R i v e r S p e e c h C o n g r u e n c e

"Acharya, what is the purpose of life ?", asks Jaya with his hands folded before Dheesara, the chieftian of the city of Vaishali.

"You need patience, Jaya.", curtly replies Dheesara.

"I am thirsty for answers, Acharya. My entry into this world has been unwanted. I never knew my mother. I do not know the reason she left me for. I do not know if she has died immediately after she gave me birth, or if she is still alive at this very moment now. If I only knew, I would have asked her. All that my life presents me is a single question - why. I tried to learn patience. But if is of no avail. I am consumed by restlessness. Please help me Acharya. I am damned. Please show pity on me. And as a kind person offers a morcel of food for the starving, you offer me a tiny spark of knowledge.", implores Jaya.

"Jaya, you are more to me than a son. A father reserves neither the right nor the ability to force his thinking down his child. You should understand that these answers to your question will not come from me. You will find them yourself.", replies Dheesara with kind affection.

"When would I find the answer, Acharya ? "

"When you ask the right question, Jaya. You will find the answer immediately. My blessings for you will only be that you shall have the patience that is needed until you discover the right question."

"I am deeply afraid about that, Acharya. I am consumed by hate. I hate the stupidity of people around me. And I hate their cupidity. Of what purpose are these sacrifices, these sham religions that they follow ? Of what purpose is their blind drive for money ? Of what purpose is their cruelty to fellow human beings ? For that matter, of what purpose is love ? I know answers to none of them. Whenever I hate people, I only hate myself, because I am only their equal. The Bodhisattva has once said that a person consumed by hate would never find the answers. Please pray for me Acharya - for the blessings of the exalted one that I may find peace in my soul. "

Dheesara smiles at the young man before him. He then points to the mighty river flowing at the edge of the city. "O Jaya ! Look at the river Ganges flowing in front of us. Does it have a purpose ?"

"This river is born at the feet of the mountain Gangotri in the Himalayas. Only the mountain can tell us about the purpose of this river."

"You are wrong, Jaya. The mountain would indeed tell us the purpose of this river, if only it had been the true parent. But it is not. By crediting Gangotri to be the only parent of the Ganges, you will be ignoring the mountain Yamunotri which creates the river Yamuna that flows into the Ganges. You will also be discrediting the thousand little brooks that flow and build this mighty river up. Where are they born, my son, each one of these brooks ?"

"You are correct, Acharya. But all these tiny streams are born inside several places within the Himalaya. Surely, Himavan, the collection of these mountains, will know the answer as to what is the purpose of this river."

"Surely he would, Jaya, if only he is the true parent of this river. But he is not."

"What do you say, Acharya ?"

"It is the cloud that rains on these mountains, stocking up the lakes and the glaciers. Without this action of the cloud, the river would not have been born.", explains Dheesara.

Jaya gets to see the light of the argument. He says humbly, "O Acharya ! But neither is the cloud the true parent of the Ganges. Because he draws the water from the ocean through the action of the sun. It is the ocean who is the true parent of the Ganges."

"No Jaya, the ocean is no better than either the cloud or the mountain. The water in the ocean comes from every river flowing on top of the earth, as also through the continuous action of the clouds and the sun. So, the ocean would not be the true parent of the Ganges, and thus it would not have the answer to our question."

"Then, O Acharya ! Who is the true parent of the Ganges ? "

"That, my son, would be the Ganges herself. Along with every single river on earth. They are all children and parents of each other at the same time. Now, I will ask you the question - what is the purpose of each of these rivers ? "

"I do not know, O Acharya. Only the Ganges will know the answer to this question, she being a self-born. I will meditate before the Ganges and request the answer to this question."

"You will understand my message, Jaya, only when you understand the exact congruence between rivers and ideas. Ideas do not have an existence until they are spoken, neither do rivers until they start flowing. This principle is called the river-speech-congruence. Vahini (the word for a river) and vani (the word for speech) mean one and the same thing. The ancient people have understood this congruence and thus equated the river Saraswati with the very goddess of learning. As a conscious human being, you are no better than an idea. And the idea would not have an existence until it is spoken. "

"And that will be the time when I ask the right question ?"

"Yes Jaya, just as a river finds its form revealed when it falls as rain on the feet of a mountain, you will find yourself revealed when you ask the right questions. What you should not forget is that, as an idea, you are neither born nor will you die. You will meet every other idea, inspire them and be inspired by them. Just as the Ganges gets into contact with every other river through its waters, through the ocean and through the clouds, you will meet every other idea before you reveal yourself."

"Like the exalted Bodhisattva, a person who discovers the right questions will flow like the mighty Ganges. A person who does not, he will only be a tiny droplet of rain falling down the sky.", says Jaya and bows with respect before his Acharya.

D e m o c r a c y O f A r t

On a Sunday, I walk into the center of town and see a middle-aged man playing accordion. It is a romantic instrument - the accordion. As he plays the music, joy wraps itself unconsciously around me. What a sunny day ! There could even be little fairies dancing here, hiding in the soft glow. I walk upto the man and drop in a euro in his tin on the ground. He smiles graciously. I feel elated.

Art is a divine message. It needs to be propagated for its own sake. By dropping a coin, did I have any claims to the music ? No, because art belongs to everybody. And yes, because it belongs to me too.

We are stepping into an epoch where the economic relations that bind the artist and the audience are going to be revolutionized. The pace of change that is happening now is extremely rapid, and it requires a complete overhauling of existing economic paradigms. However, the tidings of this change will not be music to many ears.

The corporations which will suffer immediately are the Times-Warner company (hollywood production house, owner of the CNN, the Times magazine etc), Virgin records, Paramount and the like. Most of the global media industry is in the hands of these few mega corporations which are currently facing nightmares on how to cope with this change. The truth is becoming increasingly clear - these mega-corporations do not hold a right to existence any longer. Irrespective of how much they try to distort the facts, or to fool the people, or to contort the markets (DRM), they stand to lose the battle with technology.

Elton John cursed in the middle of his New York concert that his recording label are a bunch of bastards. George Lucas almost gave up in despair when his script for Star Wars was rejected for 3 years consecutively by production houses. Kurt Cobain commited suicide when he was unable to cope with the marketization of his music. What do all these incidants have in common ? The servitude of art to the brokers of the industry,

What characterizes these companies ? They control the means of distribution between the producers (artists) and the consumers (audience). The trade that they specialize in is art. The phenomenal thing that happens to go unnoticed is that such a trade has never existed in the history of mankind, except in our own age spanning about 150 years. And it is going to end mercifully soon.

Trade has been the reason for prosperity ever since the dawn of civilization. Markets offer an efficient means of distribution for products (goods) and services. Every time a person purchases a product, he is effectively casting a vote about whether the product should survive. Thus, markets are an indispensible form of economic democracy.

The trouble with art is that it cannot be categorized into either as a product or as a service. Thus, it has never been part of the market in the conventional sense.

So, how did the artists of the past earn their livelihood ? They are provided for by the society. In pastoral age, the bards were provided for food by everyone. Honoring artists was considered to be an opportunity unmatchable. It is considered to be the same as donating money to God, both being creators.

In the feudal age, artists were provided for by the kings. But since the kings themselves were living off the working class, it is in effect the working class that provided for the artists. When they donated money to the artists, the kings did not expect to confine the art to themselves. At best, they could expect a dedication of the material to their name, but even that is not usually forthcoming. It has to be noted that, the really great of the artists did not even court the favor of the kings.

Here in the capitalist age, a new form of transformation has imposed itself on art. This is the diabolical transformation of art into a product. Since this transformation is so unnatural, it does not deliver justice to the product in question. The people who make money are usually the people who don't deserve to make it.

Art is created for the sake of itself. It is created for the sake of self expression and self discovery. When I say art, I mean it to include mathematics, science, philosophy, painting, literature, music and so on. Seasoned computer programmers also consider themselves as artists. None of the great masters of the past worked on art for the sake of earning money. An artist uses his creation as a means of communicating with the society, with the universe and with himself. Who can quote the price for art ? It is priceless.

The transformation of art into a product is a diabolical violation against nature. In Sanskrit, it is termed as the sale of Saraswati, the goddess of learning. In Christianity, it is akin to selling one's soul to the devil. It is a fact no artist would be proud of. But, the mega-corporations I was talking about achieved the unthinkable , this by brainwashing people that they are providing for the artists.

How many people are aware of the fact that out of the 10 dollars they pay for a CD, less than 50 cents go to the artist in question ? How many people are aware of the enormous number of talented artists driven to suicide in a state of rejection and despair after failing to court the recording elite ? How many of us even do consider exploring our creativity as a possible way to earn livelihood ? The thought of swimming through the mafia of the big production houses is debilitating to say the least. In the process of selling their souls to the devil, many artists are forced to sell their bodies as well, in forced prostitution to the power-brokers.

In any case, how much of the output of these production houses (Hollywood or pop music) classifies for being considered as art ? As expected, these situations are much worse in India. What we have now is a complete lack of democracy of art. Markets, in their conventional form, do not provide the required economic democracy for artists.

Can the brokers be dispensed with completely ? Can the audience patronize art directly ? The answer to these questions is "yes". In the current age, one need not be a king to patronize art. One can provide money directly to the artists of one's choice via the internet.

In fact, these type of donations have always been the means for sustenance for most of the artists during their budding stages. It is usually friends and fans who donate money so that the budding artists can pursue their interests. Most of the best work ever done by artists has been done in this stage, when they are independent of the wishes and whims of the mega-corporations.

What we need now is a new means of banking - a simple means of disseminating money to the artists. Like Google helps in searching for websites, a similar service is needed for transfering money by search. For people who do not have access to internet, a similar service could be provided at physical locations. This service can even deduct some charges for the transfer. If you want to be the next big internet millionaire, take my advice and start this service. This is going to be the next revolutionary thing after free email.

You might question me that this form of service will never raise as much money as done by recording companies. Maybe yes, but it will definitely raise sufficient money and provide immensely greater freedom for the artists.

What about making a movie such as the Lord of the Rings ? It would be impossible, right ? To sceptics of my economic model, I would like to counter this by relating the story of the biggest emblem of freedom - the statue of liberty. When the architects decided to build the statue, they realized they needed a lot of money. So. they did first build a part of the statue - the hand holding the torch. They put that piece up on a truck and showed it at several cities for fundraising. To their own surprise, they could raise the necessary funds much earlier than they expected to.

In fact, a similar thing does happen in the movie industry. First, a director has to build his credibility before attempting a mega movie. George Lucas had to prove himself with American Graffiti before he could dare mention about Star Wars (though he had written the script for Star Wars much earlier). Peter Jackson had to earn his credibility with a bunch of movies before he could broach about the Lord of the Rings.

What the new economic model would do is to connect the artists directly to the audience. Instead of courting a filthy rich power-broker in closed doors, the artist would directly court the public.

Irrespective of any viable new economic model, the existing model is bound to fail. With the reach of the internet, the mega-corporations can no longer control their assets from being pirated. No amount of digital rights management (DRM) will suffice. In the end, these corporations will be forced to demand a tax from the government to sustain their businesses. Ironically, these corporations will be soon demanding the socialist answer (centralized planning) to save their assets.

Instead, we can dispense with the mega-corporations altogether, thereby realizing the much cherished economic democracy of art.

P i s s e d O f f P i x i e s

"What's going on !!? I cannot seem to find a decent program on a single channel for the past one hour", complains Zuick.

"Duh. That seems to be the normal state of affairs these days", quickly surmises Wopie.

Zuick and Wopie are pixies, little mischievous fairy-like creatures with wings.They live in the pixie-verse, which is a universe with the laws of physics quite similar to our own universe, except in areas such as time travel, teleportation, remote mind-control etc. One of the fundamental discoveries that changed the life style of pixies was the invention of the pixie-television.

Pixies are a relaxed and romantic species by nature. They love watching television. The pixie-television is none like our own television - it is a hyper-dimensional projection of 3D images, scents, sounds and emotions. It is no wonder that pixies are quite glued to it.

The interesting thing that has to be admitted is that the life of the Homosapiens on this planet called Earth is not, as you think, a collective outcome of several conscious entities. But, it is, in fact, the program on the pixie-television.

Yes, that is right. Our universe is nothing but the plot-verse for their television program. Human beings are merely characters created for the entertainment of pixies.

This arrangement worked fine for a long time for the pixies. Their romantic sentiments were well addressed during the several previous episodes of the television programs. In human beings, there had been characters strong and gallant. There had been characters cute and lovely. Pixies had a good time following all the mess that these characters got themselves into.

In fact, the pixie-television is interactive. And pixies can even interrupt the lives of the characters if they wish to do so, like as recounted by Shakespere in his Midsummer Night's Dream.

But, these happy times are soon getting to an end.

"These characters on the TV are turning into a joke", exclaims Zuick.

"Yeah. I mean I just do not get the whole concept", wonders Wopie, "Nobody seems to be fighting a war for the sake of love. Isn't it supposed to be the plot, during the episode of the Trojan war ? Now, what are they fighting for ? Oil !! Can it get any stupider than that ? "

"They are all a bunch of confused idiots. Why do they work like donkeys ? And why do they spend all their money eating junk food ?"

"I don't even feel like getting inside their universe anymore. It stopped being like fun."

"And when is the last time you saw a character love something for the sake of love ? "

"Dear God Pixeus !! You are right Zuick. Love is becoming dead."

"I think we should demand an explanation. If it is not about love, why are they showing all this crap on pixie-television ? "

Zuick and Wopie form a club, the PTCC - Pixie Television Condemnation Club. They spread the word amongst all their friends - Blooter, Wigwag, Tria, Lymee and so on. They finally meet Qonsper - the resident nerd amongst the local pixies.

"You fools of pixiedom. You don't have a clue of what's going on. Do you think it is accidantal that they are showing all this crap on pixie-television ? No, my friends, no ! The evil government is planning a massive brainwashing operation for us pixies. They are sending such images on the television only to subdue us into brainless and robotic creatures."

"Whoooa !! "

"I say, we should rebel against all this. Rebel against the television. When pixies no longer watch any of these programs on the TV, they will finally abandon them due to the fall of ratings. I think we should get riddance of these dumb human beings for good. We have had them for enough time on the TV", explains Qonsper.

Everybody responds enthusiastically, "Yeah !! "

S á g a r a k s h é t h r a

The ancient Indian epic of Mahábháratha narrates the story of an apocalyptic war. This is not a war between the good and the evil. This war is about too much greed and its necessary culmination into a major battle.

Kauravás, led by Duryódhana, are consumed by greed and blinded by absolute power. They deny their cousins, the Pándavás, the rightful share of their property. Fighting on the side of the Kauravás are great warriors and righteous men. Ranking first amongst them are Bhíshma - who is the greatest warrior of all time, and Dróna - the greatest teacher in the art of warcraft. The forces of Kauravás are ten times stronger than those of Pándavás. But above all, Kauravás have a great archer to fight on behalf of them - Karña, a warrior born of low parents. In times of adversity, Duryódhana befriends Karña and gives him respect and a position of power. In return to friendship, Karña would sacrifice his life for the sake of Duryódhana.

The interesting thing that is revealed later is that Karña is actually the eldest of the Pándavás. Due to a sad episode, he gets abandoned by his mother in his childhood. If the Pándavás win the war, the throne would naturally go to Karña. But, Karña still keeps his loyalty to his friend Duryódhana, and fights his own brothers in the war.

Legend has it that the epic war of Mahábháratha repeats itself throughout time, whenever people are consumed by greed, whenever equality and justice are burnt in the flames of arrogance brought through by absolute power.

In our times, the greed of the Kauravás finds its reflection in the greed of the corporations. The absolute power wielded by Duryódhana finds its counterpart in the nuclear arsenal of the USA. The mighty Bhíshma and Dróna find their equivalents in the great universities and the research labs of Europe and the USA. We have our own Karña - the emigrant researcher employed by the drug development corporation, the musical artist employed by the recording industry, the software developer employed in the big industry...

The starving peoples of the world who are denied access to their rightful resources by their own cousins - they have only a handful of Pándavás to fight on their behalf. But, these Pándavás are great warriors undaunted by their adversity. They have a resource which the Kauravás do not possess - Krishna, the greatest philosopher of the entire mankind.

In the approaching future, the world is set stage for another apocalyptic battle. But, this time it will be fought on the sea.

---

The sea is everywhere. In the begining, people fear it, they run away from it. But they occassionally receive sudden outbursts from the sky - messages from the sea, constantly reminding them of their duty - to discover the deep, to discover the beyond.

Gradually, people get rid of their fear for the sea. They make ships and sail into it - reaching faraway lands, meeting people and making friendships.

This sea is called information.

But, the levels of the sea start rising suddenly. Indeed, they rise at an alarming pace. So, people build dikes and dams to prevent the sea from flooding. These dams turn into fortresses denying entry to the sea and denying entry to people from outside.

But, trade over the sea continues. Soon, this trade turns into a massive robbery operation. Huge ships of gold and wealth start to sail from disadvantaged lands into the lockers of the massive fortresses.

---

"greetings. would like to reach raider"

"raider answering. who signals ? "

"plumber. I find strategic information"

"concerning ?"

"PNS"

"lose no time"

---

The message is transmitted in no time over the sea.

" US NUCLEAR STRIKE FOILED
A secret message captured directly from the President of the USA, the supreme commander of the US miltary forces, over a preemptive nuclear strike on Beijing is transmitted on several websites over the internet. China gets alarmed. All the nations of the world get on a red alert. The highly encrypted military intelligence of the USA seems to have been broken by a secret group of computer hackers. The possible reasons for the nuclear strike are still disputed with no explanations forthcoming from the US government. Massive protests have commenced in the USA demanding an urgent inquiry behind the episode. The Security Council of the United Nations meets in session with the notable absence of the USA. "

The dikes preventing the sea from flooding get broken. The entire people of the planet become sea-borne.

The epic war on the sea commences.

X r e a t i v i t y

Most of the good stories are written about travellers. Whenever a culture meets with another, a new story is born. May be I can generalize and say that, all good stories are about the meeting of two places or cultures. Sometimes, the second party in the meeting will be the audience themselves, the first party being the protagonists. For example, this happens with a story set in the future or in a fantasyland.

The problem with the current generation of writers is that very few people seem to notice this fact. All the great writers of old have spent considerable time traveling. Somerset Maugham has wandered throughout Europe and in the Far East - his stories are weaved from those travels. Roald Dahl has found most of his creative inspiration from his experiences in the second world war where he has served in the Royal Air Force. O Henry writes a considerable section of his stories about the Mexican neighbours to his south, and the rest of his repertoire are about con-men bitten by wanderlust. Even the great epics of the past - Illiad, Odyssey, Ramayana, Mahabharata etc. are about the travels of people or the meeting of cultures.

One of the reasons why Bollywood keeps churning out soulless jibberish ad infinitum is because it has forgotten this recipe for a successful story. Instead, it keeps trying out weird formulae such as boy meets girl, girl's father dislikes boy and so on ..

There is no culture without creativity, and there is no creativity without crossing cultures together. So I call this xreativity.

India probably ranks first in the world with respect to cultural diversity. But nobody seems to take notice. Logically speaking, there should be a huge number of TV programs about the travel & life in several parts of India, made for several Indian languages. India is so big - we can have TV channels such as Discovery, Animal Planet, History channel, AXN etc. which are restricted to only within India.

Even in universities, we do not have the tradition of celebrating cultural days. In US campuses, people celebrate China day, Singapore day, India day etc. Why not hold a Telugu day, Gujarathi day, Bengali day in a similar manner within India ?

Indians are a very inquisitive race by nature and are pokey about other cultures. Write a story about a Kabuliwallah parading in the streets of Calcutta, and the whole of India takes notice (This happens to be a lovely story penned by Tagore). Indian writers are currently doing a pathetic job in milking out this diversity for nice stories.

Where is the story about a Punjabi truck driver roaming in Karnataka ? Where is the story about a Rajasthani software engineer working in Hyderabad ? Where is the story about a Tamilian school teacher living in Bihar ? Where are the stories about Malayali armymen serving in Nagaland ? ...

Another thing glares at me now. I wanted to write stories in this blog. Instead, I have been posting brainwashing articles for the entire last year. What has happened to me !! ?

So friends, there will be no more lectures from my side. I will try concentrating only on writing short stories.

É g a l i t é

Égalité is a concept totally lacking in India. If I ever make a decision to leave India for good, it will most probably be because of the lack of égalité. Loosely translated, égalité means equality. But it is more than that. It is a principle of accepting that each person is equally interesting.

In India, we live in the tradition of sucking it up to the stars. A person is either a star or a bozo, nothing in between. I will give examples - Sania Mirza is the face of Indian tennis, Aishwarya Rai is the face of Indian cinema .. I feel disgusted enough when such epithets are mentioned in domestic press. But when they are uttered on the world stage, I feel nauseated.

How about the girl in the neighbourhood who plays really good tennis ? How about the guy in the campus who sings really well ? How about spending some money to purchase tickets for a concert of the local rock band ? How about paying some money to buy the book written by the new writer in the town ? "What !? Does he think he is an Amitav Gosh or what ?" These people are greeted with a fickle smile - "Yeah, we have seen people better than that !".

This is the reason India will never produce anything great or in copious quantities. It is not just about the feeling of disappointment that is imparted onto the minds of talented people. It is the total sucker attitude of the entire population.

Such people can never realize a true democracy.

M u r d e r e r O f M i n d

What was India doing when the fever of renaissance was gripping Europe ?

Listening to this lunatic. This person holds responsibility for the degeneration of Islam into mere puppetry.

One of the most evil persons to have ever walked on earth, he effectively killed the movement of Indian argumentative thought. I feel ashamed to see people glorifying him in current society.

C o n j u g a t e G r a d i e n t M e t h o d

When a person believes that he is doing something for a right cause, he becomes indistinguishable from a robot. Most of the great things happen because of these type of people. Most of the nonsense that we see in the world is also committed by the same kind of people. So where is the distinction ?

The distinction lies in the vision of the people - in what they see.

The problems of the world can be visualized collectively as a function which forms a peak over several dimensions. The solution for these problems lies at the top of the peak and it has to be reached somehow.

In mathematics, the technique that is used to solve this problem is called the conjugate gradient method. When there are thousands of dimensions, we have to first choose a direction to travel. The most simplistic answer - go in that direction where the descent is maximum (called the steepes descent method) - is also ignored by the junta of the world.

Every person has his own direction where he thinks he'll reach the top. In a sense, he is true. Each one of these directions yields an improvement. But the funny thing is that several of these directions are contradictory to each other. Look at the following figure to understand this.

So we see maniacal people (red and blue) fighting with each other about the correct way to reach the top. Sometimes, things get funnier with somebody (yellow) choosing the least important direction for reaching to the top. I could demonstrate this on a simple function over 2 dimensions, so you can imagine what could happen in real-world problems.

Take the problem of improving the status of traffic in India - the problem lies in several dimensions
a) Controlling the really large vehicles and routing them away from the city
b) Controlling traffic in peak hours by urban planning
c) Controlling traffic blockades by specifying seperate pedestrian districts, parking places etc.
d) Getting riders to wear helmets.

Amongst all these dimensions, the traffic police of Hyderabad demonstrate their zeal in (d). Like mad men, they keep digging in this direction and ignore everything else.

As a second example, take the problem of university education - it needs improvement in several dimensions
a) Establishing world class research facilities with proper accountability
b) Getting the students to have a real dialogue with the world around
c) Getting the students to attend the classes

Again, it so happens in India that all the zeal is demonstrated in (c).

Now imagine that we have a sane bunch of people in the world. You would imagine that things would be a lot better. People would choose the best direction to solve all the problems (cyan) instead of the stupidest (yellow). But, even then, it so happens that steepest descent is not the optimal method to reach to the top. We will eventually get there, but not in the most optimal manner. Because we might follow a zig-zag path with two opposing directions choosing alternate steps, taking a very long time to converge. This is what we would see in elections (assuming each step to be of a 5 year duration) with power alternating between left wing and right wing policies.

The Conjugate Gradient Method is a way of obtaining the peak in just "n" steps where "n" is the number of dimensions. The logic is simple - once you choose a direction, do the best you can in the current step, never repeat the direction.

It so happens that all these "n" directions would become perpendicular to each other (In mathematical terminology, they are said to form an orthogonal basis). If you want to understand the logic behind how to choose the right direction at each step, read this document (only for people with a mathematical bent of mind)

I have attended a fascinating mathematics course by Prof Mike Erdmann at Carnegie Mellon. Each one of us students had to choose a topic for write up, and when my turn came, I jumped at the chance of writing the proofs for the conjugate gradient method.

I think this method gives a lot of intuitions about how to organize a debate. When you are debating with another person, you are presenting a view. That is, you take a picture of the 3D function in the above figure, from an angle. Each person has a seperate photograph and you compare these photographs with each other to understand what could be the true shape of the function in 3D.

But most often, a debater fails to see this main purpose of the debate. He keeps insisting that he has the only photo that can capture the 3D shape and keeps digging in that direction. I call this the "root of all the evil" syndrome.

If only we have a smart bunch of leaders, we would end up choosing the right set of directions, and the problem of all the "n" dimensions will get solved in just "n" steps.

D e d i c a t e d T o H y d e r a b a d

I am defending my Masters work in IIIT Hyderabad. It deals with matching planar patterns in perspective images.





After a long love-hate relationship, I am dedicated this work to the city of Hyderabad :)

Apart from obvious applications such as the reconstruction of architectural scenes, this work shall have implications towards the holy-grail problem of computer vision - take a clothed girl as input, produce a naked girl as output

So what is the state of the art ? As an insider, let me confess to you - we are already there !

The technology will be available within 15 years. Now you know exactly what Vision 2020 means !!

As a wise old man has said long before, science has a wicked male gaze. People thought he was talking about nuclear weapons etc. Nah, wrong. This is what he has actually meant. Free and juicy porn forever. (The first post on this blog discusses the horrors of this scenario in a poetic vein)

I am leaving to France to pursue a PhD on a related topic. Future generations of teenagers will look back upon me and my brethern as some kind of heroes, I think.

A G o l d e n W i s h

Otthaina maa bhásha ki putthadi pandagalu

Maró Gurajáda neeku kongottha sogasulu diddu gaaka
Maró Vémana neeku tatva chaitanyam'osagu gaaka
Maró Chinnaya neeché kammani kathalu palkinchu gaaka
Maró Thyágayya neek'impaina svaramul'arpinchu gaaka


May another Gurajáda gift new embellishments to you
May another Vémana teach depths of philosophy to you
May another Chinnaya narrate sweet stories with you
May another Thyágayya offer melodious salutations to you

May we see them all.