I have been lucky enough to try lots of things in life. Painting, sketching, kathak, harmonium, writing (poetry, story, blogs), swimming, tailoring (stitching, knitting), trekking, cycling, public speaking (debating, paper reading), lecturing, social work (volunteering, counseling), sports (kabaddi, skipping, high jump, badminton), leading (organizing, managing), etc. I have been successful in some, reasonably okay in some. There is one thing in which though I have failed miserably, or let's say performed unsatisfactorily and which makes me feel bad quite often. It is singing - an essential part of which is remembering the lyrics.
I do not want to curse my memory, I was teaching an engineering student a few days back here, and I amazed myself by finding out that I remembered all the trigonometric formulae I never touched after my high school exams. So I don't want to think that it is to do with lack of memory. Rather I feel it has more to do with selective memory. I can't remember definitions, my Economics teacher in school always wanted me to quote economists for definitions, but I could hardly do that. So I possibly can't memorize statements verbatim. I am not sure where in is the exact problem.
Anyways, this post is about the few songs which I remember verbatim (which means I remember more than or equal to four lines of that song).
As a kid I would sing this song with my younger brother. I would make him don the role of Kajol in the song, and would play Shahrukh myself, and we would both enact the song.
Jaati hun main, jaldi hai kya,
dhar ke jiya, woh kyun bhala....
Khud se main darne lagi hun, main pyar karne lagi hun...
Khud se jo itna darogi, tum pyar kaise karogi...
Jaati hun main, jaldi hai kya!!
The next song I know is also due to my younger brother. He loved the movie Guru, "Gurubhai Gurubhai awechhe", he would say for days after he watched the movie. His favorite dialogues: "Jab koi tumhare baare mein baatein karne lage to samajh lo ki tarakki kar rahe ho", and "naam tha nahi, hai, aur rahega , Gurukant Desai... " He would speak them so many times, that I could not help but remember them. His favorite song:
Jaage hai der tak, kuchh der sone do,
thodi si raat aur hai, subah to hone do,
aadhe adhure khwab jo, pure na ho sake,
ek baar phir se neend mein, woh khwab bone do.
Then when during masters in Delhi, I asked a friend of mine in the hostel (an amazing singer she is), to teach me a song. I chose the one written below. I remember we sat down at 9 after dinner in the night, and the session continued till 12 as she got tired and wanted to retire. I still practiced some more after she went away. All I learnt after that hard practice session were these lines:
Kaise bhoolungi, tu yaad hamesha aayega,
tere jaane se, jeena mushkil ho jayega,
din badle, duniya badle, waqt badlata nahi,
dil tere bin kahin lagta nahi, waqt guzarta nahi,
kya yahi pyar hai... kya yahi pyar hai...
(I am sure she will feel proud when she reads this, her mehnat has not gone into paani after all)
And the last song, which I learnt myself, must have sung these lines a hundred times by now:
O, palanhare, nirgun aondeya re,
tumre bin hamra kauno nahi,
hamri uljhan, suljhao bhagwan,
tumre bin hamra kauno nahi...
tumhe humka ho sambhale,
tumhe humre rakhwale,
tumre bin hamra kauno nahi...
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Radha was married
Oh! What a discovery I made... Just generally thinking about how mean Krishna was, who loved Radha so dearly but still did not have the courage to make her his life partner, I started thinking if Radha ever married at all. After a few googling results I stumbled onto this spectacular discovery that Radha was a married woman, it was an extra-marital affair that she had with Krishna. I am amazed with this discovery, hard to digest, but makes logical sense so can be accepted. I knew that some of the gopis who would romance with Krishna were married, but to find out that Radha was married too and we still celebrate their romance with so much of élan was a great discovery for me.
I will not be writing for a few weeks, have exams coming up and look at the thoughts I get during exam times. Conjectures, epics I feel like doing these things more than plainly sitting down to study course stuff probably. May God save me!
I will not be writing for a few weeks, have exams coming up and look at the thoughts I get during exam times. Conjectures, epics I feel like doing these things more than plainly sitting down to study course stuff probably. May God save me!
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Conjecture 21
Sometime in the past I had read or heard that it takes 21 days for a person to get rid of any of his habits. Just now I was thinking about it and was trying to figure out why was 21 chosen. What was wrong with any other number, was 21 just an arbitrary choice or some scientifically calculated estimate. I still do not have an answer to this question, but while thinking about this I have arrived at a nice discovery though.
Conjecture: 21, 42 and 84 and their reverses of the digits i.e 12, 24 and 48 are the only two digit numbers (so that both digits are non-zero and exclude the multiples of 9) which are divisible by what their digits sum up to.
Proof: Let us try to prove this conjecture. I say it as a conjecture as I am still to get a complete and adequate proof to it. But logic and intuition makes me say that it is provable.
The only reason to exclude 1 to 9 is that they trivially hold as the sum of digits in this case is just the number which is surely divisible by itself. Also the numbers with multiples of 10 add up to the non-zero digit which would surely divide the number. Also the multiples of 9 have this property that they sum up to 9 and hence would surely be divisible by 9. So let's concentrate on this more interesting case of 2 digit numbers i.e., from 11 to 99.
Certainly the first thought would be to exclude all the prime numbers in this range as they can never be divided by their sum.
Next we can exclude even numbers with an odd in the first digit, as they would certainly add up to an odd number which can never divide the number which is even. So this excludes all the even numbers in those columns with first digit as odd e.g columns of 10s, 30s etc.
Also exclude numbers with both digits odd as they would sum to even which can not divide the odd number.
Next the numbers with repeated digits on being divided by their sum would always give 11/2 which means they are not divisible. So exclude them.
The numbers ending with 5 can only be divided by 5 or 0 and any non zero digit added to 5 can never give 5, so exclude all numbers ending with 5.
The rest can be excluded by hit and trial.
This is surely not the greatest way to solve this, the best way would be to make an algorithm and program this rather than solving it so inefficiently as I suggested. Now since I have already typed it by putting in so much of efforts I would surely post it and welcome any suggestion on this problem also, but you are equally free to simply ignore this post.
Conjecture: 21, 42 and 84 and their reverses of the digits i.e 12, 24 and 48 are the only two digit numbers (so that both digits are non-zero and exclude the multiples of 9) which are divisible by what their digits sum up to.
Proof: Let us try to prove this conjecture. I say it as a conjecture as I am still to get a complete and adequate proof to it. But logic and intuition makes me say that it is provable.
The only reason to exclude 1 to 9 is that they trivially hold as the sum of digits in this case is just the number which is surely divisible by itself. Also the numbers with multiples of 10 add up to the non-zero digit which would surely divide the number. Also the multiples of 9 have this property that they sum up to 9 and hence would surely be divisible by 9. So let's concentrate on this more interesting case of 2 digit numbers i.e., from 11 to 99.
Certainly the first thought would be to exclude all the prime numbers in this range as they can never be divided by their sum.
Next we can exclude even numbers with an odd in the first digit, as they would certainly add up to an odd number which can never divide the number which is even. So this excludes all the even numbers in those columns with first digit as odd e.g columns of 10s, 30s etc.
Also exclude numbers with both digits odd as they would sum to even which can not divide the odd number.
Next the numbers with repeated digits on being divided by their sum would always give 11/2 which means they are not divisible. So exclude them.
The numbers ending with 5 can only be divided by 5 or 0 and any non zero digit added to 5 can never give 5, so exclude all numbers ending with 5.
The rest can be excluded by hit and trial.
This is surely not the greatest way to solve this, the best way would be to make an algorithm and program this rather than solving it so inefficiently as I suggested. Now since I have already typed it by putting in so much of efforts I would surely post it and welcome any suggestion on this problem also, but you are equally free to simply ignore this post.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
The English weather
I have spent an Autumn and a Winter, am ongoing a Spring and am anticipating a Summer in England. For a person like me who is driven by weather, be it about efficiency at any engaging work or plain mood, a post on the English weather was certain, only took some time to understand it in entirety. A step outside the house in the morning on way to school, and the first human I would meet on the road would greet me with "Good morning! Lovely day, isn't it?"- that is in cases when the sun is glowing, in cases when it is dull and gloomy I also get to hear "Good morning! Wonder if the weather forecasts are of any good, they have been forecasting the sun since quite a while now without any success." Being from a tropical country to crave for the sun is natural for me, but then actually, everybody likes the sun. However centrally heated you house or your car may be, nothing can replace what sun does for you.
When I came here, it was almost like summers going to end and I witnessed trees shedding off their clothes. Dint like much seeing them naked, and probably neither did they like it much, so saw winters descend only to cover them with snow. That was perhaps good for the trees to get the gift of a white gown, dressed like angels, but was cruelty to me. I was cold. Not that I was subject to atrocities by having no coats or hats, but the craving for a warm sun (yes, there is another kind of sun also, the fake sun, which may be full and glaring but with no warmth) would make me cold. I remember having enjoyed the first rain here, only to be commented by a friend that I would soon pray for it to never rain again. And actually I did pray so. It rained relentlessly for ages, those fake rains which don't wet you enough to claim that your bath for the day is done, but only irritate you with their continuity and lack of vigor, may be reminding you of a sluggish life which sometimes seems just too much stretched.
It never got any less cold though. I started feeling numb, my mood was getting sick of the monotonicity of similar kind of feeling everyday. The weather did all it could to do to make me reach the point of exasperation. World looked black and white to me, black nights and white mornings. Probably the trees also started getting bored of their white dresses. The dynamics of life is not linear but non-linear, it is not in black and white but in colours. And so spring dawned. I welcomed it with a huge hug, the days got warmer, the trees got their leaves back, they look merrier in green.
It has been quite warm since a few days now, the sun is no more fake, trying to remain as true and just to its work as possible. So today in the morning when I got up by the sun rays peeping into my room from the little apart curtains at the corner, I smiled, smiled at the prospect of having a warm day ahead. I got up and drew apart my curtains with full rigor as an acknowledgment to the grace of the sun. And lo! The cars parked on the roads, the tall trees and the short shrubs, the grasses on the front yards of the houses, the street lamp-posts and the bus-stop stands, everything that I could see- covered by a white blanket of snow. Fake sun, I must say!
When I came here, it was almost like summers going to end and I witnessed trees shedding off their clothes. Dint like much seeing them naked, and probably neither did they like it much, so saw winters descend only to cover them with snow. That was perhaps good for the trees to get the gift of a white gown, dressed like angels, but was cruelty to me. I was cold. Not that I was subject to atrocities by having no coats or hats, but the craving for a warm sun (yes, there is another kind of sun also, the fake sun, which may be full and glaring but with no warmth) would make me cold. I remember having enjoyed the first rain here, only to be commented by a friend that I would soon pray for it to never rain again. And actually I did pray so. It rained relentlessly for ages, those fake rains which don't wet you enough to claim that your bath for the day is done, but only irritate you with their continuity and lack of vigor, may be reminding you of a sluggish life which sometimes seems just too much stretched.
It never got any less cold though. I started feeling numb, my mood was getting sick of the monotonicity of similar kind of feeling everyday. The weather did all it could to do to make me reach the point of exasperation. World looked black and white to me, black nights and white mornings. Probably the trees also started getting bored of their white dresses. The dynamics of life is not linear but non-linear, it is not in black and white but in colours. And so spring dawned. I welcomed it with a huge hug, the days got warmer, the trees got their leaves back, they look merrier in green.
It has been quite warm since a few days now, the sun is no more fake, trying to remain as true and just to its work as possible. So today in the morning when I got up by the sun rays peeping into my room from the little apart curtains at the corner, I smiled, smiled at the prospect of having a warm day ahead. I got up and drew apart my curtains with full rigor as an acknowledgment to the grace of the sun. And lo! The cars parked on the roads, the tall trees and the short shrubs, the grasses on the front yards of the houses, the street lamp-posts and the bus-stop stands, everything that I could see- covered by a white blanket of snow. Fake sun, I must say!
Monday, March 31, 2008
Tit- bits
This weekend I watched an amazing movie - RACE! Yes I say it is amazing, I am sure, many would not agree to this and might just write off my sense in movies. I do not care. I have grown up with my younger brother on weekly doses of Tehkikat by Shyam D'Silva and Gopi Chand on Doordarshan. The detective serial was something we would not miss for anything. My mom was also convinced that we both cannot live without it, and so even during exams she would permit us to watch that serial. So now liking Race may seem justified. I always look forward to any suspense thriller that gets released, and Race gets an ace amongst them. Not even once did the movie turn out to be predictable to me, the comedy quotient was good enough to keep my jaws occupied with the brain trying to decipher the mystery. There might be a few bollywoodish gibberishes here and there, but that can be overlooked, otherwise justified by the class that Abaas Mustan, the director duo has put up in the movie.
Apart from the movie watching, this weekend I pondered about the fact that I am sure over this period of time I have surely made a few regular readers of my blog, who do not want to comment on my posts, but surely want to read them to derive whatever set of emotions they have been deriving out of my posts. Just like listening to music or dancing or partying or blogging, reading others blogs may also be some way of recreation. So how justified is it if I deprive them of this recreation. To try and put up one post at a regularly defined time intervals seems quintessential.
And then it does not need to make sense always. I don't stop watching movies ever, so why stop blogging ever. Cheers!
Apart from the movie watching, this weekend I pondered about the fact that I am sure over this period of time I have surely made a few regular readers of my blog, who do not want to comment on my posts, but surely want to read them to derive whatever set of emotions they have been deriving out of my posts. Just like listening to music or dancing or partying or blogging, reading others blogs may also be some way of recreation. So how justified is it if I deprive them of this recreation. To try and put up one post at a regularly defined time intervals seems quintessential.
And then it does not need to make sense always. I don't stop watching movies ever, so why stop blogging ever. Cheers!
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Accidental love
I recently watched the new release "The Accidental Husband". There is something which remained with me after I completed watching the movie, I am still not able to think any less about it. There is Dr. Emma, the female lead who is a famous love doctor aka love guru and there is Mr. Patrick who is the male lead, an ordinary fireman. Mr. Patrick is the accidental husband of Dr. Emma. From what started as a revenge, they both eventually fell in love with each other. Emma did not fall in love with Patrick just after knowing him, but it was a gradual process. The time she spent with his family, his friends, with him in his social gatherings- everything added to make her fall in love with him.
So there can be two situations of falling in love with somebody- one can be when one does not know anything more than what the person is, like no knowledge about his family, his social lineages, his friends and his kind of gatherings; or the other can be to fall in love with the person after having encountered everything, after having spent time with his family and friends, having attended social functions with him, having known him quite well in and out.
I don't know which of the two is right. May be there is not much difference between them after all. May be there is not much to even think about in them. I am not sure.
So there can be two situations of falling in love with somebody- one can be when one does not know anything more than what the person is, like no knowledge about his family, his social lineages, his friends and his kind of gatherings; or the other can be to fall in love with the person after having encountered everything, after having spent time with his family and friends, having attended social functions with him, having known him quite well in and out.
I don't know which of the two is right. May be there is not much difference between them after all. May be there is not much to even think about in them. I am not sure.