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.

Was Einstein the only scientist?

Berkeley has a huge bookstore called "Half-price books" which sells used books. I often go in there and browse through the popular-science section. Interestingly, about half of the section is filled with books about/by Einstein! Of course, Einstein was a great scientist and one can expect to find quite a few books - but the fact that Einstein dominates the section so much as to make books about every other scientist nonexistent was surprising. Exaggeration and overgeneralization based on the number of books yield the following conclusions:

1. Mathematics is extremely unpopular and/or unscientific. The only books present in the section are books which brush up your formulae from high-school algebra.
2. Chemistry does not exist.
3. Genome, black-holes and relativity are the "really cool" things.

सवाल

पूछती है राह मुझसे,
यूॅ बढ़ा किस ओर चला है?
दूर तक फैला है बियाबॉ,
नापने कौनसा तू छोर चला है?

खेला करती ये मुझसे अक्सर,
दोराहों पर लाकर मुझे|
राह ही सवाल है, है यही जवाब भी,
मैं इसे बूझता हूॅ, या ये बूझती मुझे?

दूर तक दिखती लम्बी राह,
कभी अचानक पगडंडियों पे मुड़ जाया करती है|
किसी छोटे से गॉव में मुझे लाकर,
उसी में गुम जाया करती है|

पूछती है मुझसे मानो,
सोच ले क्या यहीं रुकेगा?
क्या यही पाने चला था,
या कुछ दूर और चलेगा?

चल रहा हूॅ संग उसीके,
रास्ता साथी मेरा है|
चाह है देखूॅ कि आगे,
किस मोड़ पर छिपा क्या है?

Durga Pooja

Went to Durga Pooja at Hayward today. Waded my way through a crowd of about 300 people, made some attempts at taking pictures and finally had a good lunch of the khichdi-bhog.

Huh!

I just discovered that my landlord Wayne Ferreira has been a well known tennis player! "Not many houses have an ATP ranked tennis player as landlord" - as a previous tenant puts it. This is what happens when you don't follow any sports.

Rising from the grave

I took the previous move of the government to heart and promptly disappeared from blogosphere (Of course, in reality I was just being too lazy to post!) For the people who had lost touch - I had a nice summer in Berkeley and then enjoyed a one-month trip back to India. Am now back to yet another semester and am sitting on the "other side of the bench". I am also officially a PhD student now after having managed to pass my prelims last week.

Among other things, I watched "Lage Raho Munnabhai" recently. The movie struck me as delightfully creative. Of course there are exaggerations at times, but the presentation of Gandhi-ism in a very entertaining package of gandhigiri is quite remarkable. The ending, which again seems to call upon Gandhi to be the saviour of the nation is not as satisfying though. In a sense, depending on a man who basically taught independence of thought and action seems a contradiction. However, the movie is amazing in many ways. I am currently reading "We, the people" which presents a somewhat different take on things.

Indians are not to read blogs

The Indian government apparently decided to block access to blogspot.com, geocities and a few other domains. Since blogger.com is still accesible, people can post blogs but not read them. Way to go!

Independence Day

Went to the (American) Independence Day celebrations at Oakland. It is more like a day long picnic with large number of people, food, music and fireworks. I ate the food and photographed the rest.


The man with the knives is a juggler who was eating an apple and juggling two knives at the same time!

To begin with...

A few shots around Berkeley. Yes, the person in the last pic is Pondy.

Sleeping since Seattle

It has been a long time since anything last appeared here - had been busy. But before getting busy I managed to take a trip to Seattle on the pretext of attending STOC (Symposium on Theory Of Computing). This picture essentially says what (other than buildings) Seattle is all about

I definitely recommend the EMP (Experience Music Project) to anyone planning to visit Seattle. It is sort of a museum about the music (rock-n-roll, rock, jazz) history of the northwest. We were lucky to also find a special exhibit there featuring comparisons of impressionist art with modern art and photographic works. Here are some stereotypical and other pictures of Seattle, though I guess there is a lot of room for improvement :-)

'CLICK' is no longer NP-Hard

Big Sur

I celebrated the end of computer architecture hiking at the Julia Pfeiffer Burns state park about 150 miles (on road) to the south of Berkeley. The drive, with the ocean on one side of the road and hills on the other, is lovely. The hiking trails are even better.

The people...



the places...


and the end...

आग की भीख

A great poem by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar and one of my favourites (out of the few that I have read). If you care to read this blog, chances are that I know you and in that case it is quite probable that I have shown you this poem already - but felt like posting about it anyway!

A friend, Sushobhan Avasthi, first showed me this poem about four years ago. Since then I have read this one may times and many others by Dinkar too. Talking about his style, a friend once commented - "It seems he even thinks in musical way!" Indeed, most of Dinkar's poetry has a strong musical quality to it. Another quality which contributes to the "flow" is a very clear-cut division of ideas into small "units" which somehow feel like beads on a string. This is best illustrated by contrasting the following excerpts from Dinkar and Dharmveer Bharti -

घास उड़ना चाहती है
और अकुलाती है,
मगर उसकी जड़ें धरती में
बेतरह गड़ी हुईं हैं।
इसलिए हवा के साथ
वह उड़ नहीं पाती है।

- दिनकर (कुंजी)

...... क्योंकि सपना है अभी भी -
इसलिए तलवार टूटे, अश्व घायल
कोहरे डूबी दिशायें,
कौन दुश्मन, कौन अपने लोग, सब कुछ धुंध-धूमिल,
किन्तु कायम युद्ध का संकल्प है अपना अभी भी
...... क्योंकि है सपना अभी भी!

- धर्मवीर भारती (क्योंकि)

For the curious, wikipedia has a small article on Dinkar here. For more of his poems, see this excellent collection by Jaya Jha . And finally, here's the poem I've been talking about...

आग की भीख

धुँधली हुई दिशाएँ, छाने लगा कुहासा,
कुचली हुई शिखा से आने लगा धुआँसा।
कोई मुझे बता दे, क्या आज हो रहा है,
मुंह को छिपा तिमिर में क्यों तेज सो रहा है?
दाता पुकार मेरी, संदीप्ति को जिला दे,
बुझती हुई शिखा को संजीवनी पिला दे।
प्यारे स्वदेश के हित अँगार माँगता हूँ।
चढ़ती जवानियों का श्रृंगार मांगता हूँ।

बेचैन हैं हवाएँ, सब ओर बेकली है,
कोई नहीं बताता, किश्ती किधर चली है?
मँझदार है, भँवर है या पास है किनारा?
यह नाश आ रहा है या सौभाग्य का सितारा?
आकाश पर अनल से लिख दे अदृष्ट मेरा,
भगवान, इस तरी को भरमा न दे अँधेरा।
तमवेधिनी किरण का संधान माँगता हूँ।
ध्रुव की कठिन घड़ी में, पहचान माँगता हूँ।

आगे पहाड़ को पा धारा रुकी हुई है,
बलपुंज केसरी की ग्रीवा झुकी हुई है,
अग्निस्फुलिंग रज का, बुझ डेर हो रहा है,
है रो रही जवानी, अँधेर हो रहा है!
निर्वाक है हिमालय, गंगा डरी हुई है,
निस्तब्धता निशा की दिन में भरी हुई है।
पंचास्यनाद भीषण, विकराल माँगता हूँ।
जड़ताविनाश को फिर भूचाल माँगता हूँ।

मन की बंधी उमंगें असहाय जल रही है,
अरमानआरज़ू की लाशें निकल रही हैं।
भीगीखुशी पलों में रातें गुज़ारते हैं,
सोती वसुन्धरा जब तुझको पुकारते हैं,
इनके लिये कहीं से निर्भीक तेज ला दे,
पिघले हुए अनल का इनको अमृत पिला दे।
उन्माद, बेकली का उत्थान माँगता हूँ।
विस्फोट माँगता हूँ, तूफान माँगता हूँ।

आँसूभरे दृगों में चिनगारियाँ सजा दे,
मेरे शमशान में आ श्रंगी जरा बजा दे।
फिर एक तीर सीनों के आरपार कर दे,
हिमशीत प्राण में फिर अंगार स्वच्छ भर दे।
आमर्ष को जगाने वाली शिखा नयी दे,
अनुभूतियाँ हृदय में दाता, अनलमयी दे।
विष का सदा लहू में संचार माँगता हूँ।
बेचैन ज़िन्दगी का मैं प्यार माँगता हूँ।

ठहरी हुई तरी को ठोकर लगा चला दे,
जो राह हो हमारी उसपर दिया जला दे।
गति में प्रभंजनों का आवेग फिर सबल दे,
इस जाँच की घड़ी में निष्ठा कड़ी, अचल दे।
हम दे चुके लहु हैं, तू देवता विभा दे,
अपने अनलविशिख से आकाश जगमगा दे।
प्यारे स्वदेश के हित वरदान माँगता हूँ।
तेरी दया विपद् में भगवान माँगता हूँ।

- दिनकर

G-Drive

Side effects of prolonged boredom a.k.a. computer architecture:

बेवजह देखता तू आसमॉं को क्यों खड़ा है?
सुबह हो जाए कल शायद, पर अॅंधेरा भी क्या बुरा है!

दिये मैं लौ अगर है बाकी तो अभी रात कहॉ,
जो मज़ा चलने में है, रुक जाने में वो बात कहॉं!

Holi hai!!

I know it's a little late to say that. But this refers to the Holi celebration at UC Berkeley today organized by the Indian Students' Association. The celebrations were postponed to today due to frequent rains in the past few weeks.

Feeling the effects of old age in grad life, devoid of company (I wish more C-BOT people were here) but still curious, I dragged my poor room-mate along to at least watch the event and take a few pictures. Though we didn't actually play, I managed a few snaps as people posed quite readily. My first attempt at photographing strangers was not so disastrous! :-)

Holi was being played with loud Hindi music and almost an equal amount of color and water as in India (i.e. if you did use color to play). Fooled around, clicked random shots and finally met with an interesting chap (last photo) who explained to us some connections between the Indian and Greek mythologies. Finally back home to a cup of homemade espresso - Mmm..!