Shine on...

Socha na tha

2011-10-01T23:17:00.003-07:00

Wonderful Tonight

2011-10-01T23:17:00.001-07:00

Tu Jaane Na

2011-10-01T23:15:00.001-07:00

With or without You

2011-10-01T23:12:00.001-07:00

Can't help falling in love

2011-10-01T23:11:00.001-07:00

Just the way You are

2011-10-01T23:09:00.001-07:00

Only Hope

2011-10-01T23:07:00.001-07:00

2010-01-09T10:59:00.000-08:00

Someone asked me recently: "If you were to choose one, would you do the right thing or do things right?" I thought for a few seconds and responded confidently: 'Do the right thing'. The listener happened to share my opinion (In retrospect, I think it was meant to be, considering who the listener was) and the conversation went on..well, about many other things.

The question came back, prodding me to ask myself - 'do you practice what you preach?' I tried to connect a few dots. I realized that for the most part of life so far, especially on professional front, it has largely been about 'doing things right'. Luckily, the personal account fares much better. Maybe because 'I cared' about it; after all..what else do you term as personal ? (too frank an opinion?? Maybe..) So, instead of pondering over it for too long, and getting into an intellectual overhang (very typical of people in the current social setup, where I spend bulk of my time), I've decided to get out of the ''compliance'' mode. It's funny, by the way. If you consider what I do for about 40-45 hours a week, you'd think that I'm trying to take a precise 180 degrees turn. But when you consider the importance of doing the right thing, the paradox looks trivial.

Put mathematically, life has so far been a line segment. I tried hard to change it and fortunately, it now looks like an equilateral triangle. And I'm sitting right at the center of it all - call it the centroid, the circumcenter, or the orthocenter (Doesn't matter, does it? :P). It's about time I converted it into an isosceles triangle first, and then gradually reduced the non-equal angle to Zero, once again, but this time...for good!

You'd find this as one of my status messages, often before a performance or a game. Well, here I go again - ''It's time to be, The Best Of Me''

2009-07-15T11:25:00.000-07:00

It's been long since I scribbled in this space. Time to break the (bad) habit... This one's about "moving the wall". Strange? I bet it is... There's this gigantic wall I see in front of me as I type this blog. I can't see through it, because if I could, it would be transparent, and would not have really been classified as a wall - although I tend to think that most of the world's problems could be solved had we built transparent walls (at most places, of course). I find this wall in front of me all the time...when I'm working, playing, listening to music, watching TV, reading, looking up the stock market, dreaming...It stares at me and says nothing. I don't expect it to say anything. It's not painted. It's just a plain whitewash. I've known this for a long long time. I know that the painter did half the job and left the side facing me. Most of the time, I feel that I should paint this side myself. That's what I'm supposed to do....that's what interests me probably. But, I've just not figured out the right colour. And this is exactly what my problem is. The careless painter keeps asking me to look at "the other side" -- the painted side. Being proud of his work, he believes that I'd love it too. I've been pitching for my painting skills for a while, but the painter doesn't care! Had I chosen my colour, things may have been different. Now, I've got to meet this painter. I had thought I'd meet him to show the masterpiece I dream of, but I guess I'll have to just move the wall , get to the other side and see the painter's work. I hope to appreciate it, get inspired and paint "my side of the wall" with a colour I would cherish for the rest of my life. I sincerely believe..that fateful day, this wall will also become transparent and the two artworks will merge into one seamless memorable entity.

2007-10-01T22:58:00.000-07:00

Coming back to life...

I was leaving at half time (as we call it in Pantnagar). Usually, I would inform the security guard of my intention to leave the factory and he would then call for the car. But today, I got convinced that I have spent quite some time in this factory, as the guard promptly switched on the mic to announce a departure. The journey back to the hotel can be described as fast and full of picturesque views of the hills surrounding the pathway. An interesting observation is the colour of the bottoms of most of the vehicles. Crimson red ! Due to the soil we have here. This gives us an insight why the mining industry flourishes in this place.
It was raining, as it does most of the time in this month. I thought about a few things on the way. I also calculated how much time it would take a person on foot to get significantly wet if the rain comes down out of nowhere. Not more than 15 seconds. The result is open for verification. I reached 206 around 7 PM. Almost like a small child chasing a toy, I searched the remote and jumped to the 26th channel. There you are ! The fun begins among F.R.I.E.N.D.S.
As I usually do to complement the fantastic weather, I ordered a few pakore and a tea.
7:30 PM - And I had no idea what to do next. Seinfeld could be one option. Newspaper could be another. Sudoku/Crossword -- yet another. I chose the third one. Picked up the "Gomantak Times". That's what you get here in Goa. It publishes stories on just two main subjects: Goan politics & Films -- both subjects typically alien to my interests. Thus, I went straight to the second last page and began some number crunching.
Somehow, I managed to cross the psychological 9:00 PM mark with Sudoku, crossword and a few other "general" stuff. I looked up the menu to order dinner, thinking whe exactly was I actually choosing a dish ! Anyway, whatever I order would taste sweet. So, very reluctantly, I ordered some rice, dal and some curd to fulfill my culinary formalities.
As the clock struck past 10:00 PM, it was time to surf the cyber world. 1:00 AM and I am off to sleep. Another day of "I don't know what I did, exactly" comes to an end.
Sometimes, I think it was far better when I was in Pantnagar, with no time to think about what to do. But, most of the times, I think..this is not bad either - to do what I want to do for a considerable slice of the day's 24 hours! :)

2007-09-28T12:52:00.000-07:00

“Estranged as I felt, after all this so should you
Equal in every respect, unequal in every respect
Things you did to me, those I never did to you
Yes the ones I never did to you
Made me anxious, every day
Not any more, with each passing day
The fear of loss ceases, slowly and not painfully
Spring was here, they say
Never, I shout back, calmly…”

How often do you find yourself in a situation where it becomes impractical to gauge the loss a decision could inflict on you, because the necessity of “the decision” negates the very reason for it? By definition, such an event is highly improbable, but according to the probabilistic law of large numbers, an event that is highly improbable in a small number of trials, can become highly probable when the number of trials is a lot more.
Therefore, I strongly feel that the kind of transformation I have gone through (recently) happens with many “genuine persons”. This belief itself makes me strong enough to say “Let’s face it. I’m outta all this humbug!”.

Pain ??? What's that?

DB

2006-08-22T05:46:00.000-07:00

26th May: Yippi! Am home!
09th June: Wow! FIFA 2006 sets off...
30th June: What the heck, I've lost the world cup
3rd July: Wow! Nestle H.O. rocks!
14th July: My first factory stint: "Got to learn here"
1st August: Happy Birthday Paarul
2nd August: My first pay check..feels awesome!
13th August: Someone departs..leaving behind the most beautiful memories of my life
22nd August: End of Post

2006-04-11T22:35:00.000-07:00

The Final TS...

I dont know why Ankit and I always tend to be late at the class.. be it a regular lecture or a TS...and then, whenever we are destined to be late, there is this nice meal at the breakfast table served just for that day in the history of the mess...pakode...it was 8:45. So, we thought we can take "the risk". Ate them up as fast as we could and then sped away to the dept(on foot). Reached the dept on time...that means....9:01...the papers had been distributed..and Ms. Nidhi said "You(Ankit) right here on the first bench, and You(Deepak) sit wherever you find a vacant seat". As if we are undergoing some kind of military training. Then the TS starts...the classroom becomes a theatre...and some of us the jokers...the first 45 minutes went normal...

There is one skill that we have developed over here writing exams...and that skill is to write about something with no/little knowledge about it . . what we call .. fatte dena ! in roorkee lingo. So, the last 15 minutes, I can bet 20/23 people in the class were writing stories and essays about what they didn't know and what they pretended they knew !

Time over...and SHE shouts: "You have 10 seconds to submit your answer sheets". (Her assumption: All of us carry stop watches to the test). So, that was how the first test of my final test series here in IITR went. The second test was much easier and, for the record, was held at 3.

All in all, it was just another brick in the wall...

"Neither should we take things too lightly nor should we let things get too heavy on us".

Deepak Bansal

2006-04-06T13:57:00.000-07:00

This is my first ever blog and am happy to announce that I kick off with something I have nurtured over the last three years. The "something" is now popularly known as Enquesta-The online event. Our team started it all from scratch in 2003 when a senior in my chemical engg dept came upto me and asked me if we could host an online quiz for the chemical engg people. For once, my straight answer was NO. But a few hours later, we met again and that day became history forever. At least for me. Since then, there has been no looking back. Every year, we hosted online quizzes for the internet community, but then, everything takes sometime to mature..and so did Enquesta. I feel proud to say that this time, we really made history. Some 13,000 people glued to their computer screens just to enjoy the phenomenon named Enquesta...

"Thinking @2.4 Gbps"
From left: Ankit, Anish, Amitosh

Started with Perl, PHP followed, and then came JSP ... the technology worked wonders. The team, luckily for me, turned out to be well rounded, talent at its best! One main programmer, one web designer, and 5 first yearites who typed their hearts out to make a huge database of questions...kudos to all these people! And not to forget, the publicity team who almost made Enquesta mails a spam mail to ignore!!!

"United we stand"
From left: Ankit, Shubhin, Ayush, Me, Vatsal, Sandeep

Never have I put so much effort in achieving anything, what so ever. What I learned from my teachers over the past 4 years forms a mere 30-35% of what I have learned here in IIT Roorkee. The rest of it is much more valuable to me and I know..the rest 65-70% is what matters in the long run...Effort does pay, it may take some time to realise but really, if you dedicate yourself to something and give your best to it, it HAS TO turn out well for you later on, in one form or another.

Anyone reading this must know that "you should KNOW that you gonna make it and not just THINK."

Well, enough for the first blog...comments most welcome...

Deepak Bansal