These days I hear people using "having said that" a lot. Having said that, most of that usage seems appropriate and correct. When you say something, and you want to contradict yourself in the next statement, you use having said that. Having said that, now I think it's not used for contradicting; its purpose is to soften your previous statement with some doubt and indecision. Having said that, I must concede that there might be other usages.

Having said all that, now I must record that for the second time I left the car keys inside and locked us out. Well.. the Advaith guy was here within an hour of us calling their helpline and opened the door within minutes with a simple what-old-timers-call scale (I've heard it being called "ruler" by some misinformed kids these days). Having said that, he did struggle a bit. I say that not because he really struggled but because I don't know how else I could've used having said that in the last sentence :P

Last weekend, we had been to this quick trip to Marwante, a beach near Kundapur. To be precise, we were at Turtle bay beach resort, a decent but overpriced resort near Trasi junction which is 12 Kms after Kundapur (coming from Mangalore) on NH 17.

           
It's a very calm beach where the coast is shallow enough for you to venture into the sea but deep enough for you to enjoy the waters. There weren't too many people either. There is Souparnika river closeby which joins the Arabian sea near Marwante. In fact a section on NH17 has Arabian sea on one side and Souparnika river on the other side. You can walk along the beach from the resort to this section on NH 17. We went for a short boat ride into the backwaters of this river. There is a village "Padukone", a section of which is actually completely an island in these backwaters !! Every home has a boat there, they say. One of our co-passengers in the boat got very excited that this is the same "Padukone" that figures in the names of Deepika Padukone. He called his wife to tell her that he's in front of Deepika Padukone's village :P

Don't forget to go to "Light house island" if you go to this resort. It is just a collection of rocks nearby. But the motorboat ride into the sea is good and there were interesting fishes and sea-urchins and loads of gross-looking crabs there :P

Yesterday night at around 10:30, I was driving past a circle in Padmanabhanagar. It was pretty dark and lonely at that time. I took a left turn just when the signal went red. While I was doing that, in the middle of the circle, a bright camera flashed brilliantly and took my picture!! My first brush with such a camera in Bangalore. Pretty neat, I thought. I was quite impressed with Bangalore traffic police though I know that the picture was not for any hall of fame :P

We moved to a new office yesterday. It is very far from home and the commute is 1.5 hours one-way on average. But, the office itself is nice. The cubicles are more spacious than the old office. I have a seat by the window from which I can see west sky which is largely unblemished by buildings and which will hopefully look great towards evening.

I will loose more of my waking hours in commute now. As it is, I am becoming quite useless these days. When my friends ask me why I am not blogging anything or reading anything interesting, I remember the couplet - "Ishq ne nikamma kar diya ghalib; varna ham bhi aadmi the kaam ke" :-)

That is one subhashita, out of several that I have heard, which makes most sense - Courage is a tool everywhere.

and I courageously make this post :P

For past some days, I have been in some kind of trance.. too lost and too busy. So, somehow in a bid to get out of this, I continued reading "Phantoms in the brain" and I finished it. Anyway, with Koochu away there's nothing much to watch on TV. Reality shows are suddenly boring :(
Coming back to the book,  it is written by V.S. Ramachandran and Sandra Blakselee. The book is  about the mysteries of the human brain and attempts at fathoming these mysteries.

Dr. Ramachandran is a neurologist in California and he attempts to understand the architecture of human brain by the insights provided by bizarre neurological disorders. For ex: the title of the book "phantoms in the brain" is about a neurological disorder where some people who loose a limb are convinced that they still have it and can use it. They are not "mad" or crazy; they can do all other stuff sanely. Just that they claim to have itching, pain and other sensations in their missing limbs. Some of them are aware that it is a "disorder". Some others are convinced that anyone claiming the contrary have "disorders". It steers towards the theory that your body is an illusion created by your brain.

This and other neurological disorders discussed in the book like temporal lobe epilepsy, damage to frontal lobes of the brain, Autism, etc lead to theories about why we believe in god, why people laugh or smile, what is this perception of "self", why and how to people try to deceive themselves (self deception) and so on. Then the vague and not-well-defined "qualia" is discussed which is vaguely the subjective understanding of things which cannot be conveyed fully to others through language.

It is a fascinating read. Most theories are based on the question - "why might have evolution favored this trait?" Traits as in self deception, religion, lying, smiling, etc. I personally like that question for everything. (for ex: will evolution favor blogging :P) I like it more when that question can't be answered.  Unlike some other "thinkers" like Richard dawkins, Dr. Ramachandran is not completely given to "evolution did it". He still sees lot to be deciphered and understood before we can conclude that. It is either the sagacity of a lengthy research career or Indian upbringing which makes him still vaccillate between "purposeful creation" and "random evolution". The last paragraph in his book quotes cosmologist Paul Davies and reads..

"I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incedental blip in the great cosmic drama. Our involvement is too intimate. The physical species homo might count for nothing, but the existence of mind in some organism on some planet in the universe is surely a fact of fundamental significance. Through conscious beings the universe has created self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor by-product of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here." Are we?...

I finished reading this book by John Gribbin last Sunday. This is part historical: outlining lives of the various scientists and their experiments which led to the development of theories explaining the nature of atom, electron, wave nature of electron, quantum nature of electron, dual nature of electron and some other not-understood natures of electrons :P. It is also part physics: explaining some of this phenomenon with simple maths. Experiments and theories are presented chronologically and are interesting to read. Not much of philosophy is dragged in which is better because you can make your own interpretations and not be "guided" :)

Though I can't say my understanding of the world was revolutionized by this book and though I can't even say I understood everything in this book (and I of course can't say I have any understanding of this world), what I can say is, I got some "high" moments while reading this. "High" moments when for some time you get totally immersed in the thoughts and possible implications of the ideas presented in this book. (Needless to say you quickly recover back to the fact that you have to go to office the next day and you better sleep soon :P) Some of those high moments were when the book deals with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and tells us that it is not a problem with our experimental apparatus that we cannot determine things precisely. It is the fundamental nature of the universe as we know it that you only observe what you want to observe and you are very much a part of all your observations!! Also, I would definitely recommend that any one interested in understanding these issues read double slit experiment and Wheeler's delayed choice experiment. These were not only couple of "high" moments for me, they summarize the most important issues involved. The "many world interpretation" of quantum physics, although far from convincing is an amazing thought  to entertain. At some places you momentarily feel, it is a mysterious and magical universe :)

My understanding of electron spin, fermion, boson and many other physics concepts didn't improve because of this book. I still don't even  have a feel for how a particle can exist with zero mass and still be a "particle". I don't know what you mean when you say, "time has no meaning for a photon because it is traveling at the speed of light". But, I am glad I  read the book because now I kind of know what the fuss is all about.

Now I am reading "Phantoms in the brain" by V.S. Ramachandran.. Another book which has made a great beginning and promises to be very interesting. 

Today someone at office asked us to introduce ourselves. After professional stuff, he asked us to say "one or two fun things about yourself". I started out saying - "personally... aaa.. umm.... I am a person of very few interests".. !! I mean, what an opening sentence !! I suck at these things, really. First time I was asked in an interview, "Tell me about yourself".. I said, "What do you want to know ?" :P

Actually, I should really get some cool hobbies. How cool it would be, if I could say -  "I write novels in my spare time." or "I am a free-lance reporter on weekends" or "I like adventures. I just returned from an Everest expedition" or something like that..

Had been for a quick trip to Mysore yesterday. Visited Chamundi hills, our house.. met our ex-neighbors, my school friends, their parents and one of my friend's little cute kid :). Came back feeling pampered, wanted and loved :) That's what they call "home town", I guess..

Dad's involved in construction of a new temple at RajaRajeshwari Nagar. I went there yesterday night to drop amma. The temple got inaugurated this morning. So, they had an overnight bhajane yesterday.

The temple location is very village-like. It is on top of a small hillock and you have to pass through some huge gardens and estates and wastelands to reach it. There weren't many people on the top when I went. The half-constructed structure leaves a big open courtyard, where dhoti clad brahmins were preparing for ceremonies to follow. Some pandits were fussing over the yet-to-be-installed-idols. They were chanting veda mantras in unison. Some of them were making complicated patterns in rangoli on the floor, for the homas to be done. Looked pretty out-of-the-world to see them following traditions laid out 3-4 thousand years ago; the dark night and cool breeze somewhat enhancing the feeling. These should be one of the oldest surviving traditions in the world.

Last Saturday, I went to watch the IPL match between Bangalore and Hyderabad at Chinnaswamy stadium. The atmosphere reminded me of Jayciana rock show :P It was entertaining for sure :)

This weekend, I finished reading P.G. Wodehouse's Life At Blandings.  It is a collection of three stories centered around Blandings Castle of Lord Emsworth. It's the first time I am reading anything from P.G. Wodehouse. I liked the first story, Something Fresh. That story was additionally advantaged because the writing style of spotting humor through extra-perceptive observations of daily life was new to me :) I laughed at every other sentence in this one. Not to forget the "dashed" good English :)

I thought the second story, Summer Lightning was slightly monotonous in comparison. The third one Heavy Weather, is again too good. It is in continuation of Summer Lightning and keeps up the humor.

It is a very entertaining book with a special style of writing of sophisticated use of common words along with use of many sophisticated words.

Saturday evening, I just wandered into some Rama Mandira in N.R. Colony and got caught for an hour or so under Carnatic classical music. First a young girl of about 10-12 was singing melodiously with skills of a highly learned scholar (that's how it seemed to an unskilled listener like me). I don't know her name but I think she is truly gifted. Just a "shruti box" and a tabla and her voice !! Felt like a full-fledged orchestra with her voice making up for other instruments.. That was followed by some "sisters" from Chennai, who also kept people tied to their seats with their singing and a great violin. I came back thinking, it is worth living.....  for such moments :)

I drove a good 10 Kms today with parking break pulled up ! Never realized it.. Just thought some how I am having to accelerate more in all gears. After I parked at office, I tried to pull the parking break up and saw that it was already pulled up !! I am positive I smelt some rubber burning several times during the drive. Does some one know if I need to take the car to service station or get a mechanic to take a look ?

p.s. Don't ask me if the dashboard didn't show anything about parking break. It did and I didn't know what it meant :P

Yesterday, I made a futile attempt to clean my book-shelf. I found this copy of  translation of "Critique of Practical Reason" from Immanuel Kant lying somewhere down. I must have bought it while I was in Delhi. I was my queerest best when I was there.. I thought what a dud I am, not to have read such a masterpiece even after having it with me for more than 2 years. I opened it and I realized why I hadn't read it and why I will never be able to read it. The opening sentence reads,

"The theoretical use of reason was concerned with objects of the cognitive faculty only, and a critical examination of it with reference to this use applied properly only to pure faculty of cognition; because this raised the suspicion, which was afterwards confirmed, that it might easily pass beyond its limits, and be lost among unattainable objects, or even contradictory notions."

huh ? come again.. ;-)

I get tired of such long sentences. Speaking of long sentences, there is this interesting contest called "Bulwer-Lyttin fiction contest" for long, boring and really bad opening sentences of novels. Here is a list of previous years' winners. Some of them are too good :)

Speaking of opening sentences, they tell me that Tolstoy's Anna Karenina's  opening sentence, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." is very good. Why ? beats me..
One other opening sentence, which I have read people appreciating is of Kafka's Metamorphosis - "When  Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams he found himself transformed into a monstrous insect." Now, that's really good. Holds you right there :)

As an aside, even I used to write very long sentences in English when I studied English as a subject in high school and college and stopped doing so only after my kind English teachers pointed out my mistake to me and said that evaluators typically don't have time to go back and forth reading the same sentence and making sense out of it and so, to get more marks in English exams, you need to split your idea and expression into short sentences. (there, I will send in my entry next year to Bulwer-Lyttin fiction contest :P) 

These days, I am reading a  collection of short stories from Somerset Maugham. I see that many of his stories have a guy who has somehow lost interest in general routine life/ambitious career oriented life and is after simple "peace of mind". (In one of the character's own words, he is after "truth, beauty and peace of mind".) I mean, something which according to him is independent of material possessions and in particular -  independent of money. I guess that sort of thing fascinates Somerset Maugham.

From what I have observed in my limited reading (that's my disclaimer that I don't claim it is true :P),  like Somerset Maugham's recurring theme of characters not being interested in entering race for anything material, Hermann Hesse's repeating theme is of struggle between following an austere, "cultured" life and succumbing to "lower" instincts; Kafka seems to be partial to some sort of physical/emotional suffering; Bhibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay seems to fancy a traveler with careless abandon for whom everything mundane is also emotionally touching while Satyajit Ray often seems to have a well educated, well-read Bengali bachelor in his stories.

I was wondering what character would I repeatedly write about, if I were to write short stories ?

I would repeatedly write about a software engineer in Bangalore who goes to work everyday and spends weekends getting bored at home. Yes, that's the sort of thing that fascinates me :P

I somehow always had problems with the internal wireless interface of my T60 laptop. I can't connect across 2 walls from my wireless router at home. I had always wanted to buy something to boost my laptop wireless interface. So, I bought a Dlink DWA-645 PCMCIA card today.(It is a 802.11n card - a futuristic investment :p). This is not bad at all.. It is not disconnecting frequently like before, although the signal strength still remains low.. It doesn't have Linux drivers yet. But, some folks have posted online that they have got it working using ndiswrapper and windows drivers.. I am not yet able to :( But, I haven't yet given up.. Anyway, hopefully I can sit anywhere at home and browse now without constantly worrying about connection.

I had bought this book "A History of South India" , written by K.A. Nilakanta Sastri,  nearly an year back from Strand book stall. This book covers the history of South India from pre-historic times to raise and fall of Vijayanagara empire. Although the book gets a little too detailed at times, it is quite readable for a general interested reader and is of course a treasure-trove of information.

The geography of the region under consideration - the Deccan plateau and southwards - is established first. Then, he moves on to the earliest people who inhabited this region and their cultures. I was surprised to learn that Neolithic remains have been excavated at T.Narsipur near Mysore ! Although (as always) no definite conclusion is drawn about origin and migration pattern of Dravidian people, it is mentioned that "Dravidian language and culture hark back to the highlands of Anatolia, Armenia and Iran, the area of characterization of the Armenoid type".  He says that it is also theorized that the Dravidians might not have migrated from North India but from the west by sea. The author also quotes some one else's conclusion that "the Aryan occupation of the North and the Dravidian occupation of the South were more or less contemporary."

Then we come to the chapter "The Dawn of History: Aryanization", where the slow but sure synthesis of a mixture of Aryan and Dravidian cultures is discussed. The interesting is part in this chapter is all the discussion about sage Agastya's legends and the suggestions that he was indeed a historical character and he was the one who led the Aryan invasion/migration to regions south of Vindhyas, defeating tribes, establishing Ashrams, etc. It seems there is a theory (which has enough opposition as well) that it was sage Agastya who laid foundations of Tamil grammar. Attempts are made to draw historical conclusions about South India based on the legends of Parasurama as well.

From here on, the book is mostly about which dynasties and kingdoms ruled over which parts of South India starting from early Mauryan empire, Satavahanas, Cholas, Pallavas, Pandyas, Gangas and so on till we reach the most tragic end of Viajayanagara empire in 1500s. The battle of Rakkasa-Thangadi and its aftermath is heart-rending. It would be very long to record all that here.

Then comes the more interesting chapters which study the social and economic conditions, Literature, Art and architecture and religion and philosophy of the period from around 6-7th century AD till 1500s.

I cannot conclude without mentioning that I am highly impressed by KrishnaDevaraya's character and his minister Timmarasa. They have a very interesting story between them, which ends tragically with Krishnadevaraya ordering blinding of the entire family of Timmarasa.

Mysore (or even Bangalore) find only fleeting mentions in this book and obviously hasn't caught historians' attentions during this era.

I am not qualified to review such books (or any books :P). So, I can't judge the author. All I can do is thank Nilakanta Sastri for writing this resource-filled, comprehensive, passionately researched and yet simple book with lucid narration.

I read this slim collection of short stories by Purnachandra Tejaswi recently. They are all stories of small people in small villages in Karnataka. The most famous among these stories must be Tabarana kathe; I remember watching the movie with the same name and same story when I was a kid.

I guess this is the most humane set of stories I have read from Purnachandra Tejaswi. The other stories that I had read like Jugari Cross,  Karvalo, etc were more event-centric and some are malenadu centric. In Abachurina Post officu, he tries to dwell into the worst and best of human minds. In a humorous and ironical tone, he tells touching stories.

My driving is such a miserable failure that I have no hopes of ever driving a car properly. It is such a cumbersome business. I wish we had never bought a car and never taken up this hopeless pursuit.
I hit something, I stall somewhere in the middle of the road, I have no way of retrieving the car from its weird position sometimes. All in all, it is such an avoidable headache that my sincere advice to anybody who is planning to learn driving is - it's not worth it.

Few years back, when I was not feeling up to anything, I tried reading Hermann Hesse, Eknath Eswaran, Albert Camus, Franz Kafka,  Dostoevsky, Nietzche and such authors. Now I am feeling stressed again. But, I am wiser now. I have started reading Harry Potter :P
I must say it is giving better results than my last attempt :)