The Bomb Blasts

My heart goes out to all the victims of the blasts at Ahmedabad and Bangalore.

But this is ridiculous. Isnt there something that we can do to stop this growing menance of terrorism that is haunting our nation for the best part of the last 20 years. I mean, we are country full of intellectuals for God’s sake.  Cant we come up with a more logical way of dealing with this?

Sure we can walk out on our streets pretending that nothing really has  happened and the media can derive stupid conclusions out of this along the lines of ‘the spirit of the city and that of its people remains intact despite the blasts’. Truth is that we do not give a damn unless our families are involved.

O Sanam-Lucky Ali

This song is special for two reasons :

1. The use of that interesting looking musical instrument. I still don’t know what that is. It looks like a mandolin-variant. You hardly find people having the courage to experiment with different sounds in the IndiPop circles. Does anyone know what this instrument is?
2. I first heard this song in 96 and it still remains one of the most romantic songs I have heard to date.

Dear Imagined Readers

Sorry for the prolonged silence on my part. But there have been so many things that have been happening lately that it is difficult to find time to maintain an active blog.

So what has been keeping me busy all this while ?

Firstly, finished reading ‘The Three Mistakes of My Life’ by Chethan Bhagat and what a shame it was! I enjoyed reading Bhagat’s ‘Five Point Someone’. But his next two stories have been disappointing to say the least. Few questions to Bhagat :

1. Why do you always have to use a female character who is this modern, outgoing, ‘Jab We Met’ kinda girl in your stories when you clearly know that such girls hardly exist in India atleast ?
2. Why does your female character always have to wear a salwar kameez of chikan/whatever make?
3. Why do your couples always hang out at an ice cream parlour ?!
4. What on earth were you trying to depict in that last scene of ‘The Three Mistakes of My Life’ with all the trishuls ?! That one seemed to be straight of a 90’s hindi movie.
5. What is your underlying theme behind your latest story? friendship? politics? business ? cricket? none of these? a horrible mixture of all these?

Secondly, I gave my TOEFL on 12th. It was simple and boring. Should get scores sometime (some say 20 days later….others say 1 month later…..we shall c). Anyway, I have to sit down with the application process soon and chalk out some plans in the process.

Thirdly, work has been hectic. A possibility of a visit to Zhongshan city, China looms large, something which I am not all that excited about.

Fourthy, I need to start hunting for a new place. I managed to find a couple of places down in Domlur Layout but they were all too expensive for my liking.  Need to do a lot more searching.

More later….

Right Place..Right Time!

I was lucky to be at Forum yesterday. I caught this McLaren replica placed there. It looked fantastic!

Passing Thought : R K Laxman

Lovely cartoon by RK Laxman especially in the light of the recent happenings in Indian Politics.

Tips for GRE takers

Ever since I have finsihed giving my GRE, a lot of queries have come my way regarding the exam. Hence this post. Use this post like a FAQ document. Hope it helps!

How much time do I need to prepare for GRE?

I think this is one of the most common questions. It really depends. I think the first question you need to ask yourself is: what kind of source are you looking for?  This inturn depends on the universities you would want to apply to eventually for the course that you are looking at. Given a choice, everybody would want a 1600! But is that really required ? Is the time and effort that you put into this really worth it? These are questions that you need answer to. Quite a few of us have other responsibilities too while we are preparing for the test. Some of us work. Some of us are still doing our graduation. So its important to see how one can effeciently dedicate time for this purpose.

I got a 1330. According to me, it is not a great score. But it is good enough to work with. I gave myself just a month’s time to prepare for the exam. This while I was also battling some deadlines at work.

Wordlists are a pain! Is it really worth dedicating so much time to them?

This is a key question because this is where most people get it wrong. I am not really sure if covering all the wordlists at you disposal is really going to help you maximise your score in the antonyms & analogies sections of the GRE. The most common approach that most people take is to start with the Barron’s word list. I really dont think it is worth all the effort. Instead, I think it is important to develop the habit of making ‘educated guesses’ as to what the word might mean in the context it is being used and then answering the questions that follow. Negative/Positive connotations , Elimination, Is the word a noun/verb/adjective ? , building strong bridges in analogies etc. These are more important than mugging up day in and day out. I found Kaplan’s workbook excellent in developing these habits. I am sure there are other equally good alternatives. Another useful resource are the set of audio files for Barron’s word list which I used to listen to while at work. You can find them here.

RCs, Quant…

I think these are the two important sections in the GRE. The quant section is easy. I have also heard that the sums have become a little calculation intensive. But honestly, it still seems pretty easy to score. If you are looking at doing your masters in engineering, you MUST get a 750 even if it is a horrible day for you at the test. I would say this is the par score.

The reason why RCs (reading comprehension) requires some practice is because for some, it may not be an easy task to read off the computer screen. Especially long passages. Sometimes your eyes start hurting and you are not able to concentrate. Sometimes, it hard to maintain sync in terms of continuity i.e you might get lost when moving from one line to another. Therefore practising as much as possible is important. Also, try and practice on the computer instead of a book. It makes a huge difference ! Buy/Beg/Borrow/steal a computer from some place if you dont have one with you.

AWA

Do not disregard the writing section. In the heat of preparing for the other sections, sometimes, we tend to forget about this section completely. Try and practice atleast one or two times. After that developing key ideas for any argument/issue topic can be done mentally. If you blog a lot, I think you will have an advantage here. If not, it is still not that much of an issue really.

Test preparation materials

This is confusing. With so many test preparation materials around, it can get hard to know which one suits you the best. In my opinion, the following materials are great :

1. GRE powerprep : Especially the practice tests. From what I have seen and heard, your final scores will hover around your scores in these practice tests. I suggest you to save one of these tests for someday close to the test. The writing section in this s/f is also great. It gives you an idea as to what the test evaluators are actually looking for in your passage.
2. Kaplan : I think the verbal tests in Kaplan are harder than what is eventually going to appear on the test. The quant section is of the same difficulty level. I liked the feedback they give on how you performed in your tests. In particular, it tells you which areas are your weak points and how much time you spent on each question versus the recommended amount of time that you ought to have spent on those questions. Get hold of this software. It is pretty useful.
3. Big Book : Quite a few guys advised me to go through the big book atleast once before giving the test. I did not go through it eventually because I had ran out of time for preparation (and I was also terribly bored with going through the same routine over and over). Moreover, the big book was available to me as a part of several pdf files. I was somehow not comfortable with the whole idea of using that as an indicator to how good my preparation was.

There are lot many more options available apart from these. The likes of barron’s, cambridge, nova etc etc. But I suggest you to stick to these ones. They are good and they are tough and ,consequenlty, they will give you the true picture of how well you are prepared rather than giving you false impression.

I will keep adding information here as when I remember them. All the best to all GRE takers!

Update : One of the readers of this post called Raghu requested me to put up this link here so that it might help out some GRE aspirants. Raghu, if you are reading this, thanks for sharing this link with us !

Vamos Rafa!!

An open letter to Rafael Nadal.

Greetings Rafa,

First up, congratulations on winning the Wimbledon title! It truly was a great match !

Let me be honest with you. I don’t really like you. It is not like I dont like your style of tennis or something, but I somehow feel that you are way too arrogant on occassions. Honestly, after I saw you lose to Jo Wilfred Tsonga at the Australian Open, earlier this year, I thought that your game was too one-dimensional and that you would struggle on grass against Federer. I thought that you would win at Roland Garros but that it would not be a cakewalk like it has been for the last three years. But boy did you prove me wrong. You not only decimated Federer on clay, but by beating him on grass, you have now become only the second player after Bjorn Borg to have won on both clay and grass in the same year.

Fantastic!

I must admit that I wanted to see Federer win last night. I must admit that at the start of the tournament and even midway through the tournament, I , like many others, thought Federer was too strong on grass.

But you stunned everyone ! You made the genius look ordinary. You deserve to be the champion!

Thank you for showing me you full array of wonderful passing shots! Thank you for showing me the best tennis I have ever seen in the 11 years that I have watched this sport, especially that fourth-set tie breaker ! Thank you for adding more spice to what is already a legendary rivalry between you and Federer!

And oh ya, Forget the ATP rankings.  I think everyone, including Federer himself, knows who the world number 1 is at this moment.

Your fan!

Vivek Tulsidas

Grow up!

Two things prompted me to write this post. Firstly, a comment made my a colleague , who happens to be a north indian, which goes something along the lines of

” Is it a crime being a north indian in south India? “

This post by Kaustubh( and mainly the comment by Vishwas on this post )is the second reason behind this post.

Vishwas writes:

The fact of the matter is people from other areas have taken Bangalore for granted….

The first thing that I commented when I came to Bangalore was this. Take for example our class in PESIT. Most of the students were born and brought up in Bangalore. How many of them knew 10 words in Kannada and used them?? Speaking in kannada makes them feel they are inferior is it??

On the other hand, the same ppl start some gujarati community in Bangalore. They have passion for the region which they haven’t seen also from their birth. Is it not their responsibility to learn local language??

It’s high time kannadigas realize this. We are not fanatics like Tamilians but if the same carries on, we will have to change the way we treat others…

I have a few observations/questions to share/ask in this regard.

• As Indians, we are the last people in the world who should be complaning about others not respecting our culture and tradition (Check this). And I am not saying this purely on the basis of that report by ANI, but having lived most of life in a foreign land, I know how much we value other cultures. Kaustubh’s observations are confined to the people who are not from Bangalore. I think the problem is not just with non-Bangaloreans but the problem is inherent within all Indians.
• Do we really appreciate our culture and tradition ? Or is this some kind of petty excuse that we use from time to time? How many of us actually appreciate Carnatic music/ Hindustani music? Do we dress up in our traditional attire more often? Do we understand the importance of our regional festivals? Do we appreciate our art forms…the likes of Kuchipudi, Bharatnatayam,Kathakalli? Do we really love our language? Frankly, I dont think we really do. So if we do not respect our own culture and tradition then how can we expect the same of someone else?
• Majority of the cities today are cosmopolitan is nature. Maybe this is because of the advent of globalisation. In such a scenario, propogating your own culture and then sustaining it is not the easiest thing to do.  India’s approach to this is ludicruous to the say the least. What have we achieved by changing the names of our cities?  Do I love Bangalore more now that it is called ‘Bengaluru’ ?! Does a Mumbaikaar love is city more now that it is called ‘Mumbai’ rather than Bombay?

Abuse me if you think I am wrong. I dont care!

One year through at work….

Its amazing how time flies by. It just seems like yesterday when I think of the times down at PESIT. I have learnt quite a lot of things in the past one year, techincal and otherwise.  Let us see for how long I keep this ball rolling !