What do women want?

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Note 1: I am but a mere speck in the Universe, a no-one in the Grand scheme of things. So, let me at the outset declare, that I am in no way capable of answering the posed question. I will still try to answer it, just like I try to dance (at a disc) when I am incapable of dancing.


Note 2: Girls reading this (if any), take this with a pinch of salt. I am not a total ass, I have written some 'aww-ish' posts earlier, like 'I See You', and 'Memory/Memories'. :)
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Well, well. Now that all the disclaimers are in place, I might as well get down to some ass kicking and kicking ass! :D I have been thinking about this question since quite some time now. So, like most of the people of our generation, who turn to Google if they want answers, I tried to search  for it too. On Google. And I am sure none of you would be surprised when I tell you that no sooner had I typed "what do " in the search box, there, Google popped me a suggestion - "what do women want?". Imagine the relief I got! It is heartening to know that I am not the only one clueless, the entire world is! And when I completed the search query, I got 99.1 million search results! Ninety-nine point one freakin' million results! Whoa! :D


I am sure it must be all the losers doing all that writing. You know, like the great Socrates said, "By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." Ha! And judging by the fact that Socrates became a philosopher, now we all know how he fared. (And similar logic will lead you to judge me as well. Like I care.)


So, I began my quest for answering this apparently un-answerable question by tackling another, easier question first. Something I can relate to, and I am acquainted with. That question is, "What do men want?". I did research, and conducted surveys. I present to you the results of the second survey I did below, in the form of a pie-chart:

Now, keen readers would have noticed that above are the results from the second survey, and not the first survey that I did. That has been done because, otherwise, my tabulated results would have looked like this:

So, I had to strike this option out for the second survey to get some meaningful answers. (Yeah, since when has our generation considered sex "meaningful" anyway.) Anyway, the fact of the matter is, if you look at either of the charts above, you will notice, that men are pretty clear about what they want, and the objects or things of their desire are quantifiable and can be expressed mathematically.


Women, on the other hand, are made of sterner stuff. Only a fool attempts to quantify their desires and tries to express it in simple mathematical terms. With whatever little experience and understanding I have, I have come up with the following (single-line) explanation of what women want:

"Women want men to understand what they want without their telling it to them."

Friends, don't let this seemingly straight-forward sentence confuse you. It is the most devious plan designed to always make you fail. To understand it, you have to first understand where does this come from. This stems from the women-folk's inability to discover and know what they really want. So this, in effect, outsources the thinking to the men-folk. Men-folk, who were truly happy playing their video games and watching movies, are now forced to think for the women to win her, and themselves becoming unhappy over a due course of time at their repeated failures. And try and picture this from a girl's point of view. Someone, who had no clue of what she wanted (and is aware of the results of the first survey that I did!), now has several men doing the thinking for her, and creative, and ingenious thinking at that! Plus, she also gets to throw tantrums, make a face, and say, "No, this is not what I really want.", and then move on to the second and the third option. Until, she comes across something that is seemingly awesome, and then she can glee-fully go, "Yes! This is exactly what I want! :) ". Sheer genius, ain't it?


Feel free to leave comments, or you can contact me directly to send me hate-mails, about any and everything, including:


What do women want?!!!

Clean Slate

"Congratulations Class of '11!", the Board reads. It is from before the Summer. It has been that way since we had the Final Party in this class for the graduating batch. It has been that way for over two months now. And it has been sad. Dust. Cobwebs. I, too, a mere Duster, have been lying here, neglected. Until now. Now, is my favorite time of the year. Now, is the time I have been waiting for. Now, is exciting. Yay! Finally! Now, is here!

"What Now?", you ask? Wrong question! The correct question is, "Why Now?". Ah, and pardon my excitement, and pardon my not being brief, and pardon my being cryptic. I have had no-one to talk to over the Summer. It has been lonely. And you should know that I truly, with all my heart, appreciate your being here, and listening to me, a Nobody. I really do.

I will answer the question in two simple words. Clean Slate. You see, the cleaners will come in some time, and wipe the Board squeaky clean! Using me! And voila! Clean Slate. The Board will read, "Welcome, Class of '12!". And it makes me so proud that it is me, I, who will give this new Class, Clean Slate! Now, good Sir, is the time for me to answer your original question - "What Now?". Ha ha! I know it is obvious to you now, wise Sir. Let me still answer it.

Now, is a fresh beginning. New, bright, cheerful, curious faces, starting a new chapter in their lives. And it is poetic, that they do so with a Clean Slate in front of them. Over the coming year, they will learn new things, meet new people, discover themselves, and in the process, will be building themselves, and preparing themselves for the next chapters in their Lives. I have seen so many batches come and go, with similar anxieties, similar doubts, about life, about the world, and about themselves, and I have seen people growing, and facing failures, and maturing, and being sad, and falling in love, and being distressed, and being happy, and being miserable, and being successful, year after year. Ha! And, humble Sir, I must tell you, in the End, in the End, they will all turn out just fine. All of them. It's an exhilarating experience for me. Despite knowing that it will all fall into place in the End, the journey of each and every individual is full of surprises, and it amazes me! Everyone has their own story. Similar, yet different.

And you should see them ask questions! Valid, sometimes juvenile. But I think it's a part of growing up. You know, there was this Professor who used to teach here a few years back. He taught Philosophy to the students. A bright young kid asked him a most difficult, yet simple question - "What should I do to be Happy in Life?". I stared at the Professor in horror! Was there one definite, or even a right answer to this question?! But, kind Sir, I still remember how the Professor replied to that bright young kid, and it made me happy.

The Professor simply smiled, and with calm, replied to the bright young kid, "Look at this Board. This is your Life. You will write the chapters of your Life on this. Write as much as you can, knowing that...", and he walked over to the Board, and he wiped it, and he continued, "... that one day you will have to start all over again with a Clean Slate. When you do, embrace it. For you are lucky, for a fresh opportunity, for you to try something different-ly this time. Be strong. Persevere. Strive, to make every chapter of your Life a work of Art, a literary piece, and know no remorse when the time comes to wipe it all off. Do it with a smile, and you shall know Happiness.".

I don't know how true the Professor's words were, maybe they weren't. But that day, I truly felt proud of what I do. I offer them a Clean Slate. To make a new beginning, and write the next chapter of their own little Adventures. Thank you, gracious Sir, thank you for listening. Time flies, and before we know it, the Board will read, "Congratulations Class of '12!"...

Multiple Chrome-gasms

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Note 1: I know, I know. I haven't blogged a lot lately. <- One clichéd sentence which is to be found far too often on the blogs of people who "think" they are regular bloggers, and "think" that they attract a decent blog-o-dience. So, I will avoid it. Though, I swear that there have been atleast five instances in the last three months, when I almost got myself to write something random that had popped into my head.

Note 2: It was only a little more than 2 years ago that I liked Firefox so much, that I likened it to a cake, a suggested Icing for it. 2 years later, here I am, broken-up with Firefox, in love with Chrome, so much, that I thought I should write about it. Also, this is a cheap way for me to get a new post up on my blog.
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Google Chrome was awesome. But now, Google Chrome has become so much more super-mega-dooper-awesome, had it been a girl, I would have married her. Yaa yaa, don't give me the looks just yet. Read on!


I will try to avoid wasting your and my time, by assuming that you know that cutting edge is baked right into Chrome, like the silent updates, amazing omnibar, neat Translate integration, slick memory management, a separate task manager, minimalist design (down to the last pixel), blazing JavaScript engine, and advanced download experience (oh the joy when you click on a file currently downloading, and it goes "Opening in x seconds..." ), to name a few among several others. And who can deny that the incognito mode comes handy in times of need.

So, let me not talk about all that, and instead talk about the additional things that make Chrome awesome (for me).


1)
Let me start by introducing 'Incredible Start Page'. This replaces the standard 'New tab' interface of Chrome, and, well, this is what my 'New tab' page looks like now, and I love it!

Incredible Start Page

2)
Sync. Sync. Sync.
'Sync (to Cloud)' is a buzzword in tech today, and not without reason.


So, you can setup sync in Chrome ( Options -> Personal Stuff -> Set up sync ), which will sync your apps, extensions, bookmarks, and autofill information, among other things, to your Google account. And with Chrome 16, comes multiple profiles ( Options -> Personal Stuff -> Users ). So, next time you are somewhere other than your own computer, just create a new user, and login using your credentials, voila, the browser becomes yours. Multiple profiles is good to have on your own computer, if several people are using it, or you need to open more than one GMail/Facebook account in the browser.


Adding to this capability is the Chrome extension 'Context', which lets you profile "extensions" usage. So, you can have a different set of extensions for work, for home, for playing games, for idle browsing, and so on. Neat.

Also, we have the 'Fresh Start - Session Manager', which saves all your current tabs as a session (which is synced to your Google account), which you can restore later.



3)
Search engines! Custom search engines feature in Chrome is sweet! This is how it works:

Right click on the omnibar, and click 'edit search engines' (or you could go to "chrome://settings/searchEngines" ). Under 'Other search engines', you can set up the 'Name', the 'Keyword', and the 'URL', in that order. The "%s" parameter gets replaced by your query when you type it into the omnibar using the keyword. In layman's terms, I have this setup on my browser, in order of the columns:


Imdb Search | imdb | http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=%s

Subtitles | srt | http://subscene.com/filmsearch.aspx?Submit=Search+[Subscene]&title=%s

Facebook | fb | http://www.facebook.com/search/?src=os&q=%s

Wikipedia | wiki | http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=%s

Twitter Status Update | tweet | http://twitter.com/home?status=%s


In effect, if I have to find something on wikipedia, I type "wiki", hit space/tab, type my query, hit enter, and voila, the page opens up! So on for searching imdb, subtitles, facebook, and yes, updating my twitter status. Sweet.

Happy creating-your-own-custom-search!


4)
Apps.

When Google first launched Apps for Chrome, they were nothing more than fancy bookmarks for websites. Well, this has changed today. Apart from the variety and range of apps available, it is their functionality which has undergone a drastic make-over, the key being, offline capabilities. So, apps now, are neat little small packages of happiness residing inside your browser with tremendous offline and online capabilities.

We have games you can play offline, like 'Angry Birds'.

And then there are games which I have played so many times, that I see them in my dreams now - 'Bejeweled'

Then we have games which defy what has been done inside browsers up until now, like 'Bastion'. Seriously, you have to see it to believe it.

We have apps that takes your mail offline - 'Offline Google Mail'.

We have a full fledged offline scientific calculator - 'Scientific Calculator'.

And, and, we have an app to remotely connect and control other computers - 'Chrome Remote Desktop' !


The day is nigh when all we would need would be a browser!  


5)
Handy Extensions.

This post would be incomplete without my mentioning some of the very useful extensions.

I have this habit of opening several youtube windows in my browser, and then play them one after the other. Well, after a while, navigating to the tabs and individually playing them becomes annoying. Enter, 'Video Controller', which complies all the open youtube tabs into a neat playlist.

Sometimes. you don't want to bookmark pages, you just want to read them later, like in an hour or so. And the open tabs annoy the hell out of you. Well, there is 'Page Snooze' for you.

'Google Dictionary', to quickly find definitions. 'efTwo', a more than brilliant replacement of the standard 'Find on page' in the browser. Try it to discover awesomeness. 'Cloudy Calculator', for quick calculations. and 'World Clocks', for people working with people across several time-zones.

Ah, and for the Google Plus fanboys, do checkout 'Google + Notifications', 'Google +1 button', and the 'Hangout Canopy', for discovering live public hangouts! :)


6)
Chrome webstore.
Google has a very well cataloged webstore for extensions and apps.


7)
Chrome experiments.
And, Google also features experiments to show what could be done inside a browser. My favorite is - 'The Wilderness Downtown'.



Do tell me what your favorite Chrome feature/extensions are in the comments! OR, you can contact me directly! :)

Multiple Chrome-gasms...



P.S.: No, Google did not give me any money to write this. Though, I wouldn't mind some.

Illumination and Rangoli, IIT Kharagpur

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Note 1: Every time I write a post, I think quite a lot about what the heading should be. It is pretty straight-forward in this one.

Note 2: Happy Diwali!
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Every year, some 4000-odd bright and smart students, tucked away in a tiny village/town in India, create Magic. Every year. Students, who are known to be brilliant in "The Sciences", create Magic in Art, beyond imagination, and it comes from a place so unlikely for something like this. A spectacle seen at no-place else, a spectacle a lot of people don't know about. A spectacle the world needs to know about.

Which is why I want to write about it. And I will, knowing that my blog's reach isn't too great, but hoping that I am able to make this grand event reach a few more people than it would have otherwise, and do my (tiny) bit in spreading the word about something that deserves to be known.

I am talking about 'Illumination and Rangoli', popularly called 'Illu' by the students, organised every year at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur. It is a "competition", among the various halls of residences inside the campus. It involves two events, 'Illumination', and 'Rangoli', fiercely contested among the participating halls. Winning the event goes beyond the pots and pots of Rasgullas given to the winners, it's about pride, honor, the sense of togetherness, accomplishment, the rush of adrenalin, and more...

As someone who had the privilege of going to IIT Kharagpur, I would like to share what I have seen over the years as a student there, as someone who has seen the emotions and the feelings, felt it, and feels the need to shout it out for the world to hear, and can only attempt to describe it in words.

Illumination:

Diwali is the biggest Indian festival, meant to be celebrated with friends and family. For most of the four/five years that the students spend at IIT Kharagpur, it is celebrated with only friends, without the family. For Illu.

So, the preparations begin a month in advance. Huge chatai's, or grids made of bamboo, are used to tie diyas to. Several days are spent in tying up the diyas to wires, which would be used to keep the diya in place on the Chatai. No electronic lights of any sort are used in the whole setup. The diyas are tied to the Chatais to make patterns. Popular scenes chosen are straight out of Indian mythology, like 'The Mahabharat', or 'The Ramayan'.

There is madness on the final day. The atmosphere is enveloped in rush and urgency. The halls are decorated. Huge containers are filled with oil. Pichkaris would be used to fill the diyas with oil. The oil is preheated so that it burns effectively. Wicks are put in place in the diyas. When the moment comes, thousands of diyas are lighted simultaneously by hundreds of students, mounted on tables and chairs, placed one over the other, to reach Chatais sometimes as high as 20 ft. And in that one moment, when the hard work of the past one month comes together to create magic, which will last for a few minutes before it goes out, every KGPian is proud and happy. Once the lighting is done, the tables (one over the other) are removed from in front of the structures in a mad rush in a matter of seconds, for the judges to see. The judges come and do their bit, and it all comes to an end. Ah, and yes, the halls that won't win, will go to sleep feeling sad and hungry  (because most of the eating joints are closed due to the festival) after the month-long sweat and toil they put in. On Diwali.

Tying of diyas in progress

Scene out of the Ramayana

Scene out of the Mahabharat

The Taj Mahal

Gautam Buddha

Lanka Dehan

A video of one of the Illu from '09 is embedded below:

RK Hall Illumination 2009

Rangoli:


If you read the Rangoli article on wikipedia, you will come to know what a Rangoli typically looks like. Rangoli at IIT Kharagpur is in no way like that. You can easily mistake a Rangoli here for a painting, when in fact, it's all just coloured powder. Work for the Rangoli begins days in advance, on a huge canvas (the floor), often as big as 15 ft X 10 ft. The work is done in sealed rooms, so that a crawling insect or the slightest wind doesn't ruin the design. And if that was not enough, we have out-of-the-box ingenuity coming every year, like a Rangoli which looks different in red ambient light, and different in green ambient light (also featured in 'Ripley's believe it or not'.), or one which is meant to be seen in a convex mirror. I know it will not make much sense, so I will let the pictures speak for themselves. 

Rangoli-making in progress

Different in Green...

...and different in red. (Video of transition at this link)

Final image seen on the convex mirror in the center

THAT's how KGPians celebrate diwali, and they wouldn't any other way. :)


Now, coming to the intent of this post. Nothing I have said in this post would be new to anyone who has been associated with IIT Kharagpur in any way. I feel that the quality of the illumination and rangoli is of such a standard that it deserves to be covered at least by the national media. If this post is able to give even a little idea about this tradition and culture of IIT Kharagpur to even a random visitor to this blog, I will be happy. Illu and Rangoli is something EVERY KGPian is proud of.


Public album on Facebook - Illumination and Rangoli, IIT KGP, 2010

Public album on Facebook - Illumination and Rangoli, IIT KGP, 2011

Illumination and Rangoli, IIT Kharagpur...

faceless

Right from the day we were born, when we entered the world, we have been trying to tell people, to show those around us, that we have arrived. Here we are, notice us, respect us, admire us, and love us.

The feeling of faceless-ness first hit me when I was a senior student in school. Students, and teachers, knew us. We had a face. One day, I was asked to go to the nursery section, to "mind the class" for an hour, as the teacher was not present, and substitutions, unavailable. As I entered the nursery section, I saw crowd. Little, teeny-tiny kids all over the place, and they all looked the same. Annoying. And faceless. I realized that, these kids, these faceless kids, this exact set of kids would one day go on to become senior students of the school. They would be differentiated by their skills and talents, and would be known throughout the school. They would have a face. People would notice them, respect them, admire them, and love them.

People who have studied through high-school and senior-secondary in the same school would know how awesome it feels when, suddenly, we transition to being the senior-most students around. Teachers, who often gave us a hard-time became friends, really. Junior students looked up to us with awe and respect, hoping one day they would emulate what we did. It felt special, and it felt like we knew the world. Then, I entered college, and entered the world.


In essence, it was a rehash of the earlier cycle, only more invigorating. Our faceless new batch, freshers, each one trying to find our own place in the crowd. We stumbled, we struggled, eventually coming to terms with who we are, and what we are good at. As we marched ahead in the system, we gained balance. We had a face. A new face. This time, we had discovered ourselves in a surer way than before. It felt special, and it felt like we knew the world. Then, I graduated, and entered the world. This time, for real.

Again, we were just one face in the crowd, faceless, and the crowd, mightier and larger than before. It was overwhelming. But this time, there was a little voice inside me that told me, "It will be okay. You will find yourself, again." I now know that it is a cycle, bound to repeat, and that if we are faceless today, we will have a face one day. I now know that whenever you become a part of something, you begin as being faceless, and eventually find a place for yourself, except...

...except when you were born, and entered the world. When you were born, the instant, right from that very moment, you had a face, in your mother's eyes. You never were, or will be, faceless in her eyes. If you know this, then no matter where you end up being, you will find yourself. :)

ExcelSocial: Use facebook from Excel spreadsheet

The inspiration for building this app comes from this article on Lifehacker (this article on Mashable) about this site.

Introducing ExcelSocial, using which, from right within Excel, you can:

• Check facebook newsfeed and friends' wall
• Like/comment on newsfeed stories/friends' wall stories
• Update status/post to friends' wall

This is the first version of this app, so their might be bugs.

Use the button below to download ExcelSocial:

Feel free to send me your suggestions/feedback through the contact page.

Enjoy!


Note 1: You have to enable Macros to be able to use ExcelSocial.

Note 2: Special thanks to loneranger for helping build this app.

Shaitan

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Note 1: I failed to see what the audiences and the reviewers are so excited about for this movie. I usually avoid negative reviews, but again, like 'Raajneeti', I just had to write this one.

Note 2: I am sure a lot of people would disagree with me. If you are willing to spend your time, I would love to hear your opinion in the comments.
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When you come to know about a movie that will be releasing shortly, and you scrutinize the promotional poster carefully, and see the name 'Anurag Kashyap' printed on the poster, you get excited about it. You eagerly wait for the movie. You are excited for you don't know how the maestro will surprise you this time. It doesn't matter in what capacity is he associated with the movie, his name is enough for creating the buzz. So far so good.

Now, I came to know about 'Shaitan' a couple of months back, and naturally, I was excited about it. I saw the poster, and truly, the poster was remarkable. Then, something happened. Something ominous. Now, I haven't seen the movie 'Kaboom', and have no idea what that movie is about, but the striking resemblance of the posters seriously pissed me off.




Now, there is a specific genre of movies called "Mindfuck". In a good way. [define:Mindfuck - An idea or concept that shakes one's previously held beliefs or assumptions about the nature of reality. (Urban Dictionary)]. When an Anurag Kashyap production has this tagline - "Face your Inner Shaitan", that is precisely what you expect. You know, like 'Black Swan'. Or even 'Gulaal', Anurag's last directorial venture. NOT, to get your mind fucked by an amateurish attempt.

There is no underlying prominent theme in the movie. That should have been there. There is NO power-packed acting performance. That should have been there. There is no empathy (or sympathy, for that matter) the audience feels for any of the characters. That should have been there. There is little or no surprise element in the movie. That should have been there. The only thing that should have been there and is there in the movie is the excellent cinematography.

When dealing with a subject as complex as 'inner conflict' and the dilemma, the characterization should be spot-on. We should be able to understand a character. What it does, and why it does what it does. It should come down to two simple things - reason, and purpose. And that is where this movie fails so spectacularly.

The movie is only brilliant in parts, and those parts are very few and far apart in the movie. I really really expected a lot more out of this venture, and probably that is the reason I am so disappointed. What pains me is that the intended idea was so powerful, that they could have made a masterpiece out of it. But they ended up making it one big mess. Towards the end, the movie is just noise. Annoying, disappointing, noise. The plot holes in the movie are so many that I can't find the patience to sit and write about each one of them, and tear it apart one at a time.

Watch this one only to see how even a genius can make a bad bet.

Shaitan...