Flora Fountain

The human body, consisting of about 10 trillion cells, carries about ten times as many microorganisms in the intestines

wow! so there are 100 trillion entities within the entity that I know as "me". 10 times more than the parts that are only "me". In fact they are ME!

A healthy adult has about 2kg of these bacteria in the gut. All these bacteria live in a highly organised micro-world with certain species predominating and controlling others.

Knowing this puts so many things into a new perspective:

The way to a man's heart is through his stomach

Damn right!, that's where most of "me" live!

Talk to the hand

I would rather that you talk to my gut, that's where all my veto power is concentrated!

A man is known by the company he keeps

Should be "community" instead of "company"

We are what we eat

Happy Realization! No, seriously!

Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.

Only place for me, and all the little ones that make up me!






Finally, if in the future someone walks up to me and asks me "who are you?", I will be confused as to what would constitute a scientifically correct answer!
Maybe I could answer philosophically (and scientifically!):

I am the sum of my experiences (and Gut Flora).

Explore further (quoted lines above, taken from these):

• Gut Flora (Wikipedia)
• List of distinct cell types in the adult human body (Wikipedia)
• The Gut Flora - This one makes it sound as if your intestines are like an airport's security check! The "beneficial flora" are the security personnel. They let the "transitional flora" pass through while the "opportunistic flora" are kept in check!
• Gut Sense: How to restore intestinal flora and eliminate constipation - This make a lot of sense, considering this post was inspired by a lengthy period of upset stomach.
• 15 Beautiful Microscopic Images from Inside the Human Body - Nothing to do with the topic at hand, but was so awesome that I had to link to it!

Liquid & music

You feel the blood pulsing through your veins;
your heart pounding against your breast.


You break out in a cold sweat;
your arms shivering.


You feel tears rolling down your cheeks;
your voice quivering.


You feel the warm dilute mucus running out your nose;
you sniffle, feel out of breath.


Liquid and Music


I feel you. I am happy.
You aren't breaking.
You are breaking free.

The Solid State

Flash memory chips are like vast penitentiaries of double insulated prison cells. But instead of morons, the cells hold electrons.

life-ish

Sachdeva, Upasna	Thu, May 3, 2012 at 1:54 PM
To: Anurag Chugh
Who knows why we live and what we are really meant to do. I mean how many people do you think really know what they want to do and do exactly that. But may be not as a whole, but in parts we usually know what we want in at each moment. And when we know what we want we feel alive. That is the only time we feel alive. Cuz when you know what you want you either get it or you don’t. and in both cases you feel the elation and pain which makes one feel human. The entire purpose of life is to feel human and breakable. Isn’t it?

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Anurag Chugh	Thu, May 3, 2012 at 2:17 PM
To: "Sachdeva, Upasna"
The entire purpose of life is to survive long enough to reproduce before becoming food for something else. Rest all is just stories we tell ourselves to satisfy our urge to seek a higher meaning. During the past few days I have formed an opinion about the age old question "What is the meaning of life?". I am beginning to think that question is stupid - Like the itch you just can't scratch enough. The more you scratch, the more it itches. So we must stop scratching. Because there seem to be better things to do - Like travel and explore and see weird wildlife and have adventures. Atleast these itches can be satiated. But still if you want to ask, then the more appropriate question to ask could be "Why does life exist?", the answer to which is another question: "Why not!" If this chain of logic satisfies you then you have risen above the khujli to look for meaning in life. And your focus will shift to observing how beautiful life is (and in your case how beautiful all emotions are too!) And then you go on, travelling, meeting people, seeking out new experiences, making stuff, telling stories, adventures, wildlife and maybe falling in love & falling out of love.  Shayad thru all this you find some one who will walk a longer distance with you as compared to others. Use life partner ka naam de dena. Agar dono decide karo ki you will promise to walk together long enough, then have kids otherwise don't. Raste mein phuls hai, fools hai, gobar hai, kaante hain, khadde hain, speed breaker hai.. kutte hain kamine hai.. sab sehte sehte chalo.. aur kya.. thoda deviate ho gaya tere topic se but..

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Sachdeva, Upasna	Thu, May 3, 2012 at 5:55 PM
To: Anurag Chugh
Responses in red below From: Anurag Chugh Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2012 2:17 PM To: Sachdeva, Upasna Subject: Re: life-ish The entire purpose of life is to survive long enough to reproduce before becoming food for something else. Bakwas…. Reproduce or sex? I think it’s the latter… i.e. satisfying primal urges… who the fuck cares whether you reproduce or not…. Rest all is just stories we tell ourselves to satisfy our urge to seek a higher meaning. During the past few days I have formed an opinion about the age old question "What is the meaning of life?".meaning of life is a different question from purpose of life… daring to ask what the purpose of life is means to ask what is the reason for living the next second that you have an opportunity to live … and as we just discussed, the purpose is only to find something that you want in this moment … no over-arching wants and desire but just a primal instinctive need… and go ahead and work to get it ….. that is it… I am beginning to think that question is stupid - Like the itch you just can't scratch enough. The more you scratch, the more it itches. So we must stop scratching. Because there seem to be better things to do - Like travel and explore and see weird wildlife and have adventures. Atleast these itches can be satiated. But still if you want to ask, then the more appropriate question to ask could be "Why does life exist?", the answer to which is another question: "Why not!" no you ass… life exists because by its existence it increases the entropy of the universe much more than it would if it weren’t existing!! If this chain of logic satisfies you then you have risen above the khujli to look for meaning in life. Well yes… temporarily… the point is not to rise above the khujli … the point it to khujlao so bad for some times so as to wound one self …. And then wail over the wounds and when the scars heal and the skin is new … khujlaoo bad once again …. And your focus will shift to observing how beautiful life is (and in your case how beautiful all emotions are too!) … ohhh don’t even get me started on the beauty of emotions … and tears and crying as an emotion is sooo much more prettier than laughter… And then you go on, travelling, meeting people, seeking out new experiences, making stuff, telling stories, adventures, wildlife and maybe falling in love & falling out of love…and making babies.. and some times behaving like babies …and sometimes dressing like “babies”! Shayad thru all this you find some one who will walk a longer distance with you as compared to others. Use life partner ka naam de dena. Agar dono decide karo ki you will promise to walk together long enough, then have kids otherwise don't. Raste mein phuls hai, fools hai, gobar hai, kaante hain, khadde hain, speed breaker hai.. kutte hain kamine hai.. sab sehte sehte chalo.. aur kya.. thoda deviate ho gaya tere topic se but..

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Anurag Chugh	Thu, May 3, 2012 at 6:56 PM
To: "Sachdeva, Upasna"
Blue.. On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 5:55 PM, Sachdeva, Upasna wrote: Responses in red below From: Anurag Chugh Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2012 2:17 PM To: Sachdeva, Upasna Subject: Re: life-ish The entire purpose of life is to survive long enough to reproduce before becoming food for something else. Bakwas…. Reproduce or sex? I think it’s the latter… i.e. satisfying primal urges… who the fuck cares whether you reproduce or not…. ok agreed, initial intention was reproduction, and natural selection favoured horny people because they tend to reproduce more... now we are just horny, regardless ki pregnant hua i nahin Rest all is just stories we tell ourselves to satisfy our urge to seek a higher meaning. During the past few days I have formed an opinion about the age old question "What is the meaning of life?".meaning of life is a different question from purpose of life… daring to ask what the purpose of life is means to ask what is the reason for living the next second that you have an opportunity to live … and as we just discussed, the purpose is only to find something that you want in this moment … no over-arching wants and desire but just a primal instinctive need… and go ahead and work to get it ….. that is it… I am beginning to think that question is stupid - Like the itch you just can't scratch enough. The more you scratch, the more it itches. So we must stop scratching. Because there seem to be better things to do - Like travel and explore and see weird wildlife and have adventures. Atleast these itches can be satiated. But still if you want to ask, then the more appropriate question to ask could be "Why does life exist?", the answer to which is another question: "Why not!" no you ass… life exists because by its existence it increases the entropy of the universe much more than it would if it weren’t existing!! .. waah mera dialog mujhe hi... ok you might have come to the same conclusion independently so lets give credit to both of us... but point is, if you are going to give me this reason ki randomness increase hone chahiye hai, thats why life exists, then i will ask "why increase?" .... jiska answer would be "why not!" If this chain of logic satisfies you then you have risen above the khujli to look for meaning in life. Well yes… temporarily… the point is not to rise above the khujli … the point it to khujlao so bad for some times so as to wound one self …. And then wail over the wounds and when the scars heal and the skin is new … khujlaoo bad once again …. abe this red lines of urs make sense by itself, but it is not appropriate here... the khujli i am talking about is the "Desire to look for meaning in life" and the khujli u are talking about is the "set of all generic desires which keep flitting across our minds". I am saying fuck "desire to look for meaning in life" because that khujli will never be satisfied and seems pointless. And i agree that we should succumb to "desire to do all the stuff u want to do". The various things that people like u and me wanna do are articulated below:   And your focus will shift to observing how beautiful life is (and in your case how beautiful all emotions are too!) … ohhh don’t even get me started on the beauty of emotions … and tears and crying as an emotion is sooo much more prettier than laughter…Personally i like observing the emotions of people who are in turn observing other people experiencing emotions!    And then you go on, travelling, meeting people, seeking out new experiences, making stuff, telling stories, adventures, wildlife and maybe falling in love & falling out of love…and making babies.. and some times behaving like babies …and sometimes dressing like “babies”! Shayad thru all this you find some one who will walk a longer distance with you as compared to others. Use life partner ka naam de dena. Agar dono decide karo ki you will promise to walk together long enough, then have kids otherwise don't. Raste mein phuls hai, fools hai, gobar hai, kaante hain, khadde hain, speed breaker hai.. kutte hain kamine hai.. sab sehte sehte chalo.. aur kya.. thoda deviate ho gaya tere topic se but..

Zip Zap Zoom & Poke

Screaming through the air,

tearing through the ether,

they blast through everything in their path - 

almost everything.

If they fail to achieve what they were born for,

more are sent from whence they came.

Sometimes flying free,

Sometimes scrambling through guided channels,

reincarnating repeatedly,

changing form,

jumping worlds.

They arrive at their destination.

A few pixels re modulate in the top right corner of your screen.

"You were poked by Anurag Chugh

poke back | remove poke"

Removing Coal Tar/Asphalt from shoes

Asphalt and Coal Tar are two distinct substance which are used construction of tarmac roads. Asphalt is used as a binder and coal tar is used as a sealant. And so if you are wearing new shoes (whose soles haven't had yet got coated with fine dust particles and hence become desensitized to sticky substances) and step on an area which has just been resurfaced, you are sure to get this dangerously sticky mixture of asphalt and tar and crushed rock aggregates embedded in crevices of your shoes' tread pattern.

Of course newly laid roads are required to be dusted with certain powder to make them not stick to tires and shoes.. but being India... sigh!
Anyway, so I got them shits stuck to my shoes .. what was I supposed to do?


A cobbler outside my office (and google search: team-bhp), told me that it was possible to remove the guck from my shoes using kerosene... but again, being India, its difficult to get your hands on any kerosene if you aren't classified as being Below Poverty Line and/or don't possess a Ration Card. And fuel stations refuse to sell diesel loose.


So I turned to WD-40 as suggested by remove asphalt from shoes & remove bubble gum (youtube).


So I got a small can of WD-40 (60 Rupees), a brush meant for scrubbing and washing clothes (30 Rupees), a few cotton wipes and a paper cutter and set to work.


I sprayed WD-40 onto the guck. The WD-40 sort of dissolves the tar/asphalt mixture and this loosened up the crushed rock. I had to meticulously and slowly remove all the rock from the treading using the paper cutter blade - all the while being careful not to inflict cuts and nicks onto the soles. Then I scrubbed the remaining guck and small rock off using the clothes brush. I had to spray WD-40 a couple of times while incising the rocks off of the soles as well as while scrubbing. I used the cotton wipes to clean the dripping WD-40 off during and after scrubbing.


40 minutes later, my shoes were as good as new.. of course a little sticky tar/asphalt still remain embedded in the treading - but that I can (and have to) live with.

I wiped the work area (the floor tiles) clean using WD-40 and cotton wipes. Also got some browny liquid (tar dissolved in WD-40) on my hands and feet, WD-40 was good to remove that too.


WD-40 is available from local hardware/electrical stores. There is another brand available in India called Zorrik-88 - the hardware store guy said that this has the same formula as WD-40, but I decided to go with the original.

I had also brought a steel wire brush (Rs.20), which I didn't use coz I was worried about damaging my new shoes.


The whole experience reminded of a similarly harrowing-but-in-the-end-satisfying experience shared by Robert Lucky in IEEE Spectrum : Remote Control
In the end he says:

I take pride in my little achievement that no one but another engineer can appreciate. But I'm an engineer, and I'm supposed to be able to do things like that. 

PS. This Asphalt/Tar mixture is called "Dambar" in Hindi. Also WD-40 is extremely inflammable.. so in case you smoke, don't worry, you are dead either way :P 

What should I do today?

Today,


Kill,
A few demons that haunt you.
Overcome,
Some fears that lie within you.
Forgive,
The comrades who left you.
Let go,
Of the inhibitions that restrain you.


And,
Acquire new demons and fears and dhokebaaz comrades and inhibitions...


Experience,
A new emotion that stirs you up.
Start,
An adventure that you dreamt up.
Write,
A new story that you thought up.
Make,
New friends of people you meet up.


And,
Stash away old emotions and past adventures and purani kahaniyan and childhood friends...


Because,
Life - Dynamic Equilibrium is where its at.