Ever since Rafael Nadal joined the world of lawn tennis for men, I've always been an avid follower of him.This is so because I always support the fighters, those people who are lack of talent but tend to compensate it efficiently with their stamina and fighting attitude.Nadal is an excellent representative of this category of human beings. Now being a supporter of Nadal implies that you are against Roger Federer, a representative of the blessed category, who plays it on skill and style instead of toil and sweat. So I was against Federer.But the thing that he had done recently has certainly made me rethink. He has made me believe that he's a real champ.Once there was an era with all Nadal around, with Federer hardly being able to reach the finals only to get defeated by the young maestro.Things turned to be such that he was even getting defeated by other players too.I thought I saw the fall of another legend. But Fedex had something else in mind. His struggle started. He never said die. He chose the path of sweat and dust to reclaim his throne.And now here is he again. The champ is reborn. The critics may attribute his recent success with the absence of Nadal in the circuit.But still then, Federer has really shown the courage to sustain, to mix up his talent with his stamina.And when talent and skill gets mixed up with tenacity and stamina, an individual gets nearly invincible.Dunno what will happen to his streak once Nadal returns, but this fighter out there certainly deserves an ovation.

Joe Satriani at his best

Once again couldn't but post it. For me, its the greatest creation by Joe Satriani, 3 minutes 18 seconds of pure magic.

All hail to the magician!! \m/

The greatness of a musician doesn't depend on how difficult notes they play or how complex music they can compose or how fast their fingers are on the fret. Rather their greatness depend on the impact they leave on the listener's mind. So, when people say "Comfortably numb-pulse solo" is just too simple to play, I think thats where the genius of David Gilmour is hidden. He created a masterpiece thats simple to play,but is heavenly. He proved that simplicity and exquisiteness are not mutually exclusive. Same is the case with this masterpiece I think. Some may say it to be slow, some may say it to be simple. But that IS the genius of Joe Satriani.

The sweet smell of a great sorrow lies over the land
Plumes of smoke rise and merge into the leaden sky:
A man lies and dreams of green fields and rivers,
But awakes to a morning with no reason for waking

He's haunted by the memory of a lost paradise
In his youth or a dream, he can't be precise
He's chained forever to a world that's departed
It's not enough, it's not enough

His blood has frozen & curdled with fright
His knees have trembled & given way in the night
His hand has weakened at the moment of truth
His step has faltered

One world, one soul
Time pass, the river rolls

It's not enough it's not enough
His hand has faltered
.... .... ......

And he talks to the river of lost love and dedication
And silent replies that swirl invitation
Flow dark and troubled to an oily sea
A grim intimation of what is to be

There's an unceasing wind that blows through this night
And there's dust in my eyes, that blinds my sight
And silence that speaks so much louder that words,
Of promises broken

- Sorrow [Pink floyd]

There is a special purpose for posting the lyrics. This is the song that has inspired me most for the past 3-4 months. It has made me believe that I'm not the only one. There are thousands of people like me, who are suffering from the same dilemma. And then only a few days back, I listened to the "pulse" version of the same song and experienced that how some simple changes can transform a song into a totally different one.However, what I'm trying to say is that, I'm really grateful to Pink Floyd for this song. Long live....!!!

Cartoon network

"Sugar, spice and everything nice, these were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girl..." and my eyes went glued to the television. Even one year back, I loved cartoons and regularly watched them.It's not that I don't like them now, but I hardly get the time to sit in front of the television, and then when I do manage to get some time, my mom and dad just snatch the remote control from my hand and switch to some Bengali soap-operas.

Power puff girls, Dexter's lab, The Flintstones, Scooby-doo were always on my hit list and will remain there forever. Just can't forget those sultry summer evenings, sitting in front of the television, me and my sis and the intro starts, " Scooby dooby doo, where are you, you've got some work to do now". Then sometimes during the commercial, sis will change the channel to MTV and I'll fight with her to get back the remote and threaten her that I'll complain against her to mom. Johny Bravo and Popeye was also my favorite, but I dint get a chance to follow them regularly because baba thought them to be "adult material" to a class four student. However, as I grew up, I did get permission to watch those two cartoons. Then say at seventh standard or so, Dexter's lab and Powerpuff girls became my favorite. I had a crush on Blossom *blushes* xD. The way she managed the two sisters of her was awesome in one word. And then she had long red hair, big eyes, bossy attitude but a soft heart. I just loved her. Dex was my favorite for another reason. My regular bullies with my didi somewhat resembled with that of Dex and Deedee. And I was always into big scientific experiments, say one day I mixed orange juice with Otrivin [nasal drop] to see whether it causes some explosion . After seeing the result, I became disappointed and closed the lid of the bottle. Dunno what happened to the person, who used the drop next. xD.

Time went by. And gradually my choices changed. When the Pokemon series started, I became a fan of that. I had an album containing pics of all Pokemons. Little Ash Ketchum, Misty, Brock, Tracy and May became my heroes. And then team rocket was funny as hell. xD. But probably the series that influenced me most was "Bey blades". I loved all the characters there, Tyson, Mimi, Daichi, Ray, Max everyone. But my favorite was Kai. He had an attitude that used to suit him only. And the most brilliant thing about him was, he dint go for showoffs, he talked less and his blade spoke for him. I learned quite a few things from the series. Here's a little secret- my "I never say die, so no one can stop me" comes from Tyson. He was an warrior, always fighting till the last breath. Tyson vs Brooklyn was one of the best fights I've seen in my whole life. closely followed by Tyson vs Garland, Tyson vs Kai, Kai vs Joseph, Kai vs Ray. Although Kai was my favorite, I supported Ray in the battle, dunno why. I loved each and every character from the series.

Recently, I used to watch Ben 10. The adventures of Benjamin tennison, Gwendelyn Tennison and their grandpa. Ben accidentally discovers a watch like thing called Omnitrix that can transform him into numerous mighty aliens. Ben dedicates his power to the welfare of mankind. But evil alien Vilgax is behind that Omnitrix too, he tries to take it back from Ben. I enjoyed that series too.^_^

Too bad, this tough 3rd year schedule doesn't allow me to get back to those cartoons. x( x( x(

Q: Why this change?

A: felt monotonic.

Q: Why this template?

A: Coz I like it.

Q: Why something related to coffee always?

A: Co-incidence

Q: Added features?

A: The 'home' link leads to readers blog

The 'contact' link can be used to send me emails

The log-in link leads to reader's dashboard [if logged in]/ login page [if not logged in]

Q: The title "Dismantled reverie" is illegible.

A: Tried hard to fix it, but couldn't. and I loooooove the template, so dint want to change it.

Q: Did u have a disturbed childhood?

A: Do I know u??

He was running. Not for his life, for his identity. He wanted to leave the valley of darkness as soon as possible. For years he had been running, sometimes a thin beam of light has encouraged him. But at the end of the day, he always found them not to be the rays of Sun. Some artificial lights dimly alighting the valley, giving it a depressing shadowy black and white appearance. For years, this mélange of black and white, these shades of gray has been his life. As if, a filtering goggles has been put up in front of his eyes that prohibited him from seeing any colors. As if, he was compelled to wear a veil. He tried with all his might to shake off the veil. But no use. The valley was black and white, with hardly any sunshine. Just when he realized that he has to wear the veil in order to remain in the valley, he started running, to escape. Unlike other fairy tales, his journey wasn’t that eventful. With hardly any signs of life in the valley, who will stop him? But it seemed never-ending. The valley was of great span. He ran for days, for years, for ages. But it never seemed to finish. At last, he saw something like a horizon, something separating the valley with something else. It was not like the valley. “Is that what they call sunshine?” he wondered. A golden ball was shining in the blue sky. It was giving away yellow beams of light. “Is that sunray?” –he thought. Green fields and white clouds were beckoning him, alluring him towards something unknown, wind gushing with a whistling sound, shaking the leaves on the trees. “Is that what they call Sun? Is that what they call life?”- He thought, he thought and he thought. His questions were never-ending and there was no one to answer them. “All my life, I’ve been running for this”- he wondered. Step by step he headed towards the unknown. But just when he was about to cross the border, something pulled him back, some thoughts. “ I was there living in the valley, I don’t know what awaits for me in this unknown lands, may be I’ll be killed, may be I will not be able to find food.“ Suddenly, the valley behind started darkening even more. It was pitch black out there, and the waves of shadow were advancing towards him. He saw the approaching shadows behind. Thousands of souls screaming and shouting in pain, in agony. Shouting him not to leave, cursing him, stretching their claws to clasp him, to keep him with them. “ Its time to make a decision”- he thought and he didn’t think anymore. He stepped into the new world. He took a few steps there. The screams behind have stopped. He looked back into the valley. The darkness still prevailed there. “May be someday it’ll get enlightened, may be someone will bring life into it.”- He thought. A smile appeared in his face “ Not me”. He bed it a final goodbye and started walking away.

:(

Quite a few days back, I was reading a column by Suhail Sheth. And he said something like, " never marry an electrical engineer, these guys deal with all those circuit things, quite a messy person indeed." Myself being a "to be" [hopefully] electrical engineer, will recommend the same. You can never know, he/she may seem to be the best person in the world in the morning, then in the evening, he/she may vent out all his/her frustrations on you. Why?? read on!!

An electrical engineer's ultimate fantasy is an electrical machine, let me clarify this jargon a bit. An electrical machine is a thingie that either rotates a shaft or steps up/down a voltage. There are three main kinds of electrical machines, that rotates a shaft. Their names are inconsequential. But all they do, is the same job, they make a shaft rotate. Why on earth then we need those three kinds where a single could have done well?? x( x(... perhaps to add a bit of burden on the "innocent" minds. xP

Electrical lab especially the machines lab is the "electrical engineers paradise".Here an electrical engineer learns to make things difficult. But then, engineering is all about making simpler things difficult. But electrical engineers are masters at it.

Today, it started at about 10:30. With four students gathering at the machines lab. " Fuck, we are starting with machines?". "Yessss",some heavenly voice spoke up. "If we are to do it then lets do it", " but there's no circuit diagram in the manual dude? how are you gonna make the connection?" " errrr!! no diagrams?"...so the day started.

Even if you had a connection diagram, to compare between the diagram and the actual connection is something like comparing between tomatoes and jelly fishes and a Robert Langdon must be called to decipher it. But, then they din have a diagram, so? lets head to the assistant.

" copy from the mother copies, that's how they do it, ppl here just come in,do nuthin, copy it from the mothers, and go away, Unless...."

there was a certain uncanny thing about this unless, which made the four to react quickly and somehow manage a mother copy. "So let's start"

they had copied only up to the first run, then a sudden flow of students came in, guess what? the chemical 2nd year has elab too, and the very next tables got occupied by teachers showing them stuffs, " non-dip" [thats how they say] after all.

Clock ticked 11:20, they stopped cheating because there are teachers all around, some even joking with them. All they had done is to copy the 1st run. Their teacher came in. " Test the continuity"- his majesty's order. " but sir!... we've already done it! here is it."-one among them shows the copy."Do it again".They started the test. "Fuck man!! it's analog multimeter, the scalings are in reverse order."- one among them said after they finished the test. "So perform it again"," done boss, the rest two are gonna be identical. Let's show it". "hmmm! what about the rest two???", " Sir! ntpl 59,60,61...same batch sir!! Gonna be the same!" "You never know, do it!!"- That's how you start making things difficult, electrical engineering demands you to vault your brain safely into the locker.

Clock ticks 11:40. They finished checking continuity of the transformer. " start polarity test", your demand is our command.Okay!! to tell you guys, this test is comparatively difficult.okay!! so there they go again. Repeating the same test for 3 transformers of the same batch.

Clock ticks 12:00...chemical 2nd year leaves leaving them behind. Now some electrical 2nd year joins the party. "Okay students! ready for the group operation"," hell ya sir!!!" ," sick b*****d, cud hav dun it an hour earlier", " Gosh!! I'm hungry! haven't taken anything for breakfast" " I feel sleepy man, haven't had a gud sleep!!" " Curse him!!"

Teacher:- " here u go. u connect this with this, and that with that, all positives with all positives...red wires moron!! and negatives blue... what r u doin??"

" connecting as u've said sir!!", " okay! go on!! remember ammeter in series, voltmeter in parallel", " done sir!"," power on!!!"," sir!! this ammeter is not showin any deflections"

" you morons!! check the connections", they check everything. "seems allryt na??" " I'm getting frustrated, gonna blow up sum1 today" [there u go, here it starts].

" hey whats the problem?"

" checked everything sir!! seems allryt"... teacher comes, checks " hmmmm!! ammeter seems faulty, get another one", they fetch another, " sir!! now the voltmeter!!" " eh???" " it aint showin deflection", sir comes!!! checks everything..." change the load box"... they change it... works finally... electrical 2nd year leaves the party...in comes electronics 2nd year... clock ticks 1:00...some of the 2nd year students stares sympathetically towards them.They managed some grins.

"only done the wye-wye"...go for "delta-wye...3 more ammeters... keep the voltmeter floating"," sir!! the voltmeter shows unbalanced condition","what??"...teacher too was getting a bit irritated..." faulty ammeter...change", " sir!! but still no deflection"

teacher: "what the hell is wrong with this lab?? every alternate instrument is faulty. How can the students perform the experiments??? even the transformers are messed up, one has to conduct tests on every individual one to ascertain their polarity.okay!! let me show you guys"

Teacher joins the party. After all he's an electrical engineer too. x).

after half an hour:

"my back's gonna get screwed up bigtime today, m drawin the diagram. You guys connect. I'll come later.Anything wrong... u gonna get marked absent"-teacher departs... they made the connections, and sat idle on the floor for 45 mins... after all its the residence of "Vishwakarma"...u can't just sit everywhere. Teacher returns on 2:30... they were pissed off... they haven't had a lunch break, they reached the lab sharp at 10:20 on a chilly winter morning ... they weren't given the opportunity to sit properly, to drink water... their thumbs are screwed bigtime by tightening screws... thousands of screws... some even required "plus" when they are attended by the assistants... and all they had ware bare hands... the teacher sees the sunken faces... they thought, " he had a lunch"...but big surprise... "here you go!! the Scott connection is the most difficult one, here's the diagram. short this this and this", he himself joins hands with the students...and almost spontaneously, " how you guys managed to tighten these screws?" ..."simple sir!! we didn't"...he stared in disbelief, " x da!! x da!!" x da comes.... " these screws can't be tightened by hands"... plus comes...struggle between man and machine starts...clock ticks 3:00..meanwhile these fellows weren't sitting idle, they were making the remaining connections... finally mankind wins... teacher gives a triumphant smile. " now conduct it"... after another series of faulty instruments they finally managed to cover thins up at 3:30... "erase all the markings","why sir??"," u guys did it, but y shud the next batch enjoy the benefit??" " okay sir" ... they realise that the teacher was feeling the same. They submitted everything.

"Dude! 1 st day of the new year!! and five sucking hours in the lab, can't stand it anymore. Goin back home" (allotted lab span is 3 hours, usually it takes no more than 2 hours, their friends were doing all kinds of interesting activities during this period)

" Can't go home now, have an urgent discussion on the fest"

" put Phunshuk Wangdu here, n he's gonna be a real flop."

"y??"

" arre!! u din see??? the thing he did with Lobo's project. He carried out some measurements, and found out where the error lies"

" ha!! so??"

" arre!! the instruments here won't give him any damn readings. The indicator loves the null marking. So, how will he carry out those measurements?? favorite subject machines eh??!! my foot!! "

" I'm gonna drain all my frustrations on sum1"

so there it goes...

If I get a chance I will jot down the "control systems lab" experience of another group. Judge it yourself.

We, electrical engineers are very messy kinda people..we do circuits and stuffs.

My first post of the decade

I don't know why people have gone so crazy about this year, 2010. What I'm trying to say is that I've seen quite a few new years. Yes! itprovides an occasion to celebrate . But this year, its like craziness filling the year. Starting with people becoming apprehensive about the arrival of the year much beforehand. I could hear whispers and planning among my friends from as early as the second week of December. Yes, there may be people who does do the same every year. But this year, even the unaccustomed ones, who always used to take the new year's eve as "yet another day" [or at least pretended to do so], have joined the party.

I am not saying that I am getting irritated by this sudden change in people. In fact, I'm enjoying it because I love happy faces. But, this sort of craziness or rather "insanity" is a better word, has made me inquisitive. I don't know whether my lack of activity or what is the reason, but I've talked with quite a few people. And have finally arrived to the conclusion that people are expecting that this year, 2010 will bring on a radical change in their life. People are getting frustrated in their mundane life. May be the quality of our living has improved manifold but the satisfaction level in citizens has also deteriorated significantly.

Another thing, that I've noticed in people around me is that, most of them are pissed off with the year 2009 by some way or other. Some had educational problems, some are frustrated with the increasing pressure of study, some had disastrous semesters,some had serious family problems, while some have undergone broken relationships. All in all, they all are expecting that the advent of this new year, will be able to banish the last traces of blues from their life.

I am optimistic too. Let's enjoy this season of Cauliflowers, "Joynogorer Moya"s, Roses, Chrysanthemums, Granny made Pickles,Hangouts, get togethers and parties.

WISHING EVERYBODY A VERY HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR. :)

- ARNAB