God save the King

I read this as a facebook status some time ago , "what does Queen Elizabeth say during the British national anthem. God Save me???."

This reminded me of our very own national anthem. Well I don't like controversies so I usually abstain from putting forth my views on any of the topics that might result in the declaration of a reward for putting my head on a spike. However india's national anthem is one issue that I would like to write upon(People if I go missing don't blame anyone panga maine liya tha J ).

Now coming to the point there has been a controversy surrounding our national anthem and national song for quite some time. Both of these are in a language that is not easily understandable, highly sanskritised Bengali. To add to this the creators of both of these were great poets and as we all know a poem has many meanings (which can be the subjects of Dan Brown's next novel). The controversy about vande mataram is mainly due the fact that it was from a book that favoured the british and told of rebellion by sanyasis aginst the muslim ruler. In the story Vande matram was their say theme song aginst the nawab. So the song has been branded as hindu. Because when I read it I found nothing wrong with it. Read for yourself and decide

(the devnagri version has been taken from Wikipedia

वन्दे
मातरम् // I bow to the mother land
सुजलां
सुफलां
मलयजशीतलाम् // full of natural riches(rivers and fruits)
शस्यशामलां
मातरम्
।

शुभ्रज्योत्स्नापुलकितयामिनीं // moonlight enhancs the night's beauty
फुल्लकुसुमितद्रुमदलशोभिनीं //of the trees and the flowers on their branches
सुहासिनीं
सुमधुर
भाषिणीं // the giver of pleasure divine is the motherland
सुखदां
वरदां
मातरम्
।।
१
।।
वन्दे
मातरम्
।
कोटि-कोटि-कण्ठ-कल-कल-निनाद-कराले // millions of throats sing her praise
कोटि-कोटि-भुजैर्धृत-खरकरवाले, //and millions of arms to protect her
अबला
केन
मा
एत
बले
। //who can call her weak
बहुबलधारिणीं
नमामि
तारिणीं //She is strong and protects us from enemies
रिपुदलवारिणीं
मातरम्
।।
२
।।
वन्दे
मातरम्
।
तुमि
विद्या, तुमि
धर्म // you are the knowledge you are my religion
तुमि
हृदि, तुमि
मर्म // you are my heart and the love that is in it
त्वं
हि
प्राणा: शरीरे // you are my soul and body
बाहुते
तुमि
मा
शक्ति, // my arms have your strength
हृदये
तुमि
मा
भक्ति, // my heart worships only you
तोमारई
प्रतिमा
गडि // I see you image in every shrine
मन्दिरे-मन्दिरे
मातरम्
।।
३
।।
वन्दे
मातरम्
।
त्वं
हि
दुर्गा
दशप्रहरणधारिणी // you are like durga the protector
कमला
कमलदलविहारिणी //you are like Lakshmi the giver of riches
वाणी
विद्यादायिनी, नमामि
त्वाम् // you are like saraswati the giver of riches
नमामि
कमलां
अमलां
अतुलां // I bow to you o incomparable
सुजलां
सुफलां
मातरम्
।।
४
।।
वन्दे
मातरम्
।
श्यामलां
सरलां
सुस्मितां
भूषितां

धरणीं
भरणीं
मातरम्
।।
५
।।
वन्दे
मातरम्
।।

Not all of you are going to agree that this is neutral and secular. But as I said earlier it's the viewpoint. And this is why I wrote some 400 word nonsense on view points. However rest is upon you to decide.

I take your leave again

Take care

Philosophical Gibberish I: The eye of the beholder

You can call it peer pressure if you want to as this post and the few that will follow it were planned after I read some really good blogs in the past few days.(if I read your blog in the past few days and you are reading this then thanks.)

Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. Is a common saying and I have found it true in many situations throughout my life. But the way I have found it to be true is not only eye but every sense organ. Or rather I should say the mind of the beholder. It is how we train our mind that determines how we look at different situations or events. I must again quote (mind you this post contains a lot of quotes) and SMS that I got "an optimist sees an opportunity in every problem and a pessimist sees a problem in every opportunity. Point of view matters in how we interact with the world around us. To a large extent this point of view or attitude of perceiving the things around us depends only upon us but there are certain situations beyond our control that affect this. The things in our control are our temper and patience that allow us to take the best out of certain situations. Our optimism to a large extent is also in our control. Based upon this we say that the world around us is a large mirror. And now about the things that are beyond our control are our society and upbringing. They do not affect our attitude in general but do enhance or diminish our ability to see the beauty in certain things around us. As an example of this I will take up some examples that I found interesting.

First of all a simple example if you were born and brought up in a hindu family will consider the swastika as sacred an and worship it. But if in Germany they find you worshipping it you might even land up in prison. In the lost symbol there is a line said by Robert Langdon "every Sunday I bow before an ancient device of torture." He was talking about worshiping a cross in a church. So the things actually sound different when you have different cultural mind-set. Apart from the symbols there words in languages that can trigger a totally different as another example the word B**d is an integral part of the human anatomy to us hindi speakers but to the Germans it is their parliament. Thus I can end by saying that the world around us depends partially upon how we choose to look at it and partially upon how our mind has been setup to look at it. But if we learn to appreciate others point of view as well as ours this world might become a slightly if not a much better place to live in.

This post over but the topic is not out. Because my next post is somewhat related to the point of view. In that case it would be the point of view of interpreting a couple of songs.

What songs….. you will know (if by an infinitesimally small chance you are interested)

Until then

Take Care

 

Just about nothing

I am writing after about an year. I tried many times in the past year to write but there is one thing known as laziness and another known as foolishness and well the two of these have contributed a lot in the stagnation of this blog which i now think i can revive. (Don't laugh please though for those who know me it will be hard to control laughter after reading me and think in the same sentence. I too at certain moments have a creative spark.)

So i was last talking about professor Snape and windows 7. But now these topics seem somewhat not so good to talk because J K Rowling is working hard on an enclyopedia (how do you spell the damn word.) of harry potter and will definitely describe snape better than a 22 year old with the intellectual capacity of an empty coke bottle that is absolutely zero.

Well today is September the fifth 2009 and first sessionals (or mid sem exams as they call them here) have just left us shocked. The world meanwhile has changed a lot since my last post. The bout of recession we had an year ago is over though prices continue to burn a hole in the common man's pocket. There is a deadly new virus out there killing people that has been transmitted from the pigs. Barack Obama has taken over as the president of the US (like i care) and people a not exactly happy with his policies. Meanwhile here in India congress has again won the general elections. Now coming to the news that i like J K Rowling is said to be working on the harry potter encyclopedia ( Again) , Dan Brown's the lost symbol is 10 days away. A really nice movie called quick gun murugan has hit the theatres. Windows 7 is coming on October 22^nd just after Diwali and office 2010 is due next year (duh). The nagayan series of nagraj comics is over (you know nagraj na) it was great but the final 4 pages disappointed me. :P . Chetan Bhagat has also been silent for almost an year now i hope he dishes out the 4^th book soon. Else if you have read till here and are already feeling sleepy (you cannot be asleep because you are reading this. ) please do leave a comment. So that i can improve upon it . Even if you think the above lines were a total waste of bloggers resources do write something J

Will write soon

Take care

 

    

Snapedas-II

Mr. Snape as far as I know was still not able to believe and live with the fact that his wife the girl he loved was a witch. And Emmile was shocked that his husband was uneasy about her being a witch. This uneasiness soon took the form of arguments in the Snape household and shouting and yelling became a regular feature of that old house located at a street named 'Spinners end'.

When young Severus got to his senses, instead of the love of his parents he witnessed bitter fights for the first eight or so years of his life. All he could do was to cower in a corner while his parents shouted their lungs out on each other this kind of environment can't be called good for the upbringing of any child. Severus Snape was exposed to domestic violence since the very beginning causing his feelings to be little blunt till the very end. But that's not something to talk about right now.

Poverty was another issue as in his childhood Snape is described as a skinny boy. "His black hair was overlong and his clothes were so mismatched that it looked deliberate: too short jeans, a shabby, overlarge coat that might have belonged to a grown man, an odd smocklike shirt." These show that the Snapes were not well to do. Or it can be Mr. Snape's loathing for wizards that made him neglect his own son. Frustrated from his domestic conditions Severus proffered to spend time in a park near his house. His poverty made him shabby and the conditions of his house made him introvert. Two qualities which did not attract friends to him. Severus stood there all alone passing his time in the park. Until one when he was nine or ten he saw two girls playing on the swings. One of them named Lily was taking her swing high into the air and then descending gently the other one (called Tuny) did not seem amused by the fact that her sister can do such a feat. Tuny was rather scared. This was the time when Severus frits talked to Lily Evans to tell her that she was a witch. None of the girls seemed impressed by his rudeness. But as our hero later explained that being a witch meant that she was able to do magic. Eventually after a few meetings Lily accepted the truth. Thus Severus found a friend in a neighborhood girl who shared the same gift as himself. Lily Evans was the first person whom Severus Sanpe believed in and with whom he shared all his heart. For Lily Severus was his guide to a new and unexplored world to which she was to belong and for Severus Lily was his first and only true friend.

Meanwhile our villain Tom Marvolo Riddle made himself a new name "Lord Voldemort" and had left the scene for sometime in the search of immortality. He was to return soon. Having divided his soul into several parts and placing them in shells named horcruxes so that even if his body was destroyed his soul remained earthbound. He upon his return was to unleash a movement for the purification (as per his terms) of the wizarding race. And his return was timed around the tenth birthdays of Lily and Severus. Voldemort gathered forces under the name "The Death Eaters" and started his quest for power. This started a war in the wizarding world. The first wizarding war as it is called; lasted for ten years.

I now leave this story here and again take your leave with a promise to return soon.

Until then take care

J

The Ballad of the parabolic reflector

This was supposed to be submitted to a teacher of ours but due to sound advice by some of my friends I resisted the fatal temptation. Read for yourselves

Of a parabolic reflector we sat, Task whose noble is to reverberate a ray.

It makes a spherical wavefront plane, providing along with some directive gain.

But a wave plane which should have been carries now lobes minor along its being.

If isotropic had the source been the wavefront would have been clean.

But alas directive is the nature it knows, causing the cause of a few minor lobes.

The parabola as known to all thin and fat is but a curve drawn on a surface flat.

4ax=y² its equation and extend we will to 3-D this condition.

A paraboloid we thus incarnate 4fx=y²+z² being the equation great if about the axis does the parabola rotate.

For a reflector given in the above manner i.e. to which the equation does describe has a length focal of f says the scribe.

To these words you may heed we may mutilate to a reflector by the addition of a feed.

At the focus the feed finds place radiates which energy into free space.

Space is a harsh word to say, as reflector is the only thing that in our mind should stay.

Though this information is redundant but a car headlight is its form most abundant.

Also we may fail to notice; but in a dish for the DTH service.

Parabolic is the shape of 'ts locus concentrating rays upon the focus.

Gain a large does this device grant with a beamwidht that is scant.

A horn antenna we do apply at the seed whose task is to act as a feed.

We may also use a simple dipole to make our way to the same goal.

Now is the turn of Cassegain astronomy whose subject was main.

Good or bad we shan't say dut known are his deeds to the present day.

In an antenna of his type, placed at the vertex; the source is without any hype.

Another reflector we place in the shape of hyperbolied exactly reader at the focus of the paraboloied.

Reflected from hyperboloid the rays seem as spherically originated at the focus have they been.

This contraption does eliminate the problem which directivity did create.

A cost for this we have to pay, beam in certain regions does not stay.

A polarization twisting we may use to make this effect diffuse.

 

This ends the ballad hope you liked it

Now those who were expecting part 2 of Snapedas or counting to 7 am sorry will upload as soon as possible.

Take care

J

Snapedas

"Albus Severus," Harry said quietly, so that nobody but Ginny could hear, and she was tactful enough to pretend to be waving to rose, who was now on the train, "you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew."

                                                                                            -Epilogue, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

The title of this post is actually the combinations of the names of the two greatest tragic heroes in fiction I have known, J K Rowling's Severus Snape and Sharatchandra's Devdas. About Snape I think I know a lot and Devdas I have not read yet but the life and tragedy of Snape was no less than Sharatchandra's immortal character. So just to give the non potter maniacs reading this blog a brief introduction to the great lover Severus Snape I write the following lines.

An all those who are not familiar with potter world let me give a brief introduction. Like our world; Harry Potter's magical world had a flaw the discrimination of people based on birth. A person of muggle (non magical) parentage was considered to be inferior to someone with wizard blood. This was like racial discrimination in South Africa or the caste system still prevalent in our India. Harassing someone for a thing beyond his or her control. Now as muggle parentage was considered a bane muggles were considered as an inferior race altogether. Muggle hunting was also proposed as sport. And like our world there were people fighting both for it and against it. The good guys naturally were against it. Lord Voldemort the main antagonist of the story is portrayed as a self hating bully; he himself being of half muggle parentage started a campaign against the muggle born people or mudbloods (used as an abusive word). His followers were known as the death eaters. The people resisting it from within the wizarding world rallied under Albus Dumbledore under another secrete organization named the order of the phoenix.

Dumbledore apart from being a great wizard was also the headmaster of Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry, the center of education for all the young magical population of England. And Dumbledore was said to be the one Voldemort ever feared.

Now wizards have a game known as gobstones and Hogwarts had a gobstones club. In the late 1960's the president of this club was a girl named Emmline Prince who eventually married a muggle named Tobius Sanpe. Snape was unaware of the fact that ms Prince was a witch and was shocked upon the revelation(as far as I know) however they continued to live together. They had a son who was named Severus.

With the birth of Severus Sanpe I take your leave and promise that will soon complete this tragedy all of whose rights are owned by Ms. J K Rowling.

Until then

Take Care

Experience form Whistler (Part 1 of counting to 7)

The picture that is visible here may look unfamiliar but still there is an amount of familiarity to it. It somewhat resembles the screen we use to login to our respective systems that contain Microsoft Windows^xp. And it is not a screenshot from the upcoming version of windows. I sure will be talking about that soon enough here only but not now. This actually is a screenshot of the welcome screenshot of windows whistler and to tell the tale of whistler I must again press the rewind button. To the turn of the millennium this time (my readers (if any) might be thinking that I love to live in the past but this is a story I want to build upon right from the beginning.) So coming back to the year 2000 mid-January 2000 actually I refer to a news item on the internet "Neptune and Odyssey canceled for whistler".

Neptune and odyssey actually were 'would be' versions of Windows NT targeted at home and business users respectively. Windows Me had proven to be a sort of a nightmare for Microsoft. It had too many compatibility and stability problems to be usable and also it marked the end of the windows 9x series targeted at home users.

Before whistler Microsoft Windows was divided into two platforms NT for business users and 9x for home users. NT versions were found to be more stable and less user friendly. Odyssey intended to bring this stability to the user friendliness of 9x platform. Neptune was an upgrade to Windows 2000. But as both these projects were employing NT technology so these were merged under a common code name whistler which was to replace the windows 9x platform with the rock solid NT base while maintaining the user friendliness.

Whistler also introduced a new visual style to windows known as Luna. And if you are guessing where actually to get this version then it's my job to tell you that whistler was just a code name and its different from the final name of windows.

Actually every version of windows goes through a development cycle. In the first or alpha phase which is available only to the developers at Microsoft all versions of windows are referred by their code name. Then come the beta stages by the time final name for the windows version is declared and its beta or pre release versions are made available on the internet for testing purposes. Then comes the final release which is made available through retailers.

So whistler which was code named after a mountain stayed for about a year and a half in development. Its look and feel undergone several changes was finally released as windows experience (xp for short) on October 25 ,2001.

Though this information is redundant for the coming posts in these I just wanted to tell that how a version of windows changes as it is developed like this original welcome screen of windows xp.

So till now the story has progressed to end of 2001 about 2 years. And until the second part of this series is done

Take care

J