Amitabh Sinha: Distractions

Scrabble: Source code and support page for a small scrabble program I made as an undergraduate student in 1999.

Marketplace (the closest to an unbiased news source that I've been able to find)

For better or for worse, by Lynn Johnston

Poetry which never ceases to fill me with amazement and wonder: Shelley's Ozymandias; Rig Veda 10.129, Ch 5, Nasadiya Sukta - The Creation Hymn; Wordsworth's I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud; Byron's She Walks in Beauty; cummings' i carry your heart with me.

Ozymandias, by Percy Bysse Shelley (Thanks to Newsweek for bringing back memories of my middle and high school English teachers: Rajan Thomas, S. Sivakumar and M.C. Sebastian at the Lawrence School, Lovedale.)

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Creation Hymn, translated by V.V. Raman at the University of Rochester (Thanks to Prof. Pragya Jain, at IIT Delhi, for first exposing me to this)

Rig Veda, 10.129, Chapter 5, Nasadiya Sukta

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

She Walks in Beauty, by Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
 

i carry your heart with me, by e.e. cummings (Thanks to the love of my life for ... (too many to list))

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or the mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that is keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Prof. M.C. Puri (d. December 29, 2005)