RaMbLings Of A WaNderiNg MiNd

Temporal hatred

2011-12-24T10:57:00.000+05:30

There are times when almost all of human kind seems intolerable - all intelligent and articulate beings of vile descent. I have, on several occasions, labelled myself a 'human hater' and not without reason.

It is during such moments that you wish to hide from human contact, tucked away safe under a bed sheet somewhere. On careful rumination for sometime, the thoughts change slightly. The entirety of the odious human race separates itself into 2 distinct groups- the friend and the enemy. Their composition solely determined by the overriding influence of the present scenario. The 'friends' then starting having a calming effect and invite us into their care. It's almost impossible to not submit then. There's little else that seems even close to as right. We give in.

Admissions of an Accidental Lover

2011-12-19T16:41:00.001+05:30

I talk to this blog often; many a often. A blank screen can be a great listener- it doesn't judge, doesn't advise and doesn't let banal principles of objective rationality get in the way of a weak moment.

Life is insanely simple to understand when it is completely objective - a figure against a currency symbol, a number on performance assessment sheet. These objective parameters reek of human intelligence, blunt non-emotion and passive brilliance. Good or bad, happy or sad- all clearly defined. We get conditioned to stick to these objective indicators, make them the cornerstone of the yardstick of our well-being and future aspirations. Deviators are mocked- denounced 'romantic fools'. I have been no different- one among the intelligent know-alls.

And I have done well. A supernova of sorts among the brightest stars of the over-achieving human kind. I have towed the line my peers and predecessors have drawn unerringly. The numbers have all fallen in the right bracket.

"What then be the problem?", you ask. The problem my friend lies in asking for more than what the numbers can promise. And therein lies the audacity of the 'emotional fool'- that vile race of unintelligible no-goods. I wasn't always a part of this foul breed though; in fact, I looked down upon them. Crushed them under my feet whenever the opportunity presented itself. Yet, now I am one of them. One among the useless nobodies. Oh what a ghastly tragedy!

So here's reporting from the other side of the barbed wire. Guess what? It isn't that bad. The living brains haven't been sucked out of me. Numbers are still important though. Teething problems or innate obdurateness? Don't know. May be it wasn't so much the 'either or' we thought. I dare not point fingers at the sacristy of the rational thinkers, but I seem to be garnering proof to the contrary.

What now? The transition is difficult, strange, scary. In fact a complete switch is beyond the realm of possibility it would seem. At least that's what the rational self suggests.

But to have a foot on either side is what I seem to be striving towards. Trying desperately to reach that perfect balance, that stable equilibrium. Yet it's more difficult from this side. Not so simple as the objective world, no. More nonsensical, irrational, stupid. I have not been prepared for this. I am struggling to stay afloat. It's too foggy, too grey for my comfort. Yet the grey is the source of seduction. The road ahead has low visibility, uncorroborated promises of supreme joy, no clear directions and way too many possibilities. I don't know whether to step forward or back. I am waiting for help. The shining North star. Does it appear on this side?

(scribbled on-board a flight from Mumbai to Kolkata)

My Unsolicited Two Cents on Ra.One

2011-10-27T01:49:00.000+05:30

At the outset, let me state that I have not read any reviewsof the movie. I had decided to this as a matter of principle. I have figuredthat reading other reviews before penning my own introduces additional colour inmy thoughts and that element of artificiality to my writing. So this reviewcomes straight from the heart, minutes after I have finished watching SRK’smuch marketed sci-fi offering.

Ra.One is ambitious. That’s the least I can say forsuperhero sci-fi attempted by the ever ‘lover next door’ in a country wherenothing but ‘love fiction’ sells. Science or a distant caricature of it hasn’tbeen handled well historically by the Indian film maker. And so, let me start critiquingthis movie by declaring this the best ever science fiction movie made in India.That’s not saying much really. Most previous attempts at this have been made byincompetent directors on a tight budget or either of those two. In fact, theonly semi science fiction movie which I can think of as a wholesome entertainerwould be Mr.India. But then Mr.India wasn’t so much about stunts as a heart-warmingtale with a lot of children to go. So a comparison isn’t fair.

What I was most curious to find out about this movie is howgood a balance it strikes between Bollywood and sci-fi. Let’s face it; anoutright sci-fi movie can’t be sold in India. It might attract the astutecritic’s standing ovation but that’s not enough to recover the couple ofhundred odd crores that have been spent in making this magnum opus. The multiplexaudience is good enough for a low budget ‘reality bite’, but not this. On this parameter,I think the makers have done an averagely decent job. The quirky moments in the first half of themovie involved duplication of oft used situational humour, but was tasteful andcute for most parts. It served to mask well, the mundane yet necessaryexplanatory scenes prefacing the main storyline. Similar attempts in the secondhalf, though, didn’t go down well with me. Forceful introduction of childishhumour with unnecessary redundancies like a peek-a-boo of Rajnikanth spoiledthe momentum gathered by the action sequences on far too many occasions. Theemotional quotient too was a little high in the second half. All thisdistracted the viewer from the main draw of the movie which was its technicalbrilliance. The latter half of the movie could have been packed more with highvoltage action. Characters like that of Satish Shah were irritating to say theleast. The overall screenplay was impressive. Songs too were nicely fitted intothe narrative in most cases.

Shahrukh’s character baffled me to a considerable extent. Itseemed confused to say the least. The first half of the movie saw him play anuncannily childish Tamil computer scientist who could speak fluent Hindi. Toomany clichéd attempts at humour were made. The second half, which saw him inhis super hero avatar left a lot to be desired. Admittedly Arjun Rampal, withhis expression-less face seemed a lot more convincing as a video game characterthan SRK who just couldn’t seem to let go of his signature moves even when theywere terribly out of place. Surprisingly though, for those who wereapprehensive about Shahrukh looking the part, he did in fact pull that offquiet well.

Credit, in fact is due to all who worked on the visualaspects of the movie. All the characters were presented brilliantly well. Thecity backdrop, the flying cars, the collapsing buildings, etc were all done toperfection. From the technical standpoint, it’s difficult to find flaws in themovie making. It is of a level that Indian audiences have only known to existin movies from across the Atlantic. For this reason alone, the film deserves aspecial mention in the pages of Bollywood history.

There is a considerably large population of sceptics who,not amused by “Chammak Challo” had written this movie off long before this release.The extended and almost nauseating marketing stunts have given some audiencesreason to pre judge the film. This could be both a good and a bad thing. I expectmixed reactions from Indian viewers with a sizable number tending to either extremein their reviews. All in all, I give the movie full points for making theattempt. This genre, a hugely lucrative one in the west, will take its time toroll with the Indian audiences but this is by far the best effort in that space.The movie has its flaws but for most parts succeeds in doing justice to bothits technical investment and its fundamentally Indian character. Three cheersto that!

Killing Time since 1988 ..

2011-10-07T13:43:00.000+05:30

.. and still going strong.

A part of me wishes this were not true. It seems incredibly futile to be like this almost all the time. I have been in what may be called a sedentary limbo for ever since I can remember. For as back as I can think, I have been, in the most simplest of terms, "whiling away time". It baffles and amazes me to think of how little productivity I have spewed on the face of the earth in the 22 years of my brazenly meaningless existence. But what surprises me more is that I have survived. In a society where people are dripping sweat and blood by the gallons to earn their daily bread, I seem to have done enough by doing nothing.

It's not that I like it being this way all the time. I mean, who doesn't like a week off rocking on a hammock on a beach all by themselves. But year after year of absolute nothingness? To say the truth, I would never have complained about this earlier. Hell, I loved my time off doing nothing. Being a couch potato suited me fine. I could even watch "saas bahu" and Grey's Anatomy for hours at end and still feel good about myself. After all, the temporary respite then threatened to be exactly that - "temporary". Who would bet on it becoming everything in itself?

I have not resisted change, never shied away from engaging in what needs to be engaged in. Yet, I haven't felt the stretch. Every minute average utilized has invariably been followed by five simply let by. And that doesn't seem right. It gets even scarier when in a conversation with colleagues and friends, they proclaim to be "busy", 'really really busy" and the like. It breaks my heart that, maligns my seemingly non-existent purpose of living. What heinous crime did I commit in my past lives to be stamped with this "available" tag for life? It's just not fair.

But I haven't given up yet. I have vowed to add meaning to me. If hours on Facebook or days of watching Big Boss on television be required to be done in the process, I am prepared. As the guy with a stick on the spirit label says, I shall "Keep Walking", err, "Keep Sleeping".

Rant

2011-04-05T14:06:00.000+05:30

I am not the most discerning movie goer. In fact, I had always believed that I could potentially spend up to 3 hours inside a movie theater watching any movie in just about any language. That, until last Sunday happened.

My expectations from Faltu (the name almost mocks me and my bank account every time I say it, so I will not mention it any more in this post) were minimal to say the least. Stupid slapstick comedy, air conditioning, reclining seats, popcorn and fountain coke- that's all I asked for. And it seemed a fair bet, Arshad Warsi, Ritiesh Deshmukh, Hard Core Kaur, etc. I was prepared for the worst. That the worst could go down to such never before experienced levels was a revelation, however, that I possibly could have done without.

Now believe me when I tell you that I have seen my share of bad Hindi movies even with the knowledge or suspicion of them turning out to be so. Jaani Dushman, Deshdrohi, Tees Mar Khan, Om Shanti Om- heck I have seen them all and dare I say, loved them. For in all these movies, deep down somewhere I felt the makers knew that they were making a hideous caricature and went ahead with it simply because it was fun and relieving. I respected them for their honesty, for their courage at being able to make such jokes on themselves. Yet my years of exposure to such enormous, odious bull crap had not prepared me for the monstrosity I was made to endure on Sunday.

I will reiterate that I was by no means disillusioned about what the level of brilliance that the movie could offer. Producer pumping money and in the hope of pumping some self confidence into good-for-nothing child, we have seen that many a often. Abhishek Bachchan, Hrithik Roshan, Uday Chopra, there's nothing shameful about it any more. Choreographer being made to believe dancing and movie-making are two sides of the same moonwalking coin is nothing new other. Farah Khan indeed. Hard f**king Kaur, not so pretty retarded newbie, model testing acting waters, inane 'college masti', I had taken all of it into cognizance. My expectations had been suitably molded to allow room for any more slightly insidious twists.

To be fair, the first half was actually palatable. I discovered that the chick was not pretty, that the star son had still not learnt shit and that the comic timing was just as precise as Karan Johar is straight. Expectations further lowered, popcorns munched, Coke sipped- a decent Sunday beckoned.What transpired in the second half, however, was monstrosity of the order I cannot verbalize. It was more gut wrenching than fat ass African Americans puking cow shit, as nauseating as a dozen long nails being scratched on a bare blackboard, as surreal as a cute blonde with male body parts and as mind-numbing as a room full of babies crying in chorus at the top of their voices. For the first time in a movie theater, I could not bare to see what I was seeing, could not dare to not plug my ears with my fingers and just could not suppress the idea of wanting to club the director to death with a hockey stick while doing the garba around him.

The problem with the movie is simple. When an incompetent director sets out to make a slapstick comedy with a lead cast having as much talent as Feroz Khan as hairs on his head, he should stick to basics- hot actresses to cater to the audience which doesn't give a crap, item song to just make sure people know the name of the movie, peppy college setting to get the "I'm hot. I'm dumb. College's fun" gang in, and a happy ending to not leave a sour taste and hence get good feedback. What an incompetent, astoundingly retarded director should not do is try to even hint at a Social Message. No! No! That was the cardinal sin that our man with the moves and a hollow brain committed and did it ever so snobbishly. The absolute manslaughter of an attempted dig at the "Indian Educational System" was obviously inspired by the likes of 3 Idiots, which in itself was a logic-less movie saved by a clever director and solid actors. Remo "I am going to get away with doing a sensational moonwalk jig every 5 minutes of the movie" Fernadez had no saviors to rescue his fast sinking ship. Admittedly, the blame cannot be squarely placed on him, for hogging maximum was the inept actor financier's son. Something, I don't suppose he could have done much about. Arshad Warsi and Ritiesh Deshmukh are good at being funny but expecting them cover up for all the other nonsense like poor dialogues, unfunny situations, senseless plot and then carrying the film on the shoulders is asking for too much.

I spent the hour long post interval part of the movie trying in vain to doze off and block my ears at the same time. I resolved to not get up and leave. Don't ask why. Well, personal challenge maybe. I also looked around the theater to examine the reactions. While a few auntys gazed on intently, for most of the rest, the disinterest was palpable. Relief indeed. I looked back to find the two people who I am sure enjoyed the movie most that evening. Giving two hoots for moral inspectors, social taboos, the two of them spent most the three hours with the their tongues swirled around each others. That too in the middle aisle of a multiplex theater. If there was anything in that room making a statement against established social/educational norms, it was their indiscriminate Public Display of Affection. And there was perhaps that faint silver lining.

Of Bangladesh

2011-02-10T18:38:00.001+05:30

Many distinct threads connect me to Bangladesh. For starters, I share my mother tongue with the population of this country. Though the Bangladeshi version of Bengali (also called Bangal bhasha) is weirdly accented, veritably nauseating and outright funny, it's called Bengali all the same. But my nexus with Bangladesh extends much beyond that.

I have a number of relatives in that part of the globe-scattered mostly across Dhaka and Chittagong. It is for this reason that I visited Bangladesh-once in 1994 and again in 1998. Both these trips were interesting in their own right. I was probably too young in '94 to realize the absurdity of the entire exercise, but we actually traveled to Dhaka by air. I remember my first Bangladesh trip primarily because this was my first time on a flight as a grown-up child. The flight from Calcutta to Dhaka was a Biman Bangladesh one and it lasted all of thirty long minutes. I didn't mind it then. Amidst all the flight sickness and vomiting, I felt I as if I had encircled the globe. All of it in half an hour. I was pleasantly surprised when I landed in Dhaka. Blame it on my communist Calcutta upbringing or the dismally low expectations from the trip, but Dhaka came across as a remarkably developed city. Having been brought up on a diet of yellow Ambassadors and unexciting Marutis, the omnipresence of Toyota and Mitsubishi cars on the streets of Dhaka filled me with awe. There were also a number of skyscrapers around. For a country staking claim to the title of the poorest in the world, this was surely not appropriate advertisement. Even otherwise, Dhaka was a great experience made even more special by my first and last win at a Lotto machine. I vividly remember that moment in Wonderland (no wonder!) when I hit the elusive Jackpot (Yay!! OMG ! OMG !! I can't believe it!!) in the company of shocked cousins who exclaimed, "Wow, you are so lucky !" in chorus. I basked in the glory of victory that night. Bangladesh had won my heart.

There was, of course, plenty to eat. I had Hilsa, Pomphret and every other fish that ever lived in the waters of the Paddya. If Dhaka wasn't impressive enough, Chittagong left me gasping for air. Now, either Cox Bazar is the most God-damn amazingly picturesque place in the world or I was just too dazed from my triumph at Wonderland. Either way, it was a delightful experience. So was the drive up Butter Hill. I couldn't have asked for more.

Now as heart-warming as my first visit to Bangladesh was, the second was just as gut-wrenching. By the time I made that ill-fated trip, I had discovered the evils of social gatherings. It was almost a cruel twist of fate that the second trip was made for the purpose of attending a wedding. So post the Biman landing before taking off and Dhaka looking strikingly duller than four years before, I found myself amidst a sea of mascara-clad Bangals. The big, fat, orange Bangladeshi wedding was, in one word, scary. The traumatic experience of that wedding left an indelible mark. Even today, when that song from Main Khiladi Tu Anari (remember "Churake dil mera" and Akshay 'Jumping Jack' Kumar?) plays, it reminds me of orange saris, red lipstick and a deluge of people speaking a funny language. Oh, the horror ! The word marriage would never sound the same.

I have never been to Bangladesh post that. The country, however, hasn't seized to be a part of proceedings in some way or the other. Bangladeshi cricketers (Tiger Murtaza and the last over heroics for KKR), Bangladeshi migrants (who come to Calcutta on just about any pretext ranging from a dentist's appointment to drug peddling) and more recently this mind-blowing Bangledeshi rapper.

Most things Bangladeshi amaze and amuse me. I do hope to visit the country again someday. Till then, I'll pay my tribute to this wonderful nation by singing along with my man GaliB, The Bangla Rapper.

"Aami dal-bhaat khai nigga,

Aami bangla rap kori nigga"

Futility

2011-01-10T19:58:00.000+05:30

While in BITS, I attended this Aircraft Model making workshop. It was not a one-off thing. Ran for quite a few weeks on end. The guy conducting the workshop was incredibly passionate about the entire exercise. I remember him talking excitedly about how delicately the pieces in the set needed to be put together and how every single part had to be precisely cut to ensure proper flight. We were also told that once we understood the entire process well enough, we will be given our own sets to make models out of. Models made of wood (a certain special, highly expensive variety whose name I can't recollect) which were not only a visual delight, but ones which actually flew. I remember attending all the sessions; sitting on one of the benches right in front, listening to every word of his. I never really went on to make that model. In fact, I soon realized I wasn't cut out for the job. It entailed a lot of patience and dedication and I had neither on offer.

Why did I share that incident? Wait for it.

I have always enjoyed writing- pen, keyboard, whatever. Or maybe keyboard is better. Never been particularly good at it, hope to be someday. Back in school, my schadenfreude-ical proclivities often ensnared me into the inimical practice of frustrating my audience with frequent injections of long, tortuous sentences riddled with an array of veritably unnecessary series' of bombastic words as a means of verbalizing the nebulous pools of thoughts which often take shape in my predominantly dysfunctional brain. Not now. I have never suffered from hippomonstro-sesquippedaliophobia. So I have hippomonstro-sesquippedaliofilia ? Apparently that's not a word.

I have realized that in order to be a really swashbuckling, ass-kicking, bimbette-wooing writer, I need to able to string together an unforeseeable connect between disparate thoughts expressed in the same article. Like fashion magazines and M&A, Shakti Kapoor and the US elections. That's the mark of a truly great writer.

My ridiculously ungainly exercise of attending the Aircraft Modelling workshop and the widely prevalent and incredibly self-gratifying practice of compulsive pleonasm have one distinct common thread - futility. I will never become an Aircraft Model maker or even make one for a kid. Those long winding words serve no purpose, especially in the day an age of spell-check and the Internet.

So much for a failed attempt.

Happy New Year

Why South Indians should be banned from Facebook

2010-11-27T00:30:00.000+05:30

I am not a racist. I am mortally fearful of the hijras cum thugs of Bangalore and feel sorry for the Cherry Blossom hued of Chennai. But I do not discriminate against South Indians and respect them as much as the kaisa dajiba Marathis or the e churi ba Biharis. Of late, however, I have chanced upon a legitimate reason to be cross with them.
Facebook is an integral part of our lives. As the ultimate channel of utter frivolousness, it fills the huge void left in our lives by "stare out of your windows into the clear skies and think of flowers". It offers countless time-killer apps, innumerable hot chick pics and most importantly a chance to discreetly and legally satisfy the voyeur in us day in and day out. One of the primary means to facilitate this indiscriminate voyeurism of course is the universality of language. The predominant language on Facebook for most Indian users has been English. Desi-fied and fransip English sometimes, but English all the same. I might be wrong, but seldom do Bengali or Marathi users resort to their respective regional languages for communication on Facebook. South Indians (and this refers to people living in the bottom 1/5th part of India, also known as Madrasis without any loss of generality) , however are blatant violators of this unsaid principle.
Sample this:

Random South Indian Friend's Facebook Status: "today was an interesting day ;) "
21 friends like this

Comments :

Random South Indian Friend's Classmate: "wat happnd girl ?"
Random South Indian Friend's Hot Friend: "it dfntly was ;-) "
Random South Indian Friend's Classmate: "say na"
Random South Indian Friend: "haha, kp guessin girlies :) "
Random South Indian Friend Desperate Guy Acquaintance: "wat happened dear.pls tell me also"
Random South Indian Friend Best Friend: "wat is dis abt huh ?"
Random South Indian Friend: "@Random South Indian Friend Best Friend: u knw very well abt dis ;-)"
Random South Indian Friend Best Friend: "i dont dear. tel me tel me fast :-)"
Random South Indian Friend: Ok here it is .. actually .. nama hugtly gama tulu chnata ni Raja nu kis il illa chippa nisu. So Reena senma hittu ja ra fafi lika illa lulla pilla chund. galla ulla tala pilla hara nela gela tam. chintanu ghumni justunnani dhunfa hijja tuy ra. :P .. and then unfr thunda fugga thuank kigga nu. :) :) :) "
Random South Indian Friend's Best Friend: ":)"
Random South Indian Friend:";-)"
Random South Indian Friend's Classmate: "wow .. awesome !"
Random South Indian Friend: "hehe"

............

I trust that I have driven home the point I am trying to make by the above illustration. Now you can very well argue that any Facebook user can use Google Translator or for that matter just simply ask the concerned user for an English translation. However, both those options violate the basic principles on which rest the Facebook culture which promises to all users, voyeurism through minimal effort and absolute anonymity. A substantial proportion of South Indian Facebook users have been found guilty of such practices which have considerably harmed the usability of Facebook. It is for this reason that there has been no love lost between me and South Indian Facebook users. As a non-racist, I have a come up with a most fair suggestion of banning all South Indian Facebook users for life. Such a step will be for the general good of all Facebook users and ipso facto all of humanity.

P.S: Don't try Google Translator on the South Indian comment above. You will realize that if I knew shit about the language I wouldn't be complaining about it.

Absurdities

2010-10-13T16:59:00.001+05:30

This post is not about Surds. I grant that many surds may be absurd in their own right, but this is not about them.
This ejaculation of unwanted wisdom is about things beyond explanation. Absurdities are those diversions from the norm, those happenings defying logic, those acts going beyond conventional wisdom. Absurdity is an Australian player called "Miao Miao", absurdity is Sherlyn Chopra, absurdity is ghost-driving-broomsticks. Absurdity is good. Mostly. As the the guy in goggles and red shirt on Orkut says: "Normal is boring". And right he is. Normal indeed is inane, bland, tasteless and remarkably unfunny. And that is what makes absurdity so refreshing.
I remember devoting a precious hour of my life once on what seemed a very weighty intellectual issue. "What is normal?". Think about it. What is normal ? "A line drawn at a right angle to the figure", says the smart guy. Screw his ass. I actually remember the exact backdrop of this conundrum. Like all great breakthroughs, my inspiration came from Facebook. It was during a conversation with a friend that I remember using the word abnormal. "You are abnormal you know" was what I had said. And in my defense, I believed I had reason enough. The guy had posed in the most ridiculous of manners in pictures of him on the site. And to top it off, wrote captions in Bollywoodish English for each of them. This act, a rather tasteless and insanely dumb transgression of the unsaid boundaries of narcissism, seemed to me, absurd. Abnormal. And I told him so. I remember then proceeding to tell other people about this. And they all seemed to agree. Though at different levels of affirmation. The "apple from the tree on falling on head" moment happened, however, an hour later. Those ludicrous snaps of our "absurd" subject had been commented upon by a girl. A girl with a nose, mouth, two pairs of limbs and two breasts. "Wow! You look hot!" it said. Simple, undiluted words of praise. It was it this very moment that the million dollar question surfaced. My assumption of what was abnormal had been questioned. Albeit by a girl with a blunt nose, disfigured mouth, pair of fat-laden limbs and sagging breasts. It implied in essence that my assumptions about normalcy may not be correct either. An hour of intense rumination ensued. It led to one life-changing revelation: Normalcy is not an universal phenomenon. And neither is abnormality.
It is probably this subjective element of absurdity that makes it so appealing. What's absurd to me may not seem so to you. And it should not. Beyond the rights of free speech and free blogging, is that one unsaid privilege that we all enjoy, the right to free thought. And so all of us are free to use our own discretion, we decide what is normal and what is absurd. If "Miao Miao" or "Woof Woof" is what you want to call your child. Go ahead, do it. It's your brain. You are the sole decider of its terms of use. Fuck the rest.
All said and done, absurdity remains an essential part and parcel of our lives. It's what makes each moment different. It's what makes us laugh and cry. The Tushar Kapoors of the world are the ones who make our lives that much more livable. So go ahead and embrace absurdity with open arms. I promise you a better life.

DP

2010-07-22T02:00:00.001+05:30

That's what this is precisely. A Desperate Post. A desperate attempt to add to this space. I am in exactly that kind of mood in which I couldn't care less for the grammar. I am in exactly that kind of mood in which I couldn't care less for the formatting of this post. I am in that kind of a mood in which I shall throw random off-the-top-of-the-head at you and care precious little about how you might not like reading about it.
There are these four letters you know . L U C K . The word peculiarly enough rhymes with FUCK which like the original word can mean imply both good and bad. I realize the fact that here I am in supposedly the "best f**kin B-school in the country" because Luck would have it. I also realize that this is not an end. I realize that this is just a start. And even during this journey , the L , the U , the C and the K will all have their share of F-U-C-K ing to do .I do not complain. For once, I seriously don't. I do not particularly enjoy randomness. I do not like not knowing what's going to happen next. Yet somehow for once I want to be able to flow with it. And enjoy it in the process.
I am not going to talk about what I am doing or how hectic life is , how I am getting royally screwed in certain "Balancing of Shit" exercise or why too many girls is a bad thing. I am sure you would like to know. The reason being that I do not want to resort to cribbing and sulking .And neither do I want to gain "respeck" by proclaiming how I, Superman himself, am coping up with the "bhery bhery hectic" life at B-School .
So anyways, there are lots of Bengali professors here. In fact , almost all professors are Bong. Anticipated no doubt. I have a bean bag in my room now . Its amazingly comfortable . I suggest you buy one. Comes pretty cheap .The chicken served at lunch today was freaking tasty . So was the mishti doi yesterday. Nice stuff. Closeness to home is a distraction at times. Whenever I go home, I don't feel like coming back to the campus. No surprises there. Tollygunge has been frequented too , quite a bit. The Deshapriyo Park CCD is awesome somehow. Difficult to pinpoint why. Nice place that , Deshapriyo Park. It could become my second favourite place in this city after a certain other Park with a Street. For all who love the place at night, I find it absolutely delightful on a Sunday morning. Tired, calm .
In other life-changing revelations, I do not think my life is Facebook-worthy. I don't know if I even want it to be. But since I mention it, I guess somewhere deep down I do .

May I Have Your Attention Please !!

2010-05-07T16:09:00.001+05:30

This is to inform you that the author of this blog , introduced and described previously as a normal human being with the most outrageously normal life ,is all set to take a perfectly normal detour on his career path. As is the norm(al) ,post his engineering degree from BITS Pilani , he will now join IIM Calcutta for a degree in management.

As already apparent , the author , now consumed by hubris , will refer to himself in third person in this post. And why not? Getting into an IIM is no mean feat.

The author has had to endure severe trials and tribulations during the IIM admission process. He appeared for CAT on the 1st of December 2009 in the 3 pm slot at the Institute of Engineering and Management (IEM) Kolkata . Neither the date nor the venue where selected randomly. As a dedicated professional would ,he consulted his resident numerologist who explained that the author's birthday, the date 01.12.2009 ,position of stars of the Taurus constellation and the number 99 (important in the CAT context) were linked by a divine ratio which he had previously witnessed only in the case of a deaf and blind CAT 100 percentiler of yore.The venue was easier to select. IEM was as close as it gets to IIM. Not one to give in to complacency , our beloved author prepared relentlessly for the CAT. He could recite up to the 200th decimal place of pi in less than a minute and quote the exact page number of any given word in the Oxford dictionary .

On the fateful day, our author turned up at the test venue much before time and entered into his ritual meditation until he was asked to move inside the test centre for pre-test procedures. The test was a breeze. In fact , on seeing certain questions , the author was seen smirking at how embarrassingly simple they were. He however wasn't one to take chances and hence attempted 59 out of the 60 questions with about 20 minutes to spare.

Word circulated soon about how many other CAT takers had attempted even more questions than the author had and that too admittedly with an accuracy of 90% or more. This made him tense. On quite a few occasions in the days post CAT , a teary-eyed author was seen looking up to the heavens and praying for divine intervention .He was also spotted playing the "IIM , no IIM" game with the petals of the roses he had picked up from his garden.

The results came out without warning. Our author had scored a solid 99.77 percentile but a 95 odd in VA meant he had no IIM A call. He went into a frenzy, cursing his misfortune and CAT organisers alike. With IIM A out of the window, our author had his fingers crossed regarding the IIM B and IIM C prospects. He ended up getting both. In a moment of exultation , the author punched his fist against the wall infront of him and in the process, almost fractured his pillars in the process.

The next step in the process was filling personal data forms of the respective IIMs. The author ,normal and boring as he is, had to go out of his way in conjuring up "hobbies" and "career plans". And then came the GDs , essays and PIs. The author was subject to abject humiliation in the way of being forced to wear white shirts, formal t-shirts and ,would you believe it !, a tie !! He was then put in a room full of nerds (people like him with normal lives) and asked for opinions on issues he had only learnt to care about only after the CAT results were declared. GDs were noisy. Our author, a sucker for tranquility , wasn't impressed. Essays were more sober affairs. The author, not one to take things lightly, devised mechanisms to fully utilise every minute of the time allotted to him. He also used his yogic methods to focus all his energy into his pen which almost seemed to glide on the paper as if it had a life of its own. Personal interviews followed. The author, prepared for any question thrown at him, waxed eloquent about his academic achievements, strengths , weaknesses (?) and other sundry topics. The panel was impressed.

What remained was a formal declaration of the results. And that happened on the 10th of April. Our author ,understandably ecstatic, drowned himself with gallons of Russian liquor. Rumour has it that he also danced naked. But we have no eye witnesses to vouch for the same.

That was that. History was made. Our author shall now grace IIM Calcutta with his auspicious presence. He will also try to grace this space sometimes to help out your sorry asses (God! The arrogant snob !). You may now start with the standing ovation. Cheers !

Dish And That

2010-02-25T20:00:00.001+05:30

I found the idea of a blog incredibly romantic when I started out with it. I finally had a website of my own which will have only stuff I write . No “Please be my neighbour, I am a hot chick and roam about in my undies all day” requests , no “You may not know me , but this is my boyfriend and we hug and kiss and take pics to make you jealous . Haha !! “ images , no nothing. Just my thoughts.,unadulterated .Seemed nice.

The whole exercise of sitting down in front of a desktop and putting random thoughts together to make a coherent post is possibly the most soul-searching I could manage . And so I blogged. There were the minor issues involved . Should I write “his” or “her” name or just use “he” and “she” or

maybe mysterious acronyms ? Mr.A , Miss. B ? Who was S again ? Anyways , I sorted those issues out soon. nOOb blogger stuff , you may call them. Things we later realise didn't matter at all. The fact is , when we start off with a blog , we grossly overestimate their impact and expected readership . “Oh my god , its on the INTERNET and there are MILLIONS, wait BILLIONS , wait TRILLIONS !!! of people out there. OMG !! OMG!! What if they come to know ? What if my dad opens it ? What will happen if my girlfriend reads my fictitious sexcapades ? OMG !! ” .You get the drift. Disillusion reigns . A couple of enthusiastic weeks later , we realise that although there might be trillions out there , no one quite managed to stumble onto that url of yours. What are the chances !!!

Its when this life changing revelation dawns on you , that your blogaholism fizzes out . 80% of bloggers who had previously set on a selfless journey to entertain the rest of humanity with the joys of blogging bury alive their blogs once and for all. The industrious lot survive , using other channels to diligently guide bored surfers to their blog. But most die. I did too. ADD kicked in and kicked me out of blogosphere. And I took to Twitter . Oh , FYI (www.twitter.com/shoaib88) .Quickly tapping few random words off the top of the head suits the unimaginative. Suits me. Of course trillions don't read my tweets either . So this might die a slow death too one day.

One thing I cannot tolerate is people dishing out gyaan on public platforms. If at all we ever need inspiring insights into love, life and everything in between, I doubt we would ever revert to gtalk status messages and orkut profile names. Why should people care for what you think ? If you are a Sri Sri , they might listen , otherwise they won't. They shouldn't . Which brings me one actual reason why blogging has started became such a tough ass job. Its this ideological conundrum .Here I say that you shouldn't care about what lame ass pseudo-intellectuals think or say . (Read previous sentence again) . I mean , why should I expect you to listen to me telling you not to listen to others ? Right ? Yes ? No ? Exactly . A man should have principles in life .No double-faced business. What right do I have of harking my principles out loud and then violating them in the very same post ? And why should I force myself to write a blog post if I don't want to ? You never forced me to right ? Then ? Am I not a double-faced rascal ? Damn me !

Me Comeback, Me Blog

2010-01-01T01:34:00.000+05:30

I feel this sudden overwhelming sense of responsibility towards my rather massive readership . Which, besides you, includes all the naked and brazenly blue residents of Pandora .To all of them and the rest of mankind I dedicate this "Vinod Kambli"ish comeback to blogosphere. I fully respect the rather minimal expectations that you have from my blog . You might have just landed here because I mentioned BITS Pilani ,BITS Pilani ,BITS Pilani thrice .In which case ,a loud sinister laughter will now blare out of your speakers .Maybe not.For most parts of this post, I will cough and choke words out of my system .And I don’t demand an audience .That you will read this in full and then complain that you wasted 5 precious minutes of your life is your fault, not mine .Thoughts don’t flower in my mind like they do in yours . But I will try to cultivate and pollinate them . Then hope for sweet fruit . That they may turn out to be unpalatable is a risk you can decide to not take.

Another year draws to a close.

Another year of hair loss, another year of being a sad nerd .

Another year of reasonless cursing , another year of being jealous of the more fortunate .

Another year of US sitcoms , another year of being a couch potato .

Another year of watching movies ,another year of listening to music.

Another year of not smoking , another year of being a non-alcoholic .

Another year of salivating over biryani , another year of hating college mess.

Another year of loving Calcutta , another year of complaining about West Bengal.

Another year of conning to rote, another year of appearing for tests.

For all the year-end celebrations , most things don’t actually much .Thankfully though , some things do . Pilani ends , joblessness ends .Special people become more special . Not so special people are forgotten .Some disappoints live on and some opportunities promise good things .I don’t have much to complain about .That makes me happy .Yet I am not satisfied .And that excites me. Here’s to hoping for “new” in the new year. Peace.

This Is Not A New Post

2009-07-24T22:39:00.003+05:30

Caution : Lethargic Author

This blog will be back , hopefully ,some day , maybe .

And if you're dying to read : http://www.google.co.in/reader/shared/shoaib104

Shit Happens ..

2009-04-20T20:54:00.003+05:30

... for no reason at all.

P.S: Click to enlarge

Jibber Jabber

2009-04-11T21:34:00.000+05:30

You can just read and move on . I don't expect you to respond . I am experiencing a bout of depression . Apparently arising out of nothing particular . I don't feel happy . I am not high . I don't drink . But I just feel like blabbering .Feel like talking without making any sense . Gives me a sense of relief . I don't expect you to understand the point of this . I don't know the point of this .My eyes are burning . I have not been sleeping much of late . Not that I have been working a great lot .But I just haven't slept .Don't feel like sleeping . Don't feel like doing a lot of things lately . Lazying around feels good . And that's all . There is a lack of drive . I need to be egged on .But how and by what ? Is it supposed to be born inside . That's not happening .Then ? Where do I look for it ? I count days .Days to the end of this semester .Days to the beginning of the next .Rounding off appropriately. Doesn't help much. 32 .Damn!

04.04.2009

2009-04-04T18:36:00.000+05:30

Is there a way more sensible than that which is purely based on rational presumptions ? Or should the romantic soul be glorified for his blissful escapism ?

What does one do when reality is not in sync with premeditation ? What if there is no Plan B ?

Or should I not think at all ?

Can I not think at all ?

Crouching Tigers and Scary Dreams

2009-03-15T16:43:00.000+05:30

I don't know much about the science behind dreams . What chemistry lies behind the fabrication of the images we see when we dream , I have no clue . But dreams with their bizarre and distant semblance to more real images scare me . My fears are , I believe similar to those of most other rational beings . I fear reptiles , dogs , diseases ,failure , death and communal riots . And while dreams about reptiles and dogs eating me up make me sweat while I am sleeping , its those of the other category of fears which provoke disturbing thoughts even when I am awake .And that I don't like . What's eerie and scary at the same time , is how the images I see and the the words I hear have no real connection with any existing situation and yet somehow represent deep-seeded fears inside me in their most frightening form . And hence dismissing them becomes difficult. Hope I find a cure to this soon . Wonder if I can do anything to shift the motif of my dreams to more favourable ones. Putting up giant wallpapers of pretty women might possibly help .

Shifting to a totally unrelated story , I went to Ranthambore over the past weekend . Saw tigers and Mukesh Ambani . I know that deserves a bigger post . So that's all I'll say about it right now .

I am also possibly going home , yes GOING HOME towards the end of this month . Its a plan and a schedule made in a hurry .

Nothing more to share right now . Will post a post with snapshots of Ranthambore and a 'Spot the Tiger and win a date' contest later . But then that's way too much inertia to overcome .Will take a while.

Every Dog Has His Day

2009-03-06T03:27:00.003+05:30

Courtesy : MS Paint ('cos Photoshop is scary)
P.S:Click to view full image

I Know What You Did Last Spring

2009-03-02T20:06:00.000+05:30

The world is gloomy .There's an air of gloom about me .There's also a strange smell .Or that's possibly just me .But then aren't we all very sick ? Lots of diseases around I hear . There's some sort of a strange outbreak in Maharashtra . No, not the panty shower . Although that would have been a fun epidemic .Not quite sure if Muthalik sent those saris he promised . Girls look pretty in saris. Most do . Friedy Pinto wore something inspired by a sari at the Oscars. Should have worn a sari if you ask me . Slumdog has gotten way more than it deserved . But then , we know why that is so . Dev D should get every damn award there is . But then it wont get any . And we know why .Turns out some questions are a lot simpler than we make them out to be .Except India's jinxed run in New Zealand . I hope they do better than last time . There was some International Conference on Robotics in New Zealand . Robotics never interested me . But then , nothing else did too . Wonder what I am supposed to do . I might just choose to type away frantically like this . But then I got a test to study for . Not tomorrow , day after . Which means I have time . So I can type a little longer . And not make any sense at all . If you are still reading , you are possibly even more jobless . So please read on and write a long comment about how orgasmic this randomness is . Random is good . See how mind boggling-ly generic that last statement was ? Like blogger is good . This book is good . This post is bad . All generic . All simple .I wish some other things were that simple . Like engaging in a conversation with relatives I don't know nothing about . I need to be be more social . Talking generic stuff about the world helps sometimes , though . Did I get back to generic ? Bah !

nota bene

2009-02-26T18:07:00.000+05:30

The blogger is on an indefinite hiatus .

The micro-blogger though , is alive and kicking.

Thank You

Asinine Tendencies

2009-01-28T19:18:00.001+05:30

The thing about an ass is , not only is it stupid but also stubborn in refusing to admit it is so.

Blog Is It ?

2009-01-12T00:01:00.001+05:30

Bringing myself to blog again has been tough . Words have failed me on previous attempts . But I am here now . All set to blog , bore , ridicule .

A new semester has started . Not that there were any doubts about it doing so . Penultimate one in this sad old place . The sadness and oldness of which you realise when you are making that journey from Delhi . Be it a Haryana Roadways or a Toyota Innova , the degree of torture is the same .

Happy New Year by the way to all those who have been assured of ensuing happiness . And a gloomy new year to all others . It'll come harder , you know.The recession .The slowdown .The meltdown .All of it .Joblessness is in fashion . So if you are slogging it out in that fancy little office of yours , you're just so very yesterday (duuuhh !!) .

Calcutta was fun .(Notice my anti-chronological sequence ? Cool na ? ) As it always is. Lazy , laid-back , do nothing kind of fun .Akin to the lazy , laid-back , do nothing kind of city .Caught a few movies and slept through one (The Day ... zzz) .Liked RNBDJ .Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi . You can drag down those raised eyebrows .I know the plot is senseless and the movie had almost all the universally-detestable cliches of a Bolly flick . But hey , I love the guy . And the visual of the cute little him on the giant FAME screen played with my sexual orientation .And so I liked the film . In case you are wondering , I thought Ghajini was a pain. And it's possibly that pain which made Aamir howl like a mad dog throughout the movie .Coming back to Calcutta , I did precious little of anything else except stroll up and down Park Street . Ate a lot this time . A bunch of people were getting married and some sent us an invitation . So I went. Smiled .Ate. Smiled .Ate .Simple enough. Never really knew much about who was getting married or which side I had been invited by ,but smiled and ate all the same .That's pretty much it. Throw in a few scenes of a Television and me in front of it on a bed and you have my winter break summed up.

P.P.S: As you might know , jobs have become hard to get. So if you care , I can drive .Can't cook ( Whoever knew that would be a career blunder? Damn !!) . Haven't tried cleaning up or washing clothes .But I am a fast learner . So let me know of any openings .

And just to piss you off some more , "Hum hain rahi pyaar ke , phir milenge chalte chalte "

Dial P For ..

2008-12-16T13:56:00.000+05:30

Since this guy started spreading the virus around a few months ago , my immediate blogosphere has been reeking of philosophical odour . Pseudo-intellectual's and wannabe pseudo-intellectuals and pseudo-wannabe intellectuals who once blissfully clapped and jeered at Raghu's Open-Air Rape shows , have now pushed their dettol-clean thumbs into their mouth and started gazing into starry-night skies. All of them hunting frantically for answers to questions about real life , real success , real relationships .. really real non-sense .

"Sheeshh, I am so very unprepared for tomorrow "

"Aahh .. my friend . University exams is one of the many manifestations of human hedonism .The real test is the 'test of life ' . Success is beyond examinations and money and pretty legs .It is about the hyper-real transcendence into an universe beyond worldly pleasures and displeasures ...blah .. blah .zzZZ "

"Oh yes .. f**k exams, we'll get real success ..yoohoooo!!!"

What goes without saying is that there is never any real soul-digging behind the scenes of this philosophical melodrama . All the deeply metaphorical /heart-rending /brain-scratching lines emanate possibly from Bolly drama or K-soaps . Its only when SRK whispers "kya pata ,kal ho na ho ?" ,that those gray cells begin to light up in excitement /anxiety . Aaahh .. what is life ? ..what is love ? .. what is real success ?

The thing is , not only is this pointless philosophy completely non-sensical, useless and utterly symbolic of lazy escapism , it is simply boring .If its philosophy that you are hell-bent on pursuing ,I would rather you switch to intellectually and even otherwise stimulating topics like Mallika Sherawat saying ,"Cinema and viagra are the same thing ". Not only should that be smart , humorous and infinitely more interesting , it might even answer your questions about life , love and real success in a manner more coherent with the thinking cells in the rest of cellular body .And for all you know , it might leave you a little happier .Transform you into the really real kind of happy you .Much better than the sad, cranky ,boring you trying to debate the 'purpose' of your existence and the barometer of really real success.

Get well soon .

And PS : Whatever the question is , " I'm right! "

Complexities ..

2008-11-27T12:13:00.000+05:30

One desire .

One irrepressible need .

One primary motive .

One time-constrained plan.

One focal point of effort .

One epicenter of will power.

One central dogma .

One inconceivable impossibility .

One irrational theory .

One self-conceptualised hypothesis .

One precarious assumption .

One fateful redirection .

One perplexed mind.

One palpitating heart .

One nervous self.

During My Times With Me

2008-11-23T08:59:00.000+05:30

I have been riding a sinusoid . Highs, lows, peaks , troughs .All I care for , is to be the right person .And have the right numbers . Yet it all seems so much more difficult . So much more heuristic . So much more about that which you cannot foresee, cannot prepare for . So much beyond a 'cause and effect' routine .

It's not that I am all lost . It's not that I have always been on the wrong side of bargain . Yet, the times in which I have seem to suddenly matter more than those in which I haven't . I have always tried to be less of a thinker and more of a doer .Yet, when things don't fall in place when I feel I deserved to have them do , I am forced to think beyond . It doesn't help . It never helps .Trying to figure out the un-figureout-able .And yet I try to . And yet I push myself to a low .

But I think I know the right path now . In fact , I think I always have .I won't meander no more .The will is still there . Now , more than ever .To do what I have to .To rise above things beyond .To be me.

-a candid self on a Sunday morning

inky pinky ponky

2008-11-15T22:52:00.001+05:30

i don't feel like studying .. life sucks .. when will i start earning ?.. i want money .. and more money ... and still more money .. priyanka looks hot .. what ? gay ? .. she's hot .. that girl .. no , the pink one .. ya , damn hot .. red one right ? .. we shouldn't objectify women .. she did ? .. who's that .. moments of joy are ephemeral , a sad life is life-long .. we shouldn't sulk all the time .. i want to go home .. and stay there .. december hmm .. yes , we will ... of course , we will .. obama is america's president, not india 's .. people write all sorts of stupid stuff on gtalk .. when did they ? .. oh ! .. 3 times ?? .. msp .. hmmm .. whatever ... no clue ..heroes aaya kya ?? .. pb ? ...house ? .big bang ?. himym ?? ..yup tests .. na boss not final test .. that is in december .. chai ? .. tea? .. chalo .. aur ek chai bhaiya .. call me na .. please . no balance .. kya padhna hai ? .. .. he's crazy ... dude , you are a moron .. hey , wassap ??

I M ? Don't Bother !

2008-11-14T10:57:00.000+05:30

9:08 PM

Friend:Hey man ... wassup ?

Me : Tests !

12:01 AM

Another Friend ,Same city : Hey dude .. wats up ?

Me : Test man ..

6 PM

1st Friend : Howdi , wat ya doin ?

Me :Nothing man , studyin 4 test ..

3:04 AM

Friend of 2nd Friend : Up so late ? wat doin ?

Me: Test 2moro .. :(

2 PM

Another Friend , different city : Hey , busy huh ?

Me :Hmm .. kinda ...got a test 2 moro man

6:31 PM

1st Friend : Hey , wassap ?

Me : Guess ..

1st Friend : Test huh ?

Me : Bingo !!

11:34 PM

1st Friend : Test ?

Me : yup

10:04 AM

2nd Friend : Studyin ..??

Me : Trying 2 , hav 2

12:44 AM

1st Friend : ???

Me : !!!!

1st Friend : :)

Me : :(

Save The Cheerleader, Save The World !

2008-10-24T00:01:00.003+05:30

Since intense mind-boggling philosophy about love,life and everything else is not my thing and poetry is something I am yet to try my hand (fingers) at , I will use this space to do what I do. Blog about me, my life (the little that's there to it) and things which circumstantially happen to be a part of either .
Its been 6 days since I was shoved into an airbus full of wailing NRI kids and deported to Kolkata . And during this period , which also happens to be post my graduation from dial-up to broadband ,I just haven't been able to bring myself to blog because I have been busy saving the world.In case you haven't yet figured out which TV series I have spent the last few days watching (not that I asked you to) , I don't see you having any chance of doing it by the end of this post.
My little trip back home was meant to be otiose .And that is precisely what it has been thus far . There's one little interesting thing which transpired though .I just got back from a Russell Peters Show .By which I mean I watched him perform live .Yeah live , not on live feed. It cost me quite a few pennies and left me with a sore throat .'LOL'ing has its hazards .Something we don't realise while chatting on IM .The show was worth both , the pennies and the sore throat ,put together . Russell beta made sure he didn't dissapoint fans in his parents' hometown .
I still have a few days before I head back to the desert .During which , I need to scan through a few pages of a certain textbook I have carried home and yes , save the world .As of now ,I'd better teleport to tomorrow on my cushiony bed-shaped time machine. Peace.

[Sad Smiley]

2008-10-08T21:12:00.000+05:30

My gustatory proclivities are fiddling with my system .

Chicken Biryani @ Shiraz ... sigh

Blog You Bitch !!

2008-10-04T23:57:00.003+05:30

In keeping with the hot new trend on this space , post titles are not indicative or definitive or meaningful .So just ignore 'em .

Trees , tries ? I am sick of it now . I have realised I am not that guy . The guy who can study till his eyeballs pop out and get drilled into by the tip of his pen . No animosity here .I love you guys .All you dreary eyed book-creepers . May the almighty crank up all those textbooks into the inside of you through an appropriate crevice .May you be crushed to death under a pile of books .May a library be built over your dead body .May your rotting flesh bring wisdom to bacteria and weeds . Amen.

We are all helplessly servile to inevitabilities . Be it the ticking clock or the receding hairline .The genes will do their job.Guess I can only watch and sigh.

Today's Quote : You can take a Nano out of Bengal , but you can't take B .. drat !! That makes no sense . No quotes here . I'm out.

:wq

$ exit

P.S: You had better comment . I am a Muslim , I'll make your cellphone explode.

Dirty Underwear

2008-09-25T18:25:00.001+05:30

The title has nothing to do with what this post is about . So if you are here to read about a certain intellectually stimulating deeply metaphorical rendition of the state of world affairs , you can leave now .I have got my hit , thank you !

We all live inside a cocoon . Surrounded by people and things we like the most and others we can't avoid . We do things which ought to be done .And in due course, get to used to the norm and the monotonousness of what we do and even start liking it . It seems right.We are happy .So , you have appeared for a thousand tests since you came to the place. Go ahead , take a hundred more. Keep slogging . Don't question . And so I did. Didn't question.Didn't think .After all , this is what a twenty - year old does right ? Appear for tests, study , appear for tests , study , tests, study ...And yes , I didn't complain .Didn't think till a certain naive friend from a different sphere of life asked a seemingly innocuous question ," You guys must party a lot na ? All my friends doing engineering have lots of fun .You do too right ? "

I lived my entire life 5 minutes away from the most happening place in one of the more happening cities of this part of the world. And then I came to this place .This place in the middle of nowhere .And I didn't complain. One of the best technical institutes of the country , they said . Made me happy enough .And I moved in. Appeared for my first test , second test and eventually made a habit out of it. And I am happy . Or I am supposed to be. Or maybe I am not. Is it true that I don't have a life ? Or is this what it should be . Let's find out .Lets go to Kolkata once more .

17th October : Go Indigo .Dep: 18:20 hours Arr: 20:50 hours .

Screw you guys , I'm going home ! Now that's happy .

Teacher Teacher

2008-09-05T12:18:00.000+05:30

Its not that 5th September has ever had much of a significance for me. Heck ,it wasn't even a holiday in school . A half day at best . Wherein we had to watch a bunch of mascara caked ,tinkle - wearing , semi-talented bunch of wannabe dancing girls do the same "east is east, west is west and never the twain shall meet" sort of jig year after year and then listen to a choir belting out one incredibly melancholy number after another as if making them teachers realise that they are required to be selfless humans who would never get paid a great deal ever was the sole purpose of the day .Now my school was a modern sort .The kind where girls were punished for wearing skirts shorter than that required for conformity with the norm and where rumours were always afloat about clandestine rendezvous in a certain nondescript "saare paach talla" .But it was when this sort of a day came around that these same short skirt clad paragons of broadmindedness would transform themselves into disciples of the Nataraja and deliver the most mind-numbingly un-arousing performance .Weird!

So the day is called Teacher's Day. And for some odd reason it appears to be meant for only school teachers .

"C'mon dude Professors are ... Professors .Teacher's are different .They are .. not Professors ."

Lets buy that for the time being and head back to school .Yes , the same one. Short skirts ,etc .. I realise that a 5th September post should be about glorifying teachers.But then , how interesting can a description about dexterity in algebra or mastery over enunciation be ? So lets make fun of 'em instead .

(P.S: There were some really brilliant people who taught me during my schooldays. But then showering of superlatives won't make for a fun read.)

Class IX :Mr .Fernandez. Yeah, the Latino kind Fernandez .Stud he was .He had red hair ,studded ear lobes and a Spanish accent .All he didn't have was knowledge of Geography . Not that it affected anyone of us a great deal .Never thought Geography was something you could teach. The guy tried his best though .Taking time out from his pursuit of love from female colleagues ,he did dictate a lot of notes .I am curious to find out whether he did he get married .By the way , he used sport a red rose on his suit on V Day .Cool guy.

Class X: Mr Das .D Das ."Examination is the botheration from generation to generation" .That's what his favourite line was.If ever any person could look like a Mathematician , he did .The beard and the smile never entered class without witty one-liner's on his mind and a pack of cigarettes tucked inside his shirt .He was more famous for his exploits during his private tuition classes where he was once rumoured to have taught 100 students clad in a vest and shorts .

Class XI and XII :Ma'am Sabine "ohm" Paul .I am starting to lose patience with this post .So wrapping up with the mention of the one who cannot not be mentioned .Its one thing to know it all and be able to teach little and a totally different one to know precious little and be able to turn up for class everyday . Its not for the what she taught (which sometimes seemed like Physics ) ,but for her overt histrionics in class that she will always find mention during reunions .From her incredibly non-mellifluous manner of speaking to the "Lets Pray" session before tests and clap with your fingers suggestion during birthday celebrations ,Maam Paul always provided much needed entertainment.

There were plenty of other interesting people who come to mind .Plenty more of bizarre oddities .I'll gather the patience someday.Some other 5th of September .

3 Weeks Hence ...

2008-09-03T12:00:00.000+05:30

I wish I could start this post with a dozen reasons why I haven't blogged in a long time .I wish I could describe a visit to the Americas , Brazil or Cuba or my experiences during an international paper presentation competition or how I have been busy trying to woo the most coveted damsel on campus .

Reasons there must be , you would think .Truth be told , I had made quite a few attempts at adding novelty to this space .But on all previous occasions where I zealously double-clicked on the Live Writer icon , I found a blank post staring at me . Jeering me , my uneventful existence and my yet to be published post .But here I am , ready to type .Fully prepared to create a brand new post out of nothing .

3 weeks , a few dozen classes and 2 Test 1's since I previously graced this space , life's pretty much the same .The rest of BITS has been up and about. The talk of the town being the recent Presdential elections where this honourable man was defeated by certain omnipotent,six-packed,underwear-clad masked man called None. Local historians are up in arms about this unprecedented result .Others like me who don't rate the relevance of the event highly are just being themselves . Being the normal college students who eat,drink,sleep,attend classes and appear for tests .

I am still on a staple diet of Hindi songs and English TV series'. I have realised Stumbling can be a techno-savvy way of whiling away time . Barring the Opti class yesterday and Num-Al 3 days ago , attendance is still at cent percent .Contradictory to how it might seem like so far in this post, I am happy with how things are going and how reasonably disciplined and industrious I have been .Lets hope the fruits taste sweet .Toes , fingers ,etc crossed . Lets live !

Long Time , No Post ?

2008-08-12T01:08:00.001+05:30

No one actually asked me that . Except that die-hard fan I hallucinate about when I am really depressed and low .The truth of course is that I don't really have much to write about . You can argue that I never really have anything remotely interesting to share .And I agree .But apparently any situation can get just that little bit worse .

If you must know however , I had a nagging viral fever which is finally dying out. It seemed Kolkata's parting gift to me , the virus .Caught me on the morning of my journey back and in the words of a certain person's sms ,"Was destiny's last attempt at holding you back ."

Any how,as it stands now I am in Pilani and have pretty much gotten into the whole mould of things here .Which means the morning rush ,the day dreaming , the evening tea and the nocturnal insomnia .I've gotten hooked on to Hindi songs . Those romantic ones , for some reason .And have changed my blog's template again .

That's pretty much it . I am not the kind who'd discuss how proud I should feel because a guy got a Gold Medal in the Olympics . 'Cos I don't really care .He gets the cash , not us .

Wow, I haven't felt this blank in a while . Enough of trying to drag this post .

Publish!

Vacation Chronicle : The Last Part

2008-07-30T15:41:00.001+05:30

And here comes the tear-soaked ( I know its a technological impossibility , you smart-ass ) final post of the Vacation Chronicle series .

Its that time when the child in me starts wailing and adult in me starts muttering .Like every other time , I don't want to go back to Pilani , don't want to leave home , don't want to go away from Kolkata .

I have had a nice time , throughout the 2 and a half months of the break .

The whole PS drama , the struts along the stretch of Park Street, coffee dates when we talked and sipped cappachino , coffee dates when we had too less in our pockets to order for anything , flipping through Maxim in the Oxford Bookstore whiling sharing a Rs 50 worth Masala Chai , my disc-debut at Underground ,lurking around in Someplace Else when Barista started to get too embarrassing ,etc etc ...

Its not for nothing that I love Kolkata . And for people who have been to both the places , its not for nothing that I hate Pilani .

Anyhow , there's little point to either the wailing or the muttering . Its time to fly back . Its time to head back to BITS Pilani , face the barrage of CDC's and try and make sure I emerge with minimal gun-shot wounds . Another semester of lectures , tuts , TV Series' and movies .Prepared to lift-off.

.... End Of The Series ....

[sad face smiley]

The Final PS Equation

2008-07-15T14:06:00.001+05:30

PS 1

~~ASP.Net~~

~~SQL~~

~~XML~~

~~SSIS~~

~~SSAS~~

2650/-

I'll miss the free coffee ,

I'll miss madam secretary ,

I'll miss those ringtones.

I'm jobless again ,

Devil's Workshop is now in session !

Vacation Chronicle - Part VII

2008-07-10T01:33:00.001+05:30

Stupid blackouts can't stop me . Jab tak mere battery mein charge rahega , meri ungliyaan chalegi .

Its a sick feeling , getting squeezed between two giant armpits in a car . I wish a had a gigantic one myself to shove in their faces .

Blackout's are good in some ways . Its just that I can't think of any right now with scores of mosquitoes sucking at every bare part of my body .

I'm rich . A red ,crispy , Mahatma printed 1000 rupee note and 10 sweat soaked , dirty looking 50 rupee ones .The presentation happened day before yesterday . 1500 < 2000 (as previously said /not said/circulated in a rumour) . Any how ,something's better than ... Feels good to know we are not just working for peanuts , but a few thousand kg's of it , at least . Who cares about the amount ? Who cares about my driver getting paid double that much ? 1500 bucks is not dust . Its more like 20 litres of petrol , if not anything else .

PS has started to seem a little more than totally redundant, all of a sudden .The 'HUGE' cash earnings aside, I can think of a few good things PS has done. I now know exactly what I don't want to do in life . I now know people , even in the biggest of IT firms ultimately Ctrl C and Ctrl V . R&D is just another way of saying ,"Lets Google and copy the codes" . Its a frustrating life , that of an IT pro .Stuck in a cubicle with a desktop, a deadline and the lurking prospect of being shown the door for the slightest slip-up . Not a pretty picture .I doubt whether I really have a choice though. I might have sealed my fate already . Maybe the guy with the goosebumps and sweaty palms , gasping for air in that claustrophobic cubicle is me . I am scared . Are these my last few days of carefree existence ? Should I prepare for chest pains ?

Vacation Chronicle - Part VI

2008-07-07T00:18:00.002+05:30

"Who is the biggest actor in Bollywood ?"

"Ayesha Takiya "

The cheap brand of humour follows in the aftermath of a long-overdue outing with a bunch of guys from school yesterday .They are pretty much the same , all of them . Just as obstreperous , cheap , raunchy , vulgar and bankrupt as they were back in the schooldays . The fat ones have gotten fatter and the dark ones darker ; which means that all erstwhile jokes still managed to induce a measure of guffaw akin to that for which we used to get thrown out of class not many years back .It had a similar effect on the manager of BarBQ who barely decided against dishing out a "Get out!" verdict and quietly pocketed the bill and the 5 rupee tip we left behind (a generous bunch we are ).

We are not schoolboys anymore.Sadly.Across the BarBQ table , I could spot an engineer , another engineer and a few more engineers to-be trying to gulp down their share of American Choupsey. Most of them have turned smokers , some drinkers and some even had (had had) a girlfriend. While one of them had masterminded an exam paper leak in college , another had received threats from the father of girl he had called at 1 in the night to wish "sweet dreams".We're winners , all of us.

As we sat there chatting and eating ,nostalgia set in quickly .I could almost spot a few eyes watering as we reminisced how 'smoking hot' our computer teacher was and how we hated her frog-like husband, how our principal's nasal twang made us want to stick a fork into her throat and how we wished our Physics teacher jumps off the terrace of our school building .Yes, we loved our teachers .

Not everyone seemed to have taken a liking to us kids having fun . A good 4 hours after we had disrupted the chair arrangement (a little bit) and stationed ourselves (with minimal noise) in the Food Court of South City Mall , a sad little waiter asked us to leave .On asking , he informed us that tables were meant for people who actually ordered for food . Guess we should known have got that from the name of the place. "Food Court" is where you eat . We'll remember that next time .

.... End Of Part VI ....

Vacation Chronicle - Part V

2008-06-25T20:31:00.002+05:30

I blame myself squarely for almost all things that happen to me .Good or bad. (That's a good thing right ?) Of the long list of 'couldn't do's' and 'don't have's' , almost all (including not having a long haired, pink cheeked variety of a homo sapien to take me window shopping) can be accounted for by the inherent insolence , ADD and possibly mild dyslexia .I am kidding , I haven't ever had any form of dyslexia .Ever wondered how cool is it to have really fancy diseases ?

"Hi . I am Rahul . I have Acute Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome ."

"Err ...?"

"AIDS!"

"Oh , wow ! I have heard so much about it, but never met anyone having it .This is amazing ."

Cool right ?

How about , "Hi . I am Rajesh . I have gonorrhea."

Oops, not so cool . Guess it doesn't always have to work .

Anyhow, lets get back to where I was heading . So as I said, I blame me and myself for everything that I don't , can't , won't have .I wish I could say the same for a certain something effected by a certain 'diseased' gentleman (not one of those cool ones , 'dirty yellow jaundice').The gentleman in question is the previously introduced PS-1 instructor .

Mid-sem totals were announced .

2006A7PS104 Score :35/40 Mid-Grade:B

If you missed the sad part of the above line ,cast your eyeballs on the last alphabet.For the sake of a more compelling part , you should know that the highest is 35.5 . And what's more , that's a B too. **** ***** ***** ******* ******** (you can do a 'peep' five times for sound effect ) .Mr.Sadist Old Bastard has chucked aside all norms of Relative Grading,average, cluster, peak, etc, etc and shamelessly declared 36 as cut-off for A.The important grade of course is the end-sem. Lets hope the madman finds his brains by then .Or else, I can bang my head on the wall and console myself with Mr.Gump's famous words ,"Shit happens!".

.... End Of Part V ....

Royal Ramble

2008-06-20T21:59:00.000+05:30

How do these bloody Americans come up with such TV shows ? ...TV ta aasthe kor .Kaan er doctor er kache niye jete hobe ebare ....Dude , its that same girl . Ya dude , she is an actress .....300 for stags , 250 for couples , FREE for girls .What ? Ya , 300 for stags , 250 for couples and FREE for girls ..... TV ta aasthe kor .Kaan er doctor er kache niye jete hobe ebare .....Saturday. Can't, how about Sunday . No, Monday then ! OK .Wait , make it Wednesday .OK .Cool ..... How much ? 275 .275? Ya , 12.5% VAT .Oh yes,of course, VAT.....Dude, that's deep ,what about the _ _ _ ? They use those transparent ones . Oh, nice ! ......AAABBAA ....PS-1 sucks !.... TV ta aasthe kor .Kaan er doctor er kache niye jete hobe ebare....I have a business idea. Oh ,its there already.Never mind....Great music man.I love this place . I have to get myself a bean bag, an LCD TV and an iPhone .... Hey , how are your exams going? Sucks, my college sucks ,WBUT sucks ,WB sucks , my life sucks ...TV ta aasthe kor .Kaan er doctor er kache niye jete hobe ebare ....Have you heard ? He is going to HongKong .Yeah ...Dude , movie ? Park Street ? You are evil , I have to study . Oh , OK ...Phew, long conversation .Hmm .I think this is my 100th SMS.No , you have sent 60 , this is my 55th. Oh! ....Pehle SQL Stored procedure likh ,Business layer mein function declare kar , fir DataService layer mein define kar .Haan , thik hai , ruk mail check karne de .... TV ta aasthe kor .Kaan er doctor er kache niye jete hobe ebare ....Dude,lets make a movie .Yes ,lets get her to do an item number in it .Shut up dude , I am serious.Me too , lets make her dance .Get lost ! ....Hehe , that Russian player is called Jerkoff .Hehe :) ....Have you seen his profile ? Yes,the 'ding dong' thing is awesome .That guy has totally lost it ! ... TV ta aasthe kor .Kaan er doctor er kache niye jete hobe ebare ...Its S H O A I B , not S H O I A B ...

Vacation Chronicle - Part IV

2008-06-14T11:31:00.001+05:30

But first , the headlines :

'Sarkar Raj' is a disaster . Ramu should spark off an 'AAG' and jump into it .

Chetan Bhagat is one hell of a smart guy .'3 mistakes' gets 5 stars . Dude , keep 'em coming .

Thank God for Star World !

PR No=643 . Again ?

IPL out . Euro In .Sports on TV= Vacation lifeline .

I "wish for a dish" .
....

Among the many good things like movies , music , cricket , fine legs and deep cuts we all fall in love with , is a certain other thing we learn to always want more off . Marks . No , not the ones 'creams' remove. But the ones which appear in ink at the top right corner of your answerbooks . We always want more of 'em, don't we ? Every mark , or even half or quarter fractions of it makes a difference . So when Master Moron (a.k.a PS instructor A.K.Mukherjee ) decided to chop off half of them from my Quiz paper for a mistake I hadn't made , it set quite a few litres of blood boiling.
Yes , even for half the mark . So are we brought up in this country .

....
"Dush pagla , SPE Chol"
"Chol"

.... End Of Part IV ....

Vacation Chronicle - Part III

2008-06-05T19:10:00.001+05:30

Life's good . Its Bangla Bandh today . And it gets better .'Cos its Bangla Bandh tomorrow .

Bangla Bandhs are as much a part of Bengali culture as Rabindrasangeet or Durga Puja .Whatever be the rhyme or reason , its one political move which never fails to find favour among the predominantly lazy section of the region's population , which includes yours truly . Bandh's have always worked in my favour .From holidays in schools and exams being cancelled ('cancelled' is 'canceled' in American English ?) to a much needed reprieve from the PS routine . Yes , PS continues , continues in its unfairly taxing manner .

Now , PS - 1 is not your regular summer training program . In keeping with the BITSian style, where we appear for about a hundred tests (and I am not exaggerating ) every semester , PS-1 comes with about 10 evaluation components . 10 different kinds of tests in a period of less than 2 months ! The timely double strike means the GD has to be postponed . Quiz - 1 was held last week when we are asked the exact floor area of the company among other meaningless questions . The course also has 2 seminars , Group Discussions , Quizzes and even a 'Diary' which is supposed to be maintained as a record of events during PS . Add to that the atrocity of the 9 to 5 work hours and PS -1 doesn't appear that 'sac' anymore . No points for guessing who wants more Bangla Bandhs.

Rewind >>
Last Sunday was family day out . Lunch followed by a movie was on the schedule . Essentially similar taste buds mean choosing a restaurant is generally not a contentious issue on such occasions . Mughlai emerging as a common preference almost every other time . Selecting a movie though , is a tougher proposition . With both parents generally clueless about the currently running titles and mom murmuring that the movie better be "clean and happy" , it leaves me with my short-fused sister to over-rule with my decision . I looked at the choices available in Fame, South City :

Indiana Jones and .... : Not my kind of movie , Harrison Ford is old and so is the movie's setting . Sister agrees . Good .

Chronicles of Narnia: Sister is jumping up and down .She's seen the first part and loved it . I am least excited , haven't seen the first part . Convince sister that mom will dose off .

Jannat : Emraan Hashmi = Kissing = No No .

Hastey hastey : Jimmy Shergill . No ways .

Khuda Ke Liye : Aaa ha . I've seen this one . Pakistani movie . Based on Islam . Know parents will love it .Convince sister . Choice made.

If you haven't heard of it before , "Khuda ke Liye" is a Pakistani movie based on Islamic traditions, misconceptions , Pakistani hardliners , etc . If you care for my opinion , love watching quality movie and have a reasonably tolerant view of Islam "Khuda ke Liye" is a MUST WATCH .Although not all actors are like brilliant , the movie scores with a wonderful bold storyline and excellent direction .
Parents , as expected , loved the movie . And more surprisingly , so did sister .
Returned home to the IPL Final. A nail biting finish later , adopted "home team" Rajasthan Royals won the game , bringing the much loved extravaganza to a fitting end .
All in all, a Sunday well spent .

.... End Of Part III ....

Vacation Chronicle - Part II

2008-05-31T22:48:00.001+05:30

JEE 2008 results are out .The now familiar sinking feeling surfaced once again . As it often does whenever IIT or IITians are encountered in some way or the other . I am not sure how long this is supposed to continue . Graduation ? Money ? Lifetime ?
Some guy from Howrah secured AIR 9 . Product of Kota , of course . The mention of Kota also raises a few questions deep inside many a often . Should I have gone too ? Was that the reason behind me being under-prepared ? Could that have landed me in K or Kgp ?
I know it makes no sense to ponder over such things . But "IITians are IITians" ,the papers say and there go flurry of disturbing emotions often culminating with self loathing and anger .
OK , no more sulking now .
Time for a PS-1 update :
Whenever a certain someone decides to open his mouth and blabber a certain something about Practice School 1 , it generally involves multiple usage of words like 'sac' and 'lite' ( BITSian dictionary lists both these words as synonyms of 'trivial' ). My experience during the same thus far though hasn't quite warranted the use of either . PS 1 ( introduced as a redundant course earlier ) commenced on the 22nd of May and its been pretty unbearable since then .
People at Data Core (Software division of DCPL) have decided to take advantage of getting the services of supposedly superior minds at a meager CTC and have loaded us with a project and bunch of new languages to learn .
No more sleeping till noon is the most annoying part of the whole process . My day now starts at 8 with a whole lot of scampering to fetch a shirt , the lone pair of formal trousers I have , socks and shoes . 8:30 finds me all bathed , brushed , combed and ready to go to office . By 9 , I push myself onto a "Bhutal Paribahan" ( the bengali for more impact ) bus and at around 9:30 I shove my sweat-soaked shirt and stamped-on boots out of it to enter the 'office' I was supposed to be in by 8:45. I spend the rest of the day infront of a system shared by a PSmate ("space constraint", CEO tells us ), except the 10 odd times I sneak away for coffee and the one time we get lunch .
A week into this ordeal which involves preparing a web portal for a certain university to manage student records , blah blah , I have managed to figure out ways to use the situation to my advantage .I mean , to the extent possible . My unit being situated just beside the CEO's office notwithstanding , I have spent abnormally long periods on social networking sites and downloaded more than a 100 MB of assorted stuff from the net . The 9 to 5 routine though demands the invention of more better ways to get through the hours . "Get used to it ! Its probably what you are heading into 2 years down the line " , is the statement I have heard more than once during the last two weeks.I feel sorry for the full time employees , I feel sorry for me 2 years down the line .

.... End Of Part II ....

Vacation Chronicle -Part I

2008-05-23T23:59:00.004+05:30

A hundred thousand people chanting my name (more precisely that of my famous cricketer namesake) was the high point of my 2 match long outing at the Eden Gardens .Little out of the ordinary happened in the face of a much hyped and a ridiculously under-performing Kolkata Knight Riders side dissapointing a sea of cricket crazy Bongs who braved the storm and a near-collapsing roof to watch SRK's "Bangla Band" and imported cheerleaders perform.Flocks of colloquial-Bengali speaking morons on the 20th replaced the pretty faces of 18th in the adjoining seats .And what's more ,I couldn't even hoodwink my way past the fiercely vigil (Goddamn pervert) policemen and get 'em cheerleaders to give me an autograph ( a hug and a kiss at worst ) .

Moving on to more positive developments , the bait of free tickets was strong enough to force me into socializing . I have now officially conversed face to face with two previous acquantainces , besides my driver and family members .Grrowwwl , I am a social animal .

I am yet to go out for a movie .( And this is an offer. Anyone interested is requested to contact me on 98830111XX .. you need to guess the last 2 numbers to prove you are interested enough ).

Weird things keep happening on Television . Giving tough competition to the channel which shows a naked man delivering sermons to thousands of lunatics is one which airs a carefully edited Latin American drama dubbed in Hindi in a loop all day long .

A new and sadder development took place on the 22nd of May , but the woeful tales of an IT intern will feature in a later post .

.... End Of Part I ....

2-2 : A Review

2008-05-16T22:49:00.001+05:30

P.S:This is not a movie review .2-2 is a crude acronym for 2nd year ,2nd semester .

Dial-up Sucks . Period

Yes , I'm home people . Back in Kolkata after having borne the brunt of the most torturous semester yet . The euphoria (or the lack of it) of exams is now over .All pointless speculations over cut-off's for A's ,B's ,C's ,D's ,E's ,F's ,G's ,H's are thankfully a thing of the past.
Another semester is over and with it are 2 years of a four-year long supposed metamorphosis into an "engineer" . 2-2 was a challenge , a test of determination and one semester not meant for the weak-hearted . Looking back , I would say I am pleasantly surprised with the level of motivation and hard hours of study I managed to put in throughout the period .How unbearable the semester was though, can be gauged from the fact that even as I try to recollect events from the semester , there's nothing but reminisces of a certain nerve -racking examination comes to mind. Test 1 started in February and the Comprehensive Exams ended on the 13th of May and there ends my semester review .
....
Kolkata , as always seems a refreshing change . Inevitably an encounter with the world outside . A world which with its noise ,pollution , dust and a bunch of non-villagers seems much more 'livable' . And early days into this tryst with a 'normal' world , I gather that IPL is big , big enough to substantially eat into Ekta Kapoor's TRP's and most doctors' daily patient quota (this from personal experience). I have pretty much been sleeping for the good part of the 2 days ,trying to compensate my system for the hours missed during the last few Compre's .In amidst that , I have snuck in a movie ("Any Given Sunday" starring Jammie Foxx , Al Pacino and Cameron Diaz) , two IPL matches and a long overdue visit to the hair salon ( yes "Kalamity" has been wavered again) .Social interaction is next on the cards . I'm a few dozen phone calls away from coaxing (pleeding) my more "busier" friends into accompanying me to a movie or a tramp around Park Street . An IPL match experience at Eden Gardens with sister (yes sister , you read that right) on the 18th is set to be the first 'out of home' experience for this break . Other things to do include taking this baby (my Lenovo Y300 ) to the cleaners for a repair job on the DVD drive and joining DCPL for the commencement of the most redundant of all courses ,PS-1.
Enough for now .Excuse me while I clear my throat and practice chanting 'Korbo ,Lorbo ,Jitbo Re' for the big match on Sunday .
Cheers !
.. and to BITSians "Happy Holidays and best of Luck for PS-1"

Birthday Present

2008-05-10T00:34:00.000+05:30

As a token of gratitude and thanksgiving to all(any) readers of this blog on the occasion of its author's birthday ,this is where this post ends .

Thank You

Since The Next ComprE is on the 10th

2008-05-04T15:26:00.000+05:30

If there's one thing BITS has provided me an ample dose of , its TV Series'. For occupational couch potato's like yours truly ,TV shows are staple diet .

"I will probably die watching television" is the cliched line which strikes me .

Any ways , an entire year of watching myriad series' later ,I guess its time to pay homage . So ,here goes a list . Its not exhaustive by any means though.

Presenting:

the Creme de la Creme

(Drumroll please)

-for wonderful dialogues and amazing actors

|| F.R.I.E.N.D.S ||

-for the most colourful character on American Television

|| House MD ||

-for seriously classy humour

|| Boston Legal ||

-for superb direction

|| Prison Break ||

-for comedy that's in a league of its own

|| Southpark ||

and the Rest of 'em

-for a few giggles every time

|| Scrubs ||

-for the funniest rendition of the English accent

|| Coupling ||

-for the love of con

|| Hustle ||

-for being self - proclaimed "Legen ...... dary "

|| How I Met Your Mother ||

-for a ringside view of the elusive Indi-American dream

|| Californication ||

-for the American counterpart of Kyunki ... ,Kahani ...

||Desperate Housewives ||

-for a peak into the 'perilous' lives of rich ,dumb blondes

|| Gossip Girl ||

Phew .. this is the most tedious ( read lame ) post ever

P.S: I didn't seriously mean the first line of the post . BITS has taught me a lot of other things : Eating healthy (samosas masticated with white,green and red coloured fluids ) ,Sleeping Right (and long ... veery long ) and being Physical Fit (enough to ride the bicycle which has now started catching rust).

deja vu

2008-04-24T20:58:00.002+05:30

Nagging homesickness ..

Imminent exams ..

Inevitable "kalamity" ..

End sem blues ?

Pilani <-> Delhi

2008-04-06T01:11:00.000+05:30

I detest long journeys .Bus, car ,train ,flight ,the mode of transport makes the slightest difference.To and fro journey's from Delhi to Pilani are long and tiring.The queer thing is that it seems to take longer every time .I mean ,what's the mystery? Do the roads stretch or the stark variance in the level of sophistication of the two places make them run away from each other at regular intervals?

Any how ,Pilani to Delhi on 30th March wasn't that bad .I mean ,yes the guy beside me oozed horse dung odour and by the time we were halfway into Haryana ,the bus housed a dozen incredibly obstreperous kids and numerous other moronic creatures.But looking at the brighter side though ,there was no bursting of tyres and I eventually made it to the ISBT before midnight .Purpose of visit:A two-day sojourn in Delhi in the company of parents and sister.Returned to campus on the 2nd after having gorged 4 meals at Karim's and bathed twice in two days.

The visit to Delhi reaffirms a few facts:

Kolkata far outscores Delhi in the public transport domain .
The sight of naked feet is a pretty powerful aphrodisiac
Metrosexuality is an epidemic
Bongs are everywhere
Historical monuments are mind numbingly uninteresting but refreshingly cool
All auto rickshaw drivers double up as pseudo-intellectuals
There's a little "Bihar" in every city
Shiraz cooks the BEST biriyani

Thing's have moved on since.PS centers were declared at 3 in the morning on 4th for A7ites.DCPL is where I am supposed to turn up everyday for 2 long months to do something ("Something" fits considering jobs at PS-1 range from programming databases to fetching "chai" for babus).

I have gotten hooked on to a brand new series .

FRIENDS,Scrubs,HIMYM,Desperate Housewives,Coupling , Hustle, Southpark,Everybody Loves Raymond ... and now House MD.

Does watching these TV shows on a laptop instead of a Television (and less significantly on a bed instead of a couch) disqualify me for the title of a "Couch Potato"? Or should I be called "Couch Potato v2.0 " for good measure ?

BITS Pilani ??

2008-03-26T04:14:00.000+05:30

Venue:Some social gathering in some part of Kolkata

Year:2007

"So,what are you studying ?"

"Engineering"

"Great,where?"

"BITS"

"Where's that?"

"Pilani .Its in Rajasthan"

"Oh.." (trying to look sorry) "Is it a private college .Anyways,good,good."

...............................................................

Venue:Some other social gathering in some part of Kolkata

Year:2008

"So what are you studying?"

"Engineering"

"Great,where?"

"B.. Jadavpur University,ETCE"

"WOW,must have ranked in top 100 of JEE (WBJEE) ?"

"Yeah ... 91 "

"Great" (trying to conceal the surprise/jealousy) "Keep it up!"

.................................................................

I acknowledge there is a fair chance you might not make any meaningful inferences from the above juxtaposed scenarios.

Here are a few pointers:

1.BITS Pilani is a private college.But maybe a tad bit better than the ones in kol ,or any part of India for that matter.

2.I did study in JU ETCE for 2 long weeks .

3.ETCE stands for Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering.

...

So until people receive some divine enlightenment or stop reading Bengali newspapers, "JU Zindabad!!!"

I Just Realised ..

2008-03-22T15:18:00.000+05:30

... horror movies don't scare me .

Dogs do. I hate dogs .I hate lizards.Infact,I hate almost all animals ,biped,quadraped, reptile ,amphibian ,bugs ,worms ,all of 'em.

Animals and humans can't share the same planet .Why don't them retarded scientists find a way to dump them all on a different galaxy or a faraway asteroid .Or better still ,kill them all.

The Idiot Box Powered by Core Duo

2008-03-18T14:31:00.000+05:30

F.R.E.I.N.D.S

Scrubs

How I Met Your Mother

Southpark

My Name Is Earl

Boston Legal

Prison Break

Hustle

Coupling

Roadies 5.0

Daybreak

Simpsons

And I still complain ...

Sleepless ..

2008-03-10T04:01:00.000+05:30

I don't feel well.

There's this terrible sense of disappointment that has spread through my system.One that is potent enough to force me into indulging into inexcusably dull activities in an attempt to distract myself,like surfing through female profiles on orkut.

Aaargh damn ,no new scraps .But that's not why I am depressed.I mean I haven't reached that stage yet.

The truth is that is that there is no single epicentre of this sick feeling.Its more of a realisation that I have had,triggered by a particular event. The realisation being people around me are a lot "bigger" (no, don't ...don't .. every word in this post has only one obvious meaning) than me.I don't know how people in IIT and IIM are.But there are students around me ,who give me the chills and a distasteful sense of inferiority.

The fact is , things are not happening for me.They just haven't ,none of them.I'm stuck in a jinx I do not seem to the know the way to break out of.

I need that push.

That kick .

I need to break free.

I have to break the jinx.

I have to score.

That win.

The success.

I want to taste it again .. and fast

The Not So Happening Blog (Life)

2008-02-22T02:12:00.000+05:30

There has been decline in the number of hits on my blog during the last week or so .Its got me thinking.

Sho,howat eez dee poroblem ??

Being the perfectionist I am ,I knew I had get to the root of the problem . Where the bloody hell am I going wrong ?

After a considerable amount of research ,the naked truth stares me in the eye .

Its not my blog that is boring ,its my God-damn life.

To start with I am a 19 year old guy and frankly not one who can keep drama-hungry readers at the age of their seats by an extravagantly verbose description of the newest eyeball magnet in college who I almost managed to woo or a meticulous description of how I just managed to avoid a near fatal accident with a speeding motorcycle which appeared from nowhere amidst the 10 other vehicles I had succeeded in bringing to a halt.The reasons for that are not far too seek. Baring the 3 glorious months at home in kolkata , I spend the rest of the year stuck up inside a 300 acre campus in a 500 acre village called Pilani.And while there are many objects on campus which make eyeballs roll, the reasons are from analogous to the one you might assume. Accidents do happen on campus though , but in all fairness ,even the most outrageously blown up account of 2 bicycles crashing into each other along with their distracted riders wouldn't solicit much of interest .

So, the point which seems rather obvious is that my life just isn't that interesting. Blog hopping tells me most celebrated bloggers (minus the ones who discuss social dynamics and global warming or write movie reviews )have one or more of the following attributes:

1.Have an incredible love story to tell .A new and more enthralling one each time.

2.Are totally f**cked up in life.Each blog post a precursor to a suicide which just doesn't happen.

3.Are females who have a tad bit too open-minded attitude to life.

4.Are poets (and kick-ass good ones too )

5.Are NRI's who live in America or Europe and have realised they simply loooove their motherland to which they can't/wouldn't/shouldn't return.

6.Are guys blogging under a female name about sexual escapades.

etc,etc ...

So , there you go.Goes without saying , that I do not possess any of the above.Hence my blog isn't going to get a hundred hits a day.

It just ain't that good and an account of the mundane activities of my life utterly distasteful.

Sigh

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

2008-02-17T01:02:00.000+05:30

ManU -4

Arsenal -0

Tests TOI,etc

2008-02-11T18:38:00.000+05:30

My rather prolonged hiatus from blogworld is due the one gruesome periodic phenomenon which is superincumbent on any creature in pursuit of scholarly enlightenment .In simpler terms,its testing times again.SPM,DISCO,POM ,you name it.Its been easy-going so far.But going by past experiences,it will be foolish to say too much too soon.

Now,I love the Times Of India.From the eye candy in Calcutta( or Delhi) Times to the witty headlines on the Sports Page,from Jug Suraiya to the even more hilarious Matrimonial's ,there's little that I don't enjoy reading.Little but that one column which generally houses itself on the bottom of the first page.This section is dedicated to the new discoveries,hypothesis',results of surveys,etc,etc.Make no mistake,the stuff that appears here comes from the most learned people around;and are evidently products of extensive research.And taking a cue from "High heels boost sex life" and "Drinking tea prolongs life expectancy", its safe to assume that the results invoke quite a lot of interest among readers.But what intrigues me is why these exponents of quantum mechanics and game theory indulge themselves in such frivolous and inconsequential issues.Its not that I have a problem with the column.Who knows,it might ease my task of selecting an anniversary present 20 years down my post marital life or if findings are to be believed add 20 years to every Bong's life.But the point is ,wouldn't it serve them and the rest of humanity better if they invested their gray matter in trying to figure out a cure for AIDS or ways to control global warming ?

Speaking of TOI,the "Kidney Thief" is all over the papers these days.Interestingly enough ,he also happens to have made a handful of 'C' grade movies."Khooni Atma","Khatarnak Hasina" ,he's made 'em all.Talk of being a master of all trades,this guy rules.I miss the Calcutta version of TOI though.The snaps of Mamata in rags and the extravagantly extensive coverage of Sourav Ganguly's activities on and off the field.

No land like Bong land.Sigh

Living "Better"ly

2008-01-19T18:27:00.000+05:30

"So there are n+1 pigeons and n pigeon holes"
"A pigeon files to only the pigeonhole which it belongs to."
"Hence at least 1 pigeon hole will have 2 pigeons"
"Proved!"

Discrete Mathematics (DISCO) is fun!

....

If a certain nerdy undertone is predominant in any of my forthcoming posts, I assure you that it is totally unintentional.Just like the newbie surgeon who cannot relinquish making frequent references to how artistically he had performed his first incision,I too cant prevent some of the lectures I attended from dictating a certain bit of my thoughts whenever I write.I guess its the least a person who has sat through more lectures in 2 weeks than he had in 2 semesters can be excused for.So the next time you encounter a DISCO or POM ,I suggest you try and make a guess at the possible expansion of the acronyms or smirk at the thought of how ludicrous their phonetics are ,than accusing me of over-academicising my blog or trying to show off my knowledge of Science and Mathematics.

Waking up at 6 in the morning,playing badminton for 2 long hours,attending classes and trying to study a hell of a lot of things have only meant one thing:Precious Little Sleep.What this slumber-less lifestyle has resulted in is a dizziness whose omnipresence is discomforting.Its just not fair to judge me for dozing off during POM or sneaking in a quick a little nap during IP.

But make no mistake.I dost not complain

The positive implications of this much needed change far outweigh any undesired side-effects.There is a determination to improve,a will to change and a drive to make "it" happen.What "it"? You'll know.

The Morning Duel

2008-01-12T00:52:00.000+05:30

"Wake up!"

"Yawwwnnn...what...?!?"

"Wake up!"

"But,but its only 7:30"

"And you have a lecture at 8 ,if I am not mistaken?"

"But I slept at 3 last night."

"Of course you did,right after you had finished that same hideous movie for the umpteenth time."

"Please! Let me sleep!"

"And the lecture?"

"I'll manage.Its a simple course."

"Of course you will,you insolent little loser.We all know what happened last semester.How well you MANAGED all of last semester's SIMPLE courses.Go on ,do it again.Ruin your grades."

"Damn it! Fine .You win.I'll go"

....

The battle is lost.The day won.

....

Semester Statistics:

Breakfast:100%

Lectures:100%

Tutorials:100%

....

Weird Post?

I know.

New Year,Old Story

2008-01-04T22:33:00.000+05:30

OK,here it is.The much awaited "Oh! Its New Year" post.I have finally managed to take time out from my universal campaign against global warming and long-drawn efforts at mobilizing the world's armed forces against American tyranny to write my first blog post in 2008.

Poolside,HHI was my hideout on New Year's eve.The star attraction for the night was supposed be one Sarah a.k.a "Hawaiian Hurricane",who to me appeared like the "Bollywoodical" mother of ten whose alcoholic husband had left her for a less-wrinkled manifestation of islandic beauty.She did her thing ,made the gyrating moves she had been paid for and even succeeded in inspiring a few on-lookers to twist their hips and make complete fools out of themselves.Sarah was followed by the singing sisters from the Phillipines.They tugged at their tube tops ,waved their fair little hands and in true south-east Asian style crooned "Crazy Kiya Re","Made in India" and other famous Phillipinean numbers.The show-stealer ,though, was the Sanjeev Kapoor look-alike who was our emcee .He served a delightful mixture of cheesy one-liners,never before head jokes and intriguing trivia questions like "Kya aap bata sakte hain Shahrukh ki aisi kaun si movie hain jisme pehle Amitabh ne acting kiya tha?".Some party huh?

Its new year.So what's new? "Nothing" is the disheartening answer.

Come January 6,and it will be time to head back to BITS Pilani.To the land of samchats and special chais, lecture slides and xeroxed textbooks,"av"s and grades,gults and illars.Another semester lies in store,complete with its half a dozed courses ,a few hundred tests and countless sleepless nights.2-2 promises to bring with it 4 months of trying to figure out where my CGPA is heading,what Electrical Sciences is about and how people manage straight A's in every semester.

My resolutions for the new year are simple.

Have breakfast daily.

Attend classes.

Study regularly.

Cut down on movies and sitcoms.

Sleep.

Did I say simple?

Damn !

2007-12-28T21:37:00.001+05:30

I'm frustrated.

-There's something irrepairably wrong with the transmission of Star World.
-There's no new good movie to watch.TZP was a work of art no doubt.Kudos to Aamir Khan.Sadly, its the only one worth watching.
-The book I picked up the other day is starting to seem more and more like a number of news articles bundled together.
-My sister's imminent exams have resulted in the introduction of an irritatingly low tolerance level on the TV volume.
-My gray cells still haven't taken a liking to Fuzzy Logic.
-Men in blue have once again wet their pants down under.
-A twenty something guy from Kerala wants to be friends with me on Orkut.
-There are too many crappy reality shows on TV.
-Prosenjit is still Tollywood's "best" actor.
-My sister has given up on trying to teach me the simplest dance move she knows.
-Internet is not free and yet painfully slow.
-The FRIENDS DVD I had burnt has got a few more scratches than my DVD drive could handle.
-SRK's maid received Rs 1 lakh as new year bonus.
-The GRE word list has glaring errors.
-The Park Street McDonald's has been shut down for good.

..
I'm frustrated.

Anti-social Networking?

2007-12-25T21:50:00.000+05:30

Prolonged joblessness can have interesting ramifications.Having a great deal of uncategorized time at your disposal gives you considerable leeway to indulge yourself in inexplicably unfruitful activities.Whether it be ogling nature's oh-so wonderful manifestations or googling your name in different avatars in search of relevant matches.

Social networking is techno-savvy Gen-Y's answer to mind-numbing monotony.A finite amount of URL hopping and you'll realise how these online hangouts have become a way of life,an indispensable necessity of 3rd millennium existence and even more importantly a "giant step" towards liberating bored souls from their long-suffered drudgery.There's no arguing these websites are fun,for active and passive users both.

In addition to giving a much needed lease of life to countless loners, these sites have given a whole new meaning to flirting /eve-teasing.Gone are the days when flirting used to be the luxury of patrician city dwellers: handsome manifestations of masculinity with sufficient monetary competence to hoodwink pretty faces into falling for their charm.The likes of orkut.com have given desperados new hope.A computer,basic (and I mean basic) English,internet connectivity and you are raring to go.Ready to dive headlong into a pool of endless possibilities. Evidences of unrestrained flirting or at least attempts at casual flirting are splattered across scrapbooks of profiles almost all members of the fairer sex.A quick glance through one of them and hideous excuses for pick-up lines will stare you in the face.From coy "Wil u mak fransip wid me?" and "U r vry preti girl" 's to blatant "U r very saxy lady" to "I wana sleep wid u" 's ,crappy scraps haven't spared any profile listed under the "female" tag.Eve-teasing now has an all-new online avatar.

All said,it's not that cyber eve-teasing has much of a potential to cause any real harm.Most "criminals" are probably reticent creatures who might have never even conversed with an animate version of the female species in real life.For them,their online avatars are a realisation of their most beautiful day dream and networking sites the fantasy land where nothing is impossible.With Shahrukh Khan or Tom Cruise as their "profile pic" ,"cool and smart" as the magic words in their descriptions and innumerable "friend requests" and countless "scraps" in their arsenal,they have set out on a journey ,a search for their "dream girl wid prity face nd beutiful eyes" who can elude them no more.

"Kalam"ity

2007-12-17T13:30:00.000+05:30

"Chul ta kete phel , Abdul Kalam er moto lagche ebare",my mother says.For the benefit of my non-Bengali brethren, this phrase roughly translates to "Cut your hair now , you are starting to resemble Abdul Kalam".

There's a strange animosity that I have for the act of "hair cutting". The thought of spending 30 minutes ,seated quietly on a chair while a nagging "hair hater" fiddles with a noisy old pair of scissors trying to make a "style statement" of my unbearably unmanageable hair doesn't really "psyche" me out.So, when my mom isn't around, as is the case when I am in Pilani,it gives me free license to avoid the hair salon for months.And hence .. "Abdul Kalam".Well ,to help wipe out any traces of disturbing imagery that you may form from this description, I would make known to you that my hair has been trimmed down to acceptable proportions ,thanks to a visit to "Scissors".The "Kalam"ity therefore,can wait.

Being home feels as good as ever.I have a spent good two-third's of my now 2-day long stay comfortably strangled in the sweet chain of slumber.Two and a half weeks of complete unproductiveness still in store.

Let the picture

2007-12-01T04:17:00.000+05:30

....do the talking!!

Down

2007-11-30T14:23:00.001+05:30

I'm depressed ,down ,low ...whatever you call it..

Countless thoughts have been gnawing away relentlessly at my peace of mind.

Compre time for all BITSians fast approaching.

I don't care , I just want to go home ...to Kolkata...to mom ,dad ...

P.S:I have started using windows live writer .So less spelling errors ,less typos hopefully.

For You ....Only

2007-11-26T21:15:00.000+05:30

There's a voice I long to hear,
Eyes I long to look into,
There's a face I want to see,
Lips I want to kiss,
There's a hand I wish to hold,
A lady I'm dying to meet

........

Dont judge me ,
'Coz a poet I am not,
But a lover I am.

...

Missing You..

LOTS

'OM'y God!

2007-11-16T01:23:00.000+05:30

My gene-borne loyalty towards King Khan forced me into watching Om Shanti Om the other day.

Now, I dont plan to write a full-blown review because that 2 and a half hour long hysterical,unimaginably outrageous,mind-blowingly non-sensical piece of brainless monstrosity can be summed up in one word ...'sad'!

Yes , sad it is !
Sad waste of talent,
Sad statement on human creativity,
Sad state of Indian movies ...
Sad ..

There are bad movies and there are bad movies .
But this one just crosses all thresholds of acceptability, surprasses all previous on-screen renditions of ludicurosity and shatters hearts of all the more inteligent variety of movie-goers who are willing to overlook a few flaws and give Bolly offerings another chance .

I mean , what was Farah Khan thinking when she shot this movie ?
Is her audience expected to leave their grey matter at home when they come to a theatre , just like she did while writing the scenes?
Just because she has one SRK in her cast ,she can make that she most hideous piece of crap and get away with it ?

Why not try making intelligent movies for a change?
Hell, why not copy better movies atleast?

...
All said and done ,there happens to be one another sad angle to this story ..
OSO is going to be one of the biggest grossers at the box office and Farah will make another in no time ...

Whats the word you are looking for ?

SAD!

A Post Conceived...

2007-11-14T03:42:00.001+05:30

.... a post deferred .

my zeal to write loses out to "Pulp Fiction"!

What The F***?

2007-11-13T03:21:00.001+05:30

Watched a British movie titled "Lock stock and two smoking barrels".Here's an excerpt from a dialogue:

"Who the f*** are you?What the f*** are you doing ?F***ing bastard!!If you so
much as open your f***king mouth ,I will pump all the f***king
bullets in this f***king gun into your f***king stomach .You f***king son of a
b****!Get down on your f***ing knees and lift your f***king hands up! Dont you
f***ing get it ?F***ing piece of shit!"

What the f*** is this supposed to prove ? Cant these f***ing dialogue writers come up with a single f***ing sentence which does not have a single f***ing F-word.What the f*** is wrong with these people anyway?What f***ing special thing about the f***ing F-word makes it such an indespensable component of any f***ing conversation?If it is indeed so f***ing versatile ,why not get rid of every other f***ing adjective in the f***ing English dictionary ?Why dont they f***ing start teaching kids F for f***k before f***ing A for Apple and B for Ball ?Why dont they f***ing start calling their f***ing kids f***? Name them f*** I ,f*** II as in "f*** the first" and "f*** the second" ,f***ing lunatics!
Leave a f***ing comment if you want you f***ing like this f***ing post or get the f***ing hell out of here!

For The Last Time !!

2007-11-11T04:00:00.000+05:30

"Hi! Whats your name?"
"Shoaib"
"Akhtar?"
....
This part of any conversation generally ends here with my "thats not funny" look prematurely dismissing any prospects of this tete-a-tete heading any further on these lines .

The most bemusing part of this oft-experienced manifestation of human absurdity is its umbilical binding to my and my name only.Why is it that every Shoaib has to be Shoaib Akhtar? Is it a clause that comes with christening a person so ? What is so amusing about Shoaib Akhtar anyway? Is he a crazy lunatic who swore to name all other demented members of his community after him ? Or is being presented with an oppurtunity to correctly guess a person's last name such a satisfying experience to sad losers after all ?

The worst part ,though ,is the fact that this is not the only form of ridicule my poor little name has been subjected to .
One would wonder that having such a popular name would ensure people would write or atleast pronouce it accurately.
But ,lo and behold !!
Has my name been subjected to some torture..
Here are some of the variations I have heard people use:
so-eeb
so-yab
sho-hab
sho-ib
shab
and the worst of 'em all ..
shahab ...
shahab?? really ?
For heavens sake ,is reading a sequence of letters and combining the syllables to prodouce a proper sound with a little voluntary articulation of your lips such a hard task for a full-grown human being ?

As far as spelling my name goes , I would doubt if even 5% of the people who attempted to write my name for the first time managed it without shamelessly missing the 'a' or the 'i'.And all this after EVERYONE knows Shoaib Akhtar !!

Guess there are few things I have to live with ..
And for the thickheads reading this post ..
"No,its not" is the answer to the mystery your redundant brain was dying to solve .

Point Blank

2007-11-08T00:54:00.001+05:30

For starters , the title above is as relevant to this post is as Monica Lewinsky is to the Palestinian crisis.
I describe myself as an impulsive blogger and this post just sums the height of that impulsiveness ...
I am confused ,bored , tense ... I am ......

I realise I havnt posted for quite sometime ...my last one before OASIS ..phew long time back that was ..

Flocks of eye-soothing ladies ..
Head banging at a rock concert..
My first job (2000 bucks being my first compensation .. thanx Rashmi ,Surya , JAM) ...
Images of OASIS 2k7 will live on

An informal ASP.NET project under Goteti for SDETU, bitter taste of failure in the first elimination round of Techfest 08 ,few more tests gone ...gone for good ,a resurgence of interest in coding sums up my life since ..
Preparations for Scriptus are on ,the coming few days set to put forth concrete stamps of approval or dis approval on the viability of the plan .
Desperate Housewives Season 1 over and done with .. season 2 on ..
Scrubs 7 is here ..

More soon ...

And I Stared ...

2007-10-12T00:51:00.000+05:30

You come across situations in life where helplessness ,be it for the shortest ever moment,breaks the threshold of conscious tolerance,numbs all your body sensations and makes you delirious.There come moments where you wish earnestly for the procedings of the ongoing event to be part of one horrfic nightmare,one whose records in your physical system will be obliterated by a timely wake up call.The heart earns for a route to flee from the sight of every eyeball and head to the imaginary wonderland where gorgeous maidens will run their fingers through your hair softly whispering in your ears ,words which shall belittle mundane affairs into non-existence .The mind pleeds for that System Restore button ,that blink of the eye which will send you back to that long lost world where things were so much more "normal".Of course none of these whims have any real life renderring possibilities ,with the result that even as your mind fruitlessly ventures into these prospects ,you are left there .....motionless ...with that stupid aimless stare ..having been forced into submission by one cruel blow of fate .
OK , before you start assuming that some disastrous event has been added to my life's timeline ....let me assure you ,it hasnt .. or atleast the disaster potential of whatever little happened wasnt high enough to send me into the state described above.
Situations as above are rather commonplace if you come to think of it ...be it discovering the fact that you have tried to "rope in" the wrong chick at the wrong place,realising you have displayed to the amusement of your friends a physical act you always hoped would be restricted to your own private world or realising that you do not how to solve almost any question in an ES1(Electrical Science) paper and that all those formulas you "committed" to memory the night before have played the role of the most fickle wife a man could ever have .
The event in question took place on the 9th of October .Of course,I have faced similar situations before in the year and 2 months that I have spent here.That "blank" feeling is one which hardly seems alien now and infact is one which threatens to make its appearance in almost all tests.Summing up , a fresh new exam has gone down the drain ,promising to have no positive impact on my CGPA.
Tests are over , ES being the last one for this month .Time for a new series (Hustle) , a few movies, a B-Plan hopefully ,iBot, Product Prodigy,Techfest, Short Movie, Matlab , Linux ...... OASIS!!!!
<>

Aftermath

2007-10-04T22:48:00.001+05:30

Phew! Finally off the hook !The string of tests which resulted in the abnormal incrementation of stress levels and distortation in the usual way of life i have gotten used to here is over.Of course ..its now time for the aftermath ... the post-mortem ...the most gruesome part of the whole evaluation process....its time for the marks to be revealed ..one after the other ..each bringing with it the satisfaction or the anguish of finishing above and below average respectively .I have gotten used to the entire process though ..I mean fine I am still scared as shit when I have to check my marks , so much so that I do not to collect my papers at all ..just rejoice in the bliss of oblivion ..ignorant of the possible downslide in the results of my academic pursuits .
In other news Scriptus(our business idea) has made it into the 2nd round of epsilon along with 27 others.The 2nd round means preparing the B-Plan ...much tougher a task than answering a few random questions ...havnt started working on it yet ,plan (hope) to start soon though.
Have to start working on the iBot project ..(ya ..the one with Bansal and 6 others) now.Its something to do with programming a robot to do certain stuff.Looking forward to it.
Have registered for Google Product Prodigy ,a software design competition being organised for the 1st time and currently restricted to only BITS,IITs and a few NITs .Gotta submit an idea based on the theme "Organizing the worlds information and making it universally accesible" by the 20th October.There have already been umpteen search sessions where we have fruitlessly ventured into finding an idea which would be good enough to submit.Havnt given up yet though ..

Testing Times

2007-09-27T20:33:00.002+05:30

Have started another blog . "But you hardly have anything worth reading on this one .Would you please stop wasting web space for God's sake !!" , you would think. Well .. this new blog is not about my life , but more a collection of my thoughts. So just give it a chance if you will . :)
Cricket fever is rampant all over again, thanks to India's heroics at the T20 world cup. A nerve-rackling encounter with eternal arch rivals finally ending in Team Blue grabbing the title of World Champions after 20 odd years.Had a rocking time in the auditorium for a big screen telecast of the match.
Coming back to domestic affairs ___________________ ."There you go you have nothing to write .HaHa !!" .Oh! Stop it!! .I have found something.My escapist attitude towards acads has been forced to end prematurely.Tests are on.Time to get face to face with the menace which has is by far the most detestable feature of the whole learning process."Examination is the Botheration from Generation to Generation" , my Maths teacher at school would say.The botheration which brings with it an extra dose of tension, plenty of extra caffeine into your blood and nighouts which do little to help the already confused biological clock.Had MechSol (Mechanics of Solids) today.The course which will hopefully culminate the bitter relationship I have shared with Physics since time immemorial. Just wasnt and will never be my subject...never .CP2 (Computer Programming) day after is on the fixture which also includes RepWri (Report Writing) on 26th and Maths and Fuzzy Logic on the 1st. Phew !!
Have sent in an idea for Epsilon with Cheema,Arup,Anuj and Shitij.Isnt the best , but just might make it to the next round.Fingers crossed !!
Recap:BOSM was a nice experience.The girls basky matches expectedly drew the most attention.Heena was here again .Turns out she is actualy a model and an upcoming actress having supporting roles in "Buddha Mar Gaya" and "Mission Kashmir" to her credit.Watched the hockey guys lose 3-0 and 3-1 to IT BHU and 8-0 to SBMJC .Was in the extras .Have to ensure I get the certi promised .
Was chatting with Sourina yesterday.Learnt of yet another failed relationship .A 9 year long affair crushed into nothingness by one thunderous blow.
S had called .Have been talking a bit more recently (read more than once a week) with her. She does most of the calling, telling me things which have threaten to lead to yet another hitch in our relationship.
Why did things stop being simple?

Going Through The Motions...

2007-09-06T22:02:00.000+05:30

Life just keeps getting more and more monotonous here in BITS...
The same waking up at lunchtime ,browsing aimlessly in search of project ideas,watching Scrubs,drowsily sitting through a few classes,watching another episode or two of Scrubs (bet i'll finish all the seasons by this week ..duh! talk of wasting time ),attending hockey practices (yet another addition to the list of fruitless ventures), back to my room surfing the usual crappy sites ...chatting with friends or A on gtalk ,a patty and coffee session in ANC and to bed after some more visual "delight" ...
Life's so uninteresting ... I just dont feel like writing about it anymore ...
Will be back when things improve .... hopefully ..
....zzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZ

Sulking Sulks!!

2007-08-15T03:23:00.000+05:30

For some reason (which I am dying to figure out and do something about ) ..few things I badly wanted in BITS have eluded me ..success (read qualifying ) in quizzes , being a part of a fancy club (CEL,ELAS ...), sports (all of them ) and a girlfriend..
When the realisation of not being a part of the "Yo!!" clan strikes me .. it more often than not sends me into a delirium ..a state of dejection and makes me feel frustrated about my life .
2-1 has set forth fresh new reasons to feel dissapointed , to pity my state, to question my abilities or worse doubt their very existence .
To start with AV( ya ... there goes yet another initial or rather initials ) has fallen head oveer heals for one HB (thats 2 for the post ..no more of these in this one .. i asssure you ) to the extent that they are never seen but in each other's company chatting and giggling their way down every street ,in every building ,on every floor , in every class ,SKY ,IPC and everywhere in between .Its not that I have any such feelings for her or that she is the cutest thing around ,but seeing her going around with that spotty-faced,dumb looking smart ass for some weird reason makes me sour ....guess I just need a girlfriend and fast ...
The results of the CEL interaction gave me one more reason to consider my existence utterly trivial .Of course noone from my wings(s)(past and present) found their names on the much anticipated list .Thats a surprise !!! :P
Have started attending hockey practice .. of course I dony know anyhthing about the game or have any such interest in it ..but the fact is after many theoretical light years in BITS ,if there's one sport in which I can consider playing for my college in is this "stick"y one .Chances of making it into this years playing 11 (or even the extras ) this year though are next to zero with the captain's uninterest towards me adding whole lot of salt to an already incurable wound ..duh!!guess we have a fresh new sulking session coming up soon ..

Switching over to more positive developments ... I (along with saale and AVD) have a meeting scheduled with Rahul Banerjee on Sat for a Microsoft project .
Rajat Bansal has also invited VB.NET literate people to help out with his APOGEE project .
Wish Lady "bad"Luck takes a hiding this time around ...

Finally...

2007-08-11T05:08:00.000+05:30

Ah.. OK .. its 5am in the morning and I am finally typing out my first syllables on blogger since my rearrival in BITS a good 10 odd days ago .

Life has all but switched over to the now familiar BITSian mode . Being awake till late hours not doing anything worthwhile and waking up at lunchtime to continue whiling away the rest of the day.Classes are attended few and far between ...even the initial enthu which used to be so apparent in the initial stages of previous semesters seems a thing of the past .

The journey back to BITS was undoubtedly my most comnfortable ever ..a flight into Delhi followed by a car ride to BITS .
The registration process went OK .I managed to once again display uncanny proficiency in it , managing to avoid the much dreaded DTC route .Selected Fuzzy Logic as an elective ..Reason ?? The name's fancy and ..... ya thats all .

My relationship with A (OK this is the 2nd initial i'll be using in this blog ..Nice isnt it ..?? 'S' ..'A' ..more ike the intials of some undercover agent sworn to secrecy ..hehe ) has .. well kinda gone the way I expected it too ..but maybe a tad bit faster (Not that I mind!!!) .. Anyways .. I dont think I am still in a position to conclude a great deal about where we stand .. what I feel for her .. what she feels for me .. what we feel about 'us' .. There's seems a voice inside me telling me I am not doing the right thing and ... ya ....I have lent a deaf ear to it.

Have talked to S a good deal too .The transition to "just being friends" has been surprisingly smooth .I remember she once opined "Lovers can never be friends !"...well ..guess she isnt going to be the next "love guru" after all.

Owning a laptop hasnt made any contributions towards making time spend in BITS any more constructive .. movies and sitcoms have been knawing away relentlessly at all prospects of engaging my mind in more fruitful affairs .Things unfortunately look all the same ...

On that sad note ..

Good Night

What A Waste!

2007-07-21T11:47:00.000+05:30

It seems my rather long vacation is finally approaching an inevitable end.Nearing the end of a vacation is a feeling nobody quite loves.Even after a good 2 and a half months of joblessness and chilling out ,the heart earns for a few more days ... weeks .. months .
Lethargy has made its presence felt throughout the period ,brushing aside all the constructive plans I had made and luring me into hours infront of my television to watch anything from Office Office to The Apprentice .Here's a list of programs which have eaten a bulk of my time during this inter-semester break:Friends,Seinfeld,On The Lot,Indian Idol,Day Break,Scrubs,Arrested Development,My name is Earl,Grounded for Life,Boston Legal,The Apprentice,Koffee With Karan,Ellen Degeneres Show,Mirrakkel,Office Office,Siddhanth,DON,The Laughter Challenge,Comedy Show,Get Gorgeous 4,Life as We Know It....phew!! .. there are plenty more ..I assure you ..Guess the idiot box made quite a monkey out of me .But,all said and done I would sit down and watch all this and more if given another 2 months ..Like it or not ,this is who I am !
The list of movies wont be far behind ...but lets leave that for another post .
My Guitar lessons are going to meet an abprupt end ..ya I was taking Guitar lessons-just realised I hadnt mentioned it before on this blog .I can play quite a few songs and think I am gradually developing quite an ear for music. Hope this doesnt fade away .
As usual I have made my set of resolutions for the next semester.Resolutions that'll probably be scrapped within a week of my stay in BITS ,but resolutions they are nevertheless .There are some that I am abnormally adamant to keep , which include getting my CG back to its former position or atleast above 9 by the end of the sem .
News- Ruchi Bajoria (ya the girl who was second in ISC in school ) has made it into NUS , Singapore.Big Deal ?? Not sure ...
The TOI issue did come out .. my 3 paragraph article mercilessly chopped into the size of 1 .We (CEB) met at CCD ..to ceremoniously end what has been a very nice experience with a bunch of very nice people ..Thanks Guys !
I met S again ... "But you had broken up?" , you ask .The answer ..beats me.The fact though is that we still share an immense emotional bonding .. an attachment time cannot snatch away ..a relationship that'll never fade away .

Complications

2007-07-14T17:01:00.000+05:30

OK .. lets start with a brief account of recent events:

-Watched Bruce Willis bring down a copter and then a Fighter Jet in Die Hard 4.0 with Boral ,Subhadip and two of his friends on ..... (dont quite remember )

-Finished typing the TOI article at 0430 hrs on Tuesday , a good 5 and a half hours before the deadline.The dozens of fruitless phone calls finally paid their dividence as the IT Minister and the some guy from WIPRO graciously spared 10 mins of their day to give me a lowdown on the present state of the Indian IT sector and possibilities 10 years down the line. The article didnt quite turn out the way I wanted it too (I wasnt helped by the topic a great lot), finishing up more like a report by some goverment agency and hardly one that reflects my writing prowess.Anyways the photoshoot was an interesting affair .. being asked to make funny faces while posing with a DELL and then placing our heads in a circle for the group snap .. fun!!

-Finally became the owner of a brand new Lenovo Y 46Q and within 24 hours of its ownership made the fateful decision of allowing my sister to use it .Consequence:She mistakes the system restore button for the power one and about 2hours later the engineer at the Lenovo service station confirms that the One Touch Recovery button had indeed become permanently disfunctional... What The Hell???!!!!!!!!

-"Bong Connection" finally happened after quite a few familiar reschedulings on Friday but at Inox,Forum and not 89 Cinemas as previoulsy planned.A failed kiss attempt initiated a string of conversations which seems to have ended with a change in status of our relationship ......
OK ..now thats news ...

My relationship with S has always survived under a dangling knife edge in the shape of the fear of not being able to give each other up, once we succumb to the realisation that our lives cannot share a common path.But things have worsened .Other unwanted elements, namely "that guy" and her mom's constant warnings had drawn her away from me and slowly created mental stumbling blocks which she hasnt been able to overcome.A feeling of having been thrown out of her life by that Son of a b..... had been repeatedly causing heart aches and development of a sick feeling which I had never experienced before.But I am not ready to give her up , not prepared to tolerate someone else becoming the special person in her life ,not ready to be "just a friend"...
I dont know what I am supposed to do ,what am I supposed to say ... she says we can be friends and talks to me just in the manner she always has but there is a sense of awkwardness that has crept into affairs (more from my side) which have soured our relationship to a great extent.She says "Nothing will change" ,"This had to happen" ...I know that too , but "Not now, not this way" my heart cries ........Shit!!I love her and always will ...God! I dont want to lose her .

They say ,life's complicated.Guess , its high time I prepare to experience my share of it...

Standstill

2007-07-05T19:58:00.000+05:30

Yes .. thats what life has been reduced to.The sporadic yet heavy drizzle which have now moved into its fourth day has had the most dampening effect on the rebellious (water-logged streets across the city not helping things much) and now helpless Kolkatan's spirit.The rickshaw pullers (charging 200 odd for ferrying people across streets now submerged under feet of filthy water) and taxi drivers ,the only apparent benefitters in the whole scenario ,are having their lucky days.
The rain hasnt spared my plans either."Hutch Odeon" was thrown out of the window once we realised we had missed the only English play in the fixture and that the remaining plays will be staged in some Star Theatre whose location we were both unsure of."Bong Connection" has stepped in as replacement and unless circumstances play spoilsport again,two real life Bongs in me and S will make their appearance at a Matinee show at 89 Cinemas next Monday to catch our second movie together.
My relationship with S has taken twists and turns at a frequency which is sure to make even Maam Ekta go red in the face.Its from her side mostly that things have been rather unclear and very unassertive.I desperately want to win over her trust completely.God! I love her so much.
I have finally made up my mind about the laptop .Come next week, I will be the owner of a brand new Lenovo Y 46Q.
Seems ,my 60 minutes in the iWay are over .
Till next time , stay dry!!

Good TIMES ?

2007-07-02T10:48:00.000+05:30

BREAKING NEWS: I have been inducted into the third avatar of the CEB (College Editorial Board), a group of enthusiasts with a flair for writing who have been entrusted with the job of writing for a special issue of the Education Times, Kolkata which would hit the news stands on the 16th of this ,the last month of my seemingly never-ending reprieve from the monotonous routine of BITSian life.

It is an interesting group of people I am going to work with . Here's a lowdown(in order of personal preference,as far as possible):

Sourina:The ladies first routine holds good here too.She is a sweet girl, strongle opiniated, kinda talkative too. She has done something in mass comm. and is now working in a bank (I didnt quite understand what exactly she was doing).She has an overall charm in her personality which is attractive.

Rahul: Interesting guy , this one. Seems to always have a host of ideas and lots to stay about everything.Engineering student in A.... ( he always uses the initials ,i dont quite remember them , but its in Durgapur).

Sheenu: The only other female in the group and the seniormost among all.She is a PhD student in IIMC (IIMC..... yes that robust machine churning out millionares relentlessly year after year). She is a nice person(kinda lame but i guess thats all I can say about her).

Robin,Dibya,Kohinoor:Robin=rugby guy.Has a strong built.Kohinoor stands out for his name and Dibya for his height and punctuality (walked in sharp at 6,way too early for a meeting at 5:30).Common factor -all budding tehnocrats studying in some pvt college or the other.

Got an informal meeting today at .. yes 5:30 pm .

This post might be a bit on the longer side and the availability of stuff to write about is not the prime reason for it.My previous post is a proud receipient of a comment by an erstwhile blogger who thinks that "I have a flair for writing" . There have been 10 hits on my profile already.Not a mean feat , considering I have been on Blogger hardly for a month now and that I have not attempted to publisize my blog by making it my GTalk status or placing a link on my Orkut profile.

A Request:Dear reader , if you have anything at all to say about my posts , do comment .Because greatness begets appreciation.LOL!

Had a heart to heart talk with S last friday.She told me all about 'that guy' and that her feelings for him were limited to a mere liking.The SMS's gradually acquired a more morose tone, with me using words which were more a representation of my then state of my mind than my feelings for her.To cut a long story short , we decided to stop sulking and brush aside all that has bothered us and together create new memories which will live forever.Had met her that morning .Not the usual "me and her in a coffee parlour" scenario because a third unwanted element in the shape of "old" tution friend Saptarshi " i hate his PJ's" Banerjee more than justified his role as the "haddi in the kabab" by his "auspicious" presence at McDonalds that day.Anyways , things werent as bad as i thought they would turn out to be .S looked different and kinda sweet in her skirt and top outfit and I did manage to get to hold her hands and have a private tete-a-tete with her while tactfully engaging that "haddi" in some other chore.

Rachna had called last night.The love bug doesnt spare even the most flirtatious of creatures , I realised. She told me her story.. kinda complicated and asked me for advice ... ??? Guess she'll soon realise that I am not quite the "good advisor" types. Anyways , it will be interesting to follow developments in that story.

Things Coming Up:I am really looking forward to the TOI stint, the photoshoot and stuff.Probably going for a play with S this week .. ya play , you heard that right. Plan to hit the Hutch shop today for passes to the Hutch Odeon.Somebody's trying to develop a few sophisticated habits , you see. By the way , Die Hard 4 at New Empire with Anindyo and others is also on the cards. Hehe..
As they say, boys will be boys !

Of Peter Cat And IITD

2007-06-25T00:15:00.000+05:30

OK .. so the dinner happened . A mutton biryani (it had some other fancy name which I cant recall ), shikhar (mutton kabab) and a Chicken reshmi butter masala cost me a tiny little bomb at 497 bucks .But the time spent was worth it I guess . Sharing a couch with your loved one ,holding her soft hands in our own and having her fingers run through your hair is an experience most will cherish .The routine was much the same , picked her up at the Park Street Metro station ,had coffee at CCD (she payed for it by the way all ,151 bucks of it ) and then the dinner followed by a walk back to the Metro station where she boarded her train to Tollygunge.Guess things worked out OK , barring the much awaited kiss which did not materialize . :(
Left for Delhi on the 21st .. JEE counselling .. my dad had managed to talk me into embarking on this useless exercise telling me repeatedly that qualifying JEE wasnt a small issue and that the process should be "completed" .. whatever ...?? Air Sahara flight S2320 touched down at Indira National Airport at around 5 pm and a prepaid auto landed us in IITD . The dusty hostel room we were alloted for the night meant that we took another auto which left us at a hotel in Paharganj.The IITD campus was nice , better the pilani campus anyday. Its not that I hate the Pilani campus and infact the only real problem I have with it is that it is in Pilani and not in the heart the capital having a Subway and Barista across the road where girls in not-so conservative outfits are just as delicious .Went through with the counselling session the next day .. as I said "useless exerise" . The return journey was nice , gorgeous Megha in her not-so gorgeous Sahara air hostess hogged most of my attention and I was back home before midnight on 22/06.

Life's ROSY !!

2007-06-19T11:39:00.000+05:30

Things have started happening .. big time .The past three days have been kinda exciting for more than one reason ...
After a hell of a lot of indecision( as is customary whenever we have to decide on a trip of this nature) and ultimately a nod of approval from my sister we decided to go on the trip to Rose Valley, Mandarmoni ( close to Digha ) organized by Nicholas pharmaceuticals ..
The journey was rather nice until our path was crossed by vehicles belonging to certain government officials heading to turbulent Nandigram.. the journey resumed after a 2 hour standstill only to end infront of the Rose Valley , a posh hotel right infront on the beach ( the sea water actually kissed the outer walls of the maginificent structure during high tide ).The much dreaded news of my sister missing her Bengali test did spoil our moods to an extent .. my father exclaiming that he had made the biggest mistake of his life to have come here .My trip was excellently organised, though .. lunch , a cultural show with Bappa shaking his hips , Pinky doing a Rakhi Sawant and beautiful Anindita (damn that huge bindi she had on her forehead )singing a few numbers even as most docs gladly utilised the oppurtunity to grab a sip of their favourite liquor and we managed to get a full house in the Housie which followed (the gift wasnt a earthen statue of a Hindu deity thankfully) ,followed by dinner . We hit the beach the next morning ..the girl with a roundish sweet face and her sexier sister continued to have their eyeballs fixed for short durations at rather frequent intervals on me just as they did during the onward journey and as they would do during the return journey ( i am not making this up I assure you) as well . The return journey was no less uncomfortable .. frequent halts elongating a 4 hour journey to a sickening 6 hour one .. worse still ,the two sisters alighted the bus before the rest of us did, which meant that was left without the rather nice feeling of having 2 sweet little girls fixing their lovely little gazes on me .. aaahh!!!!!
Back home .. another surprise awaited me .. got a missed call at 2:30 in the night . Curiosity ,as usual got the better of me and i decided to call back .. what followed was a 1 and a half hour long series of calls to and fro ending in she finally admitting that she was Sreemoyee , Dilraj's cousin and not Rachna Sehgal ,as she had earler claimed to be. I admit I was rather mesmerized by her voice and rather straightforward manner of talking .. we met yesterday and a brownie and cappachino later I realised that I had just had managed to find the most flirtatious "friend" I could ever have imagined.. hmm .. big deal ..
The past few days have been kinda eventful .. and today should be one too .. today is 19th remember ??
Fingers crossed for sure ..

The Thing Called ...

2007-06-15T11:55:00.000+05:30

Love is in the air,water,land,cellphone ,net and everywhere in between it seems. From inanimate nerds to hyperactive dudes ,everyone seems to be succumbing rather tamely to the irrepressible desire to be in a relationship with a member of the opposite sex (ya it is the opposite sex more often than not here).Gone are the days when even talking to cute thing was considered an achivement deserving praise from people around.Damn ..what an idiot I was in school ,shuddering even to ask even the safest of questions to a girl..I sometimes feel I would have remained the same had S not come into my life .. I never imagined that something which started as an exercise in exchanging SMSes would ever blossom into a relationship which now has become impossible to imagine life without .There's something about her which keeps making me thinking about her ..she might not be the most gorgeous girl I have ever seen .. but that hardly makes me rethink about my desire to spend the rest of my life with her .. Damn! How did this ever happen to me ? Phew.. guess I have fallen in love too..
Made my first attempt at writing my Curriculum Vitae yesterday .. the academic records section looked good..ICSE 2004 95.4%,ISC 2006 96.5% , BE(Hons) CSE BITS .. nice !! But the ExtraCurrucilar section was rather ominous in its lack of content .. represented school in interschool quizes, member of NSS ,My India, AEP , CSA mag .. was all that I could think of .. Thats when it dawned on me that I had been a nerd of sorts throughout my school life .. guess thats one thing I need to keep in mind for the remanining years in BITS ..
Todays lesson:Dude your CV needs a makeover

Cats and Dogs

2007-06-13T12:38:00.000+05:30

The much awaited and prayed for monsoons have finally graced Kolkata .. the oh-so perfectly drained streets of Kolkata have shown their true colors once again as they lie submergd under feet of filthy water , testifying against their callous care takers a.k.a the KMC. The bengali news channels have not wasted any time in making a mockery of themselves as well of the bewildered Kolkatans whose opinions regarding the grand arival of monsoons they solicit .I am sure later during the day they would manage to hunt down the ever so available local Page 3 ites and ask them to narrate their monsoon experiences ... they will then be seen immersed in deep nostalgia reminiscing those "lovely" childhood days when they never rode fancy cars ,but found "true" happiness in making paper boats together with their siblings and clapping gleefully while obseving their precarious journey cutting across the flood waters . Some will go on to describe their favourite monsoon special food items and even sing a line or two of their favourite rabindra sangeet which aptly captures the sentiments of the season .
Coming back to the rains .. we'v all heard the phrase "raining cats and dogs" .. I decided to Google its origin and this is wat I found ..
This is an interesting phrase in that, although there's no definitive origin, there are several speculative derivations. Before we get to those, lets get some of the incorrect suggestions out of the way.
The phrase seems isn't related to the well-known antipathy between dogs and cats, which is made word in the phrase 'fight like cat and dog'. Aside from the presence of cat and dog in the phrase, there's nothing at all to connect their fighting with raining.
Nor is the phrase in any sense literal, i.e. recording the fact that cats and dogs fell from the sky. Numbers of small creatures, of the size of frogs or fish, do occasionally get carried skywards in freak weather. That must happen to individual dogs or cats from time to time too, but there's no record of groups of them being scooped up in that way. Not that we'd need meteorological record for that - it's plainly implausible.
In fact, 'raining cats and dogs' only makes sense figuratively and the explanations below that attempt to link the phrase to felines, canines and weather seem rather feeble.
Here goes though - take your pick:
It comes from mythology. Witches, who often took the form of their familiars - cats, are supposed to have ridden the wind. Dogs and wolves were attendants to Odin, the god of storms and sailors associated them with rain. Well, some evidence would be nice. There doesn't appear to be any to support this notion.
Cats and dogs were supposed to be washed from roofs during heavy weather. This is a widely repeated tale. It got a lease of life with the message "Life in the 1500s", which began circulating on the Internet in 1999. Here's the relevant part of that:I'll describe their houses a little. You've heard of thatch roofs, well that's all they were. Thick straw, piled high, with no wood underneath. They were the only place for the little animals to get warm. So all the pets; dogs, cats and other small animals, mice, rats, bugs, all lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery so sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Thus the saying, "it's raining cats and dogs."This is nonsense of course. It hardly needs debunking, but, lest there be any doubt... Dogs lived in thatched roofs? No, of course they didn't. Even accepting that mad idea, for them to have slipped off when it rained they would have needed to be on the outside - hardly the place an animal would head for to shelter from bad weather.
The phrase is supposed to have originated in England in the 17th century when city streets were filthy and heavy rain would occasionally carry along dead animals. The idea that seeing dead cats and dogs floating by in storms would cause people to coin this phrase is just about believable. People may not have actually thought the animals had come from the sky, but might have made up the phrase to suit the occasion.
Another suggestion is that it comes from a version of the French word, catadoupe, meaning waterfall. Well, again. No evidence. If the phrase were 'raining cats' or if there also existed a French word, dogadoupe we might be going somewhere with this one. As there isn't let's pass this by.
Guess that isnt the most convincing piece of information...

Pro(b)logue

2007-06-12T11:25:00.000+05:30

OK.. so here I am typing down my first words on blogosphere ... and well on my way towards grabbing the most coveted title of a 'blogger' .. cool isnt it ? Sounds better than Orkutter anyway , i guess .Orkut .. aah that terrible addiction which has all but reached pandemic proportions , giving new lease of life to loser's who cherish the prospect of having a chance of describing themselves as 'dudes' ,'hunks' ,'genius' without the need of having to account for the usage of these adjectives .Orkut has become a way of life ... its also given the word 'scrap' a whole new meaning .. one scarcely synonymous with its pristine usage to describe objects which have either become useless or were never useful in the first place... All said and done though ,Orkutting is fun ..the excitement of noticing an increment in the number of scraps is no less than tearing open the wrapper to check out a birthday gift .
Its been more than 2 weeks since the JEE results were declared ..and i have gotten over the whole "shit!! i cudnt make it to IIT .. why didnt I put in a little more effort" feeling. It feels good to have ranked though ,to become a part of the 'smart' few who clear the worlds toughest exam .. "IITJEE cleared"!!!
Had a nice little chat with S (i have decided not to disclose her name on this blog .. the initial being good enough a clue to her as well to those who know abt 'us' ) last nite (arnd 45 mins before my mom appeared on the scene .. damn !!) .I asked her out to dinner on the 19th ... the day her exams end .. she agreed . Fingers crossed !! hope we do not have to reschedule things this time around ...
I guess thats it for today .. I have written a whole lot of crap ,hardly in sync with the title chosen ..
Till my next post .. ciao!!