With all due respect...

... to women, rights-activists and everyone else in general. I've been seeing references to this new movement called the 'SlutWalk' protesting that dressing should not and does not instigate rape. I came across this article here. It is exactly the kind of article and written in the way you'd expect an article addressing such an issue would be. I am neither supporting or opposing or debating or arguing what women should wear and where they shouldn't go.

But what caught my attention was this one phrase "women are eyed like meat". While this might or might not be true (again, I am _not_ debating/supporting/opposing), it got me wondering on how men are eyed?

Are we all, in the end, just another ATM in the wall?

Judge Dred

Remember the movie Judge Dred - the ultra-confusemax movie with Sly. I knew that it was based on a comic series, but I just came on this song by the name of 'I am the law' by Anthrax that seems to be based on that very theme.

Listen to it here.

… or “How I derived the equation for a shattered heart”

Episode 1 is here.

Episode 2 is here.

Episode 3 is here.

Episode 4 is here.

We return to our meditations and study of the ATB after an unnaturally long break (the reader must bear in mind that any amount of time that is longer than the time to ferment batter for dosa is unusually long for the ATB – dosas and idilis being the very being of his existence and soul – apart from the acquired taste of OldMonk/SingleMaltScotch/StoutDarkBeer). The authors would like to apologize for this break and would also like to inform the readers that this break was for the pursuit of scientific theories regarding the ATB which shall be explained in further chapters. Also the authors were trying very hard to come to terms with living half-way across the world and the process of cooking food for oneself on a daily basis.

While the authors analyze and examine recently collected data, this chapter shall be devoted to some observations that are not completely proven, bordering on empirical and mostly conjectural. Though the authors understand that the readers of this series of articles are of the educated, informed and discerning bent of mind – the authors would like to humbly request the readers to bear with them. These observations are of a nature that is known to be difficult to rigorously prove mathematically using the various tools of calculus, trigonometry, geometry and complex numbers. Mostly, these pertain to that strange human emotion called love.

The readers would have no doubt read many famous treatises, quotes and stories about love and its side-effects (the more unfortunate ones would have witnessed a tragic waste of celluloid called ‘Pyaar ke side effects’ which in translated exactly into English means the ‘Side effects of love’ and loosely means ‘Please don’t watch unless you wish to end your life’). One particular quote comes to mind – “Le coeur a sais raison, que le raison ne’conne pas”. This is in French. And for those who do not understand French – the heart has its reason that reason does not know. While this may be applicable for most of the population worldwide including heroes and famous lovers in history – movies or otherwise ; this does not apply to the ATB – especially not the ones that will eventually become engineers (the ones that continue on to do an MBA usually become brain-dead and start behaving according to the French quote).

One must always constantly remember that the ATB has a reason to do everything – including love. Normal people and abnormal people (such as Bollywood script writers) would disagree, quoting the clichéd yet famous – “Love is blind” or “Pyaar andha hotha hai”. The authors would like to respond with a slightly jocular version – “Pyaar anda hotha hai – kabhi omlette toh kabhi aulaad”. But, the ATB, does not believe in such jest in most matters – most importantly love. An upbringing devoid of any opportunity for romance – except probably the passing interest in the female author of a textbook (more for her talent in illustrative examples and a separate volume 2 of the book with all the answers to exercise problems) ; the ATB approaches all matters of heart with extreme caution and lots of homework and background research.

Other researchers have shown, both theoretically and experimentally, that all women believe that men are attracted to women based on two characteristics alone – level of hotness and level of hotness. Subsequent studies showed that in the case of women the product of beauty and brains was constant from the perspective of men. Pressure from various women-liberation organizations and stark failure of the law (Aishwarya Rai, for instance) spurred further investigation and a third quantity was introduced which seems to apply reasonably well to most known cases. The third quantity is termed the availability – simply put, it is a measure of the probability of a given average male (note that this average male refers to the males in the middle of the normal distribution curve – which has been experimentally determined to be engineers –notably software engineers in potentially dead-ended jobs) being able to successfully woo a girl leading to marriage. Availability is calculated by taking into account the single status, the career-mindedness, the rationality, age of the woman into consideration. Factors such as the woman’s affinity to the Twilight series, Shahrukh Khan, Beyonce/Justin Beiber, SATC (positive affinity for these counts for 0) and Woodehouse, Tarantino, Metallica/Megadeth/Thelonious Monk and Transmetropolitan(positive affinity for this counts as 1) is accounted in the brains factor. Thus, the relation was later modified to the product of beauty, brains and availability is a constant. Surprisingly enough, this was popularized by a Bong(Bengali) with significant TamBram influences.

The ATB carefully applies this formula to any interest that he finds in girls of his college. He then builds complex stochastic simulation models using Matlab/C/C++ (mini-projects under the guise of graphic editors) to validate his calculations before initiating contact. Recall that the ATB by now has understood that club in colleges are the best medium of interaction with members of the opposite gender under the guise of organizing fests (the reader is referred to the sample conversation in the previous chapter). Very rarely (usually one out of a three hundred times – this is extrapolated and sampled over all engineering colleges since it is quite impossible to find three hundred girls in a single engineering college except if it were an all girls engineering college, which the authors were unable to find in India) the conversation takes a different turn when the girl answers to “Do you like Batman comics?” with a “Which series are you talking about – Hush or the Dark Knight? Personally, I wasn’t so impressed with the Dark Knight series, considering Sin City was epic.” Or, “Dude - Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Inglorious Basterds – that is the order of awesomeness”. Or, “Top of the morning to you” – a classic Woodehousian opening. This is about the time when the ATB explodes into a million drops of testosterone [sic] and causes several segmentation faults in his brain.

With enough luck and no other amit_123s (refer to Krish Ashok’s blog for complete definition) competing, the ATB initiates outings in the form of a group meeting of the literary committee when most other members have classes. Venues in this case will shift from the classroom on the ground floor to the canteen or coffee shop. After several of these meetings, the ATB summons enough courage to ask the girl in question out for coffee, and then after several coffees for dinner and so on. It is of importance to note that the ATB does not broach the topic of relationships and the where-is-this-headed – he simply assumes that the girl will eventually figure out since in his universe all relations are nothing but a mathematical mapping from one set to another and mathematics never lie. This is invariably the most significantly incorrect assumption that the ATB makes despite knowing the axiom that women think with their hearts and not their heads. Invariably another competitor makes an entry – does all the things that the ATB did with a little more panache, all the while expressing his undying affection for the girl. By the time the ATB realizes this and hastens to express in clear chronological order his story of affection and love, he is met with the world’s most potent weapon – the LJBF or the Let’s-Just-Be-Friends. The weapon is so destructive and effective that most nations in the world have strict usage policy and non-proliferation acts in place – despite which women across nationalities, religion, color, race and sit-com preferences press the proverbial red-button with nonchalance.

Therapy for the ATB now consists of copious OMR, Dream Theater progressing to Megadeth progressing to Judas Priest progressing to Children of Bodom progressing to Katatonia progressing to Eternal Tears of Sorrow and then suddenly mellowing down to classic jazz and blues as he slowly accepts fate and starts preparing for the future. He slowly gets back to his old groove of reading graphic novels, spending nights trawling the Internet/LAN for offbeat music and cult-classic movies and conducting marathon quizzes with stage threes for the college quiz club. He begins to haunt empty classes in the night studying not just the notes and standard texts, but additional books to add to his knowledge. Some begin to mug up GRE wordlists and have been known to be able to recite them forwards, backwards, sidewards and occasionally in binary/ASCII/Klingon as well. He puts in efforts, pulls strings and gets himself a summer internship in a large company/research institute/HAL and vows (and successfully does) to finish the internship and learn something useful.

The ATB will use his blog as a form of catharsis and pour out all his pain and sorrow in the manner posts that range from side-spiltingly funny to long fictional series to short stories (these two seem like the lives of others, but most often reflect the ATB's own experiences) to depressed one liners to suicidal code (most commonly this takes the form of a small C program that tries to send itself Signal 9 as defined in on Linux systems).Mostly these are manifestions of heartbreak and sadness, but readers are directed to take extreme caution if they chance upon such blogs. They are requested to initiate contact with the ATB and try to ascertain his mental state and determine if he needs medical or emotional help. Close friends of the ATB are to be notified of the ATB's state and in extreme cases request emergency medical help.

While the ATB learns the meaning and usage of uncommonly pointless words such as prevaricate and lugubrious , the third year of college draws to end and we end our current installment here. The next chapter shall follow the ATB through his final year in college – which is one of the most important ones and the one that the ATB will remember with bittersweet memories for life. Readers are encouraged to search the internet for blogs of ATB engineers/techies that they know or have heard of for posts from the times of their engineering. These posts are poignant, deep, and sometimes depressing stuff woven in the form of short stories or C code that on compilation creates a 23.45MB binary which essentially just prints “Goodbye cruel world” and exits. What most people fail to notice is that by inserting a break-point just before the printf, and at that point taking a dump of the data-segment of the program produces the aforementioned short-story when converted to ASCII. Shahjahan might have built the Taj Mahal for his love out of marble, but the ATB painstakingly expresses his love in binary (the last known program to be written in binary was the first compiler that was ever written). This is not just the first of these instances of failure in love, we shall come across more as the ATB plods on through his existence and insects in mess-food.

Blah!

The clock ticks ever so slowly, pulling out every minute like a long unbroken strand of silk. Halfway across the world yesterday ends and halfway across the world a new one starts. And, I live in between.

And still...

...despite the being shown the door I am statistically still worse at applying for a Master's degree.

#FML

The Tuscan Toxness

It's been a while since I wrote anything coherent or sensible (code included) and somehow reading countless blogs of friends and other random people induces me to write this. Just to make sure that I am still capable of forming reasonable sentences of appreciable length. That, and the absolute boredom of being, which I shall get to soon.

It's been a little less than a month since landing up in Italy and one thing that keeps going around in my head with irritating regularity is 'stranger in a strange land'. The biggest shock that is still only very slowly fading off is that of language - everything is in ITALIAN. And, hardly anyone speaks English. So much so, that, at the local immigration office, where one goes to apply for the stay permit, the people cannot speak English. WTF? You expect foreigners to come there, but then again in Europe, unlike the rest of the world, English is not a language that you can get by with. Argh! Six languages on a box of chocolates and not one is English - there is Hungarian and Polish - but not even a sliver of English.

Well, one thing is for certain - Russel Peters wasn't wrong about the hand gesture. That one hand gesture is possibly the most frequently used - though it does not always mean 'WTF?'. What is actually means depends on a) the tone of the conversation (normal, heated, nuclear) and b) the force of execution. Italians cannot ever speak without using their hands. Tie an Italian's hand behind his back and ask him to speak and he will probably just spontaneous combust.

Eating outside is, as expected, a little bit of an issue for TamBrams. Even, if it is a non-conformist chicken-mutton eating TamBram. Pork, beef and the some seafood is what they eat here. Chicken and mutton, I guess, is too pedestrian. Pork, maybe I can manage, but a few thousand years of culture, religion and values hardwired and programmed into me refuses to give in to eating beef. You do get vegetarian food, but after a couple of weeks you run out of options. Not to mention the absolute blandness of food - I really fail to see the subtlety of taste and flavor, except the overpowering taste of cheese and cardboard. Last Friday, while eating lunch (risotto, funghi e formaggio - rice, mushroom and cheese) after one spoon of it, I went and doused the entire thing with about four or five spoons of pepper powder (which also isn't very spicy - God alone knows why). An Italian friend who was with me looks at the plate and asks me how I would be able to taste the vegetables and rice with so much spice. I could only shrug and say that without the pepper I couldn't taste anything. The Indian taste-centers of the brain have been designed to taste everything else after canceling out the spice.

The margherita pizza is stupendously amazing. It isn't close to anything I have has in India. In fact, the pizza here has no comparable equivalent in India. It's just brilliant. Especially, the Napoli pizza. And the gelato - the worst gelato here is better than the best I have eaten in Bangalore. You can get really surprising flavors like ginger and saffron and choose to mix it with something regular like chocolate or pistachio. It's creamy, cold, sweet and one of those things that is familiar and comforting. The gelato pricing when converted to Indian rupees is still in the same range - 1.5-2 euro (or 90-120) for two normal scoops. Everything else is expensive. I paid 1.5 euro for three garlic and I pay 33 cents for a large glass of plain drinking water in the canteen. Maybe by European standards it isn't too much, but heck, I am Indian currently living on euros purchased with rupees - of course, 20 rupees is too much.

Quite honestly, the Leaning Tower isn't that stupendously mind-numbingly spectacular. It's nice. Probably because I pass by it almost every day, the charm has worn off. But, even at first sight, it did not make an impression like Ankor Wat or the Taj Mahal or the Vittala Temple in Hampi. It was just about so, so.

This place is small enough to walk and get around. One end of the town to the other end should take approximately a little more than an hour - that is how small it is. And since it is a university town, it's mostly filled with university students. Weekend nights at Piazza Garibaldi are noisy. Tons of young cute women around - this post that I chanced upon probably best describes the situation here. The only problem is though they are of every imaginable size, shape, color and undress - they all pretty much look the same to me. Heavily made-up, tight (often plunging/enhanced necklines etc) and white. I just can't seem to tell them apart very well. And, they all speak mostly only Italian. Strike one, two and three. I'm out.

I have a ticket booked back to go to India in September. Do you think I should buy myself a fancy Android smartphone at the Dubai duty free - or drink a glass of champagne? It's not quite often that an ATB gets his annual dose of a few more grey hairs (or in my case, another centimeter of receding hairline) over the Persian Gulf or maybe over Iraq? Of course, the scariest part of the trip home is the Dubai - Bangalore leg where you fly just off the coast of our dear neighbour (yes, the very same one who was whacked in the semi-finals). I think the entire aircraft including the atheists start praying.

PS: Episode Five - very soon. Written, but as soon as I figure out where I stopped Episode Four.

Trains are catching fire (but, thankfully, people are more or less safe(?)), the Great Indian Democracy performs yet another circus show with the anti-corruption act while the government bans child labor in circuses. The politicians are trying to make as much graft as they can before the laws change. There is enough mud from the slinging to make yet another great Gangetic plain. The economy - well, it goes up and down like a bloody yo-yo.

And, I sit here, halfway across the world in a place where I cannot understand most of what is being said (to me or otherwise), where I cannot speak without miming and have to eat mostly leaves and vegetables to avoid the extensive beef that is all around. And worrying about where life is headed and whether coming here was a big mistake.

Ugh...my head functions is terribly small world.