Arbit Scratchpad

(C), SHAMIT BAGCHI, Dec 2007. A DESCRIPTION: More from the realm of the absurd, the sketch depicts two people involved in a brawl in the middle of a street. And it seems like one person has succeeded in giving the other a fatal blow. But which one ? Or have both succeeded .......... Are they different people? Or is it man fighting with himself? As always.

The soul is never born nor does it die at any time. It has neither past nor future. It is unborn, ever existing, permanent and ancient. Just as a man discards worn out clothes and puts on new clothes, the soul discards worn out bodies and wears new ones. It is a fact that that which is born is certain to die and that the one which has died is bound to take birth. There is no need to worry for the unavoidable. All created beings were unmanifest in the beginning, manifest themselves in the middle and become unmanifest again when they die in the end. If this is so then where is the need for lamentation?

The top three, best writing from my blog posts in 2007. Go read 'em: Unconscience Deep B Why Sonia Gandhi should be the coach of the Indian Cricket team.

They keep an eye on every part of you! (C) SHAMIT BAGCHI, 2007. Sketched, photographed and edited using Picasa.

Sunset walk rather, no boulevard actually ...

't was a full moon on Raas Purnimaa ...

'Mad Ads', third event I took part in (read previous blog post for continuity) - 1st spot again. Roles played: Raavan and Yamraaj - 5 scenes enacted in less than the max of 7 minutes ...

Every year we have the Annual Day celebrations at the workplace, a welcome thing in parallel with work as usual. Actually for the events the whole organization is split up into 8 different teams; this year on account of 60 years of India ’s Independence , the teams were named Chak De, Khakee, Border, Sarfarosh, Lakshya, Lagaan, Nayak etc. This time it is spaced out over a period of two months, with an event or two every week, including those from the categories mind sport, physical sports, performing arts, fitness and personality etc. I had taken part in the events in 2005, but last year due to various reasons and preoccupations I did not take part in a single event. This year I was determined to reverse the trend and I did. And in what a manner! The first event I took part in was called ‘The Debate’ - a very innovative event that was split up into 3 sections, comprising 4 members from each team. In the first section the team picks a topic, 2 members from the team go and speak for ...

Once upon a time * Inky Pinky Ponky * Wall Walk Wild Yellow * Wild Colours.

EUCALYPTUS A walk in the woods, At about the time, when the sun was setting. Camera in hand, a plan in mind; I stray afar to find, Along with you, Eucalyptus; Colours galore, oranges, Violets, greens, blues and browns. No dearth of colours, But for how long ? Soon they would be, gone; By an embrace of the night. And you'd sway gently in the wind Standing firm and tall, Eucalyptus.

Got my Nikon Coolpix S10 ( 6MP, 10X Optical zoom ). Produces very good images and the best part is it's compact mainly due to its unique swivel design. And below is a test of the optical zoom (I am not doing an ad for Maruti Alto here ... ;)) . The second one below is at half the full zoom, and in the third one a scooter appears; and do you notice the registration plate? Where do you think that scooter is from ? NO ZOOM - HALF ZOOM - FULL ZOOM

Installed the SXC-1080 CDMA 1x USB MODEM - Pretty cool and easy wireless internet from Tata . The UIM/SIM card needs to be inserted into the USB device and then an installer needs to be run on Windows XP professional on my laptop (Dell Dimension D630) and on Linux - Ubuntu 7.04, the Feisty Fawn on my desktop the HP Pavilion that I have it's as simple as wvdialconf and wvdial. Speeds are decent I think about 10-20 Kbps as of now; need to look for some mechanism to jack that up as the claimed speed is upto 153 kbps.

Here is a sample (for reference): intitle:index.of + "rihanna" -html -htm -php -asp + shut up

[ Gimp on Ubuntu Feisty Fawn ] Those hapless pawns, manipulated at will, sacrificed for gains, mere pieces in the hands of the players, the masterminds, successive grandmasters ... Do they possess a mind of their own, or are they mere static, lazy, black and white pieces, pushed around, without any willpower, or the passion of survival? But so is the case with the kings, the queens, the bishops and knights, isn't it?

A seamless white, with no ends, no corners; a spotlessly clean, featureless white expanse. This soft white, hit him as a very peaceful sight as soon as he had opened his eyes. His eyes registered his own hands and legs, but nothing apart from himself. As he moved a little forward, on a surface that neither felt cold nor hot, he felt he was in a daze. Then for a moment he closed his eyes and he was thrown into another world - one full of colours, riotous colours, chaotic, noisy with sounds from the familiar world; there was the black spiralling smoke and dumps of filth everywhere, blood, gore and sorrow - all this enveloped him. Without another thought he opened his eyes and was back in the peace of that featureless expanse again. He enjoyed the clear vision for a while; however after a while a strange nagging feeling started to creep in. What felt quite strange to him was having opened his eyes he was in this neat, white yet monotonously boring world, in a sense almost blind. He felt a...

You know what? An almost inaudible whirr of the desktop fans pervades all around; a new day has just begun at the workplace. On very similar lines another, this time a rather audible whirr of those well-oiled engines of gossip, rumour, trivial talk and the like has also been set into action, determined to change the very landscape of the day. Then at some point the orchestra of gossip begins, along with master strokes on canvas over canvas these artists, some could be great script-writers too if given a chance, set the stage on fire! With absolutely all other faculties put to rust these gossip artists have the keenest faculty for idle talk activated - yak, yak, yak, and more yak! Maligning anyone or anything with a touch of their imaginative brush, their repertoire consisting of subtle hints, complete rumours and sometimes things indescribable, all coming at no cost. That evil grin, or the rolling of eyes in immense pleasure at being able to kill another person's or group's rep...

'NEWS IS NOT NEWS ANYMORE' or 'MUCH MORE THAN JUST NEWS' News is assumed to be an objective reportage of facts and events. Is that ever the case? Ideally, never. In every case, views, opinions and thoughts do always get mixed up with news. Of course, that in itself is not a very wrong thing, as long as the news agency keeps in mind that the overall perspective it is taking is truthful, unbiased and for the general good. However, there are many touchy issues that cannot go fully unnoticed; at least in the current method of news coverage in the Indian media. Excessive preoccupation with celebrity life and marriage news, outrageous sting operations breaching all norms of privacy, 24x7 news shows, endlessly repeating the same thing. Do these some how present a distorted picture of what news is, or do they give us a wide palette, letting us choose what we want to see? SMS campaigns and public opinion do get featured on the media, but do they serve any purpose apart from the ...

1] Indian Idol is as entertaining as Harry Potter is; as much for the judges' fights as for the extremely talented singers' performances. 2] Soha Ali Khan is absolutely gorgeous looking - I am her fan. ( Ahista Ahista - a simple, slow movie). 3] 'Khosla ka Ghosla' is one of the most humorous movies, I have watched in the recent past, watched it a second time few days back. 4] Equally humorous is The Pink Panther (new version starring Steve Martin) - hilarious. 1] Monitoring of employees' personal blogs, prevalent these days across the world, is quite obnoxious in my opinion. 2] Office politics and nasty jerks at work are a source of loss of productivity and attrition ( McKinsey Quarterly Article ). 3] Just the reverse is also possible - as per Pareto principles 20% of the people can make work greatly interesting and pleasurable. 4] Neuro Linguistic Programming ( NLP ) is a great tool for effectively communicating with people and understanding their behaviours ...

(c) SHAMIT BAGCHI, July 2007 (Gimp on Linux).

The last few books that I have read: 'The High-Performance Entrepreneur' (Subroto Bagchi) - detailed, well developed and valuable inputs and examples on every step for starting up a new venture. 'The McKinsey Mind' (Ethan Rasiel and Paul Friga)- excellent book on the methods used by 'the firm', has loads of insight from ex-alumni. 'Identity and Violence - The Illusion of Destiny' (Amartya Sen) - superlative writing; with the central theme rejecting the definition of a person by a singular identity, for example that of religion only. Amartya Sen, I reiterate, is my favourite non-fiction author. 'Five Point Someone' (Chetan Bhagat) - everyone would have read this by now, I got this using the Citibank loyalty points; never wanted to buy it, but pretty decent first book and quite funny at times (burst out laughing when reading the 'Family Planning advertisement in the cinema hall' part). I am currently reading the following: 'The For...

Inspired by the SMS, a viewer sent to an English news TV channel: 'If Sharad Pawar can be the BCCI chief why not Sonia the coach of the Indian team?' Brilliant idea, actually. First thing, it would set a new precedent: a woman becoming the coach of a men's team; a history of sorts for the most adored sport in India: Cricket (apart from Milk Abhishekam, the new sport that fans of a certain BOSS, love to play out on the streets these days). Also the nature of selection would be intact like when Ford refused, Watmore was not acceptable (what more could Watmore do, he tried literally everything) and our Indian coaches have much more important media assignments. Just as heavyweights like Shivraj Patil, Pranab Mukherjee, Karan Singh ... Of course you see the analogy, don't you ? Shivraj Patil was a classic candidate for the 'other selection', who when asked a question on security ended up saying 'we are looking into it', by 'it' he meant his suit and t...

(C) SHAMIT BAGCHI, June 2007 (MS Paint and Gimp).

The NDTV expose and the Gujjar violence in Rajasthan were the two major items that kept the news channel counters ringing this last week. The NDTV sting operation (which I could not see being shown on any of the other channels except obviously NDTV) was indeed sensational just as the BMW case itself was. The collusion between the defense lawyer and the public prosecutor seems to have put the judicial system under the scanner for having scaled the very heights of corruption with the aim of protecting the guilty. The repercussions were many, as the public prosecutor was dropped from further handling the case and the Bar council created a committee to look into the alleged breach of the legal procedures for the same. Kudos to NDTV, which is, by far the best news channel on Indian airwaves. The other two - CNN-IBN and Times Now try to be aggressive to the extent of becoming frivolous, though CNBC-TV18 is good on the business news coverage. The way Sanjay Agrawal, the prime witness was wire...

The sun had set and it was getting dark, when on a Friday evening, I stood at the entrance of 'Ranga Shankara' the theatre hub created by Arundhati Nag, wife of the late kannada actor Shankar Nag (also director of 'Malgudi Days'). My good friend (VikramR) had invited me to be an audience to a play that he was part of and I after some deliberation, accepted it, and that turned out to be a very good decision. Apart from the auditorium, Ranga Shankara also has an eatery and a bookshop, where I browsed through the books on the shelves for a while after buying the ticket, as I had some time before the play was underway (7:30 PM). It is a nice spot for theatre lovers from young couples and groups of friends to older and even elderly couples with an avid interest in drama/theatre. The play itself was a rib-tickling comedy named 'When the Python followed the Actor', by the troupe 'Version One dot Oh'. It was in two parts, the first one 'The Actor's Dilem...

HANNIBAL RISING by Thomas Harris It starts like an exotic dream, the young Hannibal Lecter; the doctor and psychopath of evil fame from previous books such as 'Red Dragon', 'The Silence of the Lambs' and 'Hannibal'; and his little sister Misha playing beside a pool with swans. It then proceeds as a grim but exquisitely written tale of the refuge the Lecter family takes in a farmhouse in the woods of Lithuania, surviving the Nazis for some years during the World War II. However the silence of the woods is soon broken, when calamity strikes the family, and the children are left to the mercy of a rag-tag pack of brutal Nazi collaborators. And as the winter builds food becomes scarce, and the children become this pack's target. Hannibal manages to escape and post-war finds himself being taken home by his painter uncle Robert from an orphanage. There are scars from the bygone days and dreams that haunt Hannibal even in the comfort of his uncle's mansion and i...

Read the poem: An empty canvas that itself fills

On Friday 16 th Mar, met up with AmrutK who was back from the US after some fifteen months or so. Along with him, ChandanB and AshvinM we met at The Forum. Was a short meet, with the roads around Bannerghatta Road showing all its might to the poor Amrut (ask him how severely his riding skills were tested). Next day, Saturday 17 th Mar, met up with the Air Force School, Hebbal junta at the Cafe Coffee Day, Cunningham Road. This was after nearly eleven years, I cannot believe myself, ELEVEN years! NitinP, RajeevK, GovindM, ShambhaviR and me. It was one of the most memorable evenings in a long long time. Memories, jokes, incidents and much more came tumbling out in a burst of laughter and animated talk. Most are still the same – Nitin is as sincere and friendly as ever, with an amazingly sharp memory, Rajeev the straightforward, 'speak-your-mind' type guy with flashes of brilliance, Govind the reclusive ever-smiling genius, Shambhavi, the slightly subdued or is it matured lad...

Played Holi after a long time. Though I had an aversion to playing it, the first breach was at office when colleagues in the same floor 'attacked', and multiple times. And that was the day before the actual festival (3rd March 2007). Next day four of us RickB, ShaonC, ManiM and me played like crazy - buckets of coloured water, wet colours, and loads of fun ;) May such festivals always bring us together and spread the love and cheer in an otherwise, often monotonous, routine life. Cannot end without philosophy, so here goes: Everything has a significance ...

Another very short story (PDF) . Feedback welcome ...

A tale of genetic engineering gone awry, never read a book with a narrative that is so fast paced. It sets your pulse on boosters from the very word 'go'. Human foolishness, greed and malice as always creates a very complex situation with transgenic animals (specifically a parrot and an ape with human properties in the book) becoming victims or perpetrators of violence in a society that is not yet ready for them. Legal battles over who owns the cells which are patented for certain features and the absurd tendency by geneticists to define specific genes to explain any and every human trait from maturity to blond hair, is depicted as becoming the order of the day. Then there are moves for funding and counter-moves by organizations, long chases, legal battles, private investigators and families getting involved in a confusion galore. A book that has a well annotated 'List of References' however except for a few good insights and the endnote on the legal consequences and is...

Amitav Ghosh is a fabulous writer, who's polished and beautiful prose inspires. His last book 'The Glass Palace' was one great book weaving the history of Burma, India, the World War II with fiction to concoct a very well-researched tale. In 'The Hungry Tide' he gets better. It is the best book of his till date ('The Shadow Lines' for its inter-continental tale and 'Calcutta Chromosome' for its sheer novelty come second and third in my list). 'The Hungry Tide' is set in the tide country of the Sundarbans with its mangrove forests and Royal Bengal tigers, enough to send a thrill of anticipation up your spine. The book is fast-paced and mysterious, as well as mellow and langurous, simultaneously. Starting off with the travails of a lady researcher (Piya) in dolphins and marine mammals (cetologist) from the US, the tale courses through the upheavals in the life of a social worker (Nilima) and her husband (Nirmal), along with their nephew - a tr...

Had been to this concert at Chowdaiah Memorial Hall last Saturday - Zakir Hussain, Taufiq Qureshi, and Niladri Kumar. Superlative performance by each of them. It started with a prelude by manipuri drummers and was followed by a solo performance for about 40 mins by Zakir himself - amazing range - ranging from slowest and low freq to high speed - he played the tabla like a storm. Niladri Kumar then joined him on the sitar - he is an amazing performer for his age - very young guy. Then Taufiq joined in - he plays percussion instruments and other drums etc (like Sivamani). Also he did some amusing things just using his mouth and his hands - aural tones and beats ... Then they were followed by four Manipuri drummers who did synchronized acrobatic dances. Towards the end all of them played out, together. The jokes and humour peppered show (especially quips by Zakir) was my first classical concert proper - thanks to RickB. It ended with auctioning of Shahrukh Khan's jacket which some for...

Here is a short story to break my writer's block: Unconscience (PDF) Update: Here is some evidence for the medical part of the story from a doctor friend of mine - Dr.Vivek Chail. Though the reason for writing the story was more than just exploring medical possibilities through science fiction . hi shamit, thnks for your mail/story link your flow of thought is great. comng to your ques.. 1.is the medical possibility there, that the ova can be extrated from a human female and injected with sperm and placed in an artificial placenta like chamber and fed with appropriate nutrients. the ova extracted frm human female and injected with sperm is the same as test tube baby..frst done in 1970s the second part i would like to clarify that the placenta is a temporary organ that serves as a link between the deloping fetus and the uterus. The fetus develops in the uterus..i suppose you meant that as the "chamber"..still in rare cases the fetus can develop outside the uterus and this ...

Seems like one amazing book, need to get my hands onto this ... Some excerpts and reviews: http://www.themedicieffect.com/book/book_about.html http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4376.html http://www.innovationtools.com/Articles/BookReviewDetails.asp?a=159 http://www.innovationtools.com/Weblog/innovationblog-detail.asp?ArticleID=551 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1591391865/innovationtoo-20