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  • An Unforgettable Summer 

    govy 3:18 am on August 5, 2008 Permalink | Reply

    The poker nights, Mercedes buses, high-speed internet, delicious food, fast trains, beautiful sceneries, grand places….I had just the best two and half months of my life in France.

    It started in the second week of April when I got confirmation from a professor at one of the best Research Institutes in France. I couldn’t be more excited about my summer internship. Though I had never been abroad but the thought of French language and people didn’t scare me much. As soon as the exams were over, I got my stuff packed and boarded the flight to Paris. Sometimes when I thought about the unknown place and people, I got a little nervous, worried at times. How will I adjust there? How good the people will be? What will I eat? Where will I buy things? How will I entertain myself? All these questions were always in my mind but I was ready to take on the challenges. I found some strange strength in myself to deal with the changes. I landed in Paris and rushed to get the flight to Nice. So many things had to be done on the way but I could get my flight easily. I guess they’ve all the timings figured out.

    It was morning when I reached Nice. The sea was looking gorgeous and the city-awesome, I mean really great view. My prof came to receive me and I finally reached to my room, the place I was supposed to stay for two and half months. There I found a lot of Indians who were also there for the same reason, euro-trip. Yes! not for research. I am considering it the best part of my internship that I met those people, those specific people. I’ll remember some of them for the rest of my life for their attitudes, smartness, and their overall behavior towards others. I learnt a lot from them, about myself and about life in general.

    We used to get milk and fruit juices as breakfast which I really liked. I found the Mercedes buses to go to my institute and shopping mall and beaches. It didn’t cost much and traveling was so much fun mostly because of the views along road-side. We found a shopping mall, so big that you can find virtually anything in there. We didn’t need to search for any other shop.

    My professor was really cool, I didn’t think like this there because he used to come to my room very often. But I realize it now that he is really an energetic and enthusiastic guy who wants to make things happen. The food at Institute: Oh my god! I used to eat so much that I was not able to walk after that. New non-veg dishes and French fries with great salads and sauces were extremely satisfying, and it was really cheap.

    Weekends used to be the best and worst part of being there. Best, for the new countries and great-great things we went to see and worst because we used to walk miles and miles, hungry and thirsty and sometimes had to sleep in the parks. But I guess you have to do that when you’re not very rich and you want to tour Europe. We went to Rome, Paris and other so many beautiful cities. We watched F1 race, may be from a hill and it was raining, but it was memorable experience. Getting to see some Hollywood stars at Cannes Film Festival was also wonderful.

    In the evening, we used to play Poker and other games, sometimes Freesbie too. I had just the best time playing card-games. Although it was not allowed but we downloaded a lot of movies and watched them quite a few times.

    I accomplished my project work and my professor was really happy with me. I made some friends, some very good ones. I learnt about different cultures, saw many great cities and learnt so many new things that they’ll be very useful in future. Had great laughs and just the fun time all summer. It was a wonderful-wonderful experience that I’ll cherish throughout my entire life.

     

    • Vikash 9:59 am on August 10, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      “I don believe that u r saying this man”….i thought his wasnt the case with u…..u had pwith ersonal problems many …except me :P ….and the persoanl problem with chakra at eiffel tower :D ….. babu ki angregi…..god yar….nyways we all had the best summer of our lyf….THE EUROTRIP08 …… :P

    • Biswanath 4:33 pm on October 26, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Seriously babu…. will nvr forget the time spent together…. suddenly getting nostalgic abt those old days all over again :)
      Nice post….

    • Gaurav 12:02 pm on November 2, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Nice job done babu… kaafi mast likhela hai.. mazaa aa gaya pad ke.. sachi bola vikash.. eiffel tower ka wo ghupat.. mast tha be..no one will forget that time when we had fun together..

  • Appreciate! 

    govy 10:35 am on July 11, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Art, , Louvre, Museum

    ‘Musée du Louvre’, the most visited art museum in the world! 4-5 young men walking in a gallary, slowly, looking at paintings, both sides. Here comes the famous work by Jacques-Louis David, ‘the coronation of Napoleon’. Here comes ‘John the Baptist’ by leonardo da vinci. YES! the one which leonardo da vinci paited himself, not a photo-copy. But they’re walking, just walking. With the same speed, 1 step in 2 seconds. They’re aware of one thing that it’s the famous Louvre Museum and they really want to appreciate everything. The paintings, sculptures, very old pots of babylonian time etc. etc. But appreciation is not possible while you’re standing or walking. They say-lets find a place to appreciate these things. No explanation required-all of them understand the code language. Some day when you’re dead tired or you’re not even slightly interested in art-work, you’d understand that language too. If you still didn’t get what they meant, they’re looking for a place to SIT.

    But sad news for them! they’re not the only ones who want to ‘appreciate’. There are more, I mean too many-just like them. Wherever there are seats, lot of people are already appreciating. They move on but no luck this time either. Now one of them sees through the window and voila! there is some space around the big sculptures(or statues, whatever)and they go downstairs and right towards the PLACE. No sooner they begin their appreciation, a security personnel comes and asks them to stand up, “Not a place to sit”.

    We had audio-guides too and whenever the weight hanging in the neck reminded us of 5 euros, all of us pressed some number and started learning about the history, for not more than a minute in any case. I found a 20 seconds long music track in the audio-guide(which was really good) so I just listened to that, probably more than 100 times. The time is passing away but we knew every second of it which seemed like an hour.

    Now we entered into a hall and a saw huge crowd. Somebody said-look! there is monalisa! We opened our eyes for the first time. You guessed it wrong. Not to see monalisa, nobody even gazed at it but to find some space in the crowd and take one picture having monalisa in the backgroud. When was this painted?Who was Monalisa? Some questions went through my mind and I started using my audio-guide. It was too boring to be continued and I excused that I’ll wiki these questions later. We moved on like every other time in search of a place to appreciate…..that was never to be found!

     

    • Karthik 7:22 am on July 12, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Frank, unassuming report of what one expects to be a momentous occasion.
      And I never understood the craze for photos with monuments in the background. Is it really that important to reflect later on and exclaim “I was there!” ?

    • govy 7:22 am on July 15, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      it was momentous but i think v were 2 tired….n d monuments in background…just 2 get d feel of it, nothin more :)

    • ya, i am a dastard 4:08 pm on July 16, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      i had a very different experience in the louvre…i really LOVED the place, went around very religiously to almost all the sectors – have been to many museums since I was small and have begun to appreciate (the real one) art much more than most engineers…

    • govy 7:15 am on July 17, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      actually i also appreciate it a lot but i guess the disinterest is also contaminating…plus we had walked too much already so sitting was more in mind than the real appreciation

    • Vikash 7:51 pm on July 30, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      yeah this was one of the gud “stuff”…a place for appreciating….though i didnt noticed that thr were lots of other people who were also appreciating……i listened to the monalisa one …bt i as of now i onli remember …that this painting was drawn taking care of geometry…. [:P]

    • govy 6:33 am on July 31, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      thanx 4 stopping by…n v al felt more or less d same so no worres :D

  • Before the law 

    govy 10:52 am on July 10, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: law, Short-Story

    Recently I read a short story by Franz Kafka…just wonderful!

    Before the Law

    Before the law sits a gatekeeper. To this gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into the law. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. The man thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in later on. “It is possible,” says the gatekeeper, “but not now.” At the moment the gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walks to the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into the inside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: “If it tempts you so much, try it in spite of my prohibition. But take note: I am powerful. And I am only the most lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each more powerful than the other. I can’t endure even one glimpse of the third.” The man from the country has not expected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone, he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat, at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar’s beard, he decides that it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. The gatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front of the gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be let in, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper often interrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many other things, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at the end he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man, who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything, no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it all but, as he does so, says, “I am taking this only so that you do not think you have failed to do anything.” During the many years the man observes the gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and this one seems to him the only obstacle for entry into the law. He curses the unlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud, later, as he grows old, he still mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in the long years studying the gatekeeper he has come to know the fleas in his fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper. Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are really darker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But he recognizes now in the darkness an illumination which breaks inextinguishably out of the gateway to the law. Now he no longer has much time to live. Before his death he gathers in his head all his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has not yet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up his stiffening body. The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the great difference has changed things to the disadvantage of the man. “What do you still want to know, then?” asks the gatekeeper. “You are insatiable.” “Everyone strives after the law,” says the man, “so how is that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?” The gatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach his diminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, “Here no one else can gain entry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I’m going now to close it.”

     

    • ya, i am a dastard 4:11 pm on July 16, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      ya this is the one i was talking abt :)
      there r so many interpretations of wht the “law” is, who the “gatekeeper” is and who the man is…
      just lovely!

  • saving the world 

    govy 10:58 am on June 25, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: awareness, World-Issues

    I always wonder about the preference-order of world issues to deal with. Is it terrorism or global warming? Alternative energy research or poverty? Genocide or nuclear bombs? Every time I read about one of them or another, I keep changing my viewpoints. I’ve not found the answer to one question – Where should we begin?

    Most important body to answer my question is UNO. I generally keep track of the things it does and I came to know that it has only $75 billion(roughly the sum total of global foreign aid budgets) to spend per year. If you look at this amount, it’s very small. Even Warren Buffett has $62 billion. So what’s the cost effective way to save the world? Most of us would make the decision based on emotions- witnessing the pain of hunger, or experiencing the fear of nuclear terrorism. But what if there was a way to calculate the exact values of global priorities, a way to figure out how much human suffering we could alleviate per dollar spent?

    Recently I read a news article about this and it said “Last month Copenhagen Consensus, an organization gathered 8 major economists, including 5 Nobel Prize winners to come up with an answer. The result is very surprising. According to the numbers, the biggest problem facing the world isn’t global warming or terrorism. It is malnutrition in the developing world. And the advice of organization : Spend $60 million per year by supplying basic micro nutrients for 112 million kids who lack essential vitamins. It will give better health, fewer deaths and more worker productivity.”

    Shocking, isn’t it?

     

    • Aaditya Ramdas 4:00 pm on July 1, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      interesting more than shocking :)

      i didnt know u cud find the answer to such a question…(at least the questions u first asked)…i guess the CS answer to it wud be to do a BFS and not bother abt which DFS wud be better :D

  • the park-bench 

    govy 11:18 am on June 12, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: Cannes,

    “Ohh! there is that park and there might be some benches”. You’d be surprised if you hear 10 people saying this, all at one time and all of them have crossed their teen-years. You’d be shocked if you know that all of them are studying in one of the best institutes of world and it’s pretty sure that they’re going to be very rich and successful. But they were not born in a rich country and their parents don’t have loads of money. It is their own ability that has brought them in Europe for three months. Technically they’re here for ‘Internship’ but who likes research?. They want to see the world, the most beautiful parts of it. They all know that it’ll not be possible in their professional career so why not now? Even if they have to spend nights sleeping on benches of public parks, they’ll go out every week-end. Even if they’ve to walk 40 km in a day to visit an entire city like Rome or Barcelona, they’ll go out still.

    I’ve never known this outlook of humans towards a park. It is supposed to be a place for jogging and for kids to play and for love-birds to meet but whenever we see a park, our eyes want to spot a few benches just like eyes of cat want to spot a rat. It is necessary to find a shelter otherwise we’ll not be able to sleep and next day everybody will feel lethargic. We don’t care if some police-man comes in the middle of night and kicks us all away or there happens to be a rain-fall. We’ll think about it when it actually happens, till then- we look for parks and nothing else in them, only the benches.

     

  • Murphy's Law 

    govy 10:56 am on June 10, 2008 Permalink | Reply

    The law goes like this : Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Whenever it is told by somebody(specifically the CEOs in their keynotes), not only it makes a good joke but reflects the reality also. Total belief in this law can sometimes result in waste of time, money and energy but as per my experience, taking measures to deal with the worst case scenarios is not regretted later on.

    Recently, I was in Delhi to get my VISA for France. I’m staying in farthest sector of Noida and if I get the bus in time, it’ll take me around one hour to reach French Embassy. My interview is at 11 AM but I left at 8 AM. The next day when I had to meet a friend at 10:30, I left at 9:30. You might argue that getting the VISA was far more important than a meet with somebody. You’re right for the most part but not completely. I’ve learnt that things go wrong only when you’ve to accomplish something important and urgently. There will be renovation going on in the hospital when you have an accident or the doctor will go to meet his parents(after 10 years) when you have fever. If you just stop by at hospital or doctor’s house, they’ll all be there, working flawlessly.

    Let me continue with the VISA story. As I told, I left at 8 AM and got to know that buses don’t come to the area I was staying at so I talked with Auto-walas. They asked so much money that I can’t afford. Since I’ve started it, let me also tell you that the things you’d like to buy at a store are always out of your budget. Same was the case with Auto-walas. I started walking to find a bus stop. I had prepared for that too. Last night I had got something to eat as breakfast because I knew that I’ll need lot of energy and Delhi is full of restaurants but there will not be any nearby Embassy.

    I’m at a bus stop looking around. Trust me, there was nothing or nobody interesting. This nature of world makes me think more about myself although even in the worst circumstances I try to find something good(not bragging). Now I’ve been waiting there for half an hour and bus getting late is no surprise to me. I decided to walk a little more and hired an Auto, not just till another bus stand(called the better one) but till last destination as I believe that I will not get the bus there either.

    I’m sitting alone in the auto, very relaxed and looking at my face in the mirror. The road is wide and best traffic management systems are used in the capital city but I’m not expecting the auto to reach at embassy without any error. It’s not that I’ve an attitude of looking at things only negatively but attitude of being prepared to face anything that can possibly happen. I’ve not learnt it from a person or book but from life. I’m almost lost in thinking about my thoughts and suddenly I found the Auto stopped. Apparently there is a traffic jam due to some accident. Now the autowala looks left and finds a street. He turned into that street which had a very bumpy road. I assumed that he knew all the streets and I was not wrong, I rarely am :) . But in the mechanical terms, knowledge of driver didn’t help the auto and the tyre breaks down, at the farthest point from the main road so that it can’t be repaired easily.

    The temperature is above 40. The auto-wala has taken money from me with the excuse that he needs to repair the tyre although I didn’t ask him to go into that street. I don’t know anybody there. My phone doesn’t have balance(the first time in life) so I can’t make a call. “Everything will go wrong all at once” is the variation of Murphy’s law and at this moment, I’m the victim of this. But I’m extremely sure that I’ll reach there in time. I’m not tense or irritated probably because it’s not the first time I’m seeing this.

    If I walk to the main road and then to the nearest bus-stop, I’ll never make it to the embassy in time. My only hope is some ride if I can get one. I started asking knowing that at least 20 people will say “NO”. I only had to hear this word 5-6 times with different excuses but finally somebody agreed to drop me off to the main road. Life has bad things but they’re not as bad as you can imagine and neither are the good things so good as you can dream. I walked towards bus-stop along main road and finally I got a bus which took me to the embassy. I still had half an hour to search for French Embassy and it was very easy to find. Just after the worst parts of life, there are easy achievements otherwise newspapers will have news only about suicides. Everybody finds pleasure after some tough time and repetition of this is the probably the definition of life.

     

    • shubhda 8:36 pm on June 11, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Good attempt…m impressed…cheers[:)]

    • govy 7:53 am on June 12, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      thanx 4 d encouragement

    • Aaditya Ramdas 2:44 pm on June 13, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      this was a really interesting read :) i normally dont read long blogs, but this had a personal touch and a good flow…

      but i disagree with murphy’s law…i think probabilistically (things going perfectly right or wrong) it wud look like the bell curve…when it’s at the good end of the bell curve, u feel happy and praise urself…when its in the middle of the bell curve, u say “thts life, mix of good n bad”…when it’s at the extreme bad end, people remember murphy…people dont realise the majority of the time that murphy’s law doesnt hold, and fail to realise that when it does hold, its merely due to the way the world works on probability :)

    • govy 7:16 am on June 16, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      i’ll try 2 discuss the other half of ‘bell curve’ in some other post :)

  • First Step 

    govy 7:56 am on June 6, 2008 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: First One

    I had started a blog long time back but very soon I discovered(or prejudiced) that it’s not a good idea to open up much. Some time later, I also discovered that my program wasn’t giving the correct output and I needed to continue debugging my thoughts. This blog is the result of that continuous debugging. Also, I’ve been inspired by a couple of friends who blog regularly. So, I’m taking one more flight in the same sky but with new wings. With great enthusiasm and energy, here I’m joining the millions of bloggers and on a great platform. This is not just a place for me to tell what I know, what I’ve learnt and more generally my approach to life and at times some technical stuff, but to improve my expressions, writing skills and some things more…

    Little bit about the title, “domainfull“. I tried gsingh, goverdhan, lessonsoflife, lessonsforlife…all of them were unavailable. I tried domainless but that didn’t work out either. All the sense-making titles were over so I had to go with anything off the top of my head. Finally I tried ‘domainfull’ and that’s what you see. The blog is supposed to be full of domains – Discussion of current issues, technology, sports, politics, life-in-general, education, history, psychology, economics, management, places, people, pictures, movies, music, food, clothes, books, poetry… you name it!

    Sources of information include websites, magazines, newspapers, books, blogs, people and my mind of course. You might be bored by now about the things I’ve told as they’re pretty obvious. Trust me, to some-they’re not and I’ve mentioned keeping them in mind.

    Anyway, that’s all in the first post. Comment, suggest, mention if you see any error or disagree if you don’t agree or whatever else you want to say. Guest posts are also welcomed, just drop me an e-mail : gie.…@yahoo.co.in

     

    • Karthik 2:29 pm on June 12, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      Good start, Goverdhan.
      Your posts are frank, direct and unassuming, just like you. :)

      I’m adding this to my feed reader- blog regularly! The bane of bloggerhood is a steady decrease in enthusiasm.
      At least keep a log of what you do on your intenship; you’ll enjoy reading it later.

    • govy 3:34 pm on June 12, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      thanxs a lot
      i’ll keep that in mind

    • Aaditya Ramdas 2:41 pm on June 13, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      hmm good start man :) u write much much better than you speak, pleasant surprise :)

    • govy 3:12 pm on June 13, 2008 Permalink | Reply

      hhehe…actually i think i do better at speaking than what people perceive..
      neways…thanx

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