Hum Bangalore se hai...!!!

I was born and brought up in Lucknow and completed my engineering there in 2005. After that, I moved across three cities: Noida (2 years), Hyderabad (3 years), and Bangalore (15 years). I have two kids and a well-settled home in Bangalore now. Every year, we take a couple of vacations during the summer and early winter. On every trip, while interacting with drivers, hotel staff, and locals, one question kept coming up - "Aap kahan se hain?" and every time, my answer was "Hum Lucknow se hain."

Until May 2026, on a visit to Kashmir, my response was "Hum Bangalore se hain." Even as I said it, there was a slight hesitation — but the answer was almost instantaneous. "Hum Bangalore se hain!"

What changed this time? Am I losing my identity?

At heart, I will always cherish Lucknow. It's the city where I was born and raised, full of fond memories of parents, friends, relatives, and neighbours. But I've realised it's not the city itself. It's the memories, the culture, and the environment that give me a sense of belonging. Even if I remove all the people I know from the equation, I still feel more comfortable striking up a conversation with a stranger in Lucknow than anywhere else. I'm not entirely sure why that feeling exists, but it does.

Over 15 years in Bangalore, I've built a new layer of memories with my wife, kids, brother and his family, parents who keep visiting, friends, colleagues, a house we built together, and neighbours we've grown with. These memories don't replace Lucknow; they add to it. I think I've been slowly integrating Bangalore into my identity, and this moment in Kashmir was simply the first time that process became visible in my response. And is the integration complete ?? I don't know.

So — "when does your work city become your city?"

I think the answer is: when you've built enough memories there that they become a substantial part of who you are. Time matters less than depth. It's not about how many years you've spent, but how deeply those moments have settled into you.

And you don't lose your identity in this process. It evolves - into something larger, richer, and more whole.

Hum - Tum

RIP : Moore's law

Today, I found a receipt of my first desktop. The configuration mentioned in the receipt is lower than the average mobile phones used now days. This got me thinking that has technology actually evolved as predicted by Moore's law ?? Are there other laws which predict the rate at which technology will change in future ??

So here are a few laws i found with very minimal searching -
1. Moore's law - states that the number of transistors on a chip (read processing power of the chip ) will double every 2 years in the foreseeable future.
2. Rock's law or Moore's second law - states that the cost a chip fabrication plant doubles every four years.
3. Nielsen's law - states that network connection speeds will increase by 50% per year and double in almost 21 months.
4. Kryder’s Law – Mark Kryder estimated that magnetic disk storage density doubles annually.

Let's see if these laws are applicable in my case. Let's compare the desktop which i purchased at that time and what can i buy in the same amount today.

Component / Feature	2001	2019 (without Inflation)	2019 (With inflation)
Cost (Rs)	32,830	32,830	~98,490
Processor	Intel Pentium 3, 933Khz	Intel Core I-5 4440	Intel Core i7 7700
CPU Mark	238	6507	10732

Moore's law basically predicts a geometric series, where the performance should double every 2 years. Considering the above CPU marks, ideally over a period of ~20 years the CPU mark should be  = 238 * 2^9 = 1,21,856

But we are far below that number. 

There can be multiple reasons for this :
1. Reducing the size of transistors and accumulating more on a single chip to make it more performant, doesn't seem to be possible at the rate which Moore's law predicted.
2. Even if dumping more transistors is possible on a single chip, but the ROI for such research and manufacturing is no more sustainable at scale.

In either of the cases, Moore's law does not seem to be applicable now.

My guess is that some law similar to Moore's law will be applicable right after the next step jump in technology of computing. Photonic chips and Quantum Computing seem to be probable candidates for the next step jump here.

I am eager to see how this pans out in the future.

Arnav & Papa...

Arnav's school test paper :

Q - Give Synonym of "Small"
Ans - Millimeter
Teacher gave a smiley and zero marks ... ;-)


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After a marriage party on seeing the return gift (nariyal and paan ka patta) -
Arnav - Koi bachcho ko aisa gift deta hai kya ???

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While leaving his Mausi alone at home....
Papa - Chalo door khula chod dete hai .. jholi baba mausi ko kha jayega ..
Arnav - Nai... (forcing to close the door).. ise lock karo.
Papa - Kyu kya hua .. tum mausi se pyar karte ho kya ?
Arnav - Nai .. bas thoda sa...
Papa - To jyada pyaar kisko karte ho??
Arnav - Mumma ke base se ... kyuki baby ko base pasand hai (singing)...


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On seeing "B" symbol in the Lift.
Arnav - Papa... yeh dekho "E" aur "3" likha hai.

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On returning from Arnav's Annual day, in the car with Papa and Mumma
Papa to Mumma - Arnav ki teacher bhi achcha dance kar rai thi.
Arnav (intervening in between) - Tum teacher ke papa ho kya ?
Papa - Nai to .. mai to tumhara papa hu.
Arnav - To tum mujhe dekho, teacher ko kyu dekh rae the.

What is the aim of my life - Answered ?

Some 5 years back i wrote the post "What is the aim of my life ?"  I was unable to answer the question then and it remains still unanswered. The only thing that has changed is that the same question has manifested itself in another form. 

The new form of this question is "Does God Exists"?

I will try and explain how the first question transforms into the second one. 

First assume that there is no God -

If there is no God, then there is no grand master plan of how things will unfold. There is no one controlling our destiny. Life as we know of it, is just a series of accidents. Starting right from the Big Bang, to formation of stars and planets, to formation of Earth, to having the just right atmosphere to kick off life, to evolution of multi cellular organisms, to evolution of animals, to evolution of humans and all the way leading to the present day and time when i am writing this blog. 

So if every thing was an accident then we are just beings floating around on a small planet without any real purpose. We are born, we live and then we die. We live because survival is the natural instinct with which animals are born on this planet. 

So now what is the aim of my life ? The answer would be "nothing already defined". Its up to me to set the aim of my life and work towards it because essentially i do not have anything else to do (read nothing already defined). Some people set their aim as doing something such that they are remembered after they are gone. Other people set their aim to conquer the world. But it is truly on our whims to set up any aim which you want to set,

On the other hand, assume there is God -

So if there is God, then he has a plan for each of us. He made this universe, stars, planets and life for a certain reason and all of us do play a small but important role in it. There are no more accidents but only wishes of God. My aim of life now, is definitely to fulfil the reason of why God created me.

The answer to that i may or may not know that in this life. But i can rely on God and assume that i am fulfilling my purpose. There is the concept of religion to guide me on what God wants from me. Some people know what is their purpose of life others do not know it, but still may be fulfilling that purpose unknowingly.

So we see that in both the cases the question of "What is the aim of my life?" gets solved if we can answer the question of whether God exists or not.

The problem with me is that I do not know if God exists or not. I can neither prove nor reject the idea of God. Although the idea of having a God is more soothing and solves most of my existential questions, but there is also a fear of blindly following something which may not be true . To be true to this blog, I had conveniently used the existence and absence of God according to my needs. But the truth still eludes me.

This seems like NP-hard problems. One hard problem turning into another hard problem. And a solution to either of them can solve both but solution of any of them is not yet known.

What is the aim of my life ??

Why does it always happen that this question is never answered fully ?? I always think that something is the aim of my life and when i reach there, this question pops up again.

Does it suggests that whatever we think is our aim, is not actually our aim. Its just a diversion from something which is cleverly planned to be always hidden ?

I just asked Kasli (my flatmate) what's the aim of his life ?? He simply replied, to be happy.

The point is that he can stay happy all his life, but what purpose would it serve, and even if it had a purpose would that mean his life has no meaning after that purpose is full-filled.

I think that the purpose of his and all our lives is to keep each other busy and diverted from finding some truth which needs to stay hidden.

Sometimes it feels like, that we are trapped in a vicious experiment where we are the subjects and we are behaving just as the experimenter wants us to behave. That entity who is experimenting designed the world in such a way that it forms a deadly cycle which traps our mind and stops us from recognizing that all this is just an experiment.

Just imagine the diversions he created, to keep us busy.

The first diversion which he introduced is "Hunger". This is the most powerful diversion. This factor governs most of the things of this world. Starting right from animals to humans. Most of the animal behaviour and the human behaviour is because we are trapped in this cycle called the food chain.

What would the animals do if they do not feel hunger ??

Or what would happen to humans if they do not feel hunger ??

Will we still work if there was no hunger ??

The second powerful diversion is called "Love" or "Emotions".

All animals (including us) take care of our kids. Why ??

1. The kids would die of "Hunger" if they are not taken care of.

2. Why do parents worry if the child lived or died. Its because they have some "Love" or "Emotions" for their kids.

So we see that only "Hunger" was not sufficient to drive this world. If "Emotions" were not introduced then this world (the experiment) would not have flourished. The experiment would have come to an end since all would die young.

Even as people grow the second diversion "Emotions" drives them through their lives.

There are lot of other diversions, but the point is not discuss the diversions. We need to find out what is the aim of this experiment. And what would we be doing if we are not a part of this experiment ??

Whats the probability that i will complete this post in the next one hour...

Well.. lets start with the definition of probability...

Probability is the ratio of the number of favorable events divided by the total number of events in the sample space.

To calculate the probability of me completeing this post (the favorable event) , i have to first count the events in the entire sample space.

So the question is that if i do not complete this post then what all things i can do in the next one hour ??

Lets begin by telling you the time and the environment around me at this time ....

The time is around 8:13 PM now..... The radio is playing an old song.. (Woh mainnu pyar...

have to leave now.. .... going out with Shantanuu......

The probability does not matter now... :-)