Book Tag MEME

Ye ol' bookie tagg thats been doin rounds I say, hath finally come to me.

Here :

Total Number of Books I own:
None, ab tak baap ke paise se hi book khareeda. Wait till August 05, my first payday then I would have bought some and filled in something here. However the number of books I have Dhaapofied (never returned after borrowing ..has contributed to my nickname being Dhaps apart from the extra eyes) is pretty high .

Last book I bought:
With the help of my dad's money I proudly bought the Jigar Series of Paper Solutions. No comments on these "books" . The real buy was the pirated Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I admire this guy though I am finding a bakra (or bakri) to lend me Deception Pt. and Angels 'n Demons.

Last book I read:
The Leader and The Damned (Colin Forbes):
Another World War II setting where Stalin's treachery defeats the brilliance of an imposter posing as Adolf Hitler after the real Fuhrer is assasinated. Surprising data revealed in the end of the book and a good plot.

5 Books That Mean A Lot To Me:

1. Poona Company - Farroukh Dhondy
This amazing book describes childhood and youth of the author in the early and mid sixties in our very own Poona (not to be confused with Pune). This book was so amazing that till date I remember every main characters in it though I read it 5 years back. The book mentions Bishops , Vincents and my own Dastur schools; Wadia College and full Camp area in fine detail and the evergreen Parsi settins is still afresh in my mind. Must read for Puneites.

2. Obviously 1984 and Animal Farm
Though I have clubbed the two together, I find them together the most fantastic pieces of literature in the past, present or future (The 4 VEDAs are not literature for me). Unlike Salil, I understood Trotsky and Stalin very early and also WW2 in Animal Farm and while reading 1984 I achieved Nirvana in understanding socialism. Though in the back of my mind I admire the two totalitarians Nazi and Soviet these books left a deep impression on my approach towards society.

3. Treausre Island RL Stevenson
This classic is a classic Admiral Benbow, Jim Hawkins, Long John Silver, Benn Gunn, etc etc. Its a pity if you haven't read this book.

4. Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, Chamber Of Secrets, Order of The Phoenix, Philosopher's Stone.

Order Important. JK Rowling is great..

5. Too many books ...so I cut the list short

I would say that Dan Brown's a genius, The Enid Blyton Series and Hardy Boys-Nancy Drew Series were great, Michael Chrichton rocks (no matter how you pronounce his surname) and the fiction writers Archer, Forsyth, Ludlum, Sheldon, Puzo are all brilliant.



Five People to Tag:
I am new to blogging but would like to tag

Aditya Pethe :He Lent Me so many books
Mihir Shah: Lets learn about weapons
Ganesh Hegde : Let us C ??
Anish - the Hitchhiker
Myself : Recursion ki aadat jaati nahi.



Note: Did mention some guy called Doug Adams?

Some Poetry

Since MSEB gives us 4 hours every day to use our creative skills, I finally used the time to write a poem. Please leave brickbats and bouquets(I hope) as comments here itself. :)

Here It Goes:

The Digital Age

- Shriniwas Kulkarni



As Mankind turns a brand new page
We find ourselves in the Digital Age
The Age of the silicon craze
Whose chips promise Happy Days
The Age of gizmos, gadgets galore
These toys that attract grown-ups more


The Age that speaks a language new
Of DIMM Sticks, Webcams, 3D view
Of bits, MPEGs, storage space
Of upgrades, downloads, the Cyber Race
Of Mother Boards and Serial Ports
Of Add-on-cards and EA Sports*


This Age that obeys Moore's Law
It captivates us with shock n awe
We plug ourselves to this crazy mire
Of Disks, Drives and FireWire*
Of websites, chatrooms, MP3*
We try so hard to use for free


This Age reads electronic mails
Has online auctions, online sales
We "surf the net" we scour the "sites"
We upload, download megabytes
We're crazy about network speeds,
Onboard LANs and E-Book Reads


This Age that harbors network spies
Has virus, worms and chatroom lies
An Age of hacking n DOS Attacks
Of Cracking Software, Service Packs
Of data streams and flow control
Of Instant Messaging n Blog Rolls


The Myriad World of Video Games
Simulate a City or Aeroplanes
Of 3D Wolf* and Counter Strike*
The Age of Empires* that few dislike
In Online chess we rack our head
In Need of Speed we race ahead


Our Cellphones to all we like to show
We stay connected, w'ever we go
We click and share, we tape what's said
We Transfer stuff through Infra Red
Always our gadgets follow us
We stay on track by GPS


This awesome Age that's superfast
Whats new today, never lasts
We scramble for the latest stuff
We upgrade though its not enough
This Crazy World - a GigaByte Rage
We Proudly call The Digital Age









---------Disclaimer---------

* = These May be brandnames and copyrighted

So All the trademarked names used belong to their respective companies.
This poem does not mean to use them for any sort of commercial use ....
so please do not sue :)

No harm meant for Analog Electronics because it still rocks :P

Engineer Now you are, Student Forever you shall be

Sunday, June 12th happened to be a momentous day in my life when I gave my possibly last Pune University Exam in the form of my BE Project Orals. Celebrations apart, I got to contemplate and think back about how amazingly wonderful and tough these last few years were.
Well being lazy just like most of "guys/men", I had to completely change myself the very first day of engineering. Though timepass "happened" and bunks were "maarofied", like all of us Pune University Engineers, I learnt some valuable lessons about hard work (hey didn't we all do that during submissions and PL's). Apart from unlazying myself I also learnt to be serious at the appropriate times and light-minded at other times and also to maintain composure and a cool head to be near to success.
Most Importantly the four years of slogging got me to be a student forever. In today's dynamic tech-crazy world we cannot afford to be not learning new stuff, lest we end up not only being outdated but totally obsolete. Then also, I learnt an important lesson about teamwork and camaraderie. Engineering college had its cons too, like we studied so many unnecessary things (at least we computer ppl) and also wasted valuable time and energy in writeups and assignments. Also too many things were crammed up in too little time and this caused many burnouts, night outs, blank outs, and formats :) .


As I await my joining date, I am thoughroughly satisfied with my decision to do computer engineering and I am hoping I fulfil some of my dreams in the near future. Also I am really content that I made so many brilliant, lovely and talented friends and I hope at least some of these friendships will last for a lifetime.

I think I must not eulogise much on this subject. But I sure hope my fellow batchmates and friends will have similar opininons on graduating with a BE Degree.But I sure feel I have completed a milestone in my life and not only my career. Well whenenver we think we reach a milestone in Life, it will be appropraite for me to quote Robert Frost's Stopping By The Woods On A snowy Eevening


Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
- Robert Frost.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it's queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep