mallaya - if that is how it is spelled - thinks Rahul Dravid isn't doing his job well enough.

Apart from the obvious what-exactly-do-you-know about cricket, there is the point that he (Mr Moneybags) put a lot of money in this. And for his investment, expects a return.

Now, this makes perfect sense. However, this is cricket. Now, I know football and american football and baseball and what-not are all run mostly by businessmen. But does that mean that its the right thing to do? Already I feel a little sickened by all the hype and petty little controversies surrounding the IPL. I don't care about Bombay versus Bangalore. But that's just me.

Cricket is one of the few old-fashioned games left in the world, where a rivalry still means something. Maybe its time has come. And yes, cricket is also run by businessmen. Maybe the insane amounts of money pouring into this thing will develop some infrastructure; maybe more domestic cricketers have a chance now.

But it still annoys me that Mr Kingfisher thinks he knows better than Rahul Dravid about cricket. No, you don't!

Homecoming

its calling me HOME its where my thoughts are escaping, out of these intricate probability econometrics problems back to my place my hideout HOME moonbeams surge, through the sky, guiding me back HOME we're going again, that's HOME from where all of this began

I reminded myself today of the reason for choosing to study here, and it relaxed me. Americans like everything to be a competition; the way they design their academic courses reveals that. You're consistently graded against everyone else, and little ego battles are inevitable. I am tired of all this, and screw it all, I just want to pass this year (which is more than a possibility) and start having fun again. With economics. Why do they make it so easy to forget why you're here?

Memory Song

Sometimes when I hear music, I think back to where and when I heard the song the first time. And the same feeling comes back.

Like for eg, when I hear Deep Purple I remember this guy I used to play guitar with some 7 years ago...when I hear Spin Doctors it reminds me of driving to dschool...music and memory form a powerful bond in my mind.

I think thats probably where I differ from most in my music sensing ability - apart from just the song or the moment I heard it, there is a sum there greater than the parts made of it. There is a strange feeling that takes hold, and people who've seen me during those moments are always taken aback. At times, I can know just exactly what the band playing is going to do without having heard the song before. It's like I can feel the sound.

Dhol Umriki Da

Punjabi folk music rocks!

Well, hip-hops anyway. For those interested, please walk on over to youtube and search for punjabi dhol + (any relatively popular rap/hip-hop song) you'll probably come across a whole load of second generation Indians living abroad all who play the dhol. It is a little bit strange, here there are these "ABCD-types" who are adapting bits of their own culture to that of the country they grew up in; while back in India it is the opposite. (Import of cheerleaders, cf.).

Irrespective. Here are a couple of links, check them out. I think the dhol's kind of cool...

Drop it like its hot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGOe6yq9KRA

Walk it out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnpUQ1NTgt4&feature=related

so whats the matter with you? give me something new, don't you know, the cold and rain, the winds they blow.

i only seem to come and go. away.

stand by me, nobody knows, the way its going to be. stand by me, god only knows.

cold and frosty morning, the sun it blew away, all the thoughts crowding my mind.

and as the day dawned, a plane flew away, with all the things in my mind.

From First Principles

These are the golden times, the times of remembrance behind and eternity lies ahead. Phrases drop like a bored flaccid rain, and are forgotten but not too soon. Careful now, for the roads are winding and the lights are blinding.

It takes a while to get there, and your path is long and your progress may be slow. But the madness must be slain, for the heart of darkness is crying.

Everyone is trying, and everyone is getting fed up, but these days there is a quiet desperation to see this through till the end. The red badge of courage is not for us all, but all are in their way standing up to the tall mountains and deep rivers that separate the proles and the ruling.

It is time, once again, to ring the bells of the temple of the king. Outside in the moving forest, Einstein and God play a game of dice while Draupadi looks on, wondering about the brightness of a thousand suns.

he stoops to concur

(yesterday, post-mid term)

denny: so, how did it go?

me: (rolls eyes) man, it was pretty brutal.

denny: well, it always helps to get it out of the way.

me: I know. I feel so much better. It's just that this was so rough...

denny: Yeah, Just gets that way sometimes.

me: Why does he have to be like that?

denny: Well, he can't help it you know. He is a big man.

So, is this where we came in...?

What's going on? I mean, come on, what is it?

It's beginning to make sense now but, what's this, I haven't seen that before...

Ah, I see, there's where that bit fits in.

And so it goes, on and on.

navigate the seas of the sun

i want to jump into space and swim through galaxies

now, how many mid-terms must a poor boy take?
before the problem sets cease?

and how many papers must he write?
before he is allowed to be?

the answer my friend, is interior within the set
the answer is also on the corner

yes, and how may breakfasts
of oatmeal and toast must he eat?
before he has the time to make anda bhuji?

and how many times must he choose
between Chic-Fil-A and Panda Express?
or the co-op store downstairs
with the hippies and their semicooked food?

the answer my friend, is an unbounded maximum
as the universe is unbounded too

and how many months of ceaseless toil must he himself bury
before they give him his degree?

the answer my friend is no longer existent
the foc's no longer agree!

clap clap clap

When I was a young warthog

I remember when I was a kid I used to day dream about being on a room on top of a sea, with the waves all around me, and I was living alone.

I had a bed and no walls, and there were two machines - one that would give me any food I wanted (which at the time were pizza and rajma chawal) and the other any book I wanted.

For a while I remember debating if I should have two book machines - one for the serious books, and one for cartoons - or just one.

I dont remember when I stopped day dreaming about that particular thing...funny thing isolation.

Note to self at the age of 25 - this would be a terribly lonely existence!

I made an awesome rajma yesterday, I swear this one's as good as home - the consistency, the taste, it's freakin' perfect!

Great E Play

In the beginning there was the unseen hand. It was soothing and caressed one with a deep touch.

Then came Downward D and Upward S; from them arose Sir Plus (of two kinds - P & C). Sir Plus turned out in turn to give rise to Dead Wait; the government was questioned, its habits and its tendencies.

Slowly everything seemed to sink until after the last of the Great Wars arose two figures - Max U and Jee Eq - to turn everything sharper, and everyone became more thoughtful. (Some quibbled about themselves being whole, but this was aggregated over). Max U had a cousin - Max EU - whose role is being questioned.

More years passed, with Max U and Jee Eq spawning many young ones, though some of them rejected their parenthood and preferred isolation. These would come to be known as Par Eeq.

Then arose several parallel universes, and Max U had several cousins, or rather mirror images of himself. Some of these mirror images were wholly different creatures, yet oddly related.

With the creation of parallel universes, a minor storm which had been brewed at Max U's time, but laid dormant, now started raging. Ani was - and remains to this day - the fundamental actor in this drama; several of his brethren grew to be famous though none to his glory.

With more time passing, people grew impatient for there were issues on which Ani's answers were found to be not true; now Insty & the Well Mannered One were in charge. It remains to see where they will lead us.

truth

Apparently block recursive estimation of structural equation systems allows you to estimate the entire economy; this according to Richard Just provides the sole justification for any econometric work.

By itself that is a very powerful statement.

What is to follow is even more so...

So one of the students asks the great man, "but is the assumption of zero covariance amongst blocks realistic?".

Just replies "No.

This is why econometrics is an imperfect application of statistics. "

touche!

it is a rare day when you witness a wise man speaking truth, and I am NOT being sarcastic!

the best years of our lives

i cannot exist in a vacuum, i need something to define and guide me. something bigger than me, and I am part of it.

perhaps this explains why I find living easier as I "grow up".

"gotta push that wheel of dharma, push it right around.." (Bruce Dickinson in Darkside of Aquarius)

Un believable

"With worthy projects such as buying stoves for the poor of Honduras, or lightbulbs for Indians, perhaps it’s not surprising that many travellers assume that the organisations to which they are handing their off setting money are charities."

Oh those poor indians! Sitting in their huts waiting for someone to give them electricity!

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2006/dec/10/ethicalholidays.escape

idiot

underwear

I wore underwear today after almost 2 days. No no, I was wearing boxers, but I don't consider that underwear.

I will try not to go without underwear in the future. I don't like hangin' loose.

writing

I'm surprised by how mediocre my blog post writing is.

Well, all this mathematics I'm learning may be responsible.

Winter Song

If the rain freezes

and the sun stops shining

will all the world and its people

stop thinking about global warming?

Echoes

Pink Floyd may have have been a completely drug addled band, but they sometimes got close to the truth:

Echoes

"Overhead the albatross hangs motionless upon the air
And deep beneath the rolling waves
In labyrinths of coral caves
The echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand
And everything is green and submarine.

And no-one called us to the land
And no-one knows the wheres or whys
But something stirs and something tries
And starts to climb towards the light

Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me
And do I take you by the hand
And lead you through the land
And help me understand the best I can

And no-one calls us to move on
And no-one forces down our eyes
And no-one speaks and no-one tries
And no-one flies around the sun

Cloudless everyday you fall upon my waking eyes
inviting and inciting me to rise
And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning

And no-one sings me lullabies
And no-one makes me close my eyes
And so I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky"

The first two stanzas are clearly about evolution - moving from sea to land. Perhaps the rest of the song talks about this as well, culminating in a final stanza about the loneliness of modern man in the big city.

Looking Back

It is said that the past is never quite what we make of it.

Heh, I'm listening to Def Leppard's "Run Riot" an overlooked little gem on a shitty album. Yes, shitty is a grown up word to use. Anyway, the point is this song has been around with me for close to a decade and I only listen to it NOW. It rocks, like the band has stopped doing.

So if the past made me associate Def Leppard with vaguely exciting and occasionally sappy songs over a highly pop-metal approach, then screw the past!

I've been given to a little bit on retrospection because this is a sunday and the house I live in is beginning to feel like home, albeit a transient one. Which is giving my mind recollections of where I used to live in Delhi, and the possibility, now realized in actuality, that I'm never going back to it. I loved that house, with its doors and windows that never quite closed, and the beautiful terrace. And the utter sense of peace that the whole place was enveloped with. And how people would always be dropping in.

It gave me other things, more tangible, more permanent and in some ways more important. It was said to be a lucky house, anyone who lived there usually had a happy memory associated with it. I had a couple. The night (almost 2 years ago) when she said yes, the morning I got my admit. On both occasions I jumped up and down, just feeling happy.

It's funny how some houses are happy and others sad. And nothing feels as lonely as an empty house.

I never really liked any place I've stayed in. But D-I/76 Rabindra Nagar was as close as it has come to the happiest place I've been.

I saw a big fat man dancing
with headphones in his ears
Snapping his fingers and bobbing his head

Some might say he looked silly
But that big fat man
looked pretty happy to me

All the people, so many people

Blur was an interesting band. Take the lyrics to their song "Parklife" and re-arrange it a bit, and you get this little gem of a ....story(?) told in the first person:

"Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur of what is known as parklife. And morning soup can be avoided if you take a route straight through what is known as parklife.

John's got brewers droop; he gets intimidated by the dirty pigeons. They love a bit of him.
Who's that gut lord marching... you should cut down on your porklife mate... get some exercise. Know what I mean?

I get up when I want except on Wednesdays when I get rudely awakened by the dustmen.
I put my trousers on, have a cup of tea and I think about leaving the house. I feed the pigeons, I sometimes feed the sparrows too it gives me a sense of enormous well being.
And then I'm happy for the rest of the day, safe in the knowledge there will always be a bit of my heart devoted to it.

It's got nothing to do with vorsprung durch technic you know. And it's not about you joggers who go round and round and round."

surprising lyric

Take my hand, my child of love come step inside my tears
Swim the magic ocean Ive been crying all these years
When our love will ride away into eternal skies
A symptom of the universe, a love that never dies

in honour of Roald Dahl

I got new boots today, a very expensive pair but totally worth it.

They are gravity defying, and I can walk across the ceiling and walls with them on.

I was trying them out, when my sister came in.

"What the hell are you doing???"

(she's always angry with me)

I grin.

"I told you one day you'll drive me up the wall and now you've done it!"

to be kept in mind over the next couple of years

Sometimes I don't know why we'd rather live than die,
We look up towards the sky for answers to our lives.
We may get some solutions but most just pass us by,
Don't want your absolution cause I can't make it right.

love is all around you

on another saturday weekend, in wait of a mardi gras party

i want to go home. and sit on my terrace with her looking at the parrots and sparrows flying home. maybe talk about orhan pahmuk.

"...me, mala and kuts fooling around."

more about bhajji

on being urged..."bhajji is cleared. write a post"...i do so

well what's there to say? is this evidence of BCCI arm-twisting? or was he actually innocent?

i think the marginal gain from banning bhajji would have been much less than the marginal cost of doing so. because if cricket is to fight racism, i'm sure there are better ways to do it. and if harbhajan was docked, it would have been hell. the BCCI would have made sure of this.

oh economics! i love those marginal decisions!

Sad Statue

"you and me
will all go down in history
with the sad statue of liberty
and a generation that didn't agree"

My roommate claims he'd vote for George Bush a third time around, because democracy is very important to Americans, so forcing it upon whichever part of the world the president chooses to do so is all right.

I suppose it isn't so for the other people of the world.

Perhaps this is all cultural differences?

My lease for the flat expires this june.

The Harbhajan Incident a la Monty Python

"Your honour, aila, he did not use the word monkey, it's a hindi word, in india we worship monkeys, aila, that is why all those mumbai-wallahs were screaming monkey monkey, because you know they love symonds, really this is all about friendship."

"I dunno what he's talking about, he called me a big monkey and that's that. We told him not to say it and he said it. Hindi-schmindi. A line has been crossed."

whisper-that-turns-louder "It appears the Indians are labouring under the mis-apprehension that monkey is not a racist abuse."

"Your honour, really, he did not say monkey. He said, "maa ki", which means "your mothers". It is a sort of short form for mother-f*er. So he was only abusing his mother, that is all. That is allowed isn't it?"

"Yes, but how do I know he said or didn't say "maa ki"...

"Mate, you're a repeat offender, get it! Enough of this, come on, what did you tell me? "Abey maaki" or "A Big Monkey?"

*monetary pause*

"Aila, bhajji, that does sound the same. Aila I say."

"In the eyes of the court, the defendent is found guilty, warts and all."

"But, but, you can't...I mean...think about the cultural differences."

Judge, incredulous, "Cultural differences? What do you mean?"

"Look here, if you carry on with this tomfoolery, we'll be forced to quit playing."

random voice "Bastard!"; answering random voice "Monkey!" *sounds of scuffle*

"Order! Order! There shall be no culturally offensive abuse in the court. Only sexist, deeply personal abuse dealing primarily with either sex or suffering wives to be uttered!"

*We now interrupt this program to bring you something completely different. It is reported that the kettle has called the pot black. Over to our special reporter*

"Yes, yes, I'll bring the beer...what's that?...I'm on television...oh right. *adjusts tie* At around 11.25 am today, witnesses claim they saw the kettle calling the pot black. When questioned as to what could have provoked such an astonishing announcement, the kettle said it was cultural differences. The pot, according to sources, has gone a bit off the boil. Back to you, studio guy."

Five Easy Pieces

If anyone wishes to see Jack Nicholson before he became Jack Nicholson, they should check out Five easy pieces.

This is the kind of film I wish more were made like. That's a clumsy sentence, isn't it...? Telling the "story" of a burnt out drifter, it is a curious film because it really tells you nothing nor does it pretend to. If anything, it is almost an inherently selfish film, and I can see why Nicholson was chosen to play the lead character.

Nicholson plays a once-upon-a-time classical piano player who in the beginning of the movie is working on an oil rig. As is usual with Nicholson characters, you get the impression that this is one smart guy. Unlike Nicholson characters, this one is not aware of it. Kind of like Bono before 1985. As the film advances, you're brought closer and closer to the character. The closer you go, the farther you want to be.

It's definitely one of the strangest movies I've seen, and there is nothing outwardly strange about it. As more of the interplay takes place between Nicholson and his girlfriend, the more I kept thinking "what in the world do the two see each other?". Perhaps that's the message of the field. Two people with nothing in common hanging on to each other.

Well, not quite. The woman is left at the end of the film in an underhanded manner - she wants to pull over at a diner, and Nicholson goes to the toilet and out of her life - but he gives her his wallet and leaves his car for her. It's this paradox - that a person can be so caring and so disinterested at the same time - that is puzzling and satisfying.

It's really difficult to describe the movie. At the end when our man attempts one last way to retribution it is doomed from the beginning itself, you want to slap yourself and say what the hells wrong with the guy, but you know within that this is more truthful than it is possible to admit.

Watch it!

Raincoat

I've forgotten what the film Raincoat, which starred Ajay Devgan and Aishwarya Rai, was all about. I vaguely recall it being about guy meeting (by accident) girl after she has been married, and the two have a bit of a history, and they recall the time they were together.

What is more important is that the music for the film, to me, is one tiny masterpiece, a study in love and loss, the likes of which are rarely touched upon by Bollywood. The entire album is suffused with a gentle melancholy, the kind that sweeps over you on a sunday afternoon, when you recall some incident which was only a couple of years ago but seems like it belonged to someone else, some other lifetime. A feeling that slowly grips me as I listen to this is a longing for something/someone but more importantly a time that will never return, and you realize that nothing will make you as happy or content as you once were.

I could take or leave that sole male-sung song, or in fact even the Shubha Mudgal counterpart to the same, but from track#4 onwards it's just...words fail me...powerful, powerful stuff. Shubha Mudgal pours out her heart and soul in a gut-wrenching display of sheer talent and control. Control? Yes, control. There are subtle pauses, a sudden soaring of a note followed by an as sudden near-silence. There isn't any need to understand the words - I can barely follow half of it anyway - to appreciate the quality of the stuff being played.

Music truly knows no language.

The words are beautiful, when I can follow them. I won't be tedious with lyrics, if interested, any one can look them up through google or whatever.

What really drives the point home though are the last three songs. Ostensibly wedding songs, they are sung in chorus. Ordinarily, this should make for a happy sort of ending. But, no. In what must certainly rank as an outstanding achievement, some trick - I don't really know what, and I don't want to figure it out - gives these songs, which is supposed to be about happy ever after, an almost desperate air. Like, the woman getting married is preparing for a less than satisfactory life, and knows it but is trying to hide it.

It is difficult to put out music with so much emotion in it, and it is even rarer to have it being delivered through a vehicle populated by bollywood stars. Raincoat's soundtrack must rank as one of the best accidents ever.

"Was it the wind that shook that photograph, now dust ridden and yellowed with age?"

How many cricket players does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

How many Indian cricket players does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

One to lower the cieling, one to call the lightbulb a monkey, ten to offer their ways to screw it in, ultimately a couple manage to figure out how to screw it in, except that it still doesn't fit properly but another comes along and says if this lightbulb is considered not screwed in then we will cut the power.

How many Australian players does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Any one could do it except that they start harassing the indians who are trying desperately for the last hour, ultimately everyone forgets what the whole point of this was, and one comes along and fixes it underarm.

Oh my god

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxS83nO90wE&feature=user

Heaven help us, who does Ricky Ponting think he is?

Incidentally has anyone noticed the way Australians take catches? They have this thing of taking the ball and tend throwing it up in the air as soon as possible, Clarke is doing the same thing after he grounded the catch, I mean....WHAT THE....if this is not cheating I have no idea what to call it.

This is why I'd stopped watching cricket...

Ugh. I hate how the sport I once loved has become so ugly. I hate the Australians for doing this. I do not have much love either for the Indian Board throwing its weight around threatening to cancel the tour.

Ponting went on to say that canceling the tour for a "little thing" is a "bit extreme". He's not very bright.

The Harbhajan Incident II

After taking a look at the footage showing the Bombay crowd chanting "Monkey" when Symonds came on to bat, I see how monkey becomes a racial slur...

This is pretty disgusting frankly. Why was the Indian board sleeping over the issue? Why was the ICC not doing something about this last year?

The situation wasn't handled at all, and now you have this whole bizarre incident.

The Aussies like to make things hot for the other team, clearly now they've been burnt too.

bookends

There are times when I'm filled with a yearning fulfillment...a desire for things to return back to how they used to be.

It's a vague sort of nostalgia, like going back to a place you grew up in, and suddenly a flash of recollection pops in front of your eyes.

Is the past ever what we make it to be?

It seems the older I get, the younger I seem to feel. There is no great security in living on your own, in being able to pay for keeping yourself alive from day to day, in doing what you love.

People would often tell me that I need to live on my own, and goodness knows this country adheres to this philosophy, because it will teach me a thing or two. Living on your own, it isn't the greatest thing alive, people! I suspected this but never said anything but hell, it's been 6 months now, and I can assure any young little mind that is striving against what the world tells it to be that 99% of what anyone tells you is complete crap.

I feel the security of a home living with people who love you and who you love, friends who drop by un-announced, a really good meal, a neat bit of logic, this is all there is to strive for. Who knows if I'll get it or not? Being famous could only make you more insecure about staying famous. I don't wanna be no paranoid geek!

What the hell is all this about anyway? I don't know. My mind sometimes forgets the rules.

India v Australia - January 7th, 2008: the Harbhajan Incident

I've a bit of a bone to pick.

As you may have guessed from the title this post deals with the second test match between India and Australia. I didn't watch the match, so it's hard to comment on that.

What I have seen however are endless articles dealing with how Australia sulked about Harbhajan Singh (in the Indian side) calling (allegedly) Andrew Symonds a "monkey". This, they feel, was a racial slur; they accused Harbhajan of racism; and the match referee through a court proceeding found Harbhajan guilty of racism and has banned him from 3 test matches.

First, calling someone a "monkey" is offensive, not racist.

Second, the umpires didn't hear anything, no Indian player heard this - and Tendulkar did testify as well, and he's a bit old-fashioned when it comes to telling the truth - and no recording was found of this comment/slur. It was solely the testimony of the Australian players that was used as evidence. So, when Procter (the match referee) says that his decision was not a case of the Australian players' statement versus the Indians' he is either
(a) an idiot, and does not understand how a logical thought is constructed
or ( b) is lying, trying to protect his decision.

Third, no one is asking why Procter made his decision. People go on and on about how the Australian team has started behaving like a "pack of wild dogs" (Peter Roebuck), but why did the referee take what appears to be an illogical decision? Apparently, the Australians made a case saying that Harbhajan was a "repeat offender".

Well.

If someone is making racist remarks, and you do not respond to the first (or second, or third, whatever the case may be), but you do make a fuss about it eventually, it can only mean that the abuse does not really strike you as racist, or that you've received so many racist remarks that this particular one does not matter.

Given the Australians' enthusiasm for abuse and/or "sledging" as they like to (dishonestly) put it, I find it hard to believe they are continually abused with racist slurs. And if they were, then they really should have complained earlier.

If a racist comment is made, and it is felt that this is out of hand, it should be communicated immediately. If Harbhajan has been calling people monkeys, it is irresponsible of Ricky Ponting and co to have let it slip.

Fourth, as to whether the Australians played the game in the right spirit. Ponting and McGrath believe they did, pretty much the rest of the world does not. Ponting did deny he had a clean catch in the first inning, which is what the pro-Aussie lobby keeps bringing up, but of course they forget Clarke's standing of ground when he knew he was out.
To be fair, a batman does not have to walk.
Also, Ponting did claim a catch that wasn't clean, but it's fairly possible that he believed he did hold it clean. From whatever little personal experience I have, it is hard sometimes to tell if you catch a ball cleanly or not.

Which brings me to my next point.

What in the name of all that is cricket were the umpires doing, asking a member of an opposing team in a tight match whether a catch is clean or not? THERE ARE VIDEO REPLAYS!!! Poor leg before's I can understand, not relaying stumpings I can understand, but really this is just stupid.
Finally, the obvious point - it is more than a touch hypocritical of the Aussies to start sulking about "sledging", considering they defend it so much.

Awright, it was a "racist" remark.

Now, who believes calling someone a monkey amounts to racial abuse? Procter states he's from South Africa, and thus "knows" what racism is about. Perhaps, but Mr Referee, whatever this is, aparthied it certainly isn't. Harbhajan Singh wasn't part of a ruling political power trying to maintain his control by introducing a false division.

And if he knows what racism is all about, (this statement itself smacks of so much arrogance it's crazy!) he should explain how calling someone a monkey is a racist remark.

No, I do NOT believe Harbhajan was making a racist jibe at Andrew Symonds. Oh of course he was provoked, there is no doubt about it. Ricky Ponting feels mighty pleased with his method of mental intimidation as part of a strategy of victory, and we know this is not cricket, but it's all left on the field isn't it?

Clearly, the Australians were targetting Harbhajan through whatever means they could. They supplied the bait, Harbhajan bit, and wowee let's catch the bugger wriggling out of this one eh!! Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie....

Calling in a subject like racism into what was a heated argument between to players, the Australian team has taken a clear, and what can be seen as a slightly scary, step. That is, using whatever means - on or off the field or in a court - to keep the opposition angry, contained (now that Harbhajan has been banned, catch any player saying anything to the Australian team), and self destructive. This isn't a new tactic, but it has certainly been taken to a whole new level.

Clap clap Ricky. Well done.

Whatever happens, it is clear that the Aussies have used a flimsy excuse to deal with Harbhajan - but one which carries enormous weight. Racism is a subject that is not to be dealt with lightly, and by using it as a strategy, the Green and the Gold have done just that.

For that, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Oh and the ICC sucks balls.

Incidentally, does anyone feel Harbhajan is racist? I'm pretty sure that Ponting doesn't believe that, irrespective of his suddenly taking on the moral high ground. And to accuse someone of a prejudice you know in your mind to be untrue is terribly immoral.

Update - it appears that Harbhajan has called Symonds a monkey in the past, and Symonds spoke to Harbhajan after that particular match, and everything was sorted out. This only makes it even clearer that the Aussies were out to get Harbhajan. I'm sure they feel pretty happy about it. Ooh boy! You can admire this kind of thing, though it is not very nice.