Latest Posts

• The Fun and Pain of Rebuilding My Auth Flow

  February 28, 2026

  Some pull requests are like that. You open them thinking youre just tightening a screw somewhere, and by the end you’ve rebuilt half the engine! ...

• German Language

  December 01, 2025

  This post was left as a draft since 2015-09-07. Finally publishing it on 01-12-2025 (almost 10 years later). I’m taking a retrospective look at...

• Unintentional Reader

  March 04, 2024

  This is my first attempt where I’ve cowritten a post with ChatGPT and text suggestions from it are interspersed with my own writing. This is ...

• Book Review - Mastering PyTorch

  January 06, 2022

  This is a review of the book “Mastering PyTorch” by Ashish Ranjan Jha, published by Packt in early 2021. I received a complementary copy of the...

• DataCamp's data science certification

  December 05, 2021

  Felt cute, so took this timed data science test on DataCamp today. This just validates how far I have come since first starting to code in Pytho...

• Complete Python Mastery

  November 29, 2021

  Finally done with this amazing course (after ditching it midway back in 2018) taught by Mosh Hamedani. The course introduced a lot of best practice...

• Bounding boxes in computer vision

  July 02, 2021

  Throughout my whole life, I’ve only heard of and thought in terms of the cartesian coordinates. For images and nD signal processing, as far as I’ve...

• Deep Learning in 5 lines of code

  June 20, 2021

  The aim of this post is to help you train a deep learning model that can detect cats – the classic example with which one usually starts their deep...

• Creating a deep learning dataset using Google Images API

  June 14, 2021

  Alright! As the title reads, this post is aimed at machine/deep learning students/practitioners who would like to build their own toy dataset using...

• PhDone!

  March 31, 2021

  On 17th Dec 2020, during the second wave of the pandemic, I successfully defended my PhD. The defence was organized partially online in order to re...

• Deservability meter

  September 19, 2020

  Right after college, I learned this concept of ‘deservability’ from some video or book – I’ve been applying this to my life involuntarily ever sinc...

• For the love of linux

  May 07, 2020

  I like Linux. Mostly because by installing Linux I was able to salvage my old laptop which took like 15 minutes to boot (since it ran Windows). Th...

• Build a PC

  May 07, 2020

  I used PC Part Picker to build my PC. Since my school days, I’ve enjoyed bricolage/DIY crafts. Some time ago I built a PC – by making use of PC fo...

• Learn to use Git

  May 07, 2020

  Brian Yu (CS50)’s Youtube Live taught me how to use Git properly back in 2016. Since that day I’ve been constantly working on understanding the nit...

• Migrating a WordPress CMS hosted on GoDaddy to Hostinger

  March 05, 2020

  Situation: My hosting plan (subscribed initially for 3 years at 4.95 USD per month) for a WP CMS on GoDaddy was about to expire and the renewal wou...

• Favourite Music of Barack Obama, 2019.

  February 12, 2020

  So the yearly tradition continued, and Obama posted on Twitter his list of favourite songs for the year 2019. https://twitter.com/barackobama/stat...

• Christmas again

  December 10, 2019

  So its that time of the year again. There was this excitement of not knowing how Christmas is in Europe. The place where I attended university,...

• Married!

  together since 6 years, and we finally decided to take the plunge. We both have been tested with distance and time trying to force us apart, but in the end, everything went as planned. The most exciting part was our getaway to the Maldives on the 29th of October – we were officially sanctioned to go on an international trip! Our self-planned, self-executed trip was so good that we sort of made it a deal to cover all of those beautiful little islands in our future trips. After the marriage, I had to return to France and she, to Bangalore. In the process of bringing her here. I hope that works out.</p> -->

  November 26, 2019

  On the 19th of October 2019, I got married to my girlfriend. We’d been together since 6 years, and we finally decided to take the plunge. We bo...

• Array Pair Sum

  August 20, 2019

  A problem statement from Arden Dertat’s “programming questions” series: Given an integer array, output all pairs that sum up to a specific valu...

• Praise for Visual Studio Code

  August 14, 2019

  I still have not started using the full Visual Studio IDE, but I recently began using VS Code and quickly understood why so many developers rely on...

• Career plans

  August 13, 2019

  I feel like I have finally come into terms with what I want to do with my career after the PhD. Although a postdoc won’t hurt, I am not very certai...

• Academic Fatigue?

  June 05, 2019

  Pretty straight forward with this title here. Is there such a thing called academic fatigue? This is a phenomenon (not really but just realised fro...

• Stolpersteine

  June 05, 2019

  Stolpersteine spotted near Hauptstrasse, Kehl (Location) Alright so it’s been sometime since I wanted to post something meaningful. This one is ...

• Working in Silence

  April 18, 2019

  Whoever guards his mouth and tongue keeps his soul from troubles.  Proverbs 21:23  Every person’s life is, in a way, a journey of self discove...

• Working in France

  July 25, 2018

  Today I complete 2 continuous years of being in France as a researcher/student. I first came to France in 2015 to do a semester in the University ...

• Energy levels.

  February 25, 2018

  This post is from an old draft. Last year this time was the most crucial time of my academic career. I had started my master thesis and had to wri...

• Web page hosting on Uni-Freiburg domain

  January 15, 2018

  Assumptions: You are currently enrolled in the University of Freiburg (I’m not) or is somehow affiliated to the university. Interested in creatin...

• Fix ssh timeout

  December 11, 2017

  If the SSH server you are connecting to has a timeout set in its configuration, it normally disconnects you after some time of inactivity to free u...

• Fixing Mendeley Web Importer sign in loop issue

  November 07, 2017

  I started using Mendeley as my default bibliography manager from early Recently I came across this web importer tool from Mendeley, that can be ...

• Was in India for some time

  November 01, 2017

  Yes, so after two consecutive years in Europe, I went back to my hometown to spend some time with my parents. I did not meet my sister this time th...

• I'll do a PhD.

  July 02, 2017

  March 11 2017: I’m ​thinking of asking my supervisor to let me do a PhD under his supervision. I’ve already had some sort of discussion with my gr...

• Being a Christian from India in Europe

  June 11, 2017

  I wonder how people would treat me (in Europe) if I decided to walk into a church. I’m pretty sure I’m going to get a lot of confused stares. Brown...

• This MP is actually putting India on the map!

  June 11, 2017

  I am often asked why, despite my international career, I have set all my books so far in India. The answer is simple. My formative years, from t...

• Templates

  May 24, 2017

  Thesis Template If you are in the scientific community you might’ve already heard about RevTeX. This is basically a package made by APS, which can...

• Nouveau Program.

  March 06, 2017

  Returned home after a very long day at work. I mean everyone spends the same amount of time working; but when you suck at something with finesse, i...

• The way we dress.

  September 02, 2016

  Firstly, let me put this bold statement here - Indians dress for style. This is invalid for the major portion of India (rural), but this article is...

• Being lonely in 2016.

  August 27, 2016

  Let me put this blog into a different perspective. I want ask myself a few basic questions and answer it to the best of my knowledge. It makes much...

• Language shift.

  June 19, 2016

  When I decided to do a master in Germany, I had this clear-cut idea that I will learn German before and during the course. The program that I got i...

• One year.

  So it’s been quite a journey here in Germany. And it’s getting close to one year from when I actually set off from my small village in India. Last year this time I was at my friend Anagha’s apartment in Bangalore, constantly travelling back and forth between the embassy and her place to get my visa done. Without her and her husband allowing me to stay at her place (for free :P), I still don’t know how I would’ve made it here.

  -->

  June 15, 2016

  So it’s been quite a journey here in Germany. And it’s getting close to one year from when I actually set off from my small village in India. Last...

• Das Rezept.

  September 08, 2015

  When I first applied for a room in a WG or a Wohngemeinschaft (Flatshare), the landlord wanted me to talk to the present inhabitants in the flat; a...

• Germany.

  September 06, 2015

  So after failing to qualify this exam called GATE, I did not know what to do with my life. I felt so bad that I sometimes felt I am a failure, or i...

• These are the times I started believing in God.

  September 06, 2015

  When I was small, me and my sister used to read stuff from a yellow book that Appa bought us. He would buy us new books of the same kind very often...

• No wastebaskets in Muvattupuzha.

  April 24, 2015

  Disclaimer: This is as always a useless post. I do not know how many will believe me if I said I do not throw trash on the road/sidewalks. Well, b...

• Drew Houston - Circle, Tennis Ball and 30,000 Days

  January 16, 2015

  Below is the prepared text of the Commencement address by Drew Houston ‘05, the CEO of Dropbox, for MIT’s 147th Commencement held June 7, 2013. Th...

• Positive Thinking alone won't work!

  January 14, 2015

  We were told for years, by Oprah and others, that positive thinking was the key to achieving our goals. Now mounting evidence suggests exactly the ...

• Merriam Webster App

  August 18, 2014

  I feel so blessed today. I just started using this beautiful dictionary app by Merriam Webster. So vivid and neat UI, beautifully placed search bar...

• Revelations from the "Slang" Dictionary

  August 07, 2014

  What’s happening? Since I’m so much into books these days, I tried reading a 300 page Dictionary yesterday ! It was not just any  dictionary, it wa...

• Books.

  July 29, 2014

  Even though I’ve actually tried reading a few books in my past, I’ve never done that with sheer zeal or enthusiasm. The first book that I “tried” w...

• App that changed my productivity

  February 22, 2014

  Many people procrastinate. They know they aren’t being productive and they do nothing about it. I was, till a while back , like one of them. And t...

• Thank You Facebook.

  December 27, 2013

  Lately, Facebook has been bombarding me with ads and sponsored posts. Their reccomendations are so irritating that I can’t even scroll down my new...

• Christmas was bad

  December 23, 2013

  I don’t usually blog about my family, but this Christmas kind of forced my hand. Me and my father went to our native place last Saturday, in our ca...

• Uday Chopra

  December 19, 2013

  Trying to pull up my dead n degrading blog with this post. I happened to see this post by the Faking News page today n someone posted a pic w...

• Making of 'LoveUrLab' Teaser Video

  October 24, 2013

  Yay! so done with the teaser video for “LoveUrLab”. Just the editing took 4 days! Shoot was completed in one day after close to 50 retakes. Learne...

• Darndest things?

  October 22, 2013

  Have you seen this program called “Kutti pattalam” on Surya TV? While many of us think its an original Surya TV production, its just a Mallu versio...

• Bombay-ing Part 1 - 2/6/2013

  June 04, 2013

  Well it is turning out to be the adipoliest month of 2013, even before the training programme started. Basil Geevarghese Hisham We three are in thi...

• codecademy :)

  May 26, 2013

  I started learning python on my own in 2012 by watching videos from this  YouTube channel, downloaded all-level programming tuts and I ended up wit...

• Jump baby jump

  March 12, 2013

  This is going to be one of my shortest posts ever. Right now blogging from my phone application that I mentioned in my previous article. WordPress....

• That thing called edX

  March 10, 2013

  I always loved the idea of online learning. First let me tell you something about how it is like to be in my uni. I study at this uni in Kerala ca...

• Dreaming for a Startup Spring!

  March 09, 2013

  It’s been a long time since I’ve posted something here. I don’t think i like to call this my company website anymore. There’s nothing you’ll find a...