need for power

or is it technique? was at the imf bouldering comp today -- masters level (should have competed in advanced, since masters was mainly the pro-category). anyway, it was good to be out and competing. i lacked focus ans planning, though got further than i initially thought. next time, i should be more calm, and speak to myself. itching to go back on wednesday and try the routes, specially the second one (total there were two routes, 4mins each). enough fun for sunday morning, time to catch up on work a bit!

secular canteen

aka mezban. i came back from imf, and the lights went off. so we decided to go for a walk followed by dinner. a nice walk across the campus brought us close to the jnu. in spite of it being a friday evening, when mezban is known for being super busy we went there. surprisingly it was empty! only later d unraveled the mystery -- minor 1 starts next day, of course! the food was great, we dined sumptuously on dal, tandoor alu, and some mutton preparation whose name i cant recall. after dinner, we headed back home -- a half-hour walk saw us home. it wasnt too hot, though it was sultry which seems to be the norm in delhi these days. more later.

feeling stretched

I know this is normal in this age, but i try to avoid this state. Of late I have been unsuccessful, miserably unsuccessful, and its obvious the less updates I have been putting in (for myself) in this diary. My reading has also been sketchy. At least going to imf and running -- two things I have managed to keep up, and some time spent on odd evenings for relaxing cooking. I should start combining cooking and a bit of reading. Anyway lets hope that today I am productive and manage to catch up on a few things, one or two ....

osaka

the japanese place near to hauz khas. its a tiny place, but the food is good. went there after an afternoon at IMF -- my second time this week. My fingers are sore due to the usual excuse but it feels good that way! more later.

really?

From today's newspaper: "A recent report of the National Family Health Survey 2005-06, says 47 per cent women in Uttar Pradesh believe it is justifiable for their husbands to beat up them. But what comes as a surprise is that the number of men who subscribe to this view is less — 44 per cent."

The last sentence is indeed very depressing. I am curious what % of this consists of urban population. Also its worth to note that this is just dealing with physical abuse, verbal abuse being not counted for. My guess is if that was included the numbers will be much higher --- even the notion of whats acceptable level of physical/mental abuse is can vary across person (although really the only acceptable level is NIL). Moving away from numbers, what does this really imply. It just shows us we do not honor our women enough, and for whatever reason women of our country have low self-respect. Its a culmination of how they are treated, their education, environment, myths, etc. Overall quite depressing -- no amount of economic improvement counts until we can address such a basic issue. The only comparable one may be basic education.

back in delhi

The week in LA was crazy. The conference was nice, quite nice. Spend too much time preparing for talks and practicing to myself. In the end it paid off, though missed quite a few parties. Met lots of people, and had a few interesting discussing sessions. Hope to carry forward a few of the work. Spend a relaxing day in San Diego, and then am back in Delhi. Hoping that I get some time to write up more details about the 'lost week' so that I have some record to look back for later days. May be I do that ... but not sure if I get to that.

nuthouse

After a nice dinner at the cuban place on california avenue, we went to nuthouse. Lot of folks showed up -- in no particular order, daniel, nils, primoz, hao, maks, jared, mike, and a few others from the climbing club. We hangout there for a while, talked about how things are going. It was nice evening! Devasree spend the day at monterey .. and the evening with me.

homecoming

Visiting Stanford for a few days. It feels good to be back here. For a change, Devasree is also traveling with me -- sweet. The lab is same in some aspects, and different in others. Difference mainly stemming from new members, getting to know the new kids. Went down to pg with Ren yesterday. Felt good to be back on the wall, did a couple of 11a for a change. The bouldering was good, but nothing spectacular. The Stanford gym was also a nice change, tons of memories, but all new faces --- only knew Ekin! May be meet Jared one of these days. We go for a drive today ....