Thursday, January 29, 2009

Download Hindi Fonts

Krutidev & Walkman chanakya fonts - Hindi fonts
these are generally used to design hindi newspapers



How to install the fonts?

unzip

go to "control panel" --- fonts-- file---install new fonts

When u click a dialog box will open -- browse to the unzipped folder---all fonts will be seen --- select one or all and install !!

Monday, January 5, 2009

Mind Structure

I love Sigmund Freud's work. His work in the realms of the human mind and personality is mindblowing. He had once famously said, " I was the only worker in a new field." And that explains the challenges before him.

For him, nothing was ever accidental. Even a slip of tongue was enough to gain insight into the mind of a person because it reflects the working of the unconscious mind. Say a patient tells his doctor inadvertently, "please do not give me any more bills" instead of "pills", it shows the patient to be financially stressed. Similarly, our repressed sexual, aggressive and other tendencies make their way out through jokes and sarcasms.

He said that human personality- including its emotions and strivings-arose due to a conflict between our aggressive pleasure-seeking biological impulses and the social restraints against them.

Our mind is like an iceberg. As we know, 90% of the mass of the iceberg is under water & only 10 % above it. Our conscious awareness is that part of the iceberg which floats above the surface. Below the surface is the much larger unconscious region which contains thoughts, wishes, feelings and memories of which we are largely unaware. For instance, a child below 18 months loves to suck a finger. I have seen parents commanding harshly to remove the finger or simply removing the finger from the mouth themselves. They repeat it till the child loses that habit. However, a conflict has arisen. Children who never quite resolve this conflict have a great chance of becoming"orally-fixated" in their adult life. They might continue to seek oral gratification through smoking or excessive eating. Or they might exhibit passive dependence like that of a nursing infant.

I have drawn an image to describe the mind functioning.



The conflicts which we were talking about, revolve around three interacting systems. In simple words:

Id - pleasure principle - makes the mind seek instant gratification.

Ego - Reality principle - seeks to satisfy Id's impulses in a realistic way. ( for instance, a sexually starved person might feel like having sex with someone. However, ego contains and restrains by showing the real-life demands of the external world. So instead of forcing someone, the person chooses to find a consenting partner. This person might be a prostitute or a life partner or just some consenting person)

Superego- It is a voice of conscience that forces the ego to consider not only the real but also the ideal. (In the above example of the sexually starved person, he/she might consider a prostitute as not-ideal according to the value system/culture. Instead, that person might wait for a life partner to gratify sexual needs.)

A few days back, i was coming home from dombivli station. It was around 9.30 pm. In front of me, a person was partly walking and partly swaying under the influence of alcohol. In such an inebriated stage, our real nature seeks to come out. In front of us there was an unmanned cart full of apples. Now, this man immediately stole one apple and hid it behind his back and kept walking. The vendor saw this and came running and confronted him. The man immediately gaave up the apple and went forward. I hurried to see what he would do next. As soon as he saw a bend, he went into it and then started running, looking back all the time. I followed too. He then went into some society compund and hid there for some time. When he felt safe, he came out.

In an inebriated state, the id became dominant. He lost sight of the real world and the ideal world. Theft was not his main motive though. If theft had been his innermost desire, he wouldn't have given up the apple so easily. His desire was of thrill. Thrill of doing something naughty like a child. When he was caught, he didn't quite comprehend what was happening though he very obediently returned the apple. However in a few seconds he had some inkling of the reality. His ego and superego woke up to make him run and hide. He felt scared maybe because of the fear of being beaten. He became aware enough to protect himself.

I am reminded of another incident. This was in 1999. I was traveling from Pilani to Delhi by bus at night. There was a bus driver and a companion who was supposed to be a backup driver. He was fully drunk and swinging to the tunes of "chamma chamma". I hadn't got a seat and so i was sitting in the driver's area on the cross seat. He couldn't be brought under control at all. However, his Id was the only dominant energy here. So he could uninhibitedly do whatever he felt like doing.The same is the case with any child.It startes crying when it wants something. As the ego develops, the young child begins to cope with the real world.Well, in the morning when he came back to his senses, i told him of his behaviour thoughout the night. He couldn't believe his ears at all !!

The superego's demands often oppose the Id's and the ego struggles to reconcile the two.




Sunday, November 30, 2008

Railway employee to the rescue


I have seen people always cribbing about the inefficiency and apathy of railway officials. Government working today has become very very efficient and this i could know only when i worked in the railways.Yet the public perception is that they are inefficient, unintelligent and never offer help.

Yet one man's actions might change this perception to some extent. I am talking about railway announcer zhende whose actions at CST on the night of attack saved a lot of lives. Read this news article from ndtv.com

" The indiscriminate firing by terrorists at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) in Mumbai took many lives. However, many other lives were saved because of one ordinary Mumbaikar who announces railway timetables for a living.

It was a usual evening shift for VD Zhende, making announcements of suburban train arrivals and departures from his small office room, overlooking the CST in south Mumbai when two terrorists entered near the main line and started firing at the passengers.

VD Zhende says, "I heard a loud explosion and then I saw public running. So, we started announcing for the government railway police (GRP) and the railway protection force (RPF)."

However, the police for some reason did not appear on time.

“Only when public started coming with blood all over, I realised that there was some gunfight happening. So I started announcing that all passengers go out from platform 1 and not go towards the main line, recalls Zhende.

Bullets were fired at them .The announcer and his colleague only hid from the gunfire after the platform was completely evacuated .

Co-worker Shekhar says, “They (terrorists) were standing right in front of us for half an hour. They had huge guns and grenades.”

When the terrorists reached the suburban line, a platform generally milling with people, was already evacuated.

The presence of mind of one man saved hundreds of lives on the evening of November 26."

Hope this sensitizes the people to the humane side of the government employees to some extent atleast.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Nuggets - Human mind :)




"Foolish and clever, mean and almost saintly, diversely unhappy- they are all dear to my heart; it seems to me that i do not properly understand them and my soul is filled with an inextinguishable interest in them. Many of them whom i knew are dead; i am afraid that except me there is no one who will tell their story as i would like to do and dare not; it will seem as though such men had never existed on earth at all....."

"The people i am most fond of are those who are not quite achieved; who are not very wise, a little mad, 'possessed'. The people of sound mind have little interest for me. The achieved man, the one perfect like an umbrella,does not appeal to me. I am called and doomed, you see, to describe - and what could i say of an umbrella but that it is of no worth on a sunny day?"

"A man, slightly possessed, is not only more agreeable to me; he is altogether more plausible, more in harmony, with the general tune of life, a phenomenon, unfathomed yet, and fantastic, which makes it at the same time so confoundedly interesting."

MAXIM GORKI "Two Stories"
The Dial, 1927, pp 197-98

Monday, September 1, 2008

An imagery of chess !!



Mikhail Tal - Mad Maverick
Piercing Gaze - Used to set the board on fire

Always felt " perplexed & stunned" while analyzing his masterpieces !!




The legendary Polgar sisters !!!
Now and then :)
I have only studied Judit Polgar's games.. the others are good but i never felt inspired by any lady GM's games ....... always felt unsure of the standards



A Chess Float at the Women's World Chp currently underway
Great idea !! Never even thought of it before !



The opening ceremony continues - so spectacular !!



The picture says it all !!
GM Wang Yue (China, 21 years) coming out of the tournament hall after hanging on to a draw in a lost position against legendary 87 year old Viktor Kortchnoi !!
Tournament - Rising Stars v/s Experienced event in amsterdam, 20-30 aug 2008

The last time i saw Wang Yue was in 2003 in Malaysia. He is a very energetic player and his mouth chewing a gum moves faster than his hand during time pressure. He is a product of the chinese dragon sports culture initiative which uses military like discipline to bring up players.



Would love to have such a chess set :) Saw one such set in a store opposite Petronas towers, Malaysia ... it was around 2000 ringitts which converts to around Rs. 25000



The real way to enjoy a game of chess
Be in one !!!


Friday, August 29, 2008

No No - Why So ?


U r a real no-nonsense woman
sitting in ur no-where land
making all ur no no plans for nobody

Don't u have a heart to cheer
know u not what u r missing dear
aren't u too a bit like me?

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Food for Thought !!

I had read this article in Mahindra & Mahindra office during my summers....pasted on a wall :)

Saw this circulating in mails too....nice article to share :)

It's been said that God first separated the salt water from the fresh, made dry land, planted a garden, made animals and fish... all before making a human. He made and provided what we'd need before we were born. These are best & more powerful when eaten raw.

God left us a great clue as to what foods help what part of our body!

God's Pharmacy! Amazing!
A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye. The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye... and YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.
A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.
Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart. Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.
A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums. Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.
Kidney Beans
actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.
Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don't have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak. These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.
Avocados, Eggplants and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today's research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this? It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (mo dern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).
Figs
are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow. Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.
Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actual ly bal ance the glycemic index of diabetics.
Olives assist the health and function of the ovaries
Oranges, Grapefruits, and other Citrus fruits look just l ike the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.
Onions look like the body's cells. Today's research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes. A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.