Essence / Fragrance / Smell / Stink

Picture this:

You are sleeping in the second class compartment of a train. Something pricks your olfactory senses. Whatever you were dreaming changes to something in your past.

This is the memory power of smell.

there are always some memories associated with these fragrances. For example, whenever the first raindrops fall on dust, the amazing fragrance reminds me of the corridor in my house where i used to run as a kid and my mom would call out "get the clothes, they will be all wet". The other day when i was cleaning my room with a wet cloth, the same smell came when i started wiping the table which was covered with dust and all the memories came back. i stopped there for a couple of minutes trying to remember each one of them and smiled.

with fragrance you also associate people. thats how the blind people recognize others around them. It is not just associated with the blind but also with the normal people but it is just that this quality is suppressed by the sense of sight. But this comes up when one is not looking. It happens when someone puts his palms across your eyes and asks "Guess Who??"The Olfactory senses come to life.

Sense of smell can also be deceiving sometimes. You can have a superficial fragrance which masks the real truth. For example, you are walking towards the cafeteria and say out aloud "kya khushboo hai!!" and when you go inside you witness under cooked potatoes and raw vegetables smelling like they have been made in some 5 star hotel.

Finally, the uses of the nose: smelling, remembering, poking, crossing the finish line in a race, sneezing, running, finding the way out of a maze, etc. Keep Discovering!

The Birdwatcher

This was written by me in my 3rd year of engineering in VNIT Nagpur.

Our college website rightly says that our college is a treat for a birdwatcher

whose main reason is the presence of the Ambazari lake in its vicinity.

Birds are easy to define. They are the only feathered creatures in the world. At first sight it might seem that birds have most characters in common but on closer look we will find that bird life has many forms which are different from each other and bear little or no resemblance to each other.

Thanks to the BOOK OF INDIAN BIRDS by Salim Ali and the internet I was able to identify the various species of birds in our campus. Let me begin with the most beautiful of them all.

1. Asian paradise fly catcher:

If I were in charge of deciding the national bird of our country this bird would give the peacock a run for the money. This bird is actually quite small around 7-8 cms long but its long tail (around 20 cms) makes it look longer than it is. It is blue breasted and its back is of a golden colour. It has a dark blue crest. In most of the birds the male is better looking than the female but it is reverse in the Asian paradise flycatcher. The female is the more beautiful one. While the male loses its beauty as it ages. This bird can be seen in the summer season near the NBH or the Y-point.

2. Grey Hornbill:

This was the latest bird which I saw in our college campus. One of the most beautiful creatures and a very rare bird. This bird is now a regular visitor of our workshop and the staff quarters behind it.

3. Black Rumped Woodpecker:

A woodpecker working to procure its food is a great site to watch. I had an opportunity to see this beautiful creature in 2007 in the trees between block 8 and block 7. A flame-backed woodpecker gets its name from the colour of its back which looks like it is up in flames. This bird is difficult to spot nowadays in our campus because of the deforestation near the boy’s hostel and construction of new hostels.

4. Copper smith Barbet:

Unlike its name it has no relation to a copper smith except that its beak has a small spot which seems like a droplet of molten copper. This small but beautiful bird was first spotted by me in the toilet of block 8 in my first year. With the help of Gaurav we took some photos and let it out and saved it from some people who were planning to harass it. This bird can be easily spotted near the health centre and the NBH.

5. Spotted Owlet:

This was the first bird that I spotted in our college. It’s a really small owl unlike the ones we see in films. It could easily fit in one’s palm. This bird can be seen hooting at night near the MIG or can be seen sleeping in the storm water drains above the physics assembly hall. Next time you pass in front of the physics department do take a look at these birds as they are known to bring good luck.

6. Verditer Flycatcher:

I don’t know where this bird got its first name from but what I do know is that this is one beautiful bird in such shades of blue that you would be amazed at mother nature that she can make such beautiful creatures. The last time I spotted this bird was in my first year again in front of block 8 but now it won’t be that simple to spot these birds because of the construction.

7. Rufous Tree Pie:

The rufous tree pie is a long beautiful bird that makes annoying sounds but can be easily spotted flying around the axis room or the canteen.

8. Rain quail:

The rain quail is a small bird that does not fly great distances but mostly walks around thick bushes and abandoned houses. It can be spotted around the axis room and the adjoining staff quarters.

9. White Throated Kingfisher:

Now everyone must know how a kingfisher looks like thanks to Vijay Mallya and his UB group so this bird won’t be that difficult to spot. This bird can be easily seen near the fluid mechanics lab flying around to prey on small insects in the abandoned tanks of the fluid mechanics lab.

10. Oriole:

This is a bird that will baffle you with the question: Is that real gold on its skin? The answer is no. The beautiful colour of this bird makes you want to see this bird. It can be easily seen behind block 2 or axis room near the bushes.

11. House Swift:

As the name suggests this bird should be very common but to see them fly in large numbers such as 100s it’s an amazing site. This site is very common in front of the AD block at dusk.

12. Oriental White Eye:

Any small bird which we see is mostly dismissed as some relative of sparrow but this bird is a completely different bird. It gets its name from a white ring around its eyes which is not so easy to spot. This bird can be spotted in front of NBH and the canteen.

13. Green Bee eater:

This is a beautiful green coloured bird which gets its name from its diet i.e. bees. The thing to watch is the method in which this bird kills its prey. It first grabs it in its beak and then bangs it on the branch/wire on which it is perched till it dies. This bird is a very common bird and can be spotted almost everywhere.

14. Coucal or Crow Pheasant:

This is a common bird and is often mistaken for the bird of paradise (which is not found in India). This bird can be easily spotted where there are trees and thick bushes.

15. White headed wagtail:

This bird is not an uncommon bird which can be sometimes seen on the ground feeding on insects. This bird is a very afraid of people so even if u try to have a good look at it, it would fly away to safety.

16. Sunbird:

This is a small purple coloured bird and is easy to spot near flowers trying to extract nectar. It has a sweet shrill voice which can be distinctly heard. These birds are easily seen around the ground and the canteen.

17. Black Drongo:

It is a slim agile and glossy bird about as big as a bulbul, with a ling deeply forked tail. They capture moths, caterpillars and other small insects. They can be easily spotted in front of the meta department.

18. Jungle babbler:

This a common and very irritating bird which hops around. It is grey coloured and has a yellow coloured beak and appears fluffy. It is a really annoying bird with which everyone will agree.

These were some of the birds which were worth describing and spotting. There are totally 34 species that I have seen such as the sparrows, robins, warblers, pigeon, crow,etc. which are easy to recognise. So next time you walk around the campus in daytime keep your eyes open and try to spot these magnificent creatures.

PS - these pics have been downloaded from the internet and aren't clicked by me.

Book Review: Outliers – Malcolm Gladwell (Non- Fiction)

Outlier (n): A deviation from mean. This is the definition from managerial statistics class but in the book the population is the human population and these outliers are outperformers, “geniuses”, and successful people. This book looks at the factors that contribute to high levels of success. The author claims that the successful people or the so called geniuses are just normal people with talent but there are various factors that contribute to their successes. To support his thesis, he examines the causes of why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year, how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, and how two people with exceptional intelligence, Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer, end up with such vastly different fortunes. Throughout the publication, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. For this 10,000 hour rule he gives examples of the Beatles, Beethoven, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and many other personalities and trust me this does make sense. I along with a friend even proved this theory on the cafeteria table by examining Sachin Tendulkar. He started seriously practicing for 12 hours daily at the age of 12 and at the age of 15 he made the legendary 664 runs partnership with Kambli. So calculating for 3 years and 12 hours daily we get a figure of 10,000+ hours. So he achieved great success only after giving in 10,000+ hours in practice. In short, this book could be termed as a book about how to achieve success as it can explain almost every success story by its theories.

Independence

This one is from my FB notes.

My first note on independence day, guess this is azaadi from "no notes in fb".

I guess every year on independence day we have the same question "are we really free??"

I always hate such questions so here goes the reason for that.

For a country which was said to disintegrate within a decade by "experts" and was said to have a civil war in its first decade of independence, we have come a long way. 63 years for a country with a great diversity where the tastes in food vary every 50 kms and the dialect changes almost every 100 kms is not a joke. Its a literal color chart from Kashmir to Kanyakumari (well it should be Indira point which is the southernmost point but K and K rhyme :P).For a country growing in great numbers there can be a few skirmishes here and there after all we dont exist in an Ideal state. We talk about the suffering on the poor people on fb and blogger and blame the state for it but have we ever given a thought to doing something about it? Talking about riots, where dont they take place. all we can do is try to stop them and if the government tries to do this then it is termed as government atrocities.

The independence day is not for us to blame the government on its shortfalls and wrongdoings, its for us to honor the men and women who laid down their lives for us to be free.

ets look at other countries who attained freedom at the same time.

Pakistan- need i say anything about them. they cancelled their celebrations because of the massive flooding in the whole country.They got divided again in '71

Sri lanka - they just had a civil war

The progress we attained was not expected from us but we did it.

So instead of cursing the government we should respect our freedom and the people who fought for it and also those who ensured that we stayed together as a country.

Are we Free?? Yes we are. The PM just said that the Media and Securities are the two pillars of freedom and where there is unbiased media there is freedom.

Connections

Four years, don’t know how they just flew by. Every time I read the word alumni, I told myself it must be a 40 year old greying (in my case soon to be balding) man telling his kids about the college he went to. But here I am 21 years old and have to call myself an alumnus sharing a learning I got in VNIT.

Who would have thought that so much could be given by a technological institute to a lanky Punjabi from Gujarat? 4 letters are responsible for changing my whole thinking pattern – VNIT.

Before coming to college, I just knew a handful of middle class school kids from Baroda and some cousins in North India. But VNIT expanded this whole horizon of connections. Now I know at least one person from every part of the country be it the North-east or the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. There are different people with different thinking patterns and working patterns and to understand all this is very difficult. It is an on-going process, but in VNIT I got a first-hand experience of dealing with different people. It’s just like the HSBC advertisement, Different Latitudes, Different People, One Bank. I’d say Different People, Different Languages, Different Colours, and One Connection – VNIT. An experience highlighting this point was when an Assamese friend from the Western Part of India posted on Facebook just when the vacations were ending “Now going to taste the food from all parts of India.” Apart from the placement the college provides, there are 3 intangibles that the college does provide. They are Friends, Knowledge and Experience. The experiencing of these differences of opinion, thinking, working, food preferences, songs, movies makes us tolerant and understanding of our diverse nation as a whole broadening our horizon as Paulo Coelho would put it. People write books on these differences in our nation, but I believe the best authors of such books could come from within our very own college. So lets just not look at VNIT as a college for providing technical expertise but also a provider of knowledge about the people of India

PS – I was writing this article while listening to a Telegu song, chatting with a friend in Jammu and flooding a friend’s e-mail asking him to send some of his home-made Manipuri pickle while sitting in Goa.

THE GOLDEN BIRD

I walk around with the hot nagpur sun over m head.
The sun is blinding me and burning my skin but I cant do anything because I have to bear this heat for the moment. A tree comes to my rescue, shielding me from the continuous attack of the solar rays. I look up to thank the tree for it has provided me relief.I see a flutter in the tree it was just for a moment, just to catch my attention but as I observe closely I see a beautiful collection of colors on a little creature. Its a bird.
I don't know its name but its beautiful. its golden color reminds me of the gold worn by people on happy ocassions. In this sea of dried trees this beautiful bird gives me hope that the most beautiful of all things thrive in the harshest of conditions.
The bird is a Eurasian Oriole, difficult to spot as its color is golden and is hard to see in the sun. When I saw it for the first time, I was stunned by its color and left admiring its beauty for some time till I was shaken by friend telling me "dude u are late for the class. come fast or else you wont be allowed"

It is said that thousands of years ago a golden bird sailed over the skies of india giving hope and happiness to the people, could this be that elusive bird.

why blog?

I was just thinking...what should i do in the free time in my last few months in college?

and as i was taking a bath, the answer struck me.

EUREKA

lets write a blog.

what better way to vent out my feelings, frustrations and anger, etc etc and what better place to share my life's experiences.

So, here starts the journey...