Still in Hibernation

Engineers are biggest procrastinators, but believe me I had no role in my small break turining into a big vacation.(Hindi FIlm cue: Your honor " main bekasoor hoon, not guilty").

You can start by blaming it on the hostel warden, the college director, and then the MHRD. Anyways the crux of the matter is your's truly still does not have net in his hostel room.Actually the new college year has started it will take some time till the things get settled.

I have always have theme for a new college year , not resolutions , which probably are things you never want to do. A theme would be an idea and direction for the new academic year. ( Non Academic activities incluided ;) ).

So the theme for this year is...

" Don't lose the grip on dreams of your past you must fight to keep them alive".

This line is part of the song, "Eye Of Tiger" from the Rocky IV.

P.S: If you visit my blog and dont see any updates you can always quench your strong desire of clicking by clicking the google ads..(see on them left side). Contribution to an engineer's relief fund will be seen as a humanatarian gesture. In addition One Paisa will be given to salman khan for buying a new mobile ..( He has to make so many phone calls these days :) )

P.P.S: Spell Check was Left to the reader, I wrote this post in record time of 6 mins and that too in my college Computer Centre and on a Linux computer with fonts in range of nano metres..( Guess I am in the engineering groove).

I am taking a small break

Parnab Mania

There has been a flurry of posts on Paranab Mukherjee recently in the blog world. Here’s another one by Gaurav Sabnis highlighting much the same point.

Now in spite of my habituate indolence I tried to do a bit of searching on Parnab myself. One interesting fact I came across was that almost all search results point to his introductions at the various college websites where he has conducted quizzes. Even more astonishing is the fact that almost all these introductions are same; they have been just copied and pasted from one website to another.

So evidently, there is nothing much on web that supports Parnab’s Claims.

Now I mentioned in previous blog how he left the audience enthralled on each occasion he came in my college. A person who seemed to have more RAM than the Deep Blue’s, read more than 15 newspapers a day captivated every one. The newspaper round had the audience awestruck. His porno jokes, his tongue-in-cheek style where he would bully anyone who tried to be smart appealed to the larger audience and provided entertainment values.

May be our poor retention power, lack of knowledge and ignorance did the trick. Of course, who would have thought of checking a Princeton Graduate’s, a reputed speaker and a famous theatre personality’s claims?

I happened to recall something I read on Amit Vermas’ Blog. He said that Blogs might be the lost teeth of journalism; all I can say reading blogs has become a daily affair for me and I have learned a lot from them. Some of them have been real revelations. May be that’s why they call them the next ‘in’ thing.

Interesting...

In a democracy as big us, the party in opposition plays a very significant role by expressing its opinions, supporting or criticizing the government accordingly and ensuring its proper functioning.

BJP’s attempt to politicize the Ayodhya issue again brought out its racist approach. Mr. Ramachandra Guha in his article in telegraph expresses that it might well be impossible of BJP to get rid of RSS, VHP and to wash out the non-secular stains on its image.
(Link via India Uncut).

Politics often termed as boring, is quite funny and unpredictable at times. As of now BJP might be considered as having a very gloomy future, struggling to gain grounds due to frequent internal feuds and its tiffs with its parent RSS. However, if it ever resurrects itself and builds a secular and independent identity of itself, politics in our country might have a bright future with leaders in our country thinking more about core economic and social problems.

After all who could have predicted the way single handedly Sonia Gandhi resurrected Congress.


Switching to the fast lane, Silverstone turned out to be a sheer disaster for Narain Karthikeyan when he had to retire from the race on the 11th lap due to electronic problems in his car.

I think all he needs is a bit of luck and support from his country.After all, all the great Formula 1 drivers have gone through tough times early in their career.

Indians have a tendency to worship somebody today and throw stones on him tomorrow. At moment the media seems to be gung-ho about Sania Mirza and little is said about the fastest Indian , Narain Karthikeyan.


Memory Keeper has some pics of the recent flood disaster in Vadodara. See them and you could easily visualize my lonely island post.

While going through Aniruddha Dutta’s blog, Jaldi Quizzing, I came across some interesting links about Pranab Mukherjee.

Pranab Mukherjee is a celebrity quizmaster, and conducts quizzes in Tech- Fests of various colleges, almost all NIT’s and IIT’s.

He has been conducting Mind Bend (NIT Surat Tech-Fest) Mega quiz since last three years and has left the audience enthralling on each occasion.

These posts on him have come in as quite a surprise for me. Check out the links to read more.

Read this and this to know more.

Taggin Blue's

I got a book tag from Krishna.

Total number of books I own :
I am not counting

The last book bought?:
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin S. Sharma

The last book you read?
“Who moved My Cheese” by Dr. Spencer Johnson

Books I am currently reading:
The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin S. Sharma.

Books that mean a lot to me:
“Who moved My Cheese” by Dr. Spencer Johnson
“Da Vinci Code”, by Dan Brown.

Now honestly speaking I have got a bit bored with this tag phenomena.

Vaccination Against Boredom:Dose II

The In's and Out's

You would often hear somebody saying in our group, “Man she is ... (ok STOP Anubhav this not the place)”, so when we are not discussing about the ‘s’he who must not be named (Potter mania eh!), we discuss what’s in and what’s out.

If you ask a girl, what’s in, she might show you her wardrobe but do not, I repeat do not ask your wife the same question, because she might show you the mall.

So, there were G-strings, then came the Noodle straps, and then Spaghetti tops. (And if you thought all this was about food, you are surely are out). *My sincere apologies to all of you who think that there was something rather anachronistic about that list but that was the order in which they started coming on MTV,STAR TV, and ZEE TV( You Thought men don’t watch soaps) and then Mrs. Malhotra started wearing them in exactly opposite order however baring the first one. Yes baby, Mrs. Malhotra, the belle of the ball, the queen of yester years, not that I am incapable of describing her voluptuous body but eying my readers I think I should stop digressing*

ya..So where was I ..the in's.



Then there are books, I mean today, if you are Jobless or you are an IIM-A pass out you can, and believe me when I say , You can ( Shiv Khera ishtyle),a write a book.*Read this report about Shiv khera (The author of You can Win) being charged with plagiarism*

First there was “Seven Habits of Highly Effective people”* which of course was the real bestseller* by Stephen Covey and then somebody wrote
“Seven Habits of Highly Effective Teens”, which Miss. Malhotra is reading, *Now you know why I Happen to visit the Malhotras so often.;) * and yesterday Mrs. Malhotra told me she is writing “Seven Habits FOR Highly ‘Effective’ Husbands” based on her experience while giving rigorous training to her husband.

Let us analyze the matter with profundity of an analyst, first there were babas , who with smoke, fire, bands, broomsticks and fruits solved your problems, all of them, be it Shantanu’s business problems or Ganga’s Infertility .(Unbelievable, haven’t you heard, “ Beti, yeh Kela Kha Le and you will Doodo Naho and Puto Phulo * Actually I am very bad at translations, but here it goes “ Child, Eat This Banana, and You will Bath with Milk and Have Kids”* and now there are books for all that.

Today you can find books on relationships, on speaking, on dating, eating, on dreaming, in addition the endless rhetoric’s on communication skills.

Then there are biographies, some people with presumptuous gumption start believing that world is waiting to hear their corny life stories. Such people should be relegated to unknown islands made to read their books.

If Osama , Raju Pan wala and Shamu Doodhwala( Milk Man) write their memoirs, what would be the names?

Osama: Hide and Bomb

Raju: s “pan” of life , this one is by Namita

Shamu: The Art of Mixing

Conclusion: Anubhav is writing a book on HOW TO WRITE A BOOK and you got to pre-book your copy now!!!

Eight Queens Aboard

“I don't know much about being a millionaire, but I'll bet I'd be a darling at it”, said Dorothy Parker.

I think it more or less applies to me too, I don’t know much about it now but I am sure one day………

One of many (so many) things I am going to do after I get the moolah is to own a Yatch , some thing like The Rising Sun, owned by Lawrence J. Ellison Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Oracle Corporation and go on a cruise with my queens(Err…queen).

Until then, let us get the queens on a smaller board…the Chess Board. :D

Solving puzzles I think is one of most efficient ways to spend time. One of greatest puzzle is the “Eight Queens on a Board Puzzle”.

The Aim is to place the eight queens on the chessboard such that none of them intercepts other’s path in any way. Now for those of you do not play chess, queen is the strongest piece in chess and the only piece that can move diagonally, horizontally and vertically as well.

Something like this….



You can find all the 12 unique solutions here.

Now I spent around 2 hours yesterday to find an algorithm for this.

The best way to solve the problem is to place the queens moving in a Knight’s way (2 and 1/2 steps) or L shaped ways.

Now I am still working on the algorithm to solve it. There are many algorithms on net, which solve the problem-using math (Permutations) and backtracking. I want develop a program that works on pattern of movement as I mentioned above.

So try the problem, and tell me if you reach any breakthroughs.




Now ,today when I was watching the news/debate on the recent terrorist attack on ayodhya, my mother asked me to change the channel, she felt that there is no point wasting time on politicians who are never going to change. I do not blame her at all, after the whole days’ work, who has time and energy to spend on listening to hypocritical demagogues.

This more or less is the story of many in our country; most of us are so engrossed in our problems that we do not actively follow politics. I strongly believe that our apathy towards politics is major factor behind it's sorry state. However, I think the youth of our country, which is more energetic, should criticize and voice opinions on core Indian issues. Now that we have Blogs as efficient medium to express our views, we can make the politicians more accountable.

I strongly feel that spreading awareness matters, VHP, RSS and Shiv Sena have not survived for anything; they have been able to do so because there is support for them.

So if any of you think I am right, please tell me, I am thinking of a group blog that deals with core Indian issues.

By now you must have read about the Terrorist attack on Ayodhya and VHP‘s plan to organize a week long country wide protest against it.

I do not understand the need of a countrywide protest and instead of showing solidarity BJP is politicizing the issue by asking for Home minister’s resignation.

Ask them who resigned when there was an attack on Indian parliament and in any case this attack was successfully stopped and all terrorists were killed.

A nation wide protest would not just cause more economic problems but might reignite communal tensions.

P.S( This is seriously Post script no make shift..:D): If you are an Indian Blogger living anywhere in the world, you can get yourself listed at the Indian Bloggers Index.

Three Days on a Lonely Island

Pre-Srcipt(P.S): This post is going to be boring, read at your own risk.

The last two words aptly describe Vadodara in the past week. When it rained for the first time even somebody as non-poetic as me felt like writing something, almost ten dozen Hindi poems have been written around this magical moment and some of them are really wonderful, but there are so many of them. However, things after that first shower have not been so magical, it has been raining, raining and raining since then. The water levels in both Vishwamitri (river) and Ajwa dam rose above the danger mark, sounding the flood bells. Incessant rains resulted in water logging in most streets and on Thursday, 30 June, power was cut and it almost cut us from the world and life almost came to stand still. As all transportation links were broken most people were restricted to their homes and some to roof tops.

Then started the three-day stay on the lonely island: my home. The phone started ringing with relatives asking about the situation and we could tell them only about our locality(As unbelievable as it might sound, while most mobile networks failed BSNL was working in some parts). No electricity No paper, no news, no network and back to primitive world for three days. Deprived of essential means of entertainment (the boxes), we resorted to chess, cards and Dumb Charades. Luckily, things were not as bad for us; water did not enter our homes and just managed reach the entrance of our society.

Come Saturday and rains took a break, I went to visit the nearby bridge over the Vishwamitri, which by now had become a tourist place. This is something unique to Indians, however grim and alarming the situation may be we do find means of entertainment. The nearby schools and societies were already flooded, with cars submerged and people restricted to the rooftops or higher floors. At a point on the slope of bridge, water was flowing over the bridge although only with a very mild current.

On a sad note, things are not as good in other parts of the city and the state, many people have died and thousands have been forced to leave their homes. I cannot provide an accurate picture of the situation in other parts because life has just swung back to normal for me. Probably I can provide a more detailed account when I am able move out of the society and roads become approachable. Luckily, as I said before, it did not affect me much, but I still remember the Friday night when we checked the water level near the entrance of society more than four times during the night to be more aware of the situation. That night was crucial.


On 26 January 2001, I still remember I was studying for my 10th board exams on my bed when it started shaking, which was Gujarat Earthquake 2001, almost 19000 people died. In 2002, Gujarat riots thousands died and it still haunts the city. Now the floods, while was Vadodara was spared during the earthquake, it has been severely affected this time.