Its been bad week and terrible week end. Terrorist attacked Mumbai. In an unprecedented response , India denied to negotiate. Rather she decided to go by bullet for bullet. This is really welcome move. There were some mistakes but this is first experience.  And new lessons are learnt.

200 citizens lost their lives and country lost some of the finest security personnel. It was painful to read those news articles as they appeared. I was following close to a dozen news sites to get the latest updates. But this painful thing somehow didn't shock me. I probably took it granted that its going to happen. But there were other things as aftermath, which forced to change the direction of thought.

My x-batch mate who is in US, met on Gtalk on friday. He asked me "Whats happening in India? This is not expected and not acceptable." He seemed to disturbed. My reply was " this is unfortunate but why are so shocked? Don t you think that this was inevitable?" He replied " No dude! People at the top should have done something. How can they fail like this? They must resign." I was still not convinced with the idea of only people at the top being responsible for the failure. I continued " How can they be entirely responsible for this? They are OUR leaders and they are the reflection of what we are individually -incompetent, opportunist and coward( if i decide to be bold to say that) ." He replied back " You cant say it. Our solders have fought so bravely." I went on " True, but our defense forces are just 0.1% of our population"  He replied " Yeah, you have a point  but that doesn't  prove your point."  I did continue my arguments " Most of our educated population  works for MNC's!  And there is nothing wrong in that. But most of these guys are not happy. They complain about screwed up management, only junk work coming to India.  Not  even 10%( this  wld be too big as well) of these people have dared to take up this issue with their management  nor did the top management here has shown any resolve to protest against cleaning  foreign garbage! If our so called cream has no self respect left in them, where will others get it from?  And these are the same people who choose our leaders. "    The discussion cut here because of a meeting.

       Week-end I went to institute.  Same argument repeated there.   The conclusion  was " we need to have an aggressive strategy"

My friends over there took the argument even further. They told me "you also need to understand that ,  not all of them are so bad. But those who want to raise their voice have their families!" That wld be really  a nice excuse. But then didnt the  commandos have families.  Not convinced again.  Decided not think of it anymore. But you cant stop others. Sunday evening one of my friends from Pune called after 2 months. After usual gossip, he  made a strong statement " We need to do something for this country! I have decided  to join politics and I  have also decided that  my son ( hardly  2 yrs) will join politics. "  I bothered not to be serious " Are you drunk?"  I knew he wasn't.  He was very calm with his response " We need to do  something. "   I continued " What happened to your home-loan?"  And that probably disturbed him a bit.  And then we continued to argue for some more time.  He was desperate to  do something. But  didn't know of anything concrete.

 But that somehow made me very serious.  Am I a big time pessimist?   Was I always so impervious?  A quick retrospection came out with negative answers to these question. I remembered the way we protested against reservation.  But  that protest failed miserably.  Majority was against it. But we could not stop. That didn't bring enough shame.  Some of the elites went ahead to ask for reservation for their community.   The country let  the health minister harass a world class surgeon and AIIMS director because he opposed reservation. 

       Country doesn't bother when  a demagogue decides to torture some North Indians in Mumbai.   The  Marathi youth doesn't bother to  ask  him " why dont you first clean up the Underworld dons in Mumbai and if you are so bothered of  welfare of Marathi people why don't you take up the issue of primary education, health care with govt." Probably  that was too soft and of no use("political" to be precise).  But we were happy to prove  that we got balls by beating some bhaiyas.  But we somehow forget to  stand the ground when Mumbai is attacked " We need commandos from Delhi and rest of the India."

      When akshardham is attacked we have  " Islamic terror". When Malegoan probe reveals some things we have " Hindu Terror". We are champions in stereotyping. But the division doesn't stop there. we have a conspiracy theory " Dadoji Konddev as Shivaji's teacher was a propaganda by Brahmins to play down Maratha achievements!"

       The only way to the top we knows is by sycophancy. And when we go there we are glorified when our subordinates return the bootlicking.We cant protest against any injustice. We probably used wrong dictionary in childhood.  We think  that "Gentle" is synonym for "Coward".

When we cant take a tough decision, what on this earth justifies   the strategy to blame others and ask country to sacrifice some more fine men in a war.  But that doesn't justify accepting the situation and be complacent about it.  Something needs to done. That something has to be well planned.  "What is it?" 

Tags: mumbai attack, terrorist
Current Mood: blank

Rocky has a great deal of aversion for reading philosophical literature and its developed by sheer fear of the author’s philosophy influencing his own. But it was an accident that he read fountainhead by some recommendation. Of course, the fear was offset by couple of factors. He didn’t know what the novel was about. 90% of the reviews of this bestseller book were negative. He had never heard of a name called Ayn Rand. There was more important factor to it. His roomy “King” who is an avid novel reader, told this novel is not of his type. But then accidents happen in life. After one of the frequent debates, his senior manager has advised him to read “ the emotional intelligence”. He visited crossword some time that week end. Read the first para of the preface! “ What a bullshit?” Came back without purchasing anything. But he has to read something. He picked up the novel from King’s shelf. And thats the accident.

Consequences of accident are some times so amazing that any planned thing in the life cant create such a great climax. The consequence of this accident was putting down the papers in the office next day without giving a damn to “what next?” The great lesson learned here “ If you cant make a tough decision in an hour, you will never make it.”

This is not review of the book. But i will just narrate the characters which you can find all but one at your work place. The order of their appearance dictates the abundance in descending order.

Peter Keating : One aspiring to be successful and complete believer of “whatever it takes”. A street smart guy, well versed in corporate etiquettes. But no skills of his own. But knows how to manipulate the things and use others to his advantage. But if your achievements are secondhand, your own definition of success has to be! It depends on how much people praise you. The greed for fame leads to his demise.

Ellsworth Toohey: A so called great philanthropist, very soft-spoken. A strong proponent of social gathering which are seemingly harmless. In public opinion, he is a nice guy to be with. His job is to manipulate the world order! But he is a shrewd person. The very dangerous agenda he drives is very simple. “Don’t let the genius occupy the top spot, because if he does it, you can’t replace him.”

Dominique Francon : A strange agenda. “All great creative things are misused and exploited. So destroy them rather then letting them being spoiled in incompetent hands.”

Gail Wynand: This is one tough rebel. Agenda is simple “ i dont give a damn to what you think about me because i can make you think the way i want to.” A media Zar. Ready to take on any challenge. He will crush every thing that hinders his path. Very stubborn character. He can scrify everything but wld stick to his agenda. And this lonely warrior is bound to suffer, but who cares?

Howard Roark : The ideal state. Many wld want to achieve but simply not possible! Strictly devoted to his work! Absolutely impervious to what you think about him. You may confuse him with

Gail Wynand. But he is a step or two away from him. “ I don’t think about you!”

Now, its easy understand why the novel is rated so negatively. But  when you go to workplace next morning , just compare people around you and you will find one but all  the characters above. Happy working! :D

They say “Its nice to be good”.  But then why do people want to be bad? B’coz its fun. Some of the interesting quotes from devil’s advocate, godfather and departed and so on..

The Devil’s Quotes

1. Freedom, baby... is never having to say you're sorry.

2. What about love? ---- Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate.

3. The worst vice is advice.

4. I'll make him an offer he can't refuse.

5. Where does it say that you can't kill a cop?

6. It's not personal. It's strictly business.

7. Only don't tell me you're innocent. Because it insults my intelligence and makes me very angry.

8. If anything in this life is certain, if history has taught us anything, it is that you can kill anyone.

9. Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.

10. No! Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.

11. It's dangerous to be an honest man.

12. When you decide to be something, you can be it. That's what they don't tell you in the church

13. They would say we can become cops, or criminals. Today, what I'm saying to you is this: when you're facing a loaded gun, what's the difference?

14. I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.

15. No one gives it to you. You have to take it.

16. Church wants you on your place. Kneel, stand, kneel, stand. If you go for that sort of thing, I don't know what to do for you.

17. We're the only people who are impervious to psychoanalysis.

18. A man could look at anything, and make something out of it. For instance, I look at you and I think "what could I use you for?"

19. They hijack a plane, we take out an airport.

20. Did you know that I can buy nuclear warheads in Minsk for forty million each? Hell, I'd buy half a dozen and even get a discount!

     

Tags: devil, quotes

This not a movie review but its about the incident that happened after this movie was resealed. Rocky went to Institute cafeteria around midnight. He was a in the queue for coffee tokens. And he was surprised to listen “Rocky” in chorus by a group of girls. This gang did sound different today. But he was least bothered about it. Rocky: “ whats up gals?” One of them replied back “ We just watched Chak De India! Did u watch it? “ Rocky “ I don’t want to waste my money to watch that monkey in the movie. I ha-a-te SH_SH_ Shaaahrukh.” All of them laugh off this comment at once. One of then confronts back “ You don't have guts to watch that movie.” And all of them laugh once again. Rocky is really confused now. “ Is it a horrer movie? And if it is so scary that I can’t watch it, you gals will definitely faint.” Actually Rocky was not scared to watch highly rated scary movies. There is one exception:- the climax of Ek Haseena Thi. That surely did sent a shiver down his spine. One gal replied back “ If you have guts, go and watch the movie.” And all of them laugh at him once again. Rocky really believed that this movie must be banned in India as it has provoked these bovine gals, to confront. He replies back “ I wont waste my money and time for that stupid movie and you gals don’t ever dream this stupid tactic of challenging me would provoke me to go and watch that movie.”

Two weeks down the line, Institute hockey teams screens free show of the same movie. He is once again challenged to go and watch the movie and he cant even make the excuse of money being wasted. He has to go for the show. He understands, why the gang of gals were so much forceful about it. He has a good sense of whats going to follow after the movie. Once again he has an encounter with those ladies at the cafeteria. All of them look very confident and with a spark of victory in their eyes. In the queue, the leader of the gang forgets to pay the money for the tokens and later says “ Oh my God, this is so stupid, i forgot to pay the money.” Rocky grins, “ Its ok. You are a girl” And all of them were waiting for something this to happen.

The leader replies back “ Wake up stupid boy. Haven’t you watched the movie? Its now very clear that females can do whatever they decide to do! Boys like you will be loosers at the end unless you stop underestimating the women power!”. This great claptrap is greeted with a round of applause by other ladies.

All of them are waiting to see what this would be looser has to say. Rocky finally replies “ That was a great movie but I think none of you ladies got it correctly even after watching it twice. The movie says that females can do whatever they want to” . He is interrupted: “ So you agree that now.”.

Rocky: “Let me complete my statement . The movie says that females can do whatever they want to, provided a man teaches them how to do it!” He looks all the pity faces. Thats a good opportunity and Rocky wont miss it. He continues “ I am not telling you what my opinion is but i am just summarizing what the movie is about. And why the hell do you need to watch a movie to decide what you are capable of? “. He is about to leave but he turns back “ May be if, you people have guts to watch that movie next time, I will sponsor it!”

Ever wondered, how can one create a website that will stay away from spiders (search engine bots) but only a couple of people will know about it.

One way is to encrypt it and share the key with desired set of users.

But this is not attractive for two reasons.

1. Its not scalable and people linking to your page can expose to search engine bots

2. This is too simple and sounds too easy. And people do like complex things!

So lets look at the complex way of doing this hiding stuff.

But b4 we do it, lets peep into how search engine can reach your page and how other people can know about it. There are two classes of search engines. The first class is like a database. You need to manually submit your page to these search engines. So any search query is as good as a database query. But these are not a threat to your privacy.

What is a real nightmare, are search engines like Google. These are crawl based search engines. So how hell do they work and why are they so robust. They start with a (not actually one but a set of good pages generally called as seed) page. And then they fetch all the pages pointed to by this page ( this is generally done by generating HTTP requests for corresponding servers). And these pages are queued and then the pages pointed to these page are fetched. Naively this resembles to Breadth First Search of the web. And this ritual is called CRAWL. Well, the search engine got your page. Then how will other users know about your page?

Alright, lets say your page talks about nuclear establishments of our country. And some one in ISI fires a query about "nuclear weapons of India" in Google search tab ( Sounds like a Science Fiction, i doubt ISI people know that Google can be used to do this stuff :P). The search engine goes through all the pages it has fetched and searches for the words that the ISI guy typed in the search bar ( believe me, it is not as simple as this line makes it to look). Now, it finds say 1000 pages matching this query. But Google has to show only ten results per page and only one guy can be placed on the top and only ten pages can be in top 10. Simple arithmetic! Isn't it? Not really. A complex economics depends on this sequence of this links. First thing, if you don't find a relevant page in top 20 ( to be frank, in top 5) you will be disappointed with Google and it cant afford to disappoint an ISI guy on such issues. Next time, if 9/11 happens, one of the targets will be Google’s data center. ( Thats too much of imagination.) In short, the problem is this. If Google disappoints you again and again, you will stop using it. Why the hell should Google give a damn to your disappointment? Anyway, you didn't pay anything to Google for the CPU cycles it burnt for you. This is like expecting Google to be too courteous! No my dear! Though Google does it free for you, someone pays for that. The ads that come with your search result generate huge money for Google.

Hence, to decide the sequence of these results Google has to do something far sophisticated than coin tossing. This sophisticated mechanism is called raking. A page that receives higher rank is gona appear at top. Wait a min. Lets say, there is a guy running a chain of grocery shops, and he want to make sure that people know about him. Two decades back has grandfather wld have preferred to publish an add in news paper. A decade back his father wld have gone the TV way. But this modern guy will create a web page and make sure that it appears in top results for relative queries in Google. But for that, he has to design a really good page. Just thats not enough. To get a high rank, lot of good pages have to point to his pages. And whats of criterion of goodness? One is, more number of keywords on his page. Thats simple! He can stuff a lot of keywords may be 10000 in his page but make sure that user can't see them. And a nice way to do this is place them in title, meta tags or to having these words same color as the back-ground.

Okay! The page now is good. But Google still does not know this page. So he goes to a good site say Rediff.com and then there will be some news article say Bhajji VS simonds. There this guy puts his opinion in comments and then puts a link to his page there. Then he goes to some Web design forum. Talks about html scripting but doesn't forget to put link to his page there. Now, there are many guys pointing to this page and all of them are good. So Google finally crawls this grocery portal. All this is called SEO- search engine optimization, but done in bad way.

This was possible some 4 years back. But now Google has become smarter. It can find such pages and punish these nasty pages. It your page has too much meta data, too many keyword and invisible text, your page will be considered bad and its labeled as SPAM. Don't confuse it with mail spam.

But why the hell you need to know all this to keep information away from Google? We will soon get to it. But lets say you want the page to be known a trusted set of user. But one of them either deliberately puts link to this page on some site and Google comes to this pages. So how are you going to stop it.

First thing the web sever can make out, if the HTTP request has been sent by a spider or a browser. Assume , the request is generated by Google bot. You can ask the webserver to refuse this request. Thats possible only if your daddy owns that server. But lets say he doesn't. And still you want to remain hidden. But anyway the page will go to Google. How the hell can you make sure that it doesn't reach the user. One way is to make it look like a spam page. Stuff it will hell lot of key-words. Put too many dots and dashes in the url. Use hell lot of invisible text. If possible start the URL with numbers and make it as long as possible. If possible go ahead and host it on .biz domain.

Google will rank it as Spam and it wont be served to user. But why should you trust me. Not a problem. Don't trust me but atleast trust in the ability of spam filter team of Google.

What will the ISI guy think about Google? Thats Google’s headache.

Tags: rank, search engine, seo, spam

They say “Obvious is the most dangerous word in mathematics!” This sentence is not added just to make this blog look like a good essay in 10^th class exam. Its the one line summary of what u can expect next! So here we go. It all started with a problem in analysis class. The problem is this

Show that the interval [0,1) has same cardinality as [0,1)*[0,1).

A bit of explanation for people not familiar with analysis.

On a real line the set [0,1) represents all the points x such that 0 <= x < 1 . And in two dimensional real plane [0,1)*[0,1) represents all the points with coordinates (x, y) such that 0 <= x < 1; 0 <= y < 1. So its the square of unit area with one vertex at the origin! So the problem is to show that both these sets have same number of points.

This is not an open problem. There are solutions in the text books which use some sort of binary expansion of numbers. But that doesn't give any idea about where the points go.

As an engineer, Rocky is expected to take a constructive approach and thats exactly what he does.

Day One : Rocky says, you can look at the [0,1)*[0,1) as a set of horizontal line segments placed above each other such that on that line segment y coordinate is fixed and x coordinates takes values from 0 to 1 (1 is excluded) ! So what we can do is take out each of these line segments and place next to each other and try to fit them in the interval [0,1).

Comments Received: This is OBVIOUSLY not going to work. With one segment itself the interval [0,1) will run out of space.

Day Two: Here is what rocky has done to make the obvious statement look pretty stupid. Lets say for each natural number k>1 , there is line segment in [0,1)*[0,1) whose y coordinate is (1/k)). Now take the line corresponding to k=2 (that is line line segment whose y coordinate is ½ ). Compress x co-ordinate of every point by 2. This is clearly an injective map ( no two points get the same value that is if p/2=q/2 the p=q. High school maths stuff!) Now , this line segments has shrinked to half its length. Place this line segment on [0,1) between [0, ½). Now take the line corresponding to k=3. Compress x co-ordinate of every point by 4 and place it on [0,1) between [½, ¾). Eureka, Rocky has placed two line segments and still some space is left. So if you are a person who love to solve this kind of puzzle, just wait for a moment and guess how to go about remaining lines corresponding to all natural numbers. Yes you have guessed it right! For the ith line segment u shrink the line segment by a factor of (2^(i-1)). And keep on doing this till infinity . So the end u have the relation satisfied (½ + ¼ +1/8 + --------------- to infinity =1). So u have placed infinitely many lines.

Day Three: The comments : Hey Rocky thats a good trick but it wont go anywhere. In Countable points only u filled the entire line segment. But u have to consider the lines corresponding to uncountably many reals between [0,1) And its OBVIOUS that u wont be able to accommodate even rationals.

Day Four: Rocky thinks his smart looking trick is not going anywhere. But then why the hell did it work for integers. Because they are countable. And what does it mean? To be precise, you can enumerate them. But is the set of integers  the  only countable set? NO!!!!!!!! Even the set of rationals is countable. Thats a ray of hope. But Where the hell is the space on the bloody [0,1) line segment?

Day Five: Rocky says “lets start from the scratch!” Since we can enumerate the rationals lets pick the first rational in [0,1). Say r1, compress the corresponding line segment on [0,1)*[0,1) by 2 place in on [0,1]. Pick next rational and compress the corresponding line segment on [0,1)*[0,1) by 4 place in on [0,1] at [½ , ¾) continue this till u have done with all the rationals. And you have all these rational line on the [0,1] line segment.

Day Six: Comments “ Thats cool Rocky. But u need to understand that this is max u can go. Because what is remaining next is irrationals numbers. And there is no way to count them. Simply because they are uncountable. And you are just wasting your time.”

Rocky “Why the hell this is the dead end! And why are all the irrationals so bad that u don't know how to reach them. Why the hell are all of then uncountable! HOLD ON. Thats not quite correct. You can count some of them. And these good natured devils are called Algebraic Numbers! (Note that every rational number is an algebraic number) These are countably many. So one can repeat the argument about the rationals!

Day Seven: Rocky has got pretty emotional with this problem now. He has fought against all the odds and came so far. Its hard to accept that this is dead end. But there doesn't seem to be any way to proceed. How to tackle the transcendental numbers?

So in this situation, what one is supposed do is go back to basics! Ok. Let me ask a question!

How the hell the reals were constructed and why the hell these sons of gun were needed at first place?

One answer: Because square root of two is not in rationals. That was sort of bad. To be bit technical: there is sequence in rational numbers which goes to arbitrarily close to square root of two. So irrationals are the limits points of these sequences. And thats how they are reached. So Rocky wonders: ” What on earth can stop me from reaching them?” But you may be wondering where will their line segments be placed. Rocky is not bothered about it. Because in last seven days he has learned to create the room if it is not there. The only question that bothers him is where to create it?

Day eight : Now you have placed all line segments for the algebraic numbers on the line segment [0,1). We know that there is a sequence of rationals and hence of algebraic numbers that converges to a given transcendental number 't' . So pick a rational number whose distance from this transcendental number is less than 2^-100, say 'r1'. And the line segment corresponding to 'r1' is sitting somewhere on the [0,1) interval say [a,b) and its length is (2^-k). Divide this line segment into two halves. You can compress the line segment in by factor of two and place it in the first half. And the line corresponding to 't' is compressed by a factor of (2^ - (k+1)). And it is placed in the second half. Do this for all the transcendental numbers.

Day Nine : Rocky thinks “ This is Obviously going to work!” So does every one else. So its time to meet Professor and present the proof. He meets the professor and presents the proof. Professor listens this 10 min long argument quite patiently and replies back “ The approach is definitely good. But there is hole in the argument.” Rocky: “And what is that?” Professor “ Since there are uncountably many transcendental numbers, and only countably many algebraic numbers , each interval corresponding to an algebraic number will get compressed uncountably many times. So whats the guarantee that it does not vanish, becomes just of length zero.” Thats really a painful setback and particularly when someone puts so much of heart into something! Rocky looses his cool head. He asks back “Can you prove that this is going to happen?” That was an over smart argument! Professor replies back “ Rocky , its like this! Something can not be proved to be wrong does not mean that its correct. In maths you got to be RIGOROUS!”

And thats a gospel truth. Emotions can't justify mathematical arguments.

Day 10: Rocky finds it too hard to forget the problem. After coming so close to a solution, how can method be wrong. Wait a min. Its not wrong. Its INCOMPLETE! So whats the deficiency? He thinks of something. He realizes that he has reached a point where he needs some help. He doesn't know answer to a question and this is mathematically valid question. So lets get back to professor . “Professor , i want to ask you a question. Its just paraphrasing of what we discussed yesterday.” Rocky is bit hesitated after yesterday's argument. But to his surprise professor is willing to listen”Go ahead”. Rocky “ I have an uncountable set X. And an injective function 'f' from X to X. If i take uncountably many compositions of this function, will that still be an injective function?” Professor “Thats a nice paraphrasing. Now, you are talking maths! I will think about it and get back to you.”

Day 11 and 12: Rocky continues to think but doesn't make any progress.

Day 13: The prof is ready with answer. And he has written it down! Thats too much of commitment! I wish at least 50% of Indian professors show this level of commitment. The situation of academics wont be so bad. Okey ! So the professor defines all the terms needed and tells the possible way to proceed. So in short this is his argument. “ How we define countable infinite sum of numbers? Its a series! We want to go one step ahead. To each real number on [0,1) we assign a real value and take the sum of these values. This is what we call an integral (of course it has to exist )! Now instead of values you take functions and instead of sum you take compositions. The analogue of integral (if it exists in this case) is what exactly we are looking for. And it does exist for identity function. So the situation is not so bad. But thats what the functional analysis is all about!”

So Rocky is still one course away from that. None the less, the hope is still alive. He has developed a very strong faith in a Math Quote “ Maths is like love: a simple idea that can get very complicated!”

Ref:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countable This is a ref for all the basics of countable sets.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantor's_diagonal_argument This is good ref for unaccountability of real numbers

http://planetmath.org/encyclopedia/AlgebraicNumbersMayBeSetInASequence.html A ref for algebraic numbers.

Tags: analysis, countable sets, maths, uncountable sets.
Current Mood: geeky

This was a Saturday in June. Rocky has to go to work. His friends had planned to go for a movie “Darana Mana Hain”. Rocky is told that his tickets have been booked and he has to make it to the multiplex at 7:00pm. They wont buy any excuse. Rocky goes to the work-place which is 3 km away from the town. The road to the work place goes through completely barren terrain. One can get an auto from the bus stop by paying extra amount but one has to be really lucky to get an auto from work place to bus stop. Rocky gets the invitation from the Boss at 10:00am . “Rocky, as you know we are setting up a new lab. I want you to drive this set up. Its just a task of 6 hours. The workers will land up here at 11 am . You have to instruct them in person and get the work done. I know that you will have to stay a little longer than the others. As today is Saturday, every one will leave at 3 pm. But i am sure you wont mind!” Thats double whammy! Over-time on Saturday and then Rocky calculates. If the work starts at 11, it will be finished by 5:00. Then it will take at least 20 mins to walk to the bus stop and from there 60 mins to reach the multiplex. This is really tight schedule.

On any day of this sort, things are not meant to go smoothly. The workers come 30 min late. Rocky briefs them about the layout of the cables. That takes another 10 mins. Now the schedule has already gone for a toss. Rocky decides to bunk the lunch. At 3:pm, boss arrives in the lab. He says “hows it going?”. Rocky: “It will take another 3 hrs”. Boss: “Good. Finish it off today.” And he leaves. Rocky realizes that he hasn't ate anything and not even drank water for last 4 hrs. He asks the workers take 10 mins break and then they can start. He goes to canteen. Wat he finds is just some chips. OK. Something is better than nothing. He gets back to work.

At 4:pm. A young lady arrives in the lab. She enquirers about the boss. Rocky tells that the boss has left an hr ago and she can meet him directly on Monday. The lady seems upset. But Rocky has no time for all this drama. She leaves the lab. 10 mins later she gets back to lab. She says :” Hello Mr. Sorry to disturb but i don't know the road to bus stop!” Rocky : ” How did u get here?” Lady: “I got an Auto but now there are no Autos outside.” Rocky draws the map and gives it to her. She leaves the lab. She has eaten his 10 mins. Rocky breathes sigh of relief and gets back to work.

At 4:30. “Mr, I am really sorry to disturb you again”. The same feminine voice jerks his eardrums. Rocky is frustrated. He asks “Now what?”. The lady replies back in shivering voice “ I walked down the road for 5 mins. But there is no one on the road. I am really scared. I couldn't go any further. So i came back.” Rocky: “What can i do in this matter? “ Lady replies back: “ I thought, may be i will go with you when you leave the office. If you don't mind.!” . Rocky:” Alright, but i will take 60 to 90 mins. I can't leave before that!” Lady “ I will prefer to wait.” She occupies a chair in the corner. Rocky gets back to work. The work is proceeding damn slow. After 30 mins, the lady asks “ What exactly is happening?” Rocky replies back “ A new lab is being set up!” Lady :“ How many machines? “ Rocky:“ 20!” . The rapid fire round continues for 5more mins. Lady: “When was this office built.” Thats totally irrelevant question! Rocky fires back. “Enough! No more questions. If you want to stay here, please be silent.”

Rocky is back to work. 30 mins later, the anxious voice asks “Its already 5:30. Can we leave now?” Rocky,”No!” Lady:“ The sun will set in half an hour.” Rocky, “ I am sorry miss. I got to finish this job. If you want to leave, please do so. I cant leave now. And if you want to stay please don't disturb me. It will only cause further delay.” Rocky calls back his friends and informs that he will directly reach the theater at 7:00.

Rocky finishes the job at 6:00. The workers take another 10 mins to pack the instruments. Rocky “ Miss, we can leave now!” . They lock the lab and start walking down the barren road. Rocky is moving pretty fast. The lady is lagging behind. She almost shouts “ Can't you walk slower?” Rocky “No! My friends are waiting for me and i have to touch the multiplex asap.” But her legs don't move any faster.. She requests “Please lets go slow!” Rocky blasts at her “ Whats you problem? I am not asking for a sprint! Can't you even walk a bit faster?” The lady has almost broke into tears:” I have missed my lunch today! On top of that i have also donated my blood today morning!” She shows the bandage on her forearm. “ I am totally exhausted. Cant walk any faster!” Rocky realizes that he has been too harsh. “Well, but that means u need to reach home early and eat something! Now that should be good temptation to walk faster.” That was a poorly attempted joke!

Rocky now realizes that even he has missed the lunch. They are at the bus stop. Rocky says ” Ok good bye, Miss! You can get your bus now.” The lady asks “Where are you going now?” Rocky:”I am going to the restaurant.” The lady replies back “ I also want to eat something, i will come with you. I will treat you for helping me!”. Rocky replies back. “ I don't take treats from strangers! “ . He gets the ans “ Well, then you can treat me!” That was really a bad sense of humor.

Rocky,  irritated with this conversation, tries hard to keep his head cool. He ponders for a min:  “ Ok , We will do TTMM. Tera tu mera main! But here you need to finish fast”. They finish the snack fast. Its already 6:15.

The lady requests, “ Can you please drop me to my home! My family has moved to this city just two days back and i really don't know anything about this city. I stay in the camp” One more story! Rocky say in mind “ this is one more drama (kya nautanki hain sala?)”. Anyways he can make an excuse. “ look miss. my multiplex and ur camp are totally at the other ends of the city. I have to first go to the central bus stop and change the bus. Thats going to take hell lot of time. So i cant help u any further!” Lady :“please!” . Rocky” No way”. Lady :” you can at least take me to central bus stop then may be i will go on my own from there. “ Rocky thinks” oh God! When will i be relieved from this escort duty?” Rocky: “ OKEY!”

They get into the bus and get down at central bus station. Rocky “ hey, your bus is already there. Go fast.” The lady asks his name and gets into the bus.

Rocky gets his bus and gets to the multiplex. He is 45 min late. The movie is really crap. Every one is frustrated.

After the movie, his friends scold Rocky for being late. He narrates the entire story. And all off a sudden, all his friends shout at him. “ You nonsense boy. Why cld you not drop that poor lady at her home?” Rocky: “ Come on guys! I promised to join you for the movie! And i have kept it!” One of them hits back “ we wld have been more happy had you not kept you promise for sake of helping that lady. Anyway the movie was carp. Was the lady beautiful?” Now Rocky thinks for a moment: “I think she was.” Friend: “whats her name?” Rocky “ i don know! I didn't ask.” Every one laughs in chorus: “You are really stupid!1”

Monday morning. “Rocky, that lady will come there to meet your boss. Ask her name today.” Rocky gets a warning from his friend. AT 11 am rocky is reading in the  library. One of his colleagues drops in. She says, “Rocky, I thought, you are a shy boy from small town but you seem to have some extraordinary skill with gals!” Rocky is really annoyed with this remark: “ What happened?”  Colleague: “ A cute lady wants to meet you! She says she has already met you on Saturday and she forced to me to look for you in the entire office. She is waiting at your cabin! Seems to be pretty impressed.”

Rocky walk to his cabin! The lady: “ I just dropped in to say thanks to you Mr Rocky!” Rocky: “ Ok!”

With the remarks about extraordinary skills still in his brain, he cant talk any further. She leaves.

Evening: Rocky meets his friends. The first question “ Did she come today? ” Rocky “ Yes!”  Second question: “Whats her name!” . Rocky :“ i didn't ask”. The entire group laughs except for one guy.  He says " I lost a bet because of you.I never knew you wld do this. Now i have to treat this entire group!” Rocky:” Thats fantastic. Lets enjoy the treat!”

Tags: personality

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