Dopamine....

I first heard of dopamine while watching a documentary on the brain (Human brain, not animal ones). It was a really good documentary and I got to know for the first time, how, many areas of the brain process information and how, if each process is inhibited, the body is affected by it. Now dopamine is a hormone that is produced by the brain for many purposes like neurotransmission and stuff that are way too complex for my primitive mind to actually grasp. So yeah, dopamine also plays a major role in how humans experience pleasure. If something brings you pleasure, then the brain produces a whole load of dopamine and you feel happy and "pleasured", whatever that may mean. Then the documentary showed how the addition of drugs to one's system actually affects the dopamine production of the brain.

So what happens is that these drugs like LSD, Ecstasy, coke, heroine and stuff cause a tremendous surge in the amount of dopamine produced by the brain and thus give the person who has ingested these drugs, the unreal feeling of being "high" (though I have never known this kind of a high tbf..Never will do drugs, ever, ever). This impairs the dopamine production in our brain when we experience normal pleasurable things, like a chat to a loved one or eating chocolates and what not. This causes the person to become miserable and seek more drugs, 'coz he feels awful.

But sod all that, check out the name- "Dopamine"- It's like dopamine and dope have been made for each other, innit?

Harold Rex Interfectum Est...

This is probably the most important line in all of history- because this represents the last time the British Isles was conquered. It is as good a tale you can get, and it represents the struggles between two countries- The Normans from Normandy and the Britons in England( England actually got its name from the Angles who conquered the land at the fall of the Roman Empire). Normandy is now a province of "Le France" and they are now famous for making cheeses. :D From then on of course, England did most of the conquering, and they were almost defeated, ONLY twice since- first by the Spanish Armada, where Queen Elizabeth I had a weird way of cheering up her troops(read about it yourselves! :D, I am not posting a link about these rumours!) and when One Bo****k Hitler tried to invade them.. Gosh! Imagine being defeated by a man who has only half of his "things"...

So let's cut to the chase- England had a king, whose name was Edward the Confessor( Unfortunately this was during a time when people actually thought that these "descriptions" or "suffixes", like "The Red", "The Bearded", "The Unready" and so on was actually cool). Now this chap ended up having no heir- many reasons have been put forth for this, ranging from him actually considering marriage as a spiritual connection rather than a, you know, "normal" marriage or the way it is ought to be and all that, to the usual theory of his charlies being unable to do their business. So now, Edward had a group of Elders, like a council of ministers, the Witanegamot, or something( now you know how Rowling came by the word Wizengamot, :D), and they actually were composed of Earls who had their own "fiefdoms". As many people would know, the kings around this area were all related. So one day, Ed's cousin's son, William from Normandy, came to England, and out of some affection for William or something, Edward promised the crown of England to him( this was of course what the Normans said). Years passed and Edward died, leaving the throne of England without any heir. William, now Duke of Normandy, said that he alone claimed the right to the English throne because Edward said so. Now Edward also had an earl called Godwin and this guy revolted against Edward and was sent into exile. His son was Harold Godwinson (no brainer that) and a year later he helped his father regain his position once again. Soon after all this Harold became Earl of Wessex and became a very powerful person. Upon Edward's death, the Witan made him King of England.

Of course, William didn't like this!

This is William... Yes, he is the chap with the sword and no, he isn't thrusting it through the other guy's neck and no again, that chap isn't holding his neck in agony... Glad I could clear that up...


So he decided to take his place as the rightful owner of the English crown and decided to march upon Harold. At the same time we had some Danes( Vikings!) and due to some problems in taxation and all that, Harold's brother joined the Danish king, Harald Hardrada, and a conquest of England began from the north. After some initial success, Harald Hardrada was utterly routed by Harold( I know this is a bit confusing, but the Danes were defeated). At the same time, William wanted to set sail for England, with his fleet of ships and cavalry. Harold ( yes, the King of England) was waiting for him with a hastily arranged army. Due to unfavourable winds, the Norman conquest was delayed, which played into William's hands because the English were waiting and they decided to disband slowly as they were running out of food. Then the attack by the Normans caught the Angles by unawares and soon began the Battle Of Hastings, at... Hastings of course. So at the end of the battle, Harold is supposed to have either been hacked down by a knight or pierced in the eye by an arrow. Whatever happened to him, this much is certain- he died. Then came William "The Conqueror"( for obvious reasons) and began his rule of England, which included building Whitehall (the white colour castle near the Tower Bridge) and the Domesday book, which was the first record of the amount of land each person in the kingdom actually had.



William I kingdom and lands he held

The Bayeaux Tapestry is a comic like tapestry chronicling the events of the Battle Of Hastings and what took place just before it. Here is how Harold's death was depicted...

Harold is either the guy with the arrow in his eye or being struck down by a knight

Harold Rex Interfectum Est... King Harold is dead...

Where did these idiots come from?

In the wake of the dastardly acts that have ravaged South Mumbai (and thank God, my parents are safe. My first thought was to ring them up. That was a scary few moments, let me tell you..), I have actually given some thought as to who might be behind these attacks. Let me "analyse" from what I have actually heard on the news. This incident began around nine thirty, IST, and for the first time in Indian history, we have had an urban "guerrilla" style attack. These terrorists, who number around twenty to twenty five in number, managed to hijack a police vehicle and go berserk in front of the Metro cinema in South Mumbai. What seems to have happened is that this group of "well trained" terrorists used the sea and landed at two different rendezvous points- at Sasoon, Colaba and somewhere close to the Gateway of India. Now, they split up and a few went to the CST, some went over to the Leopold Cafe, which is frequented by tourists and also to two hotels, The Oberoi/Trident ( The Trident is a separate hotel) and the Taj Mahal Palace. A few of these gunmen were shot dead- these were the ones who hijacked the police vehicle.

Now that's all background info- what I am interested in is how this attack differs from the ones we had previously, and clearly, while Mumbai has braved several attack on its soil before, like the train bombings in 2006 and the 1993 blasts/riots, this one was different in many ways from these previous attacks. I must say that these are my own inferences and not taken from any website or so. We have here a terrorist attack. I classify these attacks into two types : Conventional and Non conventional. Conventional terrorism is which I define to be terrorism that is carried out by a suicide bomber. This is something that crops up in the news very often, the bomb blasts that periodically rock Baghdad, the bomb blasts that we have had in India, the USS Cole incident, the London and Madrid bomb blasts, the Bali blasts to name a few. Here the terrorist walks into a crowded area and triggers the device, in the process killing himself and many others around him. Non conventional terrorism is something that is unexpected, the use of a new kind of weapon- such as the hijacked planes during 9/11 and now these shootings and blasts in Mumbai. Now I am assuming that apart from insurgencies into Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kashmir, terror elsewhere has been solely restricted to bombings. It seems that somehow or the other, people who had been actively engaged in war, such as Afghanistan, Iraq and the tribal areas of Pakistan are the ones with the "know-how" of actually using automatic weapons and rocket launchers and grenades and all that. This is an important point that I will allude to later.

Logistically too this operation was streets ahead with respect to the usual bomb blasts you may find about. Because the way this was carried out showed an almost "military" precision. While the shootings were random and directed to kill anyone in sight, the method of these guys moving about wasn't. They were planned to the tiniest detail. Right from food to the amount of ammo they need, their landing points... It was as meticulous. Over the past year, attacks in India have become very sophisticated. The blasts in Ahmedabad and Bangalore were actually planned in Sanpada, Navi Mumbai and the terrorists used remote triggers to actually detonate these bombs. The perpetrators were Indians who were well off( I mean many Singaporeans would be happy to have their salary, mind.. Rs 100,000 a month!!). The Bangalore blasts were a rehearsal for the Ahmedabad blasts. Many of the bombs though, didn't go off thankfully. It was once again aimed at hitting the diamond centre in India, an attempt to sabotage the economy. Now coming back to our subject, these terrorists used the marine route- they came from the sea into Mumbai. This is not something new to Mumbai. Unfortunately the underworld used the same method to actually begin the 92 blasts. Moreover, these waters are, I reckon, trade off points in drug smuggling and trafficking of all sorts of contraband. It seems to me that the underworld has no doubt helped the terrorists enter Mumbai using their smuggling routes. In the usual case, explosives are made somewhere in a remote location and then put in car and driven into the target area. This doesn't seem to be the case here. But why did they do it?

The motive of the attack is still unclear. Western media has labelled this as an attack on the western peoples. The Indian media has called this an attack on India- more so, its credibility as an investment centre. But this multi pronged attack cannot have solely just one motive. This is a culmination of all that the extremists hate; the extremists in this region, that is. The jewish element in the Nariman House, the Westerners at the Leopold Cafe and at the hotels, and attacking India and Indians at the same time. What more could a terrorist organisation want? This was a chance to show that the threats issued by the Indian Mujahideen were not hollow (No one ever said they were, but no one expected open warfare. If you ever hear the word terrorist attack, you would go, "Oh! What did they bomb??"- You wouldn't actually say, "They shot how many people???"). This is therefore another major thing- that these extremists were given professional help. They were trained well too as many good police officers found out to their cost, not to mention the NSG and the army and navy and the RAF (the entire lot of 'em!). This was a fidayeen attack of a different dimension- it was prolonged and not something that happened in an instant like a bomb blast. Fighting is still going on at the Oberoi as I write this- I have to check out about the Nariman House though. Oh- the fighting is still on at the Oberoi; The Trident is now clean according to NDTV. What I mean to say is that yes, you can have sleeper cells in India, but you will have neither the finances nor the know-how to create munitions of this calibre. It has to be done overseas- or there has to be some connection with the Underworld, Al Qaeda or the LeT and the Indian Mujahideen (which already has links with the LeT) and sleeper cells in India. By sleeper cells, I mean places where potential terrorists can be identified and taken over to training camps, either in Pakistan or Afghanistan. They are also centres of hate, places where negative propaganda can be spread. This sleeper cell is most probably Indian in nature- though some media reports are actually saying that these are British citizens of Pakistani origin.

So here comes my point- These terrorists were young- they should have been brainwashed and this usually occurs in the sleeper cells around the nation. I am pretty sure that there are centres of terror being preached in Mumbai. I actually was in Andheri, a long while ago, and it was during these blasts that a few kids were actually lauding the blasts, saying that this is what happens to those who do not worship Allah. I am not saying that all Muslims are bad- quite the contrary- I have some really good Muslim friends, and they are great blokes to hang around with. All I am saying is that there are places that spread the word of hate in places we least expect it. There is no doubt that there was outside help and there must have been an underworld link to this as well, simply because of the stealthy manner they were able to hijack a boat and come into Indian waters. Their training methods also suggests that they were trained abroad- they fought like commandos.

From this all I can say is that everything seems to be working against us- the terrorists want to hurt India for it is becoming a major player in the region, economically and culturally. They want to hurt the West and Israel as well. And they found all those factors in South Mumbai.

All I can say is that our security personnel have been fantastic. The NSG, the Army, the Navy, the RAF, the ATS and the police have bravely fought against mindless hate.

UPDATE: Looks like my assessment is partially correct. The terrorists were supposedly trained by the Pakistani army. The weapons and the boat were supplied by the Mumbai Underworld, not to mention that they used smuggling routes to get these terrorists into Mumbai. This bit of news (in bullet format, here on BBC) came on the NDTV live stream. This issue though did warrant a mammoth post...

Tribute to a good friend.. will miss you, man!! ;(

First and foremost, I have to say that I have lost a good friend of mine. Vijay a.k.a Gunda, was a cheery chap. With gunda as a friend, you always could say that you had a reliable chap with you. He was always eager to help others and always there to pep the guys up. He used to meditate a lot and he used to tell us all kinds of stories regarding the power of the mind. It was fun being around him- he was one of the few guys during my undergrad days who could really cheer me up. A good soul- a bubbly guy- you could go on and on... I don't like writing obituaries and stuff, 'coz you would have to eulogize and gloss over a whole load of faults that the individual had. But that is not the case with Gunda. He was a fantastic person and a great guy to hang around with... I don't think I can go on.. Gunda, I know that you have gone to a better place than what we have here... I reckon that you are watching down upon us all, ur mates from uni...

Mate, you will be sorely missed.. It shouldn't have been you...

Way back when... The Time Machine..

I always think about all the weird things that I did when I was a kid( It's a fantastic "pass-time" while being in the bus!). They are always so fun and they always make you think, "Wow! Did I actually do that?!!", coz now, I can say with some certainty, that whatever we did then will seem rather unpalatable or downright dumb and stupid. I have done quite a lot of weird things and I'll start off one by one. I will maintain, however that these are not chronological in order ;) .

1) The time machine

This was around grade 5. My friends and I were very interested in how to go back in time and maybe see some dinosaurs and catch some awesome monsters and maybe also discover something new and weird, something so fanciful that we would be awarded the Nobel prize for it or get a "gazillion" (whatever that number is) dollars( and yes,this was before the time of the euro) for it. So we all got together and decided that we will create a machine that will take us there. As usual Dmitri( A Russian kid who is a year younger to me) and I decided to talk about the finer aspects of the "engine" that will take us back/ propel us to the past. Our design made use of a uranium core, which by some mechanism, we would rotate very quickly. Uranium being radioactive( a very mysterious and special material with very weird properties) would open some sort of time vortex in space( a bit like in the cartoons) and then we would have to propel our craft, which was being designed by three other members to have super "cool" lasers. These were the main defensive weapons of the craft and there was little doubt(in fact it was unanimous, bar one girl. Girls can have different ideas on what to do with lasers, like addling a T.Rex's brains so that it becomes Pansy Rex) that we needed them to blow any mega monsters' brains out if they tried to eat us! This took us the entire afternoon to figure out and we were very proud of our craft.

We christened it something but, I forget what!! :D
Pity it never was realised!! It was a really fine craft ;)


P.S. To any girls, I am not a sexist. It was just how I thought girls thought about stuff, then!

Something my mind cooked up in a day of extreme lethargy.... A post of little consequence..

As I lie down on the soft, springy grass, the morning dew caresses my skin. The grass is so soft, so gentle to touch. It makes for the perfect carpet- it is not rough and my skin doesn't feel any prick. The length of each blade is perfect, neither too short, so that I don't feel the earth beneath me and neither too long so that my view of the brilliantly blue sky is not impaired. All around me are buttercups, each small and dainty, each a ray of sunshine, each living on, in its own happy way. The air is filled with the sound of bees in the nearby farm, each single individual committed to fill my mouth with the sweetest of honey. The slopes of my mountain are gentle. I lie down on the grass, nestled in a valley, between my mountain and the others.

My mountain is very high indeed, his caps topped with the freshest, whitest powder snow in all the land. From the lofty summit issues a small stream, the very stream that I now place my feet in. Its cool waters soothe the pain in my feet, for I had walked many hours before lying before the face of my mountain, and his craggy slopes. On the shoulder of my stony, behemoth friend, lies a forest. It is a conifer forest, whose boughs always welcome the "unsheltered" for a day or two. Nothing evil lies in this land. It is harmony personified.

The sun has now reached his zenith and wispy clouds race along the sky, each on its own preordained path, each on an errand from its master, the wind. The heat is tempered by the coolness of the breeze. Butterflies, blue and red, fly from one flower to the next, from buttercups to the newly blossomed roses. I have with me a pitcher of milk and from the distance, I hear a long, mournful ring of a bell. The city with its vileness and evil lies below, and the crisp healthy mountain air has helped me rid of all negativity. I slowly take a long draught from the pitcher. The sun is now looking to rest. He looks closer and closer to my friend, the mountain. The sun wants to talk to the mountain about what he had seen from his long travels. The mountain eagerly awaits his conversation too, and with each passing hour, I see the tops of his craggy peak, changing colour slowly, from the purest white to a delectable orange to a fiery red as the sun approaches closer and closer. All this while, I was watching the squirrels, each running around the various pine nuts and cones, each gathering food for harsh times. As the meeting of the two great friends grew closer, I see the sun, with all his majestic redness, shining ever more brighter, in all apparrent happiness. This union of friends bathed the whole valley in a sea of red and orange, with all the warmth of true friends meeting.

And as soon as it began, the friends drew the door of darkness upon themselves, a beautiful door of sparkling stars and the night guardian, the moon, watching over us, just as the sun had. The blue night had brought with itself a whole host of creatures, elves and leprechauns, fairies and unicorns. It also gave The Sandman the perfect time to sprinkle his grains of magic sand on my eyes, and draw my eyes closer and closer together, waiting for the sun and my mountain to finish their conversation. I shall let them to it.

Awesome technology!

I just found out that my laptop had this really awesome feature and that I could use a mouse or a stylus to basically write whatever we wanted and the laptop would basically just write/type/draw out on the screen whatever we wrote. I knew it was possible 'cause I had seen the profs at NTU using it and also seen it on the tele, many times in India. But to have it as a default feature on my laptop is totally beyond awesome- it's as if a kid has been gifted a new toy and he can't wait to play with it. It also means that I don't have to waste precious time typing out sentences as I am doing now (you probably can guess that I am not the most nimble with my fingers and my "nimbleness" would rank closer to a sloth than a gazelle. I know that many people can type with their eyes closed, but I possess no such talent and nor will I practice to become better). So I am really excited 'cause this means longer blog posts, imaginative drawings and so much more!! This would also mean that typos will become less and less of a feature on this blog.

I feel particularly bloggy today- I should be studying really, but I can't help it! I seem to be infected with the "blog bug"!!! OH GOD HELP ME!!!

Feel like rolling around..

Yeah that's true- I haven't done a thing today. Nothing of note, and I am feeling this strange lethargy- I know that I have to work, what with my exams travelling at the speed of light, just round the corner, but this feeling of contentedness has enveloped me. Let the rest of the world go to hell, I need some time off. So today has been a day of forced studying, totalling up to an hour or so, and the rest of the day has passed of with me watching South Park, and a bit of the tele, listening to the odd jingle and plainly rolling around like a dirty pig, in my sweat.

Maybe it is because of the weather here- it is horribly mucky, with tremendously high humidities, and with little or no wind to lend me some semblance of an AC, it is highly sapping. Damn the humidity (Looks like I have found a convenient scapegoat here! [:D])! My brain is in a state of sweet delirium and it is throbbing ever so slightly- a pain that is bearable and enjoyable at the same time. As I glance at my sweat soaked T-shirt, I know that I need some water to sustain my indolence. I don't like this feeling, but once in a while is not too bad, eh? I reckon I will indulge for now.....

The Dark Side....

I am sure every single one of us experiences anger or hate in some form or the other, at some points in our lives. It is something that, I believe, is quite natural, for a person to experience. Some people end up using this anger/ repressed anger in the wrong way- bashing up a few guys, murdering some poor old chap who happens to stray in the "angry" person's path. But I feel anger is a fantastic feeling to have- If we can channelise this anger properly, and nurture it, it becomes a powerful feeling. I don't mind admitting it, I like being in control. I don't mind giving in sometimes, to a few people, but I should have a say in any matter or conversation I am involved in. Anger is always painted by society to be one of the "roots" of evil. I say it can be used as the root to the top. I do not know whether this hypothesis is correct or not, but it is an opinion that I form on gut instinct, more than anything else.

Let us have a look at the cons of anger. Point one, it can run out of control. An angry person may run amok in the streets and cause quite a bit of damage. It may cause the person to be irrational. It may blind reason. I use might quite often because I believe that anger is not all that "evil" a feeling. Getting back to the cons, there is a serious danger that anger may unscrew a few important components in the brain.

Now I don't mind admitting it, I do like Star Wars, and like the Senator Palpatine (Darth Siddius to the Star Wars nerds), we can use anger to focus on things that we really need (That doesn't mean we can save people from imminent death and all that). We can use the feeling of being wronged, use the repressed anger and amplify it to the nth degree using really hard music (At least, that's what I do- this song for example "drowning pool's Bodies"), and then use this amplified "negative" energy to sit down and actually do some work. I am a naturally competitive guy, I like to be on top of things. I cannot pass up a challenge, but it must tickle my sense of what is important. Anger turns out to be a useful ally in many things. It helps you focus and it helps you remember. If things go according to plan, then this anger will have manifested itself into something good. If they do not, then I have some more fuel to further my anger and go about the next thing at hand. It makes for an achiever, does anger.That is what I have experienced so far, in my admittedly short life, which is 22 years.

But one more thing before I sign off- I am not always "angry". It usually has to be work related. One must always have a level head- yes anger is good, but we need to control it- the dark side helps, but only when in our power. Anger is good but tempering it with something cheerful always helps.