The New Year Post

Ah!! this time I am late. Damn!! There were quite a few reasons. But, finally, this had to come.

Image source: Wikimedia commons

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you. :)

Not much happened when the year changed for me. I was at home, sitting idle, watching the TV. Everyone else at home was asleep. I was the only one at home, waiting for the new year. The date changed with no big bang. After that, I switched of the rooms lights, and got busy with the movie. At about half-past midnight, my phone rang.

"An unknown number". Must be someone from college, I thought. Without concentrating much on the caller, my eyes still focused on the TV, I answered the call while I lowered down the volume.

A girl answered.

She: "Hi, Happy New Year".... Come down, I am waiting for you.

She sounded very very familiar, and I almost instantaneously recognized her. She was Radhika, a friend from school. We weren't really great friends, and we probably hadn't talked for more than 10 years now. I wished her back, still trying to confirm if it was her.

Me: Hey, A very very Happy New Year to you. But, why are you here at this time?
She: Come down. I am shivering outside. We are going somewhere.

This was a mistake, I thought. It can never be her. Even if it were her, she wouldn't be here waiting for me in-front of my house. I got up from the chair, walked towards the window and looked down. I could see the shadow of a car below in the dark. I could also see a girl inside the car, although it was just her silhouette.

Me: Ummm. Wait. It's a mistake. Who is this by the way?
She: Come on. Be a sport. Let's go now. I am shivering.

Still confused, I thought of going down and getting a better view of the woman waiting inside the car. And then I heard a big loud horn. Startled, I almost trembled and closed my eyes.

The TV was still playing that movie, and I was on my chair. I had dozed off.

I never knew anyone called Radhika. Huh.... Just to be sure, I looked down from the window. The roads were empty, and even the car. This time, the street lights helped me look inside the car.

I wished if she were a bit more patient and not honked so loud.

Dreams. Our minds can be so imaginative. I am sure, if she wouldn't have honked, I would have celebrated the next year in my dreams as well. A whole year of thoughts, within a span of a few hours. That would have been fun.

An unsuccessful love story

There are quite a few love stories I have been a part of. All of them have been unsuccessful, due to various reasons. Not that I am sad about it. But, when I think about them, my mind goes back into the past and refuses to come back to the present. This story is about a girl who I had met just once, and had talked to her for more than 6 months over the phone.

It all started off with a wrong number. I tried dialing one of my friends, trying to remember his number that I hadn't noted down. I was very proud of my sharp memory those days. Well, I do have a decent memory now as well. Anyway, let's get back to the story. I dialed a number, and when I heard the voice at the other end, I didn't know how to respond.

She shouted: Hello, Where are you? I have been waiting here for more than an hour now. And it's going to rain.

My heart started pounding. I was young then, and the her voice was sweet enough to not make me hang up. I wished I could listen to her voice once more without her realizing that she was talking to the wrong guy. Rahul was probably her boyfriend. And perhaps they were madly, deeply in love with each other. "Which girl would wait for a man for more than 1 hour?", I wondered. And then, I heard her sweet voice again.

This time, her voice was softer.

She said: Rahul? Hello.

I didn't know what to say. I was too nervous. Too scared to even announce that I had dialed the wrong number. I didn't want to speak, for the fear of being exposed. I didn't want to speak for the fear of losing this one chance of speaking to this girl. I knew she would go away from my life anytime, very soon. With a heavy heart, I was waiting for that moment to come.

She said: Hello. Can you hear me?

Ah, her voice was so dreamy and musical, I just couldn't let it go. This time, she asked a question which I could answer.

I said: Yes, I can hear you.

That was the moment when everything stopped. She paused for a moment, perhaps trying to match my discordant words with Rahul's. It seemed like eternity.

She said: Who is this?

That ended our conversation. I hung up. Damn!! I tried to keep her thoughts out of my mind all that day. I tried very hard, but failed miserably. Later that day, I got a call from her. I introduced myself and explained her that I had called her by mistake. She didn't seem to mind. She also introduced her. She also told that Rahul was her brother (Phew!!!). We talked for sometime and then she proposed that we could be phone friends. How could I have said "No".

We called each other frequently, very frequently, almost everyday. We talked and talked, but we never talked about "Love". But, I had already fell in love with her voice. We talked for around 6 months, came to know more about each other.

One day, she called me to tell that she was going to the US. I was sad. She said that we could keep in touch through e-mails. I agreed. We had also met once before she flew out of my reach. We exchanged a few mails after that. But gradually, the emails stopped. I wouldn't blame her. I guess, we both got busy with our lives.

Last week, I was so happy and excited to see an email from her. She wrote to inform me that she was getting married soon. Now I hear that she is happily married. She also sent me a picture of herself and her husband.

I am now left wondering as to why she sent me that picture. Have I missed something?

Love Rectangles

Love triangles are the most popular themes in entertainment. And it is also the most researched topic in the field of human psychology. There are complete scientific models for a Love Triangle which can accurately predict the outcome, given all the necessary data is available. Many Bollywood directors have churned out loads of dollars just by changing some variables, and eventually the final outcome. People also find the theory of "Love Triangle" simple enough to understand. Some of the theories suggest that, in a Love Triangle, the arrangement is unsuitable for one or more people involved. That number, as anyone might guess, will range from 1 to 3. The fact is, Love Triangles are meant to be broken. It cannot remain as a triangle forever. It has to end either in a straight line and a point, or three points. So, we can safely conclude that a "Love Triangle", is by nautre, a very unstable arrangement. It is not a happy ending for everyone, though some Bollywood movies manage to bring in a fourth point into the frame when the triangle is just about to break into pieces.

Let us now study a more stable, but complicated arrangement that has not been experimented with by our Bollywood directors much. The "Love Rectangle". Well, not many of our Hindi movies are based on this theme, the only one that comes to my mind right now is "KANK". Though the theme of the story is "Extra-marital relationship", principally, it is a "Love Rectangle".

Definition : 2 boys of equal height and 2 girls of equal breadth.

William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is also based on a Love Rectangle. Unlike the Triangles, this arrangement may sometimes be unfavorable for everyone, but statistically speaking, in the end, the rectangle breaks up into two straight lines(almost 99%). In such cases, the possibility of four points is very rare. Since points, by nature are unstable. They always tend to form polygons, or lines. I tried reading all the mathematical models available on Love Polygons in human psychology, but they all seem to be so complicated. There were at-least 50 different variables to be considered to accurately predict the final state of the polygon. I tried reducing the polygon to a mere triangle(since this is the maximum reduction that I could have done), but then all the theories available today, say that predictions for a polygon with even sides are 100 times more accurate than those with odd sides. So, afraid of arriving at erroneous results, I had to reduce the polygon to a Rectangle.

Rectangles, are very rare to find as well. What the psychologists have in their theories is how to predict the future states of the rectangle. None of them have tried proposing a solution that could be applied to a generalized Love Rectangle. So, here I propose my solution for solving a Rectangle.

Being a IT guy, my theories will follow object-oriented approach and will draw some inspiration from the well known fundamentals of Linked Lists in computer programming. More specifically, Circular Linked Lists. Let us define some variables.

1. Each person is called a Node.
2. Each link is called a relation ( A Relation can be omni-directional, both forward and backward)
3. We can make or break any relation/link to attain any possible configuration of the nodes.
4. Yellow dots represent Male.
5. Pink dots represent Female.

Assumption: Sexual Orientation of each node - "STRAIGHT" . So, links between similar nodes are not possible.

Here is the initial configuration of a rectangle.


I won't go into details of this diagram. It seems to be self-explanatory. So, moving ahead with the solution, if we could slightly decouple all the links/relations between each of the nodes, the rectangle might become very unstable. But, since this is not the final step and I would be making new links to arrive at a more stable configuration, let us assume that, for a moment, the configuration are allowed to be skewed a bit, i.e. on the verge of breaking all the links.


During this momentary unstable conditions, where all the nodes are ready to accept new connections, it is easier to create new links which would result in a more stable configuration for all. So, we try to make new links and break some existing ones. But, finally, we will always of the same number of links that we started with, as per the Law of conservation of Links.

In the figure below, the links in blue, are the new links, and the links colored in green, are the old links which finally, will be deleted.


And, finally, the configuration would somewhat look like this. Everyone's happy, lets party.



Unlike in a triangle, where one or more person has to go back home with a frowning face, in a rectangle, there are more chances for each node to be in a WIN-WIN situation. So, as we can see, initially, we had a circular singly-linked list, though the process of modifying the linked list brought about an overall increase in the number of linked lists, the current form of both the linked lists are more stable, provided any external factors are not allowed to interfere.

That's my solution. It is still in research stage. I want some volunteers on which I could test my theories. Once this theory is established for its correctness backed by experimental results, I will apply for a patent. Volunteers can reach me at my e-mail id.

Bibliography:
1. Wikipedia - Love Triangles, Love Rectangles, Love Polygons
2. Let Us C - Yeshwant Kanetkar
3. Linked Lists in Computer Programming - O' Rielly
4. Mathematical Models for Love Problems - Albert Eintein

Important Warning : If you feel that you are in a love rectangle/triangle/ploygon, before making the final move, please pick up your geometry box, measure your angles accurately, and then finally draw your lines. Once the lines are drawn, its not very easy to re-draw them.
WE DON'T HAVE ERASERS IN REAL LIFE.