Shantiniketan etc.

-
Visited the abode of poet-laureate Tagore, Shantiniketan, during this trip back home.

Brief notes for myself now...will elaborate when I have time.
-Stayed at Prantik
-Visited:
1. Konkalitola mondir: One of the 51 Kali Peeths
2. Amar Kutir: Cottage industries emporium
3. Kopai nodi
4. Khowai: Gully eroded landscape
5. Vishwa Bharati University:
a) Gour Prangan: Morning assembly
b) Kala Niketan: Ramkinkar Baij exhibition was on
c) Sri-niketan: Leather and handicraft workshops
d) Upashona Griha: Meditation complex
e) Uttarayan complex: Five buildings inhabited by the Tagore family...Udayan, Konark, Shyamalee, Punashcha and Udichi buildings plus the Motor car used by Gurudeb and display gallery (with duplicate Nobel medallion) in Bichitra bhabon.

Also visited Netaji Bhabon in Kolkata besides a speed boat trip down Ganga :)

Birbhoom...

-
Travelled extensively in the Birbhoom area of Bengal in the last two days.
Saw Shantiniketan, Tagore's abode among other things.

A longer post on this later.

from Feynman archives...

-
We want [knowledge] so we can love Nature more. Would you not turn a beautiful flower around in your hand to see it from other directions as well?

Of course, men want knowledge for many other purposes also, to make war, to make a commercial success, to help the sick or the poor, etc., motives of various values. These obvious motives and their consequences the poets do understand and do write about. But the emotions of awe, wonder, delight and love which are evoked upon learning Nature's ways in the animate and inanimate world, together (for they are one), is rarely expressed in modern poetry where the aspect of Nature being appreciated is one which could have been known to men in the Renaissance.

And the crassness of our time, so much lamented, is a crassness that can be alleviated only by art, and surely not by science without art. Art and poetry can remind the mind of beauty and gradually make life more beautiful.

My lament was that a kind of intense beauty that I see given to me by science, is seen by so few others; by few poets and, therefore, by even fewer ordinary people.

The same thrill, the same awe and mystery, come again and again when we look at any problem deeply enough. With more knowledge comes deeper, more wonderful mystery, luring one on to penetrate deeper still ...It is true that few unscientific people have this particular kind of religious experience. Our poets do not write about it; our artists do not try to portray this remarkable thing. I don't know why. Is nobody inspired by our present picture of the universe?

The value of science remains unsung by singers, so you are reduced to hearing about it -- not a song or a poem, but an evening lecture about it....Perhaps one of the reasons is that you have to know how to read the music.

For instance, the scientific analysis says, perhaps, something like this: "The radioactive phosphorus content of the cerebrum of the rat decreases to one-half in a period of two weeks." Now, what does that mean?It means that the phosphorus that is in the brain of a rat (and also in mine, and yours) is not the same phosphorus as it was two weeks ago, but that all of the atoms that are in the brain are being replaced, and the ones that were there before have gone away.

So what is this mind, what are these atoms with consciousness? Last week's potatoes! That is what now can remember what was going on in my mind a year ago -- a mind that has long ago been replaced.That is what it means when one discovers how long it takes for the atoms of the brain to be replaced by other atoms, to note that the thing that I call my individuality is only a pattern or dance. The atoms come into my brain, dance a dance, then go out; always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday....

find your DREAM

-
What are you beyond...beyond being your parents' wonderful child...your siblings' wonderful brother/sister...your friends' best friend...your employer's star employee...your spouse's wonderful husband/wife...your kids' wonderful dad/mom...what are you BEYOND all this, that's your CRAZY DREAM.

You might choose to fulfill your dream through these identities but first find it...find it beyond these identities...find it IN YOURSELF.

A rhymer for all people who think they're not lucky

-
A strange thing happened last night,
I woke up in a fright,
It was suddenly so very bright,
Oh my! What a dazzling sight!

A fairy emerged from nowhere,
Oh! It was such a strange affair,
I didn’t know for what to prepare,
There I was, under her affectionate glare!

In her mellifluous voice she chanted,
If there was anything that I wanted,
A swish of her magic wand was all that was needed,
And that’s it! Whatever wish, it'd be granted!

Guess what I asked…

I told her to make you the luckiest person in the world,
And what’s more, to make you believe that you are the luckiest person in the world;
So never again think of yourself as not lucky,
For my wish has been granted…granted by the fairy…and however hard you try, you can never ever again be unlucky!

Look at things AFRESH

-
When your body aches even after sleep,
The mind dizzy, dazed and confused;

And simple things start looking complex,
Pedestrian dilemmas rendering you imbecile;

When you are moving; Moving
more because of the flow than your own will;

And no longer thrilled about every moment you're alive...

It's time...time to either give up or look at things AFRESH.

Converting a .ps document into pdf

-
http://www.ps2pdf.com/convert/convert.htm

Watch Guru

-
I liked it. I think you'd like it too :)

Honest Answers

-
To answer the some questions HONESTLY it takes very long.
So don't ask me those questions or if you do, please bear with me as I evolve my honest answer.
I can't give those "media-friendly" one liners and I don't know how to be dishonest.

Sometimes even life-time isn't enough time to figure out the perfect answer...

Games traders play!

-
Let's lighten the mood on this blog a little! Let's play a game :-)

1. There are 44 chips.
2. The first player may remove as many chips as desired, at least one chip, but the not the whole pile.
3. Thereafter, the players alternate removing, each player not being allowed to remove more chips than his opponent took on the previous move.
4. The player that removes the last chip(s) wins.

Hint: This is a simple example of a class of Impartial Combinatorial Games called “Dynamic Subtraction Games”…so you can crack it to win every time!

Happy playing :-)

Judgement at Nuremberg

-
It's been a long time since a movie really stirred me.
This one did...
Watch it if you get hold of the dvd.

Raincoat

-
Watched the movie Raincoat yesterday.
Fine performances...I liked it.

Human dilemmas fascinate me...maybe because I struggle with them daily :)

Math problem treasure-trove (olympiads, putnam etc.)

-
http://www.kalva.demon.co.uk/index.html

Kanheri caves

-
Visited Kanheri caves on 31st December. Situated deep within the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, these are buddhist rock cut caves with representations from both the Hinayana and Mahayana sect. Constructions started from the 1st century BC onwards till about 6th century AD.

If you are in Mumbai and have some time at hand, make sure you visit this place.