Calvinsays

Train

2011-11-17T17:04:00.000-08:00

Travelling on train after 4years. Came to Ranchi station after 5 Years :-)

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The taste of hometown....

2009-10-18T08:26:00.000-07:00

Awesome chill in the air @Ranchi - one thing that u absolutely can't get in Mumbai. With hal the town already asleep at 9pm, not much traffic or noise around it's heavenly walkin around.

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Pataka Story

2009-10-17T11:43:00.000-07:00

Nah not the "pataka" metahorical one but the real pataka as in Diwali crackers. Am in home @Ranchi for Diwali, which I typically do every year. Mumai is too unnoisy for my kinda Bihari Diwali :-). And now that I earn my own money and hence parents don't stop me going overboard with firecracker purchases, you can very well imagine what happens and how grateful the shopkeeper is with me. :-)....

So Goya yu ki same way I was purchasing it today 120 sounds 240 sounds 5000 ka chatai bomb and what not, there were these kid bro sis stading next to me getting awed by my each order. Finally they broke the ice:

Kid boy(kb): Bhaiya ye kaun sa wala hai (okay who am I kidding...it was actually uncle ye Kaun sa wala hai:(
Me: ye 240 times upar ja ke explode karega. Btw how old are you
Kb: in 5th class.
Kid girl (kg): I am in 7th
Kb: (with awe) aapka bill to 1000 ho Gaya hoga
Shopkeeper: ye akela ek 1000 ka hai. (the total finally stood at 8000)
Me: tum log itna hi karedoge.
Kg: hum log actually kal khareed or ja chuke hai
Me: hmm. Phir Aaj wapas kaise manaya papa mummy ko?
Kb: hum log dadaji ke paws pahuch gaye (nice!)
Me: aarey wah sabash. :D
Kg: aapko kisne paise diye pataka kharidne ko
Me: kisi ne nahi. Mein khud hi kamata hu
(they had way too mch awe in their eyes now. My stack was almost a meter tall and I cud see that just seeing so much of them one over another was a dream come true for them)
Me: (cudnt resist) (deep breath) tum log bhi acche se phadoge to aage jake ye kar Paoge (ah the sadistic pleasure)

:D. Free siksha. Their mom dad would silently thank me :D. It's totally a diffrent pmatter that when I was in 5th or 7th I Barely used to pass :D

Ps: I later quizzed them on what they think my age is. Just to lift the load of being called uncle. They guessed 25.

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Wondering...

2009-09-17T00:44:00.000-07:00

Okay so I have been not regular at blogging.. mainly due to my inability on deciding what to write about :-) .....

Lets see aage kya kar pata hu :-) I guess it will take some time to pick up.

Rational and Emotional Thinking....

2009-09-17T00:43:00.001-07:00

Interesting.. highlights th eimportance of teh emotional being... (from The Happiness Hypothesis)..

In the 1990s, Damasio found that when certain parts of the orbitofrontal cortex are damaged, patients lose most of their emotional lives. They report that when they ought to feel emotion, they feel nothing, and studies of their autonomic reactions (such as those used in lie detector tests) confirm that they lack the normal flashes of bodily reaction that the rest of us experience when observing scenes of horror or beauty. Yet their reasoning and logical abilities are intact. They perform normally on tests of intelligence and knowledge of social rules and moral principles.

So what happens when these people go out into the world? Now that they are free of the distractions of emotion, do they become hyperlogical, able to see through the haze of feelings that blinds the rest of us to the path of perfect rationality? Just the opposite. They find themselves unable to make simple decisions or to set goals, and their lives fall apart. When they look out at the world and think, “What should I do now?” they see dozens of choices but lack immediate internal feelings of like or dislike. They must examine the pros and cons of every choice with their reasoning, but in the absence of feeling they see little reason to pick one or the other. When the rest of us look out at the world, our emotional brains have instantly and automatically appraised the possibilities. One possibility usually jumps out at us as the obvious best one. We need only use reason to weigh the pros and cons when two or three possibilities seem equally good.

Human rationality depends critically on sophisticated emotionality.

Mahabharta...

2009-07-09T02:36:00.000-07:00

A nice post on Drona.. http://diptakirti.blogspot.com/2008/09/drona.html

The blog had a couple of comments, including on the non virtuous deeds on Pandava and virtuous deeds of Kauravas... I had my comments on these comments:-) .. posting them below:-)

Debate of vitues in mahabharta :-) ... possibly one of the longest standing debates :-) .. adding my bit to it ....
Recommenting on one of the posts above:

Some instances of the "virtues" used by the pandavs during the war
1. Killing of bhishma (using shikhandi as a shield)
Me: This way was hinted by Bhishma himself. He knew he is fighting the so called adhrma side, so he will lose. Krishna knew that killing bhisma, given the damage he has done in 10days, is the 1st step that pandavas need to climb. He asked Yudhisthir to go and ask Bhisma himself how to defeat him. He did on which Bhisma said that in case confronted by a women in teh battlefeild, he wont raise arms against her. Hence the Sikhandi plot, who Bhisma considered to be a women.

2. Killing of drona (when he was defenceless)
Yes, non virtuous killing. But it was well punished. Yudhisthir had to lie, leading to his losing the status of being the truthful one. This also became the reason for later killing of all the sons and kins of pandavas and also Dristadhumya being killed by Aswathamma post the war was over and Duryodhan killed. Add to it that Drona himself didnt act virtuously in killing of abhimanyu.

3. Killing jayadrath (using the solar eclipse trick)
What was non virtuous about it? Tricky yes, non virtuous?? Jayadrath was hiding behind the whole army of Kauravas so that Arjun is not able to reach him before sunset for Arjun has taken oath to kill Jayadrath before sunset or to immolate himself. Post Solar Eclipse, he came in the front laughing. On which Arjun killed him. Note that Jayadrath was fully armed to defend if he could and neither did the war was stopped, which could only happen after both side announced the stoppage

4. Killing karna (when he was down struggling with his chariot wheel)
Yes it was not virtuos. But this was following the several curses he had, including of his wheel getting stuck. Plus Karna was directly responsible, apart from Jayadrath, for killing of abhimanyu

5. Killing duryodhan (hitting literally below the belt)
Yes again. Well documented in words of Krishna that this was following the numerous non virtue things done by Duryodhan

Continued...
Thu Jul 09, 02:55:00 PM
Calvin said...

Continued…

Comments on virtuos deeds of Kauravas...

1. Bhishma giving up the right to his throne
You cant Attribute Bhisma to Kaurava side! He was patriach of both Pandavas and Kauravas

2. Duryodhan providing friendship to karna
Very opportunistic!! Duryodhan knew that the star warrior of Pandavas was Bhima and Arjun, They both solely would be responsible for winning any battle that Pandavas undertake. While he himself believed to be a good match for Bhim, he had no answer for Arjun! The moment he saw Karna, and his ability to challenge Arjun, bingo he had someone he can bank on to defeat Arjun. Hence the friendship, and importance of Karna in Duryodhans life! He could bank only on Karna to kill Arjun for neither Drona, nor Bhisma, two other people who cud do this, wud do it! Infact I can even argue that he wudnt have taken up the war had it not been for Karna. He even said so many a times.

3. Karna refusing to go over to the pandav side even after kunti came and pleaded with him
Karna was actually very virtuos in deeds, except for the some instances. He infact got the boon of being remembered as a good soul because of this.

There are two ways of looking at Mahabharat, primarily based on Krishna. One believing him as a human, other as God. Neither Pandava nor Kaurava were the central one in Mahabharta, it was Krishna. Everything happened according to his plans and wishes. He commented the same in Gita – loosely translated, its something like … Rise Arjun, don’t be bothered about the deaths that you would be facing, for these deaths has already been planned by me and me alone, and would take place even if you don’t participate, You are merely but a toll in my hand. Faced with thus, its best for you to perform your duty that you are faced with rather than cowering….
It was he who planned each and very important wins for Pandavas, and was primary reason why kauravs got defeated. If you believe him as a god, then it was his said purpose of get the earth rid of in fighting that had been going on, primarily because of existence of more than required khastriyas. Hence a big war to kill most of them.

If you look at him as a human, the he was the greatest strategist of all times, being able to manipulate all possible people existing, kaurava, pandava and other kingdoms included! This I believe is no mean feat and something that cannot be done by a human being. It requires omnipresence, being there everywhere, knowing everything and acting on all possible opportunities! And that’s all the characteristics of how you can define god, if you can! And that’s why I personally believe Kishna was god himself.

~Vidhu

Rains....

2009-06-30T00:33:00.001-07:00

Its raining cats and dogs.. needless to say it reallly gets uncomfortable .. especially in Mumbai...!

But everytime I think of complaning, it strikes me that its is this rain that is maintaning the economic growth engine in India... especially in this arena of world depression...

I would gladly take this uncomfort for a couple of months in exchange for the deepression :-)

Btw.. another drawback of rainy seasons.. especially at marine drive and south mumbai where i reside... it makes u feel incredibly romantic... and lonely in turn :-(... Hopeless romantic .. sigh!

Arbit

2009-06-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Sitting at the new terminal at Delhi.. must say they have done a very good work.. add to it free wifi with awesome speed.. hmm things changing in India.. albeit at a low pace and behind schedule :-0 .. nevertheless the change...

Btw what is with all Delhi ppl putting AC with full force... the flight from Mumbai had freezing AC, the airport at delhi has enough chill in it ..... I had to say atleast 3 times to my driver to tone down the AC... and now the departure terminal is again a bit chil... hmm some way to fight the garmi...

Waise Delhi is a city of stereotypes.. like Bihar .. whr my roots are... Delhi6 had a good depiction of it. Lately 99 did it quiet well... the taxi driver, dimple.. and awesome pooja and neha sequence.. loved the movie... wud definetly buy a dvd.

2009-06-09T02:52:00.000-07:00

Okay third post.. i think thsi sud survive.. none other attemps went beyond 2 posts :-) ....

office has got boring thez days... I have been doing so less work for last coupel of montsh that thez dayz i dunno even feel like working :-( .... I have got tired of being lazy.... and tiredness increases my laziness :-(

2009-06-08T05:03:00.000-07:00

Failed failed and failed :-( .. yeah everytiem I had tried to write down a blog thats how it has been.. there has been no less than 3 attempts to do this :-( ... I had a decent blog whiel I was at college, ran it frequently enough for two years (http://vidhu.rediffblogs.com).. par uska baad ki kahani thodi gamgin hai .. somehow ho hi nahi paya ..

lets see if this will materialze... hopefully it sud...

2008-12-14T22:53:00.001-08:00

Ta daa :-)