November in a Rainy city

I hate myself. I have lost the discipline.I cant even get myself to sit down and write down a single blog entry once a month. So much has been happening everyday and I dont even have the time to sit down and type it all.

Its November already in Singapore with rains creating havoc everyday. As usual I am forgetting to take an umbrella and my miserable schedule of working 11 hrs a day forced me to go jogging through rain and storm at 10 at night. Its quite an experience thought, running at night, rain hitting your face, you wondering if the rain is bad for your ipod and suddenly you run into the street without looking and a car screeches to a halt several cms away from you.

I have never been much of a “social” blogger. I never did anything to make my blog popular except for adding relevant tags. There was no desperate commenting on other people’s blog hoping they notice or adding people to my twitter or my blog roll. Which ever comment I got was from people who were actually nice enough to read it on their own.

 

 

Sleepless in Singapore

Singapore prides itself in the high standards of living it offers its residents; it prides itself on convenience, efficiency and cleanliness. Living in Singapore is hassle free, non chaotic and mostly incident free except for little things here and there which are worth mentioning.

1)      Early Morning Buses (7 AM to 9 AM):

Singapore is one of the most densely populated nations in the world.  It is a city with a population of 4.5 million which is quite large considering it is more than the entire population of the country of New Zealand (fun fact: Sheep outnumber humans and rugby players in NZ 20:1) . You can feel the brunt of the population when you need to take a bus on any weekday morning. Buses pass by you, too full to pick you up. When you finally manage to squeeze into the bus into a crack small enough to fit a very thin Chihuahua, you realize the suffering just started. There you are, early in the morning, instead of being all springy and fresh, compressed between school bags, shopping trolleys and holding your breathe because your sure the guy in front of you did not shower in a hurry.

You look into the distance and see an empty seat (equivalent to seeing a Unicorn in the middle of Orchard Road) and you leap for it. You are stopped mid air by something which resembles an umbrella which delivers a agonizing poke to your shin. Your vision goes hazy from the poke and the fact that your heavy bag is pressing on some important artery and cutting out the blood supply. You have just been poked by an old Aunty, the terror of morning buses. They get on the bus in packs armed with umbrellas to poke you and the shopping trolleys to run over your feet. While you are howling from the pain, like a swift ninja, they occupy the remaining seats. When my vision finally recovered, I noticed a fast moving blur and then a Chinese lady in her 70s appeared on the seat.

2)      Taxi Drivers in Singapore:

Somehow I prefer quiet rides when I take a taxi. When I am spending a few extra dollars, I wish to leave the chaos and bedlam behind and enjoy the air con in the taxi while lying in a semi comatose state barely held vertical by the seat belt. My day dreams enhanced by the warm sunlight streaming through the trees of Clementi Road is suddenly interrupted by a “Kaise Ho?”. I look outside to reassure myself that I am still in Singapore. Did the Malay taxi driver ask me how I am doing in Hindi? I conjured up my best Hindi (Hindi has never been my strength, barely passed it when I had it as third language) and could come up only with an “Accha”. He showed off his knowledge of Hindi which uncomfortably was slightly better than mine. In spite of me trying to discourage him by mumbling some reply, his enthusiasm only grew. His next question was “Are you from Poonjab?”. At five feet seven inches in height (Std deviation: 2 inch) I would be undoubtedly be the shame of Punjab. Luckily my drop off point was close and I left the cab with 7 dollars poorer and a Hindi lesson.

Taxi drivers in Singapore have stepped in my little paradise (my mid morning intoxicated state) and offered me financial advice, relationship advice and career advice. The fact that I chose a DBS Credit Card, I went to Bali and chose Physics for my career maybe because of a cabbie’s advice rooted in my subconscious.

3)      The 5 Cent Coin

I hate the 5 cent coin. If there was such a thing with no purpose whatsoever (Reality shows, Sarah Palin and Scientology belonging to the same category), the 5 cent coin will top the list. It is never there when you need it, and it’s always clanking around in your pocket or wallet when you don’t need it.

What if the 5 cent coin was never there? Is there anything in Singapore which costs 5 cents? If you are kidnapped, your parents cannot pay off your ransom in 5 cent coins. Your piggy bank will turn slim on a low calorie diet of 5 cent coins. Try paying off a cabbie with 5 cents coins and he will drive you to the nearest mental institution or police station.

4)      Mustafa Center:

Mustafa center is the representative of everything “Un-Singaporean”. It is noisy, chaotic and has salespeople trying their best not to make a sale. Located bang in the middle of Little India (For Harry Potter there is Voldemort, For Neo there is Agent Smith, For Orchard Road there is Little India), surrounded by shops blaring loud Hindi music, it sells everything from Chapattis to spacesuits.

Ignoring the fact that is a glorified warehouse with sour faced sales staff, the shoppers really bother me with their attitude. While rest of the world goes to a beach, a zoo, a restaurant on weekends, Indians in Singapore treat shopping at Mustafa as a family outing. Ranging from ages of 2 to 80, they are all there in full force armed with prams and trolleys clogging up the narrow passageways. Occasionally you see a three year old girl prancing around while her pram is being used to transport packets of rice.

I would like to propose a three lane system for faster movement inside Mustafa. Leftmost lane is for senior citizens and children on prams, center lane is for fast moving adults with trolleys and the right most lane is to overtake(if necessary) to grab the last carton of Amul milk.

Things worth mentioning:

TV Mobile: Few years back, someone decided to put television on buses and TVmobile was born. Apparently listening to music or reading a book is not a productive way of spending you time traveling, but staring glassy eyed at a screen with uninteresting programs is. You try to avoid it but it catches up to you. I had tried not looking at the screen, but the distributed speakers in the bus manage to penetrate even the best of noise reduction headphones. There you are like mindless zombies watching programs who you never watch in any other situations. Programs like a drama series called “Red Thread” where the protagonist, a blind man, is wearing a watch. The programs become more and more bizarre as the hours roll by. I was on a Night Ride bus on the other day at 1 AM in the morning and they were showing a German cooking show where they make a broccoli cake.

General “Over planning” of Singaporeans:

Singaporeans are serial anti procrastinators. Who wouldn’t when you have the internet, 3G mobile, AXS machines, SAM machines and all other modern technology to help your paranoia? I, the serial procrastinator, am a victim of circumstances in this country. Being late to take action, I never managed to get a ticket to a concert, a ticket to a weekend movie and lately, a good lesson time for my driving training (this is also because I was too late to prevent my Indian License from expiring).  The Driving center booking is the epitome of the booking habits of Singaporeans. Classes two to three months have been booked in advance and I always end up getting the undesirable late night session. There I am driving blind as a bat in the night while the instructor ironically asks me to check my “Blind Spot”. The booking habit will become such deep rooted in the future that grandparents will be booking driving tests for unborn grandchildren. When a child is born, he/she will be presented with a birth certificate and the booking statement for his Basic Driving Theory test.

 

Mid Summer 2009:Its been a while,Recession,Swine Flu

Its been a while since I had typed my last blog entry,6 months I think,might be even more. People say I have softened, and my old blogs have the “angry single hopeless man” sharp edge to it which they enjoyed. I think I had not written anything in a while, partly cos I have few things to complain about and also because I really havent had the time to sit down and type a long entry. So its july now when I am probably making the first entry of the year.

I was always afraid I would become one of “those” guys in a relationship. Indian guys in a relationship lose their hair faster than a person receiving chemotherapy and start developing a tyre around their waist which is filled with anything but love. I was afraid to be one of those unhappy guys standing with the “please lord,lift me up now” face next to their girlfriends at a sale where their significant others keep goin through identical shoes. I was afraid to adopt teddy bears and chocolates as the currency of love where real emotions have been forgotten for a long time.

Well none of these have happened. Im doin so well that after 7 months, I finally get time to update the blog.I have managed to keep myself the same as I was before, exercise and work even more just out of the scare that relationship might change me a bit.

2004, Thomas Friedman had talked about in my university about his book ,”World is Flat” and the wonders of a globalized world where optical fibers have created a revolution shrinking the world. Now when we are feeling the brunt of the Globalized world where a recession caused by actions of a greedy “Haves” are kicking the rice bowls of “Have nots” around the world and where a disease like H1N1 cannot be contained because of millions of people fly to and from locations around the globe.

I am not too scared about swine flu. My immunity is pretty good and I usually dont hang around in public places full of sneezy strangers anyway. Its good that the panic initially created had died out and people have accepted that fact that its not the most dangerous of all diseases and things have to handled calmly. Although the name, “Swine Flu” might be a misnomer, it would have not been such a big deal in a non globalized setting. A pig handler in mexico would have roamed around in a radius of a 100 miles maximum infecting people in it. But with globalization some of these people in the 100 mile radius are boarding flights to europe and asia spreading the disease. Basically instead of running around freaking out that Armageddon is here, we should just accept it as a con of globalization.

Are you a guy/gal who holds a job which you feel is too good to be true? Do you think (due to some of your good karma) the pay you get is way more than you deserve and more than you work? Is your “job” actually the time you spend between the two coffee breaks and lunches? Turns out this miracle which happened to you was a consequence of your bumbling boss who just hired you, not because they needed you but maybe cos they needed to have certain amount of people in the team so that they can bill more. Turns out the first person who is goin to be retrenched first is you. Dont blame that the world is unfair because you lost your “job”,it was unfair when you got job.

 

Slumdog Millionaire,Subway Diet and the Formula for Romance

Slumdog Millionaire

I watched Slumdog Millionaire before it officially released. Although a good movie with a good story and a reasonable cast(all adult cast) and a very enthusiastic Anil Kapoor, I was wondering if it was worth all the hype. Call me a cynic but if “Amar Akbar Anthony” was made by a british director and given such publicity, I would have believed it would have won Oscars. Atleast the song sequences were better than the “jai ho” railway station dance. Only people worth mentioning about the movie is the child cast who were natural and incredible. Dev Patel looks ok as Jamal and his British accent creeps in subtly. Anyway I ll try to be washed over by patriotism and be proud of a movie which most critics call “poverty porn”. Apparently the word “porn” is being used in ways unfamiliar to me.

Benjamin Buttons

If I would be really honest, I would think “Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons” would be one of the most boring movies ever made and the sheer bodycount in the movie puts Die Hard and Rambo to shame. Although both Benjamin Buttons and Forrest Gump are basically southern dull guys (Brad Pitt didnt look his brightest), I would say Forrest Gump’s life was way more exciting than Benjamin’s. Buttons managed to be so boring that I fell asleep only to be woken by my gf and a loud Filipino woman crying when he dies. Gump went to vietnam, caught shrimp, ran across America, met John Lennon, Buttons did nothing expect look sad.

I have gained 10 kilos over the last 3 years so I have decided to eat fast food to lose weight. Im trying a so called famous “Subway” Diet where lunch consists of  a 6 inch sandwich and dinner is a foot long. I am not surprised that Subway sandwiches have hardly anything in them cos even my toothbrush tastes better than them. Anyway I ll try to stay committed to my Subway diet inspired by a story of a man called Jared who lost 245 pounds eating subway. I guess if u eat such “Fat Free Taste Free” food, you ll give it up anyway. The Veggie Delight has been at the cause of many suicides and words like “Parmesan Oregano” and “Honey Mustard” have been mentioned in many eulogies.

February was apparently the month for love cleverly portrayed by companies to sell over prized stuffed rag dolls so that deluded girls would molest them and bouquets of flower which die in 2 days to remind us that life is very transient. The month ended up with majority of the male population ending up with spiraling down bank balances as result of gifting over prized colorful vegetation and cocoa seeds prepared with udder secretion of cows to the female population. This is even jazzed up with even more colourful words like “You complete me” (what are you a jigsaw puzzle with your gf the last piece), ” You had me at Hello”(Yah I am that desperate). Anyway apparently after a lil research, I discovered a formula for the propagation of love.    So you are already in “love”(definition:  stage of hallucination where extra effort is needed to continue in that state),what is the formula to maintain it?

The answer lies in two things, Valentines Day and Geometric Progression. Definition of Geometric Progression is “

In mathematics, a geometric progression, also known as a geometric sequence, is a sequence of numbers where each term after the first is found by multiplying the previous one by a fixed non-zero number called the common ratio. For example, the sequence 2, 6, 18, 54, … is a geometric progression with common ratio 3. Similarly 10, 5, 2.5, 1.25, … is a geometric sequence with common ratio 1/2. The sum of the terms of a geometric progression is known as a geometric series.

Thus, the general form of a geometric sequence is

“

So if you start with ur first valentines day gift to be 20 dollars(a=20) and you choose your r=2, next year your gift should be 40 then 80 then 160 and so on. This continues till it reaches four figure which is like the price of an engagement ring and thats when you propose. If you are not keen to marry, I would say start with a low priced gift of $2 to $5 because your r is mostly fixed at 2. Guys eager to get married start with $ 50 which is a good amount, a balance between your eagerness and modesty.

 

Year 2009:Flying Crabs, Beaches and Movies

2009 feels different. Landing in Singapore did not feel dreadful as usual, I did not feel like a sleep deprived zombie ready to be plunged into a cauldron of pain and boredom aka experimental physics. I felt lighter having completed all my coursework, all my qualifying exams and having a good project to work on. I had a gf who pretty much makes my life a million times better. I actually for the first time embraced 2009.

Having a gf in the same city as you are is a whole different ball game. If your choice has been good, the quality of life improves several fold. No more watching movies alone, no more sundays in Bras Basah looking at guitars, no more hang outing with K so much that we felt like a gay couple. Watching movies alone is fine, but watching chick flick alone sucks because when the lights come on after the movie you don’t want to be spotted as the lonely hopeless romantic, so you kinda predict that the movie is ending and u duck before anyone sees you. I tried that for “27 dresses” but ended up missing half an hour from the last part.

Initially its a challenge to balance the gf and the movie and takes time to get used to it. Like when I was first dating Niki (thats my gf’s name…to avoid confusion she is indian…rajput) and we went to watch “Yes Man”, I ended up watching nothing and cant remember anything from the  movie. But lately I have practiced hard to focus on the movie, inspite of having an incredibly attractive gf beside me and succeeded in appreciating “Underworld 3″. I did fall asleep during “The Incredibly Boring Case of Benjamin Buttons” but got awakened to a Filipino lady crying beside me towards the end of the movie because supposedly it was sad.

Niki is apparently a descendant of a warrior class called the Rajputs….which is the brunt of most of my jokes.  The hot headed warring Rajput blood has been diluted over generations to give us gentle Niki, who has to sleep every night with the stuffed Piglet from Winnie the Pooh. Surely that would have scared the Mugals, a stuffed toy yielding female at the battle field. Rajputs have been portrayed in history books to be sword yielding fierce warriors, but never shooting arrows. It was no surprise when  me and Niki went to this archery place in Suntec  city that a matchstick armed fish eating bengali like me did better than her. I sure if there was a sword fight she would win. Also the Rajputs originating from Rajasthan didnt have much experience with Sea food because when on 14th feb we decided to have a 1 kg crab for dinner, Niki pulled at one of its leg with such inexperienced force that it went flying across the restaurant hitting another patron in the eye.

These last few months with Niki has been great. There has been dancing, singing, drinking breezers while standing in the sea and a lot , lot of messaging and eating. Its cool to hang out with her on the beach during weekends or catch a movie or dinner with her.

Being with her I have ended up with nothing to complain about, thus hardly any blog entries the last few months. I am struggling to find things to complain about so to have stuff to write about.

 

Photoshop Tutorial:Turn any drab photo into B&W masterpiece

I turned most of the photos I took in Calcutta to B&W because b&w suits well for street photography. Also black and white has the capability of  turning any drab photo into a masterpiece. Here are the steps to do it in Photoshop.

First lets start with the original and the transformation.

Original Picture:Victoria Memorial Calcutta

Post Processing: Black and White

1) Open the original photo in Photoshop. Go to adjustments and desaturate the image first.

After Desaturating

As you can see it just looks drab and so its not enough. People think turning on the black and white mode of the camera also would produce an amazing black and white photo, but you will end up with something like this.

2) Open curves. Adjust it. The curve should look like an S . you can open Curves by pressing Ctrl+M.

Adjusting Curves

As you can see the picture is starting to pop.  The curves adjustment is enough to make you pics pop.

3).  If you want more, you can play with the Shadow/Highlights and then your picture would be complete.

 

Creating HDR from one single JPEG: Photomatix

Final HDR from 1 Single JPEG

Sometimes you are stuck with a single JPEG file and regret not taking several RAW’s to make an HDR. All hope if not lost, because if you play around with a bit of Photoshop and Photomatix, you can make a HDR like looking photo in no time at all. Of course it wont have really much of a dynamic range because the information is not truly there.

Step 1. Open the original file in Photoshop.

Original Image

As you can see its a really dull image taken from my camera from the car. Its a single JPEG with nothing special work done on it.

Step 2. Play with the curves to create an over exposed and an under exposed shot.

Adjusting Curves to create underexposure

Once you have do this, you shall have an underexposed and overexposed pic which look somewhat like this.

Overexposed Shot

Underexposed

Step 3. Open the 3 different exposures using photomatix, play with the tonal ranges and voila you’ll get your fake HDR.

 

Unbelievable Sunset Outside my Lab Window

 

Public Commute in Singapore:Mp3 Zombies,Hostile Grandmas and Subliminal language Classes

BUS

Bus rides in india(specially in summer) is perhaps what inspired Stephen King to start writing his novels. Despite the frantic prayer to God everyday morning for a good day, the fattest and the sweatiest man will squeeze next to you on the bus everyday and the bus accelerating and braking(and occasionally running over some one,trust me its more often than you think) will make the disgusting man share his sweat with you. When you get down from the bus(narrowly avoiding an auto), you’ll look like the guy who had just been asked to pick up the soap in prison.

Buses in Singapore are like 500 times better yet not perfect due to the collection of few characters on board them.Thankfully air con in the equitorial humidity,I believe some people ride it just because they cant afford to have an air con at home.

Buses seem to be absolutely packed in the early morning which is a popular time for school goin kids with their backpacks which weigh more than them(and they said ants are strong) and strangely old ladies with sharp umbrellas. I dont know why these old grandmas get up in the morning dress up and get on to the bus to terrorize people with the thought of being impaled by their sharp umbrellas. Like old, dying lioness they protect their seats, poking holes in you if you by mistake step into their territory. In spite of being in their 60s, they are faster than cheetas in locating a seat and sitting on it, i think they already mastered teleportation. Rain or shine, these old ladies are there on the bus around 7 on their journey to no where even making the biggest man on the bus sweat and hide behind a seat.

The kids with their overweighed bags keep bumping against you with such ferocity when they are getting down with their potato sacks at sensitive areas that you feel like going on your knees and shouting “God, take me away right now.”  If you think the issue of spine problems for kids is not good enough to justify lighter backs think about the infertility is causing among grown ups by getting bumped by these several tonned sack in sensitive areas. No wonder the birth rate of the country is declining.

The Haitians use vodoo to turn a dead person into a zombie…a creature with no sense, no emotion, unperturbed by disturbances, just dragging itself along with no rhyme or purpose. Modern Mp3 players do the same. Early morning , you see people holding on to a support sleeping while their headphones are blasting music so loud that you start wondering why you bothered buying your ipod. Then there are these people throughout the day (the Mp3 zombies) with their lowered heads, moaning mouths, cloudy eyes just staring into the blankness as they all rock together with the bus. Be there an explosion next to them, be there Godzilla picking up the bus with its teeth, these zombies wont batter an eyelid.

Like the world is divided into light and darkness, the commuters are divided into “starers” and “do ers”. Starers are the one who stare happily outside the window, strangely enjoying the same road they see over and over again everyday. Maybe there is a dog standing next to the lamppost today which they didnt see yesterday or a tree is missing a leaf which they will notice. Other on is the “doer” who is doing something. Usually its a fat girl messaging someone on her phone(someone equally fat i presume, on a similar bus being observed by a person like me) or the thin fashionable girl with a book called “Does my ass look fat? and other stories”.

MRT

MRT or Mass Rapid Transport is what metro is to other cities. Its Rapid and unfortunately it has mass appeal.

During rush hour if you stand near the gates of an incoming train , you will get caught in this massive wave of people trying to get in and when you have no where to run, you will be sandwiched between the two of the most disgusting people in the world while you ‘ll notice some pretty girl a stone’s throw away and wonder why you are never sandwiched by her. During rush hour, you are so close to people(unwillingly) that to pass time you’ll start identify by smell which hair product and soap they use. Or you can pass your time by reading what other people are texting. If you are near Business area there are always these middle aged bankers or something looking worriedly at the stocks on their iphone, evening time there are these over dressed secreteries bitching through sms about how their boss is a MCP and some guy never asks her out.And as always there is the fat girl messaging her friend,(i never read it but probably about how fast she can eat a sack full of potatoes.)

MRT rides are educational in sense the announcement in 4 languages (english,mandarin,malay and chinese) get to you in the end and before you know it, you already know the Malay word for “danger” and the Tamil word for “Yellow”. Its not like you want to but its goes into you subconcious and one day you will sleep walk into the MRT shouting the announcements.

MRT gates are scary because it consists of two slamming red triangles designed again by some cruel man near your privates. Every time I go through them, the slamming sound sends shivers down my spine and I end up protecting my privates like during a football free kick. Anyone who takes a lot of MRT will be deemed impotent because everytime he passes through these, his privates will shrink and pass out and that cannot be good for your sperm count.

 

Monday night and Random Musings

* Its a monday night and I am on my bed with my trusty laptop(which I havent shut down over a month) and I am watching grey’s anatomy due to the lack of better shows. Its not like I dont like over the top drama which is Grey’s anatomy but usually there are so many events in it I rather watch it on a weekend. Monday is the day when most people drag themselves to work hating it. For me sunday nights are terrible after an acheivement less weekend made even worse when i cant get my long sunday evening run, and I am dying to get back to work next monday so that I can feel better about myself.

*Realized that being a workaholic solves most of the problems of your life. What do we usually do most of the time of our living life…work. If we can just like working it is like the greatest gift of all because rewards come easy. It is difficult to be pleased by life as a whole because the whole process of getting happiness from life by itself is highly probabilistic depending on infinite variable beyond our means whereas work can give us happiness….deterministic,within our control happiness……

*I have been watching this new show called “Californication”. Stars David duchovny, the serious guy from X files(fox mulder) as a sex addict and a pretty cool writer. Its a pretty decent show but has ton of nudity in it which I have no objection to anyway.