Ancient Indian Astronomy

Q1) What?
A) Ancient Indian Astronomy Podcast (Download Podcast)

Q2) Why Q1?
A) 365 Days of Astronomy

Q3) Why Q2?
A) IYA2009

The (N-1) Blogger Theory

In my first year, blogging was very new to us – as is the case with anyone who has not experienced the “core” of Internet before. We used to read the occasional quality posts by SMR and Co. Soon, we began to blog. Why?

Most of them started out on philosophy, culture and other topics belonging to that category.
Others wrote about technical stuff.
Very few wrote with a dose(s) of sarcasm and humour.

My first post was in the Summer of ‘69 – yeah right, it was the summer of 2005. It went on and on about my likes and dislikes in a very childish way. Before I started to write this post, I went through some of my old posts and my gosh, how embarrassed I felt! A few posts later, the blogging fever went down because I just did not know why I started the blog in the first place. The purpose was missing.

And then came WordPress, with an aim to destroy Blogger. WordPress gave out accounts on an invitational basis, just like GMail, and so to have a WordPress account at that time was like being at the top of the world. Rohith or Badri I believe was the first one in our batch to get one. Soon I was able to snatch an invitation for myself and thus came out my second blog. The stupid WordPress administrator even created a Hello World post and a sample comment to that as if people were too stupid to even figure out how to blog a new post. This blog just lasted a month. Reason? NO PURPOSE.

My third, and definitely my final, blog came out with a Pilot episode (inspired by TV shows). I finally realized what I wanted to do. Blogging seemed to be a way to preserve memories, let out my frustration, make some people very, VERY emotional – see the following table, et cetera (Long long ago, before we published our first research paper, I used to have the habit of using short forms for certain Latin words like everyone else until my guide scolded me for doing so. Since then, I have been using et cetera instead of etc., namely instead of .viz, et cetera.).

Emotional on the following scale:

10) x-) (I LOVE YOU!!!)

9) )

:D

7)

6)

5)

4)

3) (

2) x-( (Sort of like ripping posters off my wall)

1) X-( (There will be blood!)

Enough of the background information. What is this so called “The (N-1) Blogger Theory”?

Disclaimer: The following is not a figment of imagination of the author. After observing the IIIT Blogroll for 3 years, the disappointed, and subsequently frustrated, author finally decided to let his steam off. So you, as a reader, should not attempt to relate yourself to this post.

—————————————————————————-

The (N-1) Blogger Theory

Given N bloggers, let the ith blogger publish a post at time t.
By time (t+delta), there will be 2*(N-1) comments (as pointless as the post itself) to that post – comment Cj by blogger j belonging to {N bloggers}-i and a reply to that comment, comment Cji, by blogger i almost immediately.
and Sum(Cj)=(N-1)=Sum(Cji)

Proof: Just check the IIIT Blogroll!

By the way, Blogger editor sucks big time.

Brown Leaves and White Paper

Bicycle day

On April 19, 1943 Dr. Albert Hofmann intentionally ingested 250 µg of LSD, which he hypothesized would be at most a threshold level dose, based on his research on other ergot alkaloids. Surprisingly, the substance showed a potency orders of magnitude above almost any other substance known at the time, amounting to a much heavier dose than typically given in modern therapeutic use. After ingesting the substanceHofmann found himself struggling to speak intelligibly and asked his laboratory assistant, who knew of the self-experiment, to escort him home on his bicycle, since wartime restrictions made automobiles unavailable. On the bicycle ride home,Hofmann’s condition became more severe and in his journal he stated that everything in his field of vision wavered and was distorted, as if seen in a curved mirror.Hofmann also stated that while riding on the bicycle, he had the sensation of being stationary, unable to move from where he was, despite the fact that he was moving very rapidly. OnceHofmann arrived home, he summoned a doctor and asked his neighbor for milk, believing it might help relieve the symptoms. Hofmann wrote that despite his delirious and bewildered condition, he was able to choose milk as a nonspecific antidote for poisoning.

Upon arriving the attending doctor could find no abnormal physical symptoms other than extremely dilated pupils. After spending several hours terrified that his body had been possessed by a demon, that his next door neighbor was a witch, and that his furniture was threatening him, Dr.Hofmann feared he had become completely insane. In his journal Hofmann said that the doctor saw no reason to prescribe medication and instead sent him to his bed. At this time Hofmann said that the feelings of fear had started to give way to feelings of good fortune and gratitude, and that he was now enjoying the colors and plays of shapes that persisted behind his closed eyes.Hofmann mentions seeing “fantastic images” surging past him, alternating and opening and closing themselves into circles and spirals and finally exploding into colored fountains and then rearranging themselves in a constant flux.Hofmann mentions that during the condition every acoustic perception, such as the sound of a passing automobile, was transformed into optical perceptions. EventuallyHofmann slept and upon awakening the next morning felt refreshed and clearheaded, though somewhat physically tired. He also stated that he had a sensation of well being and renewed life and that his breakfast tasted unusually delicious. Upon walking in his garden he remarked that all of his senses were “vibrating in a condition of highest sensitivity, which then persisted for the entire day”.

About eleven months ago, Chelli and I visited Amma and Nana. During some random conversation which for some reason diverted to smoking, Chelli asked Nana if he had ever smoked and if he had, how was it? Nana said that he had never smoked in his life, but that did not mean his children should not. We, according to him, were old enough to make our own decisions about such things in life. See? The person who matters much more than certain individuals seems to agree with us! In all these 22 years I spent with him, he never conducted a Shivir for me. Anyway, upon hearing that, Chelli asked Nana if she could try smoking. Nana told her he would get her a pack to try out and asked me if I wanted to join her. Silly me, I was expecting at least a quarter of the feelings that Dr. Hofmann experienced and gave him a nod.

That evening, Nana on his way back from office picked up a pack of Marlboro (He actually asked the salesman for the “safest” ones to try). Chelli as expected chickened out. I however decided to go ahead with it after dinner.

I took out one stick and started to tap one of its end on the packet like they show in the movies.

No sooner had I started, the cigarette got bent in the middle. I then remembered Varun scolding Rohith for “spoiling” a cigarette when he tried a similar thing.

I flung the “spoilt” one away, took out a second one, put it in my mouth and lit it.

Now what do I do? I once tried breathing in smoke from a lit paper rolled into a dummy cigarette I made in my fifth class (Thank you HPS!). The experience was horrible, which was probably why I hated cigarettes until I learned they caused lung cancer.

I drew some air into my mouth and exhaled immediately. I repeated this one more time and still nothing seemed to happen. Was I high already? Definitely not!

Maybe I should have let the smoke stay in my mouth for a while to let the chemicals diffuse into my blood and then float me away into the heavens Saki often spoke of.

Nah, that did not seem to work either. How about swallowing the smoke? I often heard smokers use the word “drag”. So drag == swallow?

WOW. I should not have done that. It was the same old fifth class experience! Either drag!=swallow or smoking sucks for an entirely different reason now, the sharp, stinging learning curve!

There seemed to be no one online in my GTalk list to ask for advice.

WWW? By the time I finished some stupid “How To Smoke for Dummies” manual, the cigarette was dead. For good.

I entered the house with a stinking mouth. Where are the chloromints when you need them the most? I tried washing my mouth WITH soap, TWICE and yet the odour persisted. It took around five hours for my breath to become normal.

Amma was obviously mad but by then I had already made up my mind to NEVER touch a cigarette in my life again.

Mix Karun Ya Phir Edit?

Our juniors have failed us in yet another aspect, COPYING. Perhaps the value added education has dented their minds to the extent that they fail to use common sense.

IDIOT_1 pastes a version of an SE assignment he finds somewhere, in a Google chat conversation with IDIOT_2.

IDIOT_2 selects the entire text in the chat window, pastes it in a file, mixes/edits the content (reordering paragraphs, et cetera) and uploads that file for submission.

Below is the excerpt from the file uploaded.

——————————————————————————————-

m****h (IDIOT_1): thr

m****h *** is busy.

m****h: ?

a*****u (IDIOT_2): haan

m****h: abe idhar aaja ek assnmnt mil gaya hai

a*****u: abey ek assnmnt hai mere paas dede wo

m****h: usko edit kar dete hain jaldi

a*****u: mix kar doonga

m****h: tym ni bacha

a*****u: abey mixing aasaan hai rather editing

m****h: thik

Requirements engineering is helped enormously by methods that guide a practitioner in the task of identifying the requirements of the system-to-be. These are some of the roles which UML can play:- 1.UML editors are ubiquitous in the software industry, and many can be updated to recognize new profiles. 2.UML documentation of the requirements engineering process will sit more comfortably with all other UML documentation for a software project. For purposes of traceability between models, integrated documentation of this sort is highly desirable…

——————————————————————————————-

Comments are most welcome, LOL.

The One With The Day Care

So we received the following mail from a certain Ms. Soma Paul. It took me 4 days to prepare myself mentally to comment on it.

———————————————————————

Good News!!! There is a concrete plan to start a daycare at the institute shortly. A supervisor/teacher and one attendant have been identified. Your support and suggestion is welcome. We have listed the immediate requirements for the daycare and also some of the things that people have come forwarded and contributed. We request you to have a look at the list of requirements and let us know if there is anything that you can immediately contribute (things that are left over in your office or house). This will help us reduce our initial capital costs. Please mail us by this Saturday, so that we can plan accordingly.

One time requirement

1. wooden cupboards, 4 shelf with door ~V 4

2. Cubby hole (like mail boxes) ~V 16 cubbies

3. Low table,1 foot from the floor, 6ft x 4 ft – 1

4. Jute mat/ or any floor mat ~V 6

5. Sleep mat, like yoga mat – 8

6. pencil & crayon bowls ~V 4

7. low chairs or stools ~V 10

8. picture frames ~V 10

9. Book shelf, 2 rack ~V 2

10. Garbage bins ~V 2

11. 90 liter small fridge

12. Toys ~V like building blocks, kitchen sets, puzzles etc.

13. Games ~V carrom, Chinese checkers, chess, rolling pins/ball

14. One wall clock

15. First Aid box

Operational needs:

1. Towels

2. Paper tissues

3. Soap

4. Garbage bags

5. Broom & mop

6. Mosquito repellent

7. Bandages, dettol, cotton etc.,

Contributions made to date:

a. Soma – Fridge

b. Nagamani – books cupboard

c. Jawahar – Crayons

d. Kavita – Floor mats(8),toys/games, books, pictures (a few)

———————————————————————

So here I go,

First of all, What The Bloody Fuck was that? Why in the name of the Holy Mother of God (@schweini ) does IIIT need a day care? My best guess is that it is for the faculty’s and administrative staff’s children. It could also be targeted at PhD students with kids. But why? AFAIK, the idea of day care was conceived in the West because it almost always required (still does) that both parents work due to which the kids were left unattended. I would never approve of it though, under any circumstances. But what surprised me the most was that a college like IIIT – Oh I am sorry, what I meant to say was – a college under the dictatorship of a member of The Brethren of Jeevan Vidya, namely IIIT, was adopting a Western non-technical idea.

Here is a short, incomplete list of things that are shunned at IIIT,

1. Eating food outside college.
   
2. Eating spicy food, even if it is inside the college.
3. Doing anything that would lead to points (1) , (2) , (4) and of course (3). We open source people are too fond of recursive statements and names.
   
4. Sleeping late in the night.

To sum it all up, we are expected to behave like deterministic machines (and I happen to work in the field of Autonomous Multi Agent Systems, the irony!).

Also, there was a questionnaire given to students at the time of the admission (the link to which I do not have at the moment) which STRONGLY discouraged people who,

1. were interested in making a living after college.
2. wanted to lead a comfortable life.
   
3. wanted to have a good time during the 4 (+2, 3, … N for those hardcore researchers) years they spent in the college. The batches can broadly be classified into 3 groups,

(i) batches before X, which left the college in a sad mood (they actually felt the college-student bond break).
(ii) the batch X, which left the college in a “tis the season to be jolly” mood.
(iii) batches after X, which will umm… run of out the college holding for their dear lives.

In my opinion, X = 2004

Now anyone who really knows what JV/HV/HP/whatever is all about (basically a IIITian WITH a life), might be cursing me for makeing him/her read these stupid facts all over again.

My sincere apologies!

I just did not know any other way to put it. The one and only question that I want to ask through this post is, Are we so busy with our research and jobs that we cannot take care of our children? Especially when we are being “brainwashed” into living like “cultured/sensible” people (according to Their definition at least!), are we not being hypocratic here?

RoboCup 2008 Day Three, Four

• Scrambled eggs with pork today. So it was just bread and boiled eggs for us.
• Had to go to the Expo Center early today for our presentation.
• All the presentations went well, very nice ideas.
• I feel Professor Takahashi’s idea deserves the Aladdin Prize, will have to wait till Sunday to see who wins.
• Met the team from Jacobs University from Bremen. They had implemented a flood simulator. Their team leader, Narunas (I believe that is the spelling) – a Lithuanian and a Top Coder, who apparently started working on it last month thereby putting us to shame (Not that we put in our 100% in the first place) – is a pretty cool guy. Then we met Nour, an Egyptian, from the same team and exchanged contacts.
• We will get to work together in the near future, sounds very exciting!
• Infrastructure competition was not received with the warmth that we were expecting. First of all, the stupid dance programs were creating a lot of disturbance and we could not really hear what the presenter had to say. No one really bothered about the complaints made by the volunteers, who tried their best. Finally we got into a small room which was OK. Also, all the agent teams were supposed to come to our presentations to see what progress was being made, etc. However, only a few team leaders showed up. They are the ones who decide which projects wins. None of them even came to see the demos after the presentations. They were too busy tweaking their own codes. We found this a bit discouraging. Yaso did tell us that this would happen. But then Sir had a point. There had been no significant changes in the server for quite some time now, so the agents teams had also become very passive about it. Hope to create a disturbance with the launch of our DDRRS in a few months
• Simulation in general, as in Rescue and Soccer, did not get enough audience. People did not find the screens on which the games were projected, that interesting. True, even we got a bit bored after the second day, just watching the same old screen.
• New measures have to be taken in making the event more interesting. Made some notes on that too.
• Made a couple of rounds around other leagues. The small, wheeled robots are very cool. Good control, aim and speed. Very nice passing. The rest have become very boring now. 1 week is really long for such things. From next time onwards, IF there is a next time, I guess I will head out for “tourism” after the third day.
• Homesickness is another thing that is killing me! Just two more days and I will get back to my home, sweet home . Tried calling amma on the day we arrived. Unfortunately they did not have calling cards for India. Excellent!
• Went to a Chinese restaurant yesterday. After some sign language, we finally got them to understand that we wanted vegetarian food. The waiter pointed to some rice rolls. I was trying so hard to control my laughter! He then told us that he would prepare the usual food minus the meat. Nice! The pizza, fried rice and spaghetti turned out to be good. The rice was different, fat and sticky grains but good.
• On the way, we saw a worker holding out 3 dead tortoises for sale. Come to think of it, those dead tortoises were the first animals, other than humans, we got to see in China. And today we came across a pet store, LOL. I saw an Alsatian waiting in its cage to be bought by someone. Little does it know where it will finally end up . Did not come across any stray dogs in China, is the recent “ban” on dog meat related to this in some manner?
• The seats in the auditorium are very comfortable for sleeping. There is good WLAN reception, so chatting is pretty comfortable too. The dim lights and the speaker’s boring voice is enough to make one go into a deep sleep, as was the case with half the people in the room. The keynote address was very interesting.
• Our paper got selected as a Poster in the Symposium and yesterday was our turn. They had the poster session running during dinner. Who the hell came up with that idea? As expected, people just went round the buffet table, filled their plates and went back to their respective seats. We waited for about ten minutes and then left to get some food. We spent about forty minutes waiting for someone to show up. But looking at the rate at which new dishes were being put up (formula: {pork, beef}{vegetables}* minus {spices}) it was clear that no one will ever show up.
• Anyway, a very funny thing happened during the dinner at the Symposium. We could not find any dishes that “we” could eat. So we just asked one of the volunteers if there was any vegetarian food. This was how is went:

Us: Ni Hao! Is there any vegetarian food here?
Volunteer: Vegetarian? Is that Halal?
Us: No, vegetarian. Not Halal
Volunteer (She put a really confused look on her face): Uhh, what is vegetarian? Is that Halal? (I am not able to recollect the exact pronunciations )
Us: No MEAT. Only vegetables.
Volunteer (After consulting another volunteer): Sorry, no vegetarian. We have Halal though.

WTF.

• We finally got to eat some french fries with popcorn chicken, chicken and macaroni salad with some curry made with corn. No second helpings, because those were the only chicken dishes available. Had some pieces of watermelon after that, awesome (Yes, even watermelon feels awesome now ).

• One thing that is very noticeable in China is the hospitality provided by its people. Apparently it is common only in Mainland China (NO, not MLC – Banjara Hills ). The people try their best to help others out, which is very nice.
• Went to an Indian restaurant today, Southern Cross. Had some Dal, mixed vegetable curry, naans and of course, biryani! Tasted good, given the fact that we had been living on biscuits and chips for the past three days. We finally got to see what a busy place as in a market looked like. The dormitory and Expo Center are very far away from the main city. So it is very difficult to go out.
• Trip to The Great Wall is out, because there is not much time and Beijing is more than a thousand kilometers away. However, we will be going to the local sightseeing tour. And then there is a grand banquet dinner in the evening. Really looking forward to that, especially after the amount of hype Yaso has created .
• Have to leave for the airport on Sunday itself because our flight is at 0800Hrs on Monday and the first bus to the airport leaves at 0730Hrs. =((

RoboCup 2008 Day One, Two

• Woke up on time, even though we were 2.5 hours ahead of IST. All those nightouts did pay off .

• Breakfast was OK.
• Bland scrambled eggs.
• Bread and butter.
• Boiled eggs.
• The rest were too horrible looking to even try.
• On the way to the “mess”, I saw some kids ferociously training in the NCC way, can only assume it is for the Red Army.

• The communication problem has become a big headache. People here just do not understand simple English. We are using sign language and specific keywords to make any sense to them. However, there are some people who do know some English.

• China reminds me of America, the lifestyle here is so similar to that of the Americans. How ironic, given the diametrically opposite nature of the governments.
• For example, take the road system which is “right” oriented.

• Completed team registration and entered the exhibition rooms, and my first conference. Apparently the International Expo Centre at Suzhou (pronounced as Sew-Joe) is larger than the one in Hitex, which I have never been to.

• Covered the entire ground in about 45 minutes.
• RoboCup Rescue Simulation.
• Some teams were already there, working on their codes.
• Had the opportunity to finally meet Mr. Tomoichi Takahashi. It is a privilege to even sit beside him.
• His team has come up with a component by which one can import Google Maps and thus use real map data for simulations.
• Met an Iranian team for the Infrastructure competition. They introduced emotions for rescue agents which, as pointed by Harith is bullshit because robots are used for the very reason that humans succumb to their own fears and other emotions. We will just have to see what they have to say tomorrow.
• RoboCup Rescue.
• Real life scenarios, limited to finding the civilians placed at some places in the map. Interesting!
• 2D Soccer.
• Virtual Reality Rescue.
• Aibo Soccer.
• Looked dumb, however some of the goal keeper’s saves were cool.
• Small Soccer League.
• Small wheeled robots, quick, high speed passing including long balls, observable team work.
• Medium Soccer League.
• Big wheeled robots, a lot of “Cronaldo” behaviour (which means SELFISH game). Then again, it must be the teams right?
• Humanoid Soccer League.
• The smaller humanoids looked cool, well balanced.
• The life size models required a person to hold on to its back while walking. Purpose served?
• Water Polo with fish.
• Unlike the original game, the ball in this game is never in the air. The fish looked a bit real from a distance, until the familiar sounds of whirring gears caught out attention.
• Home Assistant.
• To server us coffee, clean rooms and prepare dinner. Boring!
• RoboCup Junior.
• School kids putting their creativity at battles with one another in Rescue and Soccer.
• Robo Dance.
• By far the most pathetic competition. Maybe the teams are to be blamed because all I saw were a couple of robots simply rocking back and forth to some stupid beat while humans danced around them trying to make it look like everything is SO spontaneous.
• Good Stalls.
• Many commercial robot manufacturing companies showcased their products.
• Got a cool poster from the RoboCup 2009 @ Graz (pronounced as Gratz), Austria stall.
• Small demo of the NAO robot, looked nice. Apparently the usual price of one such humanoid is 10000 Euros. However, for the “sake” of RoboCup, they put up a special offer, “Buy 1, Get 3 FREE!”.

• Bathrooms stink! Well that will never be the case if the guys try to “aim” rather than you-know-what!

• Some of the girls are very pretty, mostly Iranians and some Europeans too.

• “Zee Germans” have pretty good physique, so it is not just Schweini! Well that kind of applies to all those Nordic descendants. A prefectly _straight_ point, no comments.

• The food, OMG – where do I even start!

• Fish sandwich, pasta (looks and tastes like crap), pizza (local bakeries in India bake better that these) and some Chinese buffet provided here, costing an average of RMB 35.

• Walked around the Expo Centre (more than 2km) in search of some place to eat. The map was of no help to us because even the locals could not make any sense of it. Finally ended up eating at the stupid “food court” in the centre.

• Living on stuff like biscuits and ice tea, SAD!

• Might be going to an Indian restaurant the day after tomorrow, yippee!

• There is a KFC approximately 7 minutes away and the nearest Pizza Hut is twice as far (McDonalds is much farther and Subway is not even on the map), so I guess tomorrow it will have to be KFC

• The opening ceremony could not have gotten any geekier, with a Star Wars theme in the background. And then there were robot dances, lame!

• 2D Soccer looked really interesting, one particular team was playing a sexy short pass game just like Arsenal .

• Observed a couple of through ball passes made by actual robots, looked very impressive, although it was just a mathematical equation

• Very weird people around.

• The RoboCup Junior party hosted the day before kind of sucked because the electric guitar was not working properly. Apparently the person who was supposed to play it was really good at it.

• Had some Lays chips for dinner, tried to swallow them with the help of some stupid tasting lemon ice tea – sucked!
• These Chinese people have no extremes at all. I actually found “Blueberry” and “Litchee” flavoured Lays chips. WTF!!! Samba on the other hand would say, “Cool!”. LOL.
• Being a non-vegetarian, even I feel so repelled by the odours that come from their kitchens. I wonder how Sir is taking it =)). What is wrong with adding a few pinches of salt and pepper? All these people think that food must be tasted in its natural flavour, or else it must be sweet (Wrong sentence, lite).
• All I could see in the lunch menu was pork, cow, sweet pork, shredded cow, duck, blah, blah.

• Enough of complaing and LOLing for today. We have our presentation tomorrow. After that it will most likely be a trip to The Great Wall. I read a quote on men somewhere which went somewhat like this, “If you have not seen The Great Wall, then you cannot call yourself a man”. LOL.

RoboCup 2008 Day minus One

I am so in the BLAH zone right now that everything here for the next few days will be very discreet.

• Bad journey.
• Tough luck for Harith, this being his maiden flight experience.
• Flight to Bangkok got delayed by an hour.
• Why do all flights other than Air India to and from India are inferior to every other flight in the world in every aspect? I did not consider Air India because it is too fucked up.
• Hyderabad-Bangkok – Food, environment and hospitality were pathetic.
• Bangkok – Food was OK and the rest was great.
• Bangkok airport is beautiful and HUGE. We had to walk a little more than a kilometer to get to our connecting flight.
• Slept in the plane for the entire time.
• Shanghai airport feels like a really big Begumpet airport.
• Had to wait for 2 hours for the “special” RoboCuppers bus.
• The bus then did not move for another hour.
• Had to experience the humid climate of Shanghai, worse than Visakhapatnam.

• Reached the dormitory 3 hours later.
• Some Iranian team was too “busy” to reserve rooms in advance and so we had to stop at every damn hotel for them to check for vacancies. They finally ended up at the dormitory.
• Saw countless men, and I repeat – MEN, just lying on the roads and lawns, without shirts. The reason became very clear the moment we stepped out of the AC bus.

• The hospitality team is awesome, very friendly people.
• Special thanks to a girl named Kenny (do not remember her Chinese name), who gave us a very warm reception and helped out whenever possible.

• The dormitory room is excellent (Will update with pictures later).
• Able to accommodate 4 people in a room, with all the necessary furniture, which is 1.5 times the single room in GHEB.
• Attached bathroom and a very powerful AC, what more can one ask for?
• Rent is RMB 180 (INR 1260) per day, which is pretty good for the quality of the room and service we get.
• Had Oreo and Chips Ahoy! biscuits for dinner.

• Slept peacefully after a very tiring day.

Speed Kills…

Yes, we all know that! We have seen so many instances of it in movies and real life. Yet our know-it-all attitude always makes up keep the throttle wide open.

“Dude, watch your speed!”

“Dude, you cannot cut him off like that!”

Dude this, dude that.

“Oh come on! As if I do not know what the hell I am doing? I always take calculated risks. Do not worry about me mate!” is the usual response. I personally hate it when people tell me how to ride my bike. Valuable suggestions they may be, but they can keep those to themselves. People who have had the opportunity to get behind me on my bike know what I am talking about!

But one day, it just had to happen. For it must have been time that I finally learnt my lesson. A fine cloudy morning it was, with a cool breeze brushing against my face. I was gliding along on the smooth shiny tarmac between the Guest House and Faculty Quarters at around 40 KMPH towards OBH when suddenly a chipmunk, trying to cross the road, came in front of my bike. There was very little time to apply the brakes, and so I tried steering myself clear of the tiny obstacle. After passing the chipmunk, I looked back to see if I was successful in doing so. To my shock, the poor thing was lying on its back, shaking its hind legs violently. I jumped off my bike immediately and ran towards it, and all the time I was thinking, “It might just be the tail, or a leg. I can take care of it as a pet if possible!”

Little did I know what horror was awaiting me. As I approached the scene, I noticed blood oozing out of the chipmunk’s nose and right eye socket from which the eye had popped out. The black silky looking tarmac had now turned red. And all the while its legs, all four of them, were shaking violently in the air, its heart beating wildly, trying to pump as much blood as possible to sustain life for a little while longer.

I just stood there helplessly, watching the mother die slowly. The mother who was probably going back to her kids, to feed them, to play with them, to freaking BE with them! And there was NO bloody thing that I could do. There was nothing anybody could do.

A minute had gone by, and the mother’s twitching started to slow down.

And then it stopped.

It was my first road kill, after a decade of riding a cycle, a scooter and a bike. As I touched the body hoping to see the mother spring back to life, I felt the warmth of the blood inside and the softness of the now limp body. Eyes filled with tears, I picked up the lifeless body and placed it near a small plant.

By the time I reached my room, the cool wind had cleared my eyes of the tears. I was however left with a dent in my mind and heart, that no paint job could ever cover up. The upcoming Sunday will mark its 1 week death anniversary…

Drool Drool Drool!

Following are some pictures of a few HOT babes I came across at Sea World, taken without their permission of course. So what if they feel violated, it is not like I will see such beauties up close in the near future!

1)

Yes, I was referring to bikes. These ladies made my day!

2)

I think Robert Frost was riding this one when he wrote,
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”

3)

4)

Very simple looking gauges on board

5)

Just look at the chrome work, silencer and rear tyre on this one!
Owner is a lady, how cool is that!
Sexy metallic black, heavenly…

6)

7)

That is a big engine alright! And the paint makes me go oh lala!

9)

Now that is a HUGE disc brake!