"Dust Thou Art ..."
Posted by Nerdyy
One of the most difficult things that I have experienced post moving to the US as a student about 25 years ago is the disconnection with almost all of my family, including parents. This is inevitable just because of the sheer distance, as well as the unavailability of any cheap method of communication especially in the earlier years of my stay in the US. My parents would of course, get to see me the most among my family, with them visiting for three month stretches and my couple of week visits. However, aunts and uncles, favorites and not-so-favorites, would only interact with me for those brief hours that I would spend at their house when I visited my parents.
Given that my parents are the youngest or almost youngest among their families, it was inevitable that aunts and uncles would pass away during those in between times. So, I would end up visiting them while I was there, and then someone would be gone the next time I visited. That was very disconcerting to me since I would never really say final goodbyes during my visits - it was always "see you next time" - well they were gone the next time. So, of late, I have decided to say my goodbyes every time I am there: goodbyes that are final farewells at least from my side; when I leave India I assume that (some among) my aunts or uncle will not be there the next time around. Thus I am left with my happy memories of childhood spent with each of them, as well as some sort of closure with my final farewells.
I realize that it is slowly coming to the point where it is my parents that will leave. One day(or night) I will get a call from one of them that the other is gone. And then at some future point I will get another call from someone else that they are gone too. And at this moment I have no clue how I will deal with that. I don't know how much time I have to prepare for this inevitability, but I have to start sometime. The bonds with my country of birth and the place where I spent (upto now) half my life are slowly falling apart.
Given that my parents are the youngest or almost youngest among their families, it was inevitable that aunts and uncles would pass away during those in between times. So, I would end up visiting them while I was there, and then someone would be gone the next time I visited. That was very disconcerting to me since I would never really say final goodbyes during my visits - it was always "see you next time" - well they were gone the next time. So, of late, I have decided to say my goodbyes every time I am there: goodbyes that are final farewells at least from my side; when I leave India I assume that (some among) my aunts or uncle will not be there the next time around. Thus I am left with my happy memories of childhood spent with each of them, as well as some sort of closure with my final farewells.
I realize that it is slowly coming to the point where it is my parents that will leave. One day(or night) I will get a call from one of them that the other is gone. And then at some future point I will get another call from someone else that they are gone too. And at this moment I have no clue how I will deal with that. I don't know how much time I have to prepare for this inevitability, but I have to start sometime. The bonds with my country of birth and the place where I spent (upto now) half my life are slowly falling apart.
Caesar, are you too ambitious?
Posted by Nerdyy
Or at least that was the claim of Brutus, or maybe that was the claim of Shakespeare relayed through Brutus! If you have been following the news these days, you should be able to figure out what brought me to this topic.
However, there is a deeper purpose here; or at least a series of purposes. Readers (or maybe reader?) of my blog will remember (or if you don't I will refresh your memory) that I had alluded a year and a half ago to a restaurant in Rome that had (more than one) historical significance (here is the post: http://musikellishus.blogspot.com/2015/11/pasta-in-roma-yes-of-course.html). The purpose of that post was not just that though, I had intended to write a series of posts about interesting culinary creations and the original restaurants that created them.
So here is Part 2 of that series - the humble (as far as its beginnings) and the now classy Caesar Salad. Cesare (Caesar) Cardini from Lake Maggiore near the Piedmont in Italy emigrated to San Diego in the US in the 1920s and set up a restaurant in Tijuana , Mexico called Caesars. One day short of supplies, he concocted a salad with Romaine, eggs, limes, anchovy and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Thus was born the Caesar Salad!
As always, for the vegetarian palate, the anchovies can be skipped!
However, there is a deeper purpose here; or at least a series of purposes. Readers (or maybe reader?) of my blog will remember (or if you don't I will refresh your memory) that I had alluded a year and a half ago to a restaurant in Rome that had (more than one) historical significance (here is the post: http://musikellishus.blogspot.com/2015/11/pasta-in-roma-yes-of-course.html). The purpose of that post was not just that though, I had intended to write a series of posts about interesting culinary creations and the original restaurants that created them.
So here is Part 2 of that series - the humble (as far as its beginnings) and the now classy Caesar Salad. Cesare (Caesar) Cardini from Lake Maggiore near the Piedmont in Italy emigrated to San Diego in the US in the 1920s and set up a restaurant in Tijuana , Mexico called Caesars. One day short of supplies, he concocted a salad with Romaine, eggs, limes, anchovy and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Thus was born the Caesar Salad!
As always, for the vegetarian palate, the anchovies can be skipped!
The Mountains We Choose to Climb
Posted by Nerdyy
Anne looked up above her, a foreboding vision of ice and rock loomed beyond. So here it was, the "unclimbable" final ascent, although the word unclimbable referred back to an era in the past. Sure, people had conquered that final climb, but Anne hadn't - yet.
She looked back behind her, and memories of the past flooded back into her mind. It was about two years ago that her world had almost collapsed. An innocuous 50 mile summer bike ride had ended in a heap of twisted metal and a shattered femur. The road back to fitness had been brutally long and hard, but Anne had persevered, having her shattered leg put back together with surgery followed by hours of painful rehab and physical therapy. Two years ago, when she was lying in a crumbled heap in the hospital, her face dissolved in tears, she would not have thought she would be here. But here she was.
She thought wistfully of all the fellow climbers of her group that she had left behind, lower down the slopes. Some unable to keep up with her, others unwilling. She thought of her twin sister Jo, who was aghast that she had even contemplated this. "Why, why are you even doing this?", she asked. Jolie or Jo for short, was 12 minutes younger than Anne, and yet it would be very difficult to comprehend that these two siblings were born of the same womb, so far apart were their personalities. Jo was diffident, racked with self doubt and somewhat unambitious while Anne was the exact opposite. Brave, fearless, a picture of self confidence, and very very ambitious. "I am not doing this for anyone", Anne had replied, "I am doing this for myself, to show me that I can."
A cold gust of wind snapped Anne back from the past that she sometimes had a habit of slipping into. There were a fixed number of daylight hours, and she could not afford to let the minutes slip by. Clenching her jaw, she turned her head back towards the final peak. With her ice axe she dug into the rock, and pulled herself up one step.
She was now a step closer to the summit she had always craved.
She looked back behind her, and memories of the past flooded back into her mind. It was about two years ago that her world had almost collapsed. An innocuous 50 mile summer bike ride had ended in a heap of twisted metal and a shattered femur. The road back to fitness had been brutally long and hard, but Anne had persevered, having her shattered leg put back together with surgery followed by hours of painful rehab and physical therapy. Two years ago, when she was lying in a crumbled heap in the hospital, her face dissolved in tears, she would not have thought she would be here. But here she was.
She thought wistfully of all the fellow climbers of her group that she had left behind, lower down the slopes. Some unable to keep up with her, others unwilling. She thought of her twin sister Jo, who was aghast that she had even contemplated this. "Why, why are you even doing this?", she asked. Jolie or Jo for short, was 12 minutes younger than Anne, and yet it would be very difficult to comprehend that these two siblings were born of the same womb, so far apart were their personalities. Jo was diffident, racked with self doubt and somewhat unambitious while Anne was the exact opposite. Brave, fearless, a picture of self confidence, and very very ambitious. "I am not doing this for anyone", Anne had replied, "I am doing this for myself, to show me that I can."
A cold gust of wind snapped Anne back from the past that she sometimes had a habit of slipping into. There were a fixed number of daylight hours, and she could not afford to let the minutes slip by. Clenching her jaw, she turned her head back towards the final peak. With her ice axe she dug into the rock, and pulled herself up one step.
She was now a step closer to the summit she had always craved.
What's Up? - 4 Non Blondes
Posted by Nerdyy
I've been watching this somewhat interesting TV show called Sense8, about a group of 8 "sensates" (sensate = related to or apprehended through the senses) - people that are somehow connected to each other even though they maybe physically far away, and (may)have never met each other in real life.
The premise of the show is interesting because in life we may sometimes feel a hand on our shoulderor a voice in our heads stopping us from pursuing an action or pushing us/nudging us to move a certain way. Many a time in conversations I have used the phrase "I feel you", that is part of the sensory connection that I might feel with another.
Of course, this show goes a whole lot further, with interesting twists and turns. The point of this post though is this song from the mid 90s that keeps spinning in my head.
In the show, Riley(with a strand of blue in her hair) the DJ from Iceland plays this song in a club in London where she is living with Will, a fellow Sense8, a cop from Chicago(!).
And I say Hey Yeah Yeah
Hey Yeah Yeah
And I said Hey, What's going on?
(the words Whats Up never appears in the song!)
The premise of the show is interesting because in life we may sometimes feel a hand on our shoulderor a voice in our heads stopping us from pursuing an action or pushing us/nudging us to move a certain way. Many a time in conversations I have used the phrase "I feel you", that is part of the sensory connection that I might feel with another.
Of course, this show goes a whole lot further, with interesting twists and turns. The point of this post though is this song from the mid 90s that keeps spinning in my head.
In the show, Riley(with a strand of blue in her hair) the DJ from Iceland plays this song in a club in London where she is living with Will, a fellow Sense8, a cop from Chicago(!).
And I say Hey Yeah Yeah
Hey Yeah Yeah
And I said Hey, What's going on?
(the words Whats Up never appears in the song!)
Finding Emily Jones
Posted by Nerdyy
Last week I was at a conference, and as part of the conference we had a gala reception with a whole lot of alcohol and food to be consumed. The reception was sponsored by textbook and software publishers. Typically these receptions consist of folks chilling and hanging out and yes drinking and eating; thus everyone is in very good spirits(so to speak!). However this particular one had a twist. We were forced to play a game; a game devised by one of the authors (Yes, trust a University professor to throw in some assignment in the middle of happy hour!). As it turns out the game itself was very interesting.
We all had to choose a number between 1 and 100. The person that got the number closest to 2/3 rd of the value of the average of all the numbers chosen would win the game and get a prize. OK so this just got a hell of a lot complicated, especially after having already imbibed a Manhattan (there is a picture of that somewhere!). So the first action in order to correctly find the winning number here was ... get a glass of wine! Great so now lets gather our thoughts into some logical sequence - usually in a population we can expect these type of thinkers:
(As an aside, this question was once asked as a contest in Financial Times with a cash prize, and the results showed that quite a few of the responses were 100. Was that a completely irrational response from a non trivial set of individuals - as it turns out it wasn't. Apparently a game theory professor at a British University had formed a coalition of respondents whom he convinced to submit as a a response the number 100 - no doubt with a promise of sharing the prize. Why 100 - well because this particular professor wanted to distinguish himself from what he believed would be mostly answers of 0 or 1; thus he sent in a response of 7 along with his coalition that sent in responses of 100, thus after the computations the correct answer would be somewhat removed from 0 or 1 i.e. closer to his 7. So yes - he manipulated the contest! Thus we have to be aware of potential manipulations or gamifications as well.)
At this point comes the question Who is Emily Jones (that is not her real name, just an assumed name that she used to play the game - a nom de guerre as the fancy term goes!)? As you might have guessed that was the winner of our game, with a guess of 26 which happened to be a fraction off of the correct answer. The winner could be the winner one of two ways - a random guess or a well thought out process of guessing the distribution of thinker levels in the population. Given the level of people at this conference, we can easily rule out the first. Why is it important that we find her? Well for any level of statistical analysis to succeed and be considered legitimate, it has to be the case that the researchers forecast the correct distribution of the population. Without that all you have are incomplete or incorrect estimates.
And as a conclusion - what was my guess? It was 15, so I overestimated the number of higher level thinkers or underestimated the amount of drunkenness that was prevailing in the population or more likely both!
We all had to choose a number between 1 and 100. The person that got the number closest to 2/3 rd of the value of the average of all the numbers chosen would win the game and get a prize. OK so this just got a hell of a lot complicated, especially after having already imbibed a Manhattan (there is a picture of that somewhere!). So the first action in order to correctly find the winning number here was ... get a glass of wine! Great so now lets gather our thoughts into some logical sequence - usually in a population we can expect these type of thinkers:
- Level 0 thinkers - Lets just choose a number randomly between 0 and 100 and see what happens.
- Level 1 thinkers - Given that the mean of all random numbers between 0 and 100 should be approximately 50, lets choose a number approximately closest to 2/3 rd of 50 = 33.
- Level 2 thinkers - Assume the presence of Level 1 thinkers who would choose on average 33, so choose 2/3 rd of that = 22.
- Level 3 thinkers - You get the point .. 2/3rd of 22 = 15.
- Since this was a conference full of economists, you should expect the presence of at least some game theorists who would take this sequence of thinker levels to a logical conclusion and end up at 0 or 1.
(As an aside, this question was once asked as a contest in Financial Times with a cash prize, and the results showed that quite a few of the responses were 100. Was that a completely irrational response from a non trivial set of individuals - as it turns out it wasn't. Apparently a game theory professor at a British University had formed a coalition of respondents whom he convinced to submit as a a response the number 100 - no doubt with a promise of sharing the prize. Why 100 - well because this particular professor wanted to distinguish himself from what he believed would be mostly answers of 0 or 1; thus he sent in a response of 7 along with his coalition that sent in responses of 100, thus after the computations the correct answer would be somewhat removed from 0 or 1 i.e. closer to his 7. So yes - he manipulated the contest! Thus we have to be aware of potential manipulations or gamifications as well.)
At this point comes the question Who is Emily Jones (that is not her real name, just an assumed name that she used to play the game - a nom de guerre as the fancy term goes!)? As you might have guessed that was the winner of our game, with a guess of 26 which happened to be a fraction off of the correct answer. The winner could be the winner one of two ways - a random guess or a well thought out process of guessing the distribution of thinker levels in the population. Given the level of people at this conference, we can easily rule out the first. Why is it important that we find her? Well for any level of statistical analysis to succeed and be considered legitimate, it has to be the case that the researchers forecast the correct distribution of the population. Without that all you have are incomplete or incorrect estimates.
And as a conclusion - what was my guess? It was 15, so I overestimated the number of higher level thinkers or underestimated the amount of drunkenness that was prevailing in the population or more likely both!
An Old Love, Revisited
Posted by Nerdyy
Rahul races across the bridge. Bag slung over shoulder, jacket buttons open.
"Anjali", "Anjali" he screams.
Rahul comes to the end of the bridge.
He looks toward the tent. He sees two Anjalis - his daughter, for whom he was racing across the bridge, and the OTHER Anjali - yes that one, the source of the name for his daughter.
Well No - I wasn't quite going for that type of old love in this return to posting, rather a more constant companion of old, that I had somehow forsaken for other pleasures. As a kid growing up, my first love right from the time I learned to put alphabet letters together to form words was always reading. Fantasy tales, tales about animals, tales about schools and young kids, tales about young kids solving mysteries etc. etc. would fire up my imagination until I was lazily lying down with a picnic basket full of ham sandwiches, stretched out in a meadow full of daffodils. I would conjure up travel tales for myself, and pursuit of dragon tales for myself, and flying on witches broomsticks for myself. Growing up as an only child, with very strict parents with strict rules meant that reading was my only source of escape into a fantasy world, that I always yearned to escape to in real life, except they didn't exist in any reality! As I grew into my pre-teen years I somehow convinced my mother that I would achieve a lot more productivity with my schoolwork if I could shut my door and make it more quiet in my room. Once that convincing was accomplished, I would wait every day breathlessly until I could shut my door and then secretly delve into my books during homework time. Of course the homework would be done in record time in between the pleasurable reading times! And I had to invent my own subterfuges to get around the very keen eyes of my mother; who would keep a close watch over my book reading. You see, if she saw me with 1/3rd of the book read in the afternoon, and then in the evening notice that I was 2/3rd of the way through my book, she would get naturally suspicious that I had been reading the book during my homework time! SO I ended up reading portions of the book twice to ward off any suspicions.
Adolescence passed into the teen years, in the meantime music entered my list of loves. But reading was still very important - now I had graduated into the words of Alfred, the Williams, Jane, Charles, Emily, Arthur and of course a plethora of less literary mystery and spy stories. My fantasies still raged - one day I was at war leading an armada into battle and the next I was an Interpol agent racing through multiple train stations in Europe just to make my connections in pursuit of an old Nazi, and the next day I was seducing the most beautiful woman in my imagination who just happened to be betrothed to my cousin, the Prince.
And then one day in mid August of '92 I got on a plane and flew across the globe to this brand new place - Dallas! And my fantasies had come alive. I could see daffodils in March, I could race through airports, I could visit new and exciting cities - you get the point. And reading became a lot less important. And over the years as I became busier and busier with life, it slipped completely off of my radar. But I always wondered if there would be a day that I would gravitate towards it again, and maybe rekindle the old connection we shared. Maybe all I needed was a nudge and a push towards it. And in the end, after all these years that's all it took - many nudges and pushes, some overt but mostly covert and well hidden encouragements thrown my way.
Now that I had decided that I was going to reconnect with books, the question was what should I read. I was given a book that seemed a tad to heavy and depressing, about disease and mortality, so I set it aside (and will come back to later) and took up a lighter offering. And I was hooked instantly - maybe because it kept reminding me of experiences from the very near past. And I gleefully downloaded eBooks, and ordered books from the library. So now I have this pile of books waiting to be devoured, overt and covert meanings waiting to be deciphered, romances straight and illicit waiting to be explored, and travel stories waiting to be experienced.
So I can say that my old love has ensnared me again, and I am happily reading the words of the beloved authors and poets, and delving into the fruit of knowledge offered up by this garden of eden.
"Anjali", "Anjali" he screams.
Rahul comes to the end of the bridge.
He looks toward the tent. He sees two Anjalis - his daughter, for whom he was racing across the bridge, and the OTHER Anjali - yes that one, the source of the name for his daughter.
Well No - I wasn't quite going for that type of old love in this return to posting, rather a more constant companion of old, that I had somehow forsaken for other pleasures. As a kid growing up, my first love right from the time I learned to put alphabet letters together to form words was always reading. Fantasy tales, tales about animals, tales about schools and young kids, tales about young kids solving mysteries etc. etc. would fire up my imagination until I was lazily lying down with a picnic basket full of ham sandwiches, stretched out in a meadow full of daffodils. I would conjure up travel tales for myself, and pursuit of dragon tales for myself, and flying on witches broomsticks for myself. Growing up as an only child, with very strict parents with strict rules meant that reading was my only source of escape into a fantasy world, that I always yearned to escape to in real life, except they didn't exist in any reality! As I grew into my pre-teen years I somehow convinced my mother that I would achieve a lot more productivity with my schoolwork if I could shut my door and make it more quiet in my room. Once that convincing was accomplished, I would wait every day breathlessly until I could shut my door and then secretly delve into my books during homework time. Of course the homework would be done in record time in between the pleasurable reading times! And I had to invent my own subterfuges to get around the very keen eyes of my mother; who would keep a close watch over my book reading. You see, if she saw me with 1/3rd of the book read in the afternoon, and then in the evening notice that I was 2/3rd of the way through my book, she would get naturally suspicious that I had been reading the book during my homework time! SO I ended up reading portions of the book twice to ward off any suspicions.
Adolescence passed into the teen years, in the meantime music entered my list of loves. But reading was still very important - now I had graduated into the words of Alfred, the Williams, Jane, Charles, Emily, Arthur and of course a plethora of less literary mystery and spy stories. My fantasies still raged - one day I was at war leading an armada into battle and the next I was an Interpol agent racing through multiple train stations in Europe just to make my connections in pursuit of an old Nazi, and the next day I was seducing the most beautiful woman in my imagination who just happened to be betrothed to my cousin, the Prince.
And then one day in mid August of '92 I got on a plane and flew across the globe to this brand new place - Dallas! And my fantasies had come alive. I could see daffodils in March, I could race through airports, I could visit new and exciting cities - you get the point. And reading became a lot less important. And over the years as I became busier and busier with life, it slipped completely off of my radar. But I always wondered if there would be a day that I would gravitate towards it again, and maybe rekindle the old connection we shared. Maybe all I needed was a nudge and a push towards it. And in the end, after all these years that's all it took - many nudges and pushes, some overt but mostly covert and well hidden encouragements thrown my way.
Now that I had decided that I was going to reconnect with books, the question was what should I read. I was given a book that seemed a tad to heavy and depressing, about disease and mortality, so I set it aside (and will come back to later) and took up a lighter offering. And I was hooked instantly - maybe because it kept reminding me of experiences from the very near past. And I gleefully downloaded eBooks, and ordered books from the library. So now I have this pile of books waiting to be devoured, overt and covert meanings waiting to be deciphered, romances straight and illicit waiting to be explored, and travel stories waiting to be experienced.
So I can say that my old love has ensnared me again, and I am happily reading the words of the beloved authors and poets, and delving into the fruit of knowledge offered up by this garden of eden.
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