शनिवार की सुबह

बिस्तर पर हूँ बैठा हुआ,
हाथ में है एक किताब,
पढ़ तो रहा हूँ अक्षर कुछ,
पर मन में है एक ख्वाब.
लैपटॉप है टेबल पर,
सिर्फ दो हाथ की दूरी पर,
फ़ोन भी है पास में,
पर कोई बहाना  नहीं है दिमाग में.
विज्ञानं ने साधन तो दिए हैं अनेक,
पर चूंक हो गयी है एक.
कुछ ऐसा बना, विज्ञानिक
की इस बहाने का न रहे अस्तित्व
अपने आप ही मेरे मन का प्रतिबिम्ब,
उसकी नज़र के सामने आ चले.

The Tea

I boiled some water,

to make my tea,

And looked around to see you there,

But, I am only imagining things,

and you are still not here.

O boy, I made an extra cup,

As if you will come over to share.

I take my tea and go to my room,

And hope you will magically appear.

What are the chances for you to come,

I picked a pen and did a sum,

the probability came out to be

Only point zero zero one

The tailing one shines in my eye,

And I won't let it die

Pointers to brain

I don’t know but something has led me to post more blogs these days. I used to maintain a diary during my undergrad years till quite recently, and in it I used to write my thoughts and ideas as is. With ‘as is’ I mean, that unlike writing a blog or a comment to a blog, which needs to be read again to make it sound coherent and flowing, my writings in the diary were exactly the words I used to think in. The ideas which were very clear in my mind, when written in a diary, used to come out as words totally abstract. The entries in my diary are so abstract that no one else can ever understand what I am trying to say there. But, when I read them again even now, I can recall the context, my mood and exactly what I was trying to say when I wrote those words. Its amazing how those simple English sentences are cryptic messages that only I can decode. They are like pointers to my brain analogous to pointers in C++. They store the address location of the idea that came to my mind some years back. As soon as my mind sees those seemingly vague sentences it goes to the address location that still stores that idea and every data point is available to the active memory! It is quite amazing actually. It also tells me that our brain’s storage capacity is enormous. To further elaborate on this, consider this – when we recall something that happened years back, we actually recall those instances the way our eyes had recorded them - as clear motion pictures of extremely high quality (not as text files). Considering how many things we remember and can recall when encountered with small pointers, it is amazing how much we store in our brain!

I think a diary should not become extinct because of blogging. Most of the texts we read or write – in books, internet or papers are carefully crafted collections of sentences. One idea flows from the previous one and everything falls into place. A diary is the only proper manifestation of the complicated way our brain works. It needs no revisions simply because a diary is for ourselves to be read again and a blog is for others. One motivation of writing this is a hope that other bloggers realize what I am trying to say and dig up their diaries to read them again – to discover what pointers to brain exist in them!

Convergence

In our society, a convergence is required, or a compromise is required. Or else, a better personality would do – someone who is not in the first standard deviation of the Gaussian distribution of the ideas of our society. Well, by this I mean on the positive half of the Gaussian of course. There are numerous examples to prove this, and the best one is how people have good idea that some things are bound to occur or understand well the causality of different events. Convergence as such may be very difficult to achieve. It requires a fine equilibrium – mental and social. It requires perseverance as well as patience. If the fine equilibrium of convergence is disturbed, the situation gets converted to an avalanche of ignorance, which gets intensified by perseverance, a simple effect of funnel shaped free energy landscape of the entire situation (the goal is to reach the bottom of the funnel together). The avalanche should be dealt with patience and a stable mind set. Since convergence is not an equilibrium situation, an avalanche is quite inevitable I believe. But the avalanche can be controlled. That’s the key – by moving up the free energy curve. But, that requires work. And yes, moving up the free energy curve requires thermal energy. Higher the thermal energy, better the chances of saving the avalanche. Confused? Its crystal clear to me!

I have to buy roller skates, have to publish. I will be going to California for a week in June and to Minneapolis for a weekend and Chicago for another. I have to buy a sudoku book, and have to buy tickets for going to India. Have to learn all atom simulations and single chain mean field. Statistical mechanics is now becoming tougher and tougher. Oh shit, tax forms! and, why r people being so mean to me?

I won't change, i will remain the same. i like it this way. i dont like the other way.

all that we want

Happiness is more subtle than i ever thought, but it seems to be quite pervasive too. That's what I feel when I see people around. They look happy, truly happy. And the happiness seems to drive them - to be good to others, to achieve success. I think i know what happiness is, but i don't know how to get it. My friends who know me would feel strange if they read what i have just written. Most of them think i am very happy and satisfied most of the time.
When i say happiness drives people to success, I may sound a bit cliched. But, this is what i have started believing lately. Again, such a statement is quite pervasive in literature, and i bet all of us have read it many times and in so many places that we hardly stop back and think whenever we read it. Moreover, I don't think most of us ever actually agree with the statement. And, it is a fad to state things just opposite such cliche's, such as, 'honestly may not be the best policy' etc.
It is not my intention nor my ability to be able to write words, reading which I will be able to convey that being truly happy may be the most essential ingredient of being successful. However, I would settle to something simpler - just mentioning what I have realized lately. Happiness is quite strongly coupled to self confidence. A person low in confidence will not be happy for sure. Whereas, a happy person will be confident. What is the cause and what is the effect, i don't know. But both these qualities seem to exist together. Most of us perceive a happy person as one who is carefree, vagabond, one who doesn't feel strongly about achieving any more goals in life except that of a happy, settled and a carefree family life. He is satisfied and cosy with his job, life and whatever he is doing presently. I think such a person is not genuinely happy. Such a person may be extremely desperate in life, he may be extremely jealous of people, his friends who are successful. A happy person is a person who struggles in his work, who works hard when others quit. A person who wonders about past and dawdles in the present is surely not happy, which is the reason why he is looking back to his past, which, now is certain, and hence reaffirming. That' s a sign of a person low in confidence.
So, now the most important question. Are you happy? Well, as I said, happiness is a subtle emotion. So, it is not easy to judge oneself also if we are happy. I would say the easiest trick to determine if you are happy or not is to see if you look back to your past with a 'everthing was so good those days' feeling. If you do, then probably you are not happy. Another signature of an unhappy person is that he will not talk his heart. That is, he will be afraid to mention his true emotions, his true intentions to other people. Such hypocricy points to unhappiness.
OK, now the next question that props up in mind is, is there a way to change ourselves to be happy? if we do know that we are unhappy, what can we do about it? I think there is a way. It requires a consistant effort, but I think it will work. Here are some ways i think we can improve - speak with your heart out - always and with everyone. Trust your emotions, your intentions. Don't hide them from others. Further, don't let yourself not affected by what others say about you - ahha, that's another cliched statement. But, you would agree at least with this that it is not very easy to not get affected with what others think about you. I read a quote once (oh, last cliche' i promise!) - 'if you get happy when others say good things about you, then surely you will feel bad when others will say bad things about you'. Another suggestion, don't let yourself be in a hole. With that i mean, don't restrict yourself to the routine things you do all the time. The more you enter a routine life, the more difficult it will be to come out of it.. and there are so many better things in life you will be missing. I am not asking you to quit your job, pack bags and go hitch-hiking. No, do your job, with great enthusiasm, but find time, at least once in some brief period to try some new thing for recreation. It will make you happy, trust me, and you would ask yourself why you didnt try it before.
Who am I to do a 'shiv khera'? nobody. It's just that i too look back to my past, i too think about what others will say to my acts.