जिजीविषा

मेरी खिड़की के झरोखे से इक सूखी टहनी दिखती है,

सर्द हवा के झोकों से अकेली जूझती हुई।

कभी बर्फ़ की चादर अोढ़े, कभी ठंडी धूप में ठिठुरते हुए,

कहीं उसे खुद पर दया तो न अाती होगी?

अब तो कमबख्त पत्तों ने भी साथ छोड़ दिया है।

उस ठंडी निर्दय आंधी में कहीं वो सहम तो न जाती होगी?

पर हफ़्तों से देखता हूँ, हार तो नहीं मानी इसने।

जहाँ कई शाखें धराशायी हैं, ये ज्यौं की तयौं डटी है।

टहनी छोटी ही सही, जीवट तो बहुत है!

इतना साहस, इतनी जीवनशक्ति, कहाँ से पाती होगी!

तभी ये बातें हवा ने बाहर जा फुसफुसा दीं।

टहनी मेरी ओर झुक कर, कुछ मुस्कुराकर बोली -

तुम मनुष्य जिजीविषा का अनोखा मतलब लगाते हो!

जीवन को युद्ध मान कर, मुझ पर बेवजह तरस खाते हो।

मैं तो बस ठंडी हवा का आनंद उठाती हूँ।

तब पत्तों के साथ झूमती थी, अब अकेली लहराती हूँ!

एक और

हवा में नाचते बगीचे में
कहीं एक फूल टूट कर गिर गया।
टहनियों ने शायद कुछ देर निहारा होगा,
कहा होगा बेचारा अधखिला ही रह गया।
फिर वापस हवा से बातें करने लगीं होंगी,
भूल कर उसे जो अब बोल नहीं सकता।
बाग़ में हर ओर कई फूल सजे हैं।
रंगों की इस भीड़ के बीच कहीं,
एक और सुगंध, एक और उमंग,
खिलने से पहले ही घुट कर दम तोड़ गई।

The Image Maker

The Pacific Film Archive at Berkeley is having a film program on Abbas Kiorastami these days. Kiorastami is an Iranian director who apparently has a reputation for making great movies with very simple themes and experimenting with different new techniques.

I watched "Where is the friend's home?" yesterday which is definitely an illustration of at least the simple theme part (I do not know a lot about "techniques" to comment on the other). The movie is about a kid who wants to return his friend's notebook or else the friend is going to be expelled from class the next day - that's it! But the way he captures the child's thoughts, and the unconcerned reactions of the elders who do not understand the urgency of the situation, is a thing of beauty. Highly recommended if you can lay your hands on it.

The program has quite a few films, but I am really curious about "Ten" - a film which was shot virtually without the director. The subject was always on the front seat of a car with a camera on the dashboard - Kiorastami was not present but merely instructed the actors. Let's see...

When the protector destroys!

Ok.. this dramatic title is to point to point out this bug in the latest update of Symantec Antivirus. It thinks that two files necessary to windows are viruses and goes ahead to delete them, resulting in a windows crash and the feared "blue screen of death" (saying that a memory dump has been saved).

I spent a good part of the day trying to figure out the problem, blaming myself for incorrectly installing Ubuntu, until I managed to rule that out through some checks. When salvaged enough to run, Windows was able to detect that the problem was due to Symantec and say that Symantec is working on a solution. What followed was my first experience with trying to get help from "customer care" asking them about the nature of the problem and what can I do about it. I ended up being redirected from one number to another for 90 minutes, thanked them for their non-support and said I'd figure it out myself. What a fun day!

Finally, if you found that boring, here's a video of "Indian Superman" to atone for it:

Physics Puzzle?

PS: Thanks to Naresh for this. The sparks are a bit difficult to see, but the second one can be seen.

Finding Tahoe

I have been out of the blogosphere for a long time now and I do not know if I will continue to blog after this post. But here is a first-hand account (in pictures) of Berkeley's "Theory Retreat".

The students of the theory group at Berkeley planned and organized a 4-day trip to lake Tahoe, a skiing resort near the California-Nevada border. The idea was to rent a cabin, stay together, have fun and also do some work. My first rendezvous with snow and first attempts at skiing - yes, I fell all the time - but it was fun! For those who condemn me for not scaring the world with my own pictures - there is one below.

Update: Should mention that this was our constant companion!

Conference, workshop and a rock show

I am currently in LA attending a workshop at IPAM. This is right after attending FOCS in Berkeley. FOCS was accompanied by a "Rock Show" organized by people from the Berkeley theory group. It is not everyday that you find your professors singing smells like teen spirit and cocaine (with the word cocaine of course replaced by the more appropriate caffeine). Here's a picture of Dick Karp dancing to Christos' tunes. Luca presents a more detailed account of the concert.

The drive to LA was exciting with the car rental running out of small cars and us "having to" to rent a convertible instead. We drove in the slightly cold weather with the top open for a while. I had to wear a jacket sitting in the back - but it was worth it! More from LA to follow soon.