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I often wonder how strange our brain is and the strangest part seems to be our memory. In technical terms, our memory is what we computer scientists call "Content Addressable Memory". So we do not actually need to know where exactly in our brain, something is stored. We just think of some related thing or about some part of the thing and the whole thing comes rushing forth. Now sometimes these associations are very obvious and at other times, quite bewildering. They also tend to differ from person to person. I listen to music a lot and I have found that I can infact draw up a very nostalgic map of my life in terms of songs. Everytime I listen to some of the songs, they bring back memories of gone times and at times they are so vivid that I can hardly contain my emotions. I feel happy or sad or peaceful just like I am living that moment again. It is a wonderful feeling to say the least. Some of the prominent ones are (though I doubt they will make any sense to anybody apar...

Getting busy as July is coming up. So no time to write critical reviews of everything if I want to do as many things as I used to. Well I am being a little selfish here but can't help it. So in the meanwhile only small lists will be coming up here: Books: finished "Daddy long legs" by Jean Webster. A quick and easy read but 1) is meant for children and 2) is quite outdated (was published in 1915). Reading "The best of Satyajeet Ray". Most of the stories are for children but some are rather mature in tone. Movies: I can't believe I forgot to write an entry for "The Whale Rider". Take my word and watch it today. One of the few movies which brought me to tears. Also saw "Trainspotting" and I was not disappointed inspite of the fact that I was waiting to see it since quite sometime now. Music: Right now its GreenDay and GreenDay with some Hootie and the Blowfish in between. GreenDay is just awesome especially their first album Dookie...

Hum-Tum is cute and funny. Nice for some light hearted entertainment. Both Rani and Saif has become seasoned actors and are a treat to watch :). One disheartening factor was that ultimately this movie also turned out to be a copy of "Harry met Sally" which I have not seen yet and so I enjoyed Hum-Tum. However it is sad that even all the good Hindi Movies turn out to be inspired from some foreign movie. For the record: (Not personally verified since I have not seen the English ones) Ghulam: On the Water Front Munna Bhai MBBS: Patch Adams Hum Tum: Harry Met Sally Mohabbaten: Dead Poet's Society (my loathing for Mohabbatein increased quite a lot after watching the original English one) even paap, the debut movie of Pooja Bhatt the director draws inspiration from many movies including "the witness" among others.

I have been promising myself that I'll post something here, whole last week. There are a couple of issues I have been thinking about but as usual, I have been breaking these promises with almost marvelous consistency :( The reading dept is going weak now a days. Have only read 1-2 short stories by Satya Jeet Ray in all of last week and these stories are surprisingly modern. I mean very much different from the impression I had but this will be the issue of another post when I am done reading the collection. In the meantime I watched HP3 and hated it. The book was way too better. I am quite at a loss at understanding the applauds it seems to be getting by the critics and viewers. They have left out almost everything from the story. Considering the size of HP4 and HP5, I doubt what is going to be their fate :(. The lead actors overact most of the time save for Ms. Granger. She is beginning to look nice and is okey in the acting dept also. Hope to see more of her outside the HP s...

Finished "Interpreter of Maladies" today. Considering the fact that it has only 9 stories, it should have been a one day affair but I never managed to take out that one day. Instead I read it 1-2 stories a day after every 3-4 days. Now that I finally finished it with a marathon of 4 stories today, I think I enjoyed it much more by reading in parts, taking time to reflect on the stories as I read them. So the next obvious thing: the best story on the collection. Well I'll rather not chose one best but I liked "Temporary Measure", "Interpreter of Maladies", "Sexy" and "Third and the Last Continent". A very striking feature of the stories is that they are very rich in details. Unlike Arundhati Roy, whose plush language is a treat to read, or just behold for that matter, Jhumpa is all about details. Specially the details about food !! I could almost taste it in my mouth. And think about my plight when I had to go and eat mess foo...

The hostel messes in IITK are lately being refurnished and they have got this new self service system in place now. Also the old row based sitting system is gone and there are many smaller tables. So u are free to sit wherever u want and with ur friends. I find it a welcome change from the regular sit-in-the-order-eat-in-quantums style. During summers, students from other hostels (Hall 5) are also eating in hall 2 mess. Now there is a strange thing I have seen. Some of them just leave their plates on the tables after eating and since I have heard this myself, it is not that they forget to do it. For some of them, it is an unacceptable idea that they are supposed to pick up their plates and put them to sink/trolly. I am quite amazed since I have always felt that the old practice of leaving ur plates on the tables in the mess was actually pretty bad. Since my childhood I have learned to go and put my plate in the sink. In fact letting somebody else pick up my plate (read my mom or my sis...