Chakotay: Was I particularly naive, Tuvok? How come all you spies pulled the wool over my eyes?
Tuvok: Humans rely on feelings and instincts to make decisions.
Chakotay: Did you notice anything suspicious about Ceska?
Tuvok: No, commander. I am afraid Ensign Ceska pulled the wool over my eyes as well.
Chakotay: Thank you. I feel much better.
Tuvok: Curious...
Chakotay: What?
Tuvok: ...that my failure added to yours should make you feel better.
Chakotay: Misery loves company, Tuvok. See you on the bridge.

What should one do, when one knows that something is wrong for them, even though they enjoy doing it?

Are some moments of exhileration worth lifelong damage to your cerebral cortex?

Do those feelings of ecstacy negate the aftermath of suffering?

Can I have my cake and eat it too?

I wonder.

Feel, my children, feel: feel for the poor, the ignorant, the downtrodden; feel till the heart stops and the brain reels and you think you will go mad.
Then pour the soul out at the feet of the lord and will come power, health and indomitable energy.

- Swami Vivekananda

Yesterday evening can be divided into two, no, three parts.
Scene one
Cyph and I were having dinner in canteen one, and we saw this German guy sitting across. Now, he was one of our friend, Sid's colleagues, but neither of us knew his name, so i ate my porridge [i seem to be hooked on to it, it's the closest thing to mau bhat 5000 km from home] and Cyph ate his burger. I saw G2's [German Guy] eyes tracing something, and like a true blue Mumbaikar trained in the art of video coach reconnaissance, I turned around slightly, and there was this really good looking CFC girl [Chinese from China] standing right behind us. Now this is rare, because the Ministry of Education's scholarship officer does not allow any girl who looks better than her into Singapore. G2 saw this and he gave me a sheepish grin. So walked over and started talking. I always like talking to European people, makes you feel good about your English.
I don't know why, if GG was interesting [in a naya bakra kind of way] or something, but we ended up talking to him for 2 hours. He talks a lot like Borat in Ali G's shows, if you have seen any of them. The talk was mostly about beer in Germany and in the ASEAN region, about how his mother is strict, and how he worked in a youth hostel for 2 years. Cyph invited him to his room, I don't know why he does that...{brr..} but G2 thankfully declined politely and lumbered off.
Scene two
Abbs was sitting in Cyph's room, typing something on his computer. Cyph's roomie is in India, so his computer has been turned into a game server, chiefly for playing Red Alert and Need for Speed. I unlocked the Diablo yesterday, my baby from NFS 4, and made the cops cry. There is a better Lamborghini out there, which they give the cops [!], but nostalgia prevailed. After the race, we listened to Mumbaikar, Punekar aani Nagpurkar again. PuLa is funny even the nth time. I had a roomie who listened to PuLa and giggled himself to sleep.
Scene three
I talked to Nishi till my phone batter drained about the .NET competition that we are participating in. I think we have too ambitious a plan to finish in 4 weeks, especially when there are other commitments. Sid walked past me, and then entered Cyph's room. We came to know the G2 was named George later. By the time I entered the room, Abbs and Sid were in the middle of an argument about the Indian Medical System and how it sucks. Now, Abbs's dad is a surgeon, and Sid's had a thyroid operation, so both of them considered themselves well informed about anything medical. I tried to give a statistical twist to the argument and succeeded. Within minutes there were figures, assumptions, hypotheses flying here and there. Then Cyph quipped, 33 million American's don't have health insurance. He had googled it from somewhere. Eventually, Abbs asked for Sid's email address, promising to show him with proof that he was wrong. I suggested we leg it to 7 11. So we did. There the issue shifted to Buddhdeb Bhattacharya and how West Bengal was going the China way. Finally, Abbs reiterating his frustration at not getting into VJTI comps because of the girls quota and the reserved castes quota, but I tired of it all, and sleepy. They headed back to fight the Americans; I headed back, fighting sleep, to my bed.

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दरनेका नै, अपुन का ये हिन्दी मे पैला और आख्री blog हे। यार, बोलेगातो ये special देवनागरी मे लिखनेको solid कंटाला आरेलाय।

Why is it that a girl's room is always tidier than a guy's room?

This is without exception to race, regional affiliation, age, other factors. One might wonder that since Singapore is a very clean country, a Singaporean guys room might be tidier than an Indian girl's room. No, no way. Yes, his room is tidier than an Indian guy's room, but it is really hard to say that a Singaporean girl's room is tidier than an Indian girl's room.

It appears to me to be an universal axiom that girls are tidier than guys. And it is not so that my room is untidy, you wouldn't find much dust, but here is a description of how messy it is from left to right.

I will divide it into three zones left to right- left, desk and right, and two zones front to back, front and back.

left back - bed, with two pillows and a bolster thrown awry, a blanket, unfolded. near the left foot of bed, there is a pile of clothes that have been freshly washed, and await folding and filing, hooked to the wall above, a speaker.
left front - an easy chair given to me by Stanimir Milenkovic, an affable Croat who found it impractical to haul the easy chair back to Darmstadt, Germany. Some formal clothes, an iron, and a pillow lie neatly on that easy chair. I don't remember the last time I used that easy chair. A folded cat'ai [sewn reed carpet] lies near the chair. 2 packs of maggi lie under the easy chair.
desk back - some cups that i use for holding pens, glue, stapler and other stationery, an empty box that held moon cakes, a small teddy that I got from a dot com, lying on his back, a Marathi dictionary that covers the teddy's face, an Apple CD holder on top of that book, an Emacs hand book on top of the cd holder, a Skippy jar, a spool of 20 CDs, my monitor, on top of the monitor lie a speaker and a camera, in front of the monitor lies a networking book, to the right of the monitor lie a maggi vessel [washed], a can of powdered cocoa, brut deodorant, jovan musk deodorant, a stack of Beatles CDs, an empty box that held cakalis once, a learn Chinese quick book, a sachet of maggi soup, the thinking buddha that i found on the road, 20 AAA sized batteries [for the camera], a bottle of septillin [for my cough], my Lycos cup of hot water, my medicine box, innumerable books and notes, the images and idols of some Hindu gods, my phone book, some more medicines, a box of pot-pourri, the shelf above the desk has many folders, books and CDs, also a trophy, the wall above the desk has an Indian flag.
desk front - my chair, my computer casing, another monitor for me to watch movies while lying on the bed, another chair with wheels that has my bag, a pair of shorts and a shirt lying on it, a 5-litre can of detergent, two plastic buckets, almost full of clothes.
right back - my flight suitcase [empty] my casing box, filled with useless stuff that I'll throw away when i move, some bus plates that i stole, my monitor box, another speaker.
right back - a toiletry cabinet, another medicine cabinet, and a drawer for old books. a wardrobe, where dried, folded clothes are filed. the top of the wardrobe also serves as a food cabinet, on top of the wardrobe are a badminton and a squash racquet, a pearl jam poster, and two books about human anatomy and cars. an umbrella hangs from the wardrobe door.
as postscript i had to add another section,
the floor - it has some bits of paper, an handkerchief, a bottle of Lavenus shampoo that seems to have fallen of the toiletry cabinet, an empty bottle of coke, and a Starhub bill.
Apart from that, there is not a single spec of dust. so why do girls put those cute things on the wall, sayings by Vivekananda, Australian aboriginal paintings, photos of their families [enlarged], a rug on the floor, things like these? and tell you what, I feel these unnecessary things cause a lot of confusion.
Ask a girl for some glue, and she will fumble. I'll go, desk front, left, cup no 3, and voila there it is! keeping only what you need makes life so much easier....alas....

The Odessa File
Revenge is sweet. That was the bottom-line of this movie about the Nazi SS who escaped trial in Nuremburg forming an organisation to give the other Nazi SS cover and new identities.

Kowing that it would not be possible to bring him to justice legally, would you risk life and limb to kill a man who you know murdered your father?

A young blonde, blue-eyed freelance journalist, Peter Miller, discovers the diary of a dead old Jew, Saloman Tauber, who commits suicide,  thanks to his friends in the police. In the diary, Miller reads of a cold-blooded SS commandant captain Eduard Roschmann, who had cruelly murdered one hundred thousand Jews in Riga, Latvia and was in hiding.

When he starts his investigation, he receives warnings, and they seem to be getting more and more life threatening. But he pushes on, getting help from Simon Wiesenthal and other people who are working for the Israeli intelligence to finally track Eduard Roschmnann down Finally, Miller meets Roschmann where he confronts him with the murder of his father who was a corporal in the Germany army, but not in the SS, and kills him.

I had read the book before, and frankly, the movie does no justice to the book, which is written by, no prizes for guessing, Frederick Forsyth. The book,The Odessa File, is un-putdown-able, and followed byThe Fist of God, makes the the best double digest ever.

I hate this part of the Indian psyche.

A subhashita read-

"Whatever wealth, little or a lot, is written in one's fate, he will get that even in a desert. He will not get more even if he goes to the magical mountain Meru".
"Hence, do not lament your poverty. A pot can take the same amount of water, whether it goes to the well or to the sea".

This seems to be the sole reason why Indians aren't interested in improving their lot. There was a song as late as 1999 that made it to the top in the Indian pop charts

Bathe in the Ganga, apply a vermilion mark on your forehead [do what you want]
What is written in your fate cannot be avoided even if you try.

And then we wonder why the nation does not progress. Agreed that these thoughts prevent the poor from suffering from wants they are not likely to achieve, and might end up in them doing things that are illegal, but then there have to be positive influences that tell a person that no matter what his current position, he is going to do well in the future if he applies himself. I know of one-

"In the end, efforts yield [even] God."