The "I" openers...

putQuad

2007-07-19T20:34:00.000+05:30

What:

putQuad©: put-kowad (n. and v.) meaning: Grabbing a helpless soul, if possible, half asleep, catching him unawares and springing a surprise by dropping him from the first floor.

Where:

A putQuad is executed at The Quad, Annexe Hostel with the exact location decided to locate a safe drop and also to make it convenient for the many onlookers and paparazzi that throng to watch this phenomenon everytime.

When:

Introduced in the first week of July, putQuad is the latest member to join IIM Calcutta's illustrious and legendary family of put-(____)s.

Who:

Originally pioneered by Yours Truly and MukRags, this phenomenon is now registered and copyrighted and is the sole property of The Fight Club, IIM Calcutta.

Whom:

The first putQuadders were once again nocturnal kings, Moi and MukRags.

The first putQuadee was a half-asleep Putty.

This then was quickly followed by most of the Fight Club members: Gutri, Teju, Safu, DeeNag, Nair and on one of those evil days, Aara and Me too.

Note: Fight Club is currently making elaborate expansion plans and is diversifying into new markets.

The Fachcha market was entered successfully with the putQuad of KaZee.

Entry was made into the Alum Domain with the putQuad of 42nd Alum, Venus during his recent visit to The Quad.

The group is also considering tapping the female market segment with Polo, DeepRed and ArchBal being considered for the initial launch.

How:

Why:

'coz Fight Club Rocks.

like.no.other

Appendix:

A1: If you see a barrage of comments using the word CAMMMMM, and you are not from IIM C, then maybe you should know that it means Can't Agree More with the number of Ms trailing indicating the intensity of agreement.

A2: comments from a victim (name withheld):"It was 7:35 i think in the morning and i was woken up by a rude jolt on the door.... hastily i put on my shirt to see if something had gone wrong....little was i to know of things to come (sobs)....three big men dressed in various colours including a bald guy just picked me up and started running towards the ledge...still not able to understand what was happening, i tried to fight my way through it, but by then i was already out of the ledge and staring 15 feet below....."it was a traumatic experience and the victim just broke down after that.... the rest of the description is graphic and cannot be detailed here....

The Prestige

2007-03-08T00:41:00.000+05:30

For those who haven't already, I highly recommend watching Christopher Nolan's The Prestige - for the movie-buff's ultimate treat that the film is, for a better understanding of this post and for a thorough and complete understanding of why Scarlett Johannson is the World's Sexiest Woman Alive. Anyway...

Every love story consists of three acts. The first act is called 'The Pledge'. Two ordinary people meet under mostly ordinary circumstances in what looks like a seemingly ordinary coincidence...but of course, it probably isn't. For the two people in question, just as for everyone else around, the moment appears deceptively insignificant and in most cases one looks back at this moment fondly only when the end is reached. 'The Pledge' is usually a brief meeting, the people in question surely have other important things in their life, atleast for the time being, and therefore before long "all ends well...but all is not well". The only takeaway for the moment is that the meeting is pledged as a scathing streak of memory burnt at the back of the mind.

The second act is called 'The Turn'. The ordinary pledge turns into something extraordinary. Now, if you are looking for a secret something, a reason perhaps, a glimmer of a hint as to what has just transpired, you won't find any. But the turn has occured and things have mysteriously changed. For people who have actually been through the agony of being in love, these lines are but mere dangling threads as compared to the intricate weave of emotions experienced at this stage. Symptoms that I have personally observed at 'The Turn' include long walks, sorrowful alien cries, recurring acute coronary thrombosis, acquired and inflicted insomnia and fluid diets as the stomach turns every other second.

Another reason why I'd like to call this 'The Turn' is that different stories take different turns at this stage. Some are followed by an easy second meeting. Some others take eons. Some click into place instantly. Others take superhuman effort. 'The Turn' sometimes brings them closer, sometimes it take them farther away. Sometimes these turns are chosen on purpose by the people involved, to facilitate further contact while in others the people are but lost in the labyrinth and it is upto destiny to take the driver's seat. Timelines extend from a few hours to a decade, sometimes even more...

But the story does not end here. To complete the love story or for the incident to atleast qualify as one, there needs to be an ending. That's why there is another act.

The third act is called 'The Prestige'. This is the part with the twists and turns. Where everything hangs in the balance. By now, the lives of the two people have already been entwined irrevocably, the result sometimes looking like a badly tossed, messy spaghetti dish at a roadside pseudo-chinese bistro. But the time has now come for the final showdown. One final decisive meeting, 'The Prestige'. Feelings are expressed, truths revelaed, emotions let loose and the insanity confessed. The most complicated knots are disentagled and rewoven into a beautiful pattern as souls unite and the two people head out as one to a common utopian epilogue.

This is why, perhaps, love is often referred to as magical.

Or perhaps it is because, just like in a magic trick, things can go unpredictably and horribly wrong at the Prestige...

And then...

2006-12-30T19:06:00.000+05:30

On the same night, I also...

Nine Tanks

2006-12-30T18:43:00.000+05:30

I acted and directed music in a play staged by the Dramatics Cell, IIM Calcutta.

Saying anything else, I guess, would only undermine the above news.

Baaki Itihaas by Badal Sarkar

Of triggers, "Bunty aur Babli"

2006-12-16T19:03:00.001+05:30

Just wanted to share my tiny moment of glory plus the trigger that made me return to blogging, and unadulterated blogging at that.

********** Persona- Writing competition 'Quiet' Results **********

The winners of the writing competition .. 'Quiet.. Let the words speak' are as follows:

Story section : Hemanth P. (414/13)
Poem section : Vipin Gupta (366/42)
Essay section: J S Tejaswi (417/13)

Congratulations to the Winners

Yayy!!!

And pleased to note that two of the three winners are KGPians.

Yayy!! Yay!!

And that the other is my thickest friend here, one of the thickest at KGP, an RKite and we were once better known as "Bunty aur Babli"

Yaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!

Thanks to Persona for bringing me back to blogging.

Of Canine Bondage

2006-12-01T21:51:00.000+05:30

There once lived a dog, the name and place immaterial. For the longest time it was on the streets. It knew not whence it came from and had been on the streets for as long as it could remember. Everything about the dog was mostly wrong. Around the time this story started, it had evolved into an obnoxious street dog.

Into the locality that the dog lived, there came along one day, a fine looking gentleman. There was something about this person that the dog had never noticed in anyone else. There was a 'sense of peace that he seemed to generate' in the people around him. The strongest of the basic instincts kicked in as the dog followed the gentleman along. It had never done this before, it knew nothing of the person that walked ahead of him but nevertheless it tagged along.

It turned out that the gentleman had just settled in, in one of the nearby houses. At the doorstep, the gentleman looked back at the dog that had been following him. The dog on its part, shamelessly stuck to following him into his home. As the dog thrust itself upon the him, he had but no choice to let him in. The dog had a master at last.

The years that followed were some of the most joyful, influential and formative times for the dog. There was a sense of security and joy that liberated it. It was as though it had a rebirth. Every moment spent with the master was a new lesson learnt. And every moment of it was happiness. And then, there was faith. The master had welcomed it, had given it a place in his home and in his family. He had never questioned its presence ever. And so, there was faith. And gratitude.

A couple of years later, the master left home while the dog stayed back. While there was an initial sense of disorientation, the dog went ahead on its own way. As it reentered the old locality though it was a changed animal altogether. The master had left a huge and indelible mark on the dog. It was almost of a royal breeding now. Everywhere it went it was gifted with success. Even years later, whenever the dog encountered a conflict, a situation or a decision that it had to make, it would simply imagine itself back in those days with its master. What would the decision have been?? What would the master himself have done?? What would he have approved of?? Those were the guiding principles. The answers were always right.

And then one day a curse fell upon the dog. By a strange twist of fate, the powers above decided that the dog and the master had to be alienated. Angels of God appeared in the dog's dream and took away its memories of the master. Every living memory of that life had to be erased from its mind. When the dog woke up next day, it felt the blank space in its mind. 'The right thing to do' was based upon its past life and now it was gone. Logic and reason that were synonymous with those memories were gone too. A lack of purpose and of direction set in. Things turned a full circle, as the dog started slipping into its old ways. Once again, it became a vile street dog and a mad one too. But there was a difference.

This time, the dog didn't care...

Metamorphosis

2006-11-26T19:26:00.000+05:30

As my time-table undergoes a sea change in the past few months, I am increasingly reminded of Dali's painting of Narcissus.

Of his metamorphosis by the pool side.

Of change to permanence and stillness and quiet.

Also, that, a picture is worth a thousand words.

And that on blogger, it takes one-thousandth of the time too.

Chiefly inspired by Yoko's blog and an acute shortage of time, I am hereby changing this into a photo blog. A final attempt to rekindle a dying romance.

Also reminded that Narcissus's metamorphosis was a curse in the first place.

A picture is indeed worth a thousand words. But it's the picture that chooses the words and not you.

Change of Address:

2006-07-04T21:15:00.000+05:30

Hi!!! Just dropped in to notify a change of address and phone number. After the five-year holiday package at IIT Kharagpur, I have now moved on to the holy (as in 'holy crap!!!") city of Kolkata. Reach me at

Room No. 122,
Annexe Hostel,
I. I. M. Calcutta,
Diamond Harbor Road,
Joka,
Kolkata - 700 104

Ph: +91 98305 21424

And also to inform you that "Life", whom I've always looked upon as a bitch, has just turned bitchier. I am currently finding very very little time for blogging and the like, but once the FIFA World Cup is duly secured by the Italian Mafia and I manage to kill my professor in Financial Accounting, I'll resume my pathetic rate of blogging, if not improve it. I have a couple of tags that are pending and general crap to write about is as usual aplenty.

So, ciao soon...

Silver!!! And the story behind it...

2006-04-03T01:31:00.000+05:30

We just lost the finals of the inter-hall basketball tournament to RP, a gold that they truly, truly deserved. Congrats to Anand, Rachit, Recca, Jitesh and Ravi and thank you for showing us what it takes to win a gold. We'll remember the lessons. For the first hour or so after the tournament, my mood was sombre to say the least and the cold silver medal in the hand was not feeling all that great. A hundred congratulations, 'you-tried-well's, 'hard-luck's and a heavy dinner later, the feeling as I cling to the medal is very very different.

On the face of it, it is just another silver medal that just another hall won, just another year in just another game. What I am attempting to do is add a little background to it, 'coz it sure as hell is not "just another" for me. I am sure that every medal has its own story, I am just trying to put mine and for that I try and quote a few incidents.

Flashback:

- Feb. 2005. Inter-hall basketball tournament. There was never much practice that the team had in the first place. We had been coming 4th place the last three years but then this year we had Deepak Rathee, to put simply, the Kobe Bryant of this place, and that was it. That was enough for some people. That was all that was needed and mattered. The way I looked at it, we had had Himanshu Parmar, another such guy who had passed out, but we still had come fourth then, hadn't we??

- Feb, 2005: Deepak Rathee of RK Hall is adjudged the player of the inter-hall basketball tournament for the year 2004-'05 but RK comes fourth, again, for the fourth consecutive year. Having sat on the bench for most of the tournament and watched him play, I wonder if, in his place, I wouldn't wish for that one second that I had a better team to support me, that I was in a hall, a different hall maybe, that could just support me for what I was.

- Inter-hall volleyball tournament, 2003, 2004 and 2005: This one is about a legend called Krishna Nittala. He was like Rathee to volleyball. I watched him build a team that came fourth in '03, was a close third in '04 and had six inter-iit players playing and one inter-iit player sitting out in '05. Gold then, needless to say.

- April, 2005. Soap-box of the candidates of General Secretary, Sports, RK Hall common room: As always, both the candidates Raghav and Anupam are asked to present their views on the next year's general championship. Both candidates have identical predictions and both candidates are absoulutely sure that RK stands at no position in basketball for the forthcoming year.

- September, 2005: Semi-final of Open-IIT basketball tournament. Deepak Rathee is sitting out injured and the five people that are playing inside are redefining "making-an-ass-out-of-oneself"

- Feb, 2006. Scholar's Avenue's GC predictions. "Sports: Nehru Seem Set to Lift the Trophy" "Nehru with a strong basketball team has a good chance for the gold in basketball."

- Sometime in 2005: RK Hall, IIT-KGP community on Orkut. Discussion on this year's GC. Karan Gupta, alumnus, writes, "Basky - one-man army rathi .. ab to pandey aur lambu bhi khelne lag gaye hain ...". Krishna Nittala writes, "basky not a one man army??? I dont think so... niraj you did you ask a few others before vouching for them???"

The silver then, goes to a truly amazing team that it has been my absolute privilege to play with. A team that mostly consisted of second years with little or no experience of basketball. To a team of underdogs. Between busy academic schedules and a hundred other extra-academic activities that each single day at Kharagpur is filled with, a team that practised at literally every possible slot in a twenty-four hour day. A team that very importantly was willing to learn when anyone taught anything. A team that took a hundred and one criticisms from me, their worse player, when all I really told them was to keep their heads down and fight. Not much basketball that I could teach them anyway. A team that towards the end would readily rise at 5 A.M. in the morning or be ready at 11:30 in the night to practice with their captain for that was the time that he could find for them.

-To Pedro and Pandey then, who made the inter-hall volleyball final look like a joke and then made their way to the basketball court that night to practice for the basketball tournament starting the next day. To Pandey specially, for practising and playing despite his various back-aches and leg-aches and head-aches and hand-aches and hair-aches that nowadays are creeping to Pedro too.

-To Kothari for, quite simply, giving Rathee a run for his money.

-To Chochu, the star of our team, the best debutante of the tournament this year. Have ball, will steal. Steal, steal and steal. And then steal some more.

-To Rajaram, Mohapatra, Karan, Srikanth, Chirag and Aditya, the future of our team. To Prateek, for finding himself practising in the court at 10 PM in the night in his fifth year and thereby, almost shocking himself to death.

-To around 300 people of my hall, RK Hall, who believed us this time, who cheered us to victory and to mute and soar throats, who hoped that we could break the jinx and that we could win the tournament. The honour was always ours, and it's written right across our jerseys.

-To my personal cheerleaders, Roly and Aalu.

-To three hundred other people who mocked, ridiculed, looked down and thus challenged us.

-And above all, to Deepak Rathee, my captain, Kshitij head, basketball fanatic, dunk maniac, SN Hall's hero and newly elected Vice-President, IIT Kharagpur. Words fail me here. All I can say is that he didn't win that "Player of the Tournament" award this year and we won the silver. God help the opponents when he bounces back.

Yo Rathee!!! And of course...

Yo RK!!!

Petrichor

2006-03-16T04:01:00.000+05:30

I am sitting in my room watching Rang De Basanti. Soha Ali Khan is cute, Gulabbo is cute and hot and Aamir Khan is a wonderful actor. The movie is great and I am already planning to see it back to back once again when all of that thought process is suddenly halted.

It is faint and tiny at first. In my stuffy room, I wonder if I haven imagined it. You tend to imagine sounds, could you also imagine scents?? Have I been wanting it so bad now?? Another whiff!!! As far I know, petrichor is probably the most unique element in its field. You'd recognize it instantly, there is no other scent that comes even close to it, it is not manufactured artificially and sold in tiny glass bottles at exorbitant rates and it is, to me atleast, one of the most wondreful things to behold.

Hit the spacebar to pause, leap over the bed, fling the door open and Whooosh!!! I've been waiting for the first summer rain for about two weeks now. At Kharagpur, the evening rain in summer is something I've always cherished and looked forward to. It's beautiful with all the extra greenery everywhere that is scrubbed clean like no gardener can ever emulate. Someone in heaven has just turned the brightness on their remote up. Everything is more coloured. There is rain all over the place and there is the all pervading smell. Petrichor!!!

Chocolate when partaken stimulates the body to release endorphins, those chemicals that make one happy. So is the case with coffee. Mescaline, they say, can make one see shades of colours that a sober human can neither hope to see nor conjure. This smell, of rain hitting dust, must be the olfactory equivalent of the above. As I stand outside my room, I am trying to draw huge deep breaths. I suddenly feel like one of those drug addicts. True enough, all thoughts take flight to happy moments.

-I am reminded of Mitra, from college, who is the one person I can count on to be enjoying the rain and the smell as passionately as I am.

-I am reminded of the beach at Visakhapatnam. In summer, winter and rain. Of time spent with friends, family, Ayn Rand and Salman Rushdie.

-I am reminded of a four hour walk around the campus with my friends roughly an year back, starting from 12 in the night. We walked the roads like we were taking a light stroll after dinner, leisurely and carefree, just that it was raining cats and dogs. My walk to remember.

-I am reminded of the night of 18th January, 2004 when the first Kshitij was made and I remember my mentor, PG.

-Somehow, I am reminded of this new girl in my college who is fast turning out to be the biggest strongest crush that I have had in years.

-I remember the feeling of swimming in rain, better still, of not swimming but lying face up on the surface and looking into the rain.

I am on a high.

A couple of hours later, Aamir Khan, Sidharth, Madhavan and the rest are all dead and I am furiously googling to see if there is actually a scientific explanation as to why most people find the smell intoxicating, to find out if this was another hormone thing. Instead this is what I found and I was satisfied.

::Petrichor::

Orgin: From petro- (rock), from Greek petros (stone) + ichor (the fluid that is supposed to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology)

'Table'au

2006-02-17T03:49:00.000+05:30

It's mid-sem time. Again. (It's, touchwood, the last time, Yippie!!!) Anyway it's that time of the semester when, if I do anything else, I feel enormously guilty but at the same time I don't want to touch any books. But blogging, as I realize, is a reasonable moderation. And I am right now in no mood for movies/serials/novels/sleep. And above all, I am in no mood to think. So I go hunting, scavenging rather. I prowl on the 20 odd blogs that I read regularly for any ideas that I can "leech" on to. Sandy's "My Table" (read this first) tempts me. Soon I decide that I am going to use the idea completely. To avoid nasty comments from all the doubting-iyers of the world, the first thing I do is take a snap of the table. The truth, captured in the All-New-Canon-A-70-fully-automatic-thoroughly-digital-dizzyingly-costly-shamelessly-borrowed-camera, shall set you free. That is the extent of my originality in this post.

Why am I doing this?? Heck!!! I have a table that is as interesting/myriad/rusted/rickety as any other in this place.

Why are YOU doing this?? 'Coz the one thing that you ought to be doing right now is much much crappier!!

Right then. Here I go. Grrrr!!! Smack Smack. Slurp!!!

-The Tablecloth: Originally meant to be used as a bedsheet. Probably the bestest, cleanest newest, costliest sheet in the house before it was sent packing to Kharagpur. Moms never change.

-The Computer: HCL, Pentium II, 4 yrs old now. Subsidised by generous and highly successful alumni. Am not so sure if it was orignally meant for making jobless-bloggers out of IITians. Presently so dusty, it could have been just brought in from Arizona. In many ways, a war-veteran. And in many others, a roommate, a soulmate.

-My sleek black Platinum JBL Pro speakers that Srikanth has been so generous to lend me. He now has a brand new 5.1 stereo. (Sigh!!! Why is everything so green suddenly??)
-My old white Vintron Madonna speakers, that are lying unused as I am yet to decide who I am going to be generous to.
-Not-My black headphone-mike set that JD has lent me for my voice chat sessions.

-A half-empty (yes, I am a pessimist) 500 ml. pet bottle of PEPSI. (of course, with the inevitable +100 ml. free, even if your dil didn't maango more in the first place)

-Two pieces each of "Karuna Professional" guitar strings 1 and 2. Once again sent from home. I regret giving up guitaring almost daily now.

-A TIMEX 'aqura' wrist watch. With the wrist clip broken. The oldest item on the table. The first watch I ever had. Class X. Birthday gift from Mom and Dad. The dial still shows the right time.
-A maroon and faded-gold alarm timepiece that my friends from high school gifted me when I first came away to this place. This one doesn't work. And there are other alarms now. But...you know...it's as good as a diary.

-A bound practical book, that is currently supporting the old mouse. Probably bought it in my second year. Notes, reminders, mobile numbers and targets written all over the cover. Not a mark inside.

-My wallet. Five hundred rupees within. Four hundred rupees without and under it.
-My cell. Nokia 2600. Not even a month old. The newest item on the table.
-The remaining pieces of my old cell, Samsung R 220, lying in the box that it originally came in. In a way, it's another diary.

-One black Luxor marker pen. One black sketch that now writes in brown. A hang-around-your-neck pen that I won at Spring Fest 2006 by buying a copy of The Telegraph and shooting 3 balloons.

-A pair of mittens, once again, borrowed from Srikanth, for the winter that I wish was still here.

-An empty can lying behind the monitor that once contained nuts that I ate in one go. This one came from Golu's room.

-Two boxes containing used/discarded CDs, floppy discs (yes, it's not a myth, there were such things in the past), LAN card, mother-board, reciepts for the hardware and the like.
-An A4 sheet, containing a reminder list of the things that I needed to talk to someone, on the phone.
-4 plastic glasses that were originally brought in to hold some soup during the winters until the teeny-weeny intellect inside me realized that plastic melts.
-An application form laying claim to my dual-degree assistantship of Rs. 5,000 p.m.
-Grade-sheet till the eigth semester. It's a JD Salinger story.
-Spare A4 sheets, white and green, to scribble on.
-Somebody else's certificate that I have to hand over to.
-Spare xerox copies of my ID card and a few fee reciepts.

-A makeshift rack made out of the top of the CPU box. CAT score card, admit card and call letters from 5 IIMs stare accusingly from inside.

I tried reading Sandy's article and my own draft as a stranger. Here's what I thought:
-Sandy's table is bigger than mine.
-Both of us need to clean our tables, and if the analogy holds, our rooms too.
-Both of us need to borrow less.
-I should be more original. Next time, I'll try a dissertation on my dustbin.

-"Blog me about your table, my friend and I'll blog you who you are..."

Tagged and thus resurrected!!!

2006-01-23T20:02:00.000+05:30

(No real reason why I stopped blogging and no real reason why I chose to resume. The really real reasons, though, I might elaborate later. But any credit for resurrecting this blog and this blogger goes to Iyer)

THREE NAMES I GO BY:

1)Hemanth
2)"ABCD", "PV", "PVRK" (All in giving due credit/ridicule/plain-factual-knowledge to my unusually long complete name)
3)"God" (I hate this forced nick and its patrons alike)

THREE SCREEN NAMES:

1)Asterix
2)Howard.Roark
3)"misplet"

THREE THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MYSELF:

1)Music sense.
2)Sense of humour.
3)Rationality. (As u see, the list doesn't deviate at all from Iyer's own which is why I adore him in the first place)

THREE THINGS I DON'T LIKE ABOUT MYSELF:

1)The extra pound in my body that never goes away.
2)The occasioanl rough edge in my PR that I could do without.
3)The few occasions when I have let someone down/failed them.

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE ME:

1)A well-directed scary movie. (Manoj Shyamalan's The Village is a fine example)
2)The though of getting an 'F' grade in the final year.
3)Snakes (more on the side of dislike rather)

THREE ESSENTIALS:

1)Wallet
2)Mobile
3)Watch

THREE OPPOSITE SEX THINGS:

1)A beautiful face/smile/eyes.
2)Some heart and some brains.
3)A great body

...and this fetish I have with names...a good name...

...and a zillion other things...three is too less...

THREE THINGS I WANT TO DO BADLY RIGHT NOW:

1)Spend some time with Chaitu
2)Forget a few things that keep pinching...Get on with my life in some areas...
3)Be with all four of my family at one time at one place...

THREE CAREERS I AM CONSIDERING RIGHT NOW:

1)Pursuing an MBA.
2)Starting a very specific hotel chain.
3)Joining the million and a half other software engineers in the country.

THREE PLACES I WANT TO GO ON VACATION:

1)New Zealand (the specific locations where LOTR was shot)
2)The bestest beuatifulest beach in the world
3)Home

THREE KIDS NAMES I LIKE :

1)Sahiti
2)Nischal
3)Aarati (this one's real)

THREE THINGS TO DO BEFORE I DIE :

1)Learn how to dance without embarassing/injuring myself or the next person.
2)Meet/bhaat with Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar
3)Trek/Hike/Bungee-jump/Snorkel/Travel/Smoke/Drink/Get stoned.

...and of course, (as Iyer puts it in style), the SEX thing...

THREE PEOPLE WHO HAVE TO TAKE THIS QUIZ :

1)Chaitu
2)Himadri
3)Mishra

(the idea is to take the same questions and answer them on your blog, and inflict the same questions on 3 (exactly three, maybe 4) blogs you read)

H.No. 39-10-29

2005-04-18T07:09:00.000+05:30

Yessiree!!! I've found time soon enough. This must oficially be the shortest break I took between any of my posts. Mr. Jobless, I always am, but right now, I am un-lazy enough to type and so here comes rolling, the second post in as many days. With reference to the last post, even before you ask, my grand viva was, well, grand!!!. My mom reads this blog and therefore I stubbornly refuse to add any more adjectives in this case.

Anyways, like I was saying in the last post, a lot has happend in my life in the last month. Prince Charles' charming second wedding, you say?? Certainly, but I'll talk about that looser later. If he hasn't already ruined it and started dating a third woman, that is. Right now I am referring to events closer to home, one particular incident that's tampering with my compass and wrecking it. My dad's got promoted and with that, has been suddenly transferred, for the first time, from Vizag to Mumbai. All my life I have lived in this one great place and suddenly we got to pack and leave. I mean, it must be allright for people with their dads as bankers, the only people who are upholding the nomadic tradition in India today. They are the true urban bedouins of our age. Like Chaitu for example, who, courtesy his dad's job at SBI, must be holding the Guiness record for the most number of educational institutions anyone has studied in. My dad is definitely not taking it well, himself. He absolutely loves his life at Vizag and it has been twenty-seven years in that city for him working for the same company throughout his career without a single transfer. Twenty-seven!!! Can you comprehend that number?? No?? Allright, it's the total number of runs Ganguly is going to make during the rest of his career. Aah, I see that you do comprehend now. So anyways, come next holidays,and it's not a south-bound journey from Kharagpur any more. Instead it's the classic "Go west, Young man, Go west". Aanchi Mumbai, here I come!!!

After living in one hell of a city all your life, I guess its not so easy to relocate yourself to a new place. I sure am going to miss this place a lot. My mom and dad wake up today to celebrate the silver jubilee of their wedding anniversary even as I type. If they would have been in the US, they would probably have been on the front page today recieving the "US Ratna for Matrimonial Harmony" from the newly wed President and his third wife, staring adoringly at her fifth husband, who would in turn be staring equally adoringly at his ninth personal secretary (kindly refer to the revised marriage oath - "we swear to be husband, wife and secretary, 'til crap do us part"). Anyways, here in India, the day is special just for the two of them. After this, my dad flies off to Mumbai in a week, my mom stays back in Vizag for some more time, my sister is still working at Hyderabad and I am stuck at Kharagpur for quite some time to come. I should probably pick up a monthly travel-ticket from the Indian railways.

And now I have to go back to House Number 39-10-29 to find it empty or travel straight to Mumbai. How there can be a brighter side to this story, I can't imagine but since I have begun to believe that it is often the case, I'll sure tell you when I see the light. And hey, I do get one last chance to stay at Vizag this summer, before we relocate/dislocate permanently. My last two months at that place, still, good enough to tie up all the threads I guess. While 39-10-29 is soon becoming more of a house and less of a home, it will remain my idea of home throughout my life. And then, there is this line that keeps coming back to me from the song, "The Final Countdown" as I key this blog in...

"...and maybe we'll come back, who knows, who can tell..." :D

And of course...Happy Wedding Anniversary, Mom and Dad!!!

Our Father in Heaven...

2005-04-15T06:24:00.000+05:30

Once again, a long time since I've posted anything here. Once again, a promise that I'll be more regular from the next time. So, go on and believe it, once again. If my professors in the department can believe that story about my attendance all the time, you can suck it up too. Like I said, one month is a really long time and I have a lot to write about and I want to too, but the thing is I have this little business called my grand-viva starting in a few hours.

So, much as I would like to, I have very little time in my hands...on my left wrist to be specific. This post is just to break away from the mounting nausea I get after looking at those text books for minutes on end. I promise I'll be back with a decent post as-soon-ass-possible. This one's a prayer we used to sing in my school days, with a few modifications of course!!! It's only appropriate that I say these prayers before I go back to their place of origin for the ordeal. It's not much, but it contains the gist of what I would really like it to be like. Written during brief moments of consciousness in my classroom, a few of the lines are from Chaitu's pen that I adopted but most of it is straight out of my own keyboard.

Our Father in Heaven...

Holy be thy name,
Sexy be my dame,
Lots of money and fame
Be unto my name.

Time, I be able to tame,
May enemies mine all go lame,
Others' requests though be same,
Me be the priority in your game.

- hAMENth

Khul gaya Sim Sim!!

2005-03-19T04:16:00.000+05:30

"Miracles do happen to each one of us in our daily lives", said someone. And I now believe that statement to be entirely true. Until the last week, I thought I was an exception. I never had any dazzling turn around of events....unless of course I didn't want them to or sometimes they would turn, skid, lose balance and crash into the nearest electric pole. I never had any bright strokes of luck or genius, only dark blotted smudges that resulted in a painting that could make a drunken monkey look the better artist. No, those bright ones are for the Newtons and Einsteins in this world with those millions of grey cells in their head. Me, the only grey matter anywhere near my head is a shock of hairs above my left ear. So, I thought, the above saying cldn't be entirely true.

Until now, all you people have had a wonderful miracle in your life, namely me. But now I have had my miracle happen too (hah...not you, you sucker). And about time too. As Sethi keeps telling me all the time, God has been really unfair to me in my talents, or the acute shortage of them rather. So miracles are what I generally invest most of my mom's prayers in. My mom, she must have been praying for one big miracle before I was born. All she does nowadays is pray for a lot of small miracles to support the really big one.

Anyways, on the 15th of this month, after a long night having watched two and a half movies, I was sitting in my room early in the morning and trying to decide whether it was worth walking all the way to the department just for the air-conditioning when I could just sleep right there in my own room. I was watching a few football videos of Roberto Carlos, his bend-it-like-me-not-like-that-playboy-beckham shots. I was thinking that had that bending goal taken place 200 years earlier, poor Mr. Issac Newton would have had his foundations shaken, and Newton's laws about that straight-line-me-hi-jaayega would have come 200 years later...only they would have been called Hemanth's laws. So anyways, suddenly there comes a real loud knock at my door. Now people around me know that its generally my time to go back to my sub-conscious world and so that thing rarely happens. It must have been someone's turn for a miracle I thought, or worse, my turn for the next catastrophe. Little did I know that the Almighty was on a roll that day. My number had finally arrived.

And thus did I come to hear the news...it turned out that I had managed to qualify in the GATE exam after all. Yes, I didn't believe it too. Frankly, its the fourth day after the results and I still go back to the results page at IIT Powai's website and keep entering my number to see if those people have realized there has been a mistake. And no, they don't seem to. 'Aah!!! Must have scraped through, you lucky guy' is what I hear you say. Well, for the record, my AIR is 92 and my percentile is a 90. something. So you see, for all ends of purposes, I have marched right down the red carpet. Boy!! Can you believe it?? In a given group of engineers in this country, I am above the surface, on the visible part of the iceberg. To people reading this blog and going crazy as to what the big fuss is all about, I am now eligible for the MHRD scholarship receiving roughly 60,000 rupees in the coming year. And before you even ask, I am already working on what to do with all that money. I just hope I don't kick the pot of milk in my sleep.

The best part of the whole thing was ringing up my people at home and breaking the news to them. Lord Almighty in return for the favour gets an entire week off from my mom's prayers. My sister is exuberant, my dad thinks that I should go party and my friends think my dad is wonderful. Most of the persons that I have referred to in the previous blog have also managed to romp through the gates in all glory. So there it is, a truly miraculous turn of events. And therefore, to quote Tolkein, "All is well that ends better". Well said, someone!!

The aftermath of a GATEcrash...

2005-02-13T15:20:00.000+05:30

The events described below are as I see them and have experienced them myself over the past three days in my life. Any relation of the above events to any person living or alive utill today morning, while not being necessarily co-incidental, is awesome. Its definitely less painful to know that I wasn't the only guy at the guillotine today.

And so it came to pass that on this Sunday, and the three days before that, I found myself in situations that gave me a serious identity crisis and the people around me, quite a scare. I, for instance, was awake before dawn on all four days, had breakfast in the mess for probably the first time this year, slept for a record low number of hours, studied a total of 1800 pages of academic text (spelt c-r-a-p) and watched a sum total of 0.00 movies, sitcoms and shows. And by 9:00 AM on Sunday morning, there I was, walking towards the examination center to take GATE-2005.

Once seated in the exam hall, in the few minutes to spare, I quietly prepared myself for the challenge that lay ahead. No, you are getting it wrong, not those mental preparation and charging up the psyche and stuff. I located and discussed elaborate strategies and invented new sign languages with my new neighbours, my would-be saviours for the next three hours. My plans would have made any of those KGB, CIA, FBI, MAC (mysterious alphabetic combinations) real proud. Little did I know that my good neighbours would make such good fences in due time.

Once the exam started I got busy and in 15 minutes I was done reading through the paper. There were some questions here and there that must have been inserted just to make people like me feel good, or stay awake rather. Anyways, by the end of the first hour, there I was, done with the exam thoroughly with a check and a re-check, as is the proper way. One look at my neighbours and I knew where I stood on their priority list right then. Those poor souls, the paper must have been tough, I wouldn't know either way.

Coming fresh out of the inter-hall basketball tournament last week, I found that I had pretty short fingernails to attend to and my best manicure job could still kill only fifteen minutes. I sat down for another reading of the question paper, finished it in a jiffy, took inspiration from one Mr.Forrest Gump and read it in the reverse, all in half an hour. I sharpened the pencil from both sides, tried to sharpen the borrowed pen, balance the pen on my finger, the pencil on the pen, my GATE admit card on the pencil, got frustrated and gave up. One more hour to go...I sat down and took stock of how many questions I had answered in each section, how many of them I was sure were wrong and how many were doubtful. I worked and re-worked the numbers until I came to the conclusion that I was a prodigy at statistics, searched the questions on that topic and solved them real quick. Before I could work out what else I was an undiscovered talent at, the three hours were up and I was let go, back into the sanity of my own world.

On a more serious note, fortunately, the stipend, that I am now never going to get, never did matter that much anyways. My dad has been very kind and understanding throughout the four years of this mega-bumper-five-year-holiday package that he has sent me here on. So hopefully, he'll remain likewise for the last year too. This blog therefore goes in wishing all the guys who've actually put in there sincere efforts and to whom the result does make a difference, all the very best. By sticking to the lower strata of the merit list, I have made my contribution in upping your percentile. Here's hoping that you make it into whatever lies beyond the gate.

In retrospection, I now see that the whole thing was a big mistake right from the beginning. The very name of the exam for instance. You see, Graduate, Aptitude, Test and Engineering are not words that I particularly like or relate to. And then, there I was, preparing for this exam from books written by guys with the names - 'Crazy'g, Pop-oww and Peekay Nag. Critics might like to compare me with the fox that said that the grapes were sour and walked away. Fie!! Fie!! Shame on you for thinking that way. I am not a fox and I am six feet tall, thank you. There are no grapes that I can't reach, only GATEs that I can't seem to unlock...

Bang Bang!! I'm alive...

2005-01-25T04:59:00.000+05:30

Oh yes!! That's right baby!! I am alive. And whats more!! I am now the new improved Mr.Jobless v2.01. Yeah!! I can imagine your mood right now. You must be fretting and fuming, diasappointed and cursing all your luck. All you wanted as a new year present was for me to disappear, to be gone from your lives. There!! There!! Don't you loose heart buddy. All I can say is that 2006 is not very far away, not to mention the numerous regional and religious new year eves coming up. But for now, mon ami, it's back to my picking your grey cells.

Firstly, I am extremely happy to announce that the results of my first 'blogress' report have been quite satisfactory. Mind you, I am not denying that some responses have indeed been very colourful, ranging from "Just stop writing, Hemanth or else..." to blatant and untrue references not only to my anatomy but also to my near and dear ones, with an enlightening insight into all the leaves, twigs and branches of my family tree. I never knew constructive criticism could be that up, close and personal. Nevertheless, the general opinion has been that I should write more. And so, so be it.

In the two months that have passed, I've read my own blog a couple of times. Well...more than a couple of times actually. Allright, I own up - if Narcisiuss had been a writer, he would have been called a Hemantist. While the above routine is yet another example of how adventurous my life is, I feel that not enough tribute has been made to laziness, my principal weapon against boredom. But this, I guess, I have proved better in my actions...in my no-actions I mean. Clearly, Indian elections have occured at a far greater frequency than my blogs. The story goes on about this back-bencher, who handed over a blank sheet of paper in reply to an assignment on laziness and got a straight A. Since I am not prepared to settle for anything less than an A+, I don't attend many classes in the first place. And, of course, I lie down in the last chair on the rare occasions that I sleepwalk to the department. Did I mention that the guys behind Napster, Microsoft and SUN had pretty similar college lives??

Anways, the principal aim of this post has been just to convey to one and all that me and my blog are still very much alive and this, I think, I have sufficiently crapped about. Also, from now on, I'll be posting much more regularly. So do come and visit more often.

As in the first post, I am going to dedicate this article to some people. It feels nice and makes my article look bigger. This one is to all the living Tsunami victims about whom I really care and wish I could do more, to Sai, Mitra and Riz McKinsey among many others for encouraging me to write more, to Soubhagya Sahoo for actually suggesting some nice, weird topics ('How love macerates' being one of them) for my future blogs and finally to Srinath for his funny mail at 3 'o' clock in the night that gave me the final push to break my blogfast.

A taste of what is to come...

2004-11-20T23:29:00.000+05:30

Right now I am pretty tired from filling all these forms that blogger wants me to complete so that I can write what they think will be readable material for more than one person. Well. Muhahahaha!!! It must be pretty evident by now that what I am going to post will make Sidney Sheldon's crap look like one of those all-in-one products in the teleshopping programs that can cook all your cuisines and repair your house and reduce your weight and crunch ur abs and blah blah blah...while all I really do watching those programs is sneer at the pathetic transalation, stare at the dumb blondes in economy-class outfits and contemplate the infinity of human stupidity in general and mine in particular.

I swear in all honesty that whatever will be up here will be of no use to any living organism with any meaningful purpose in his/her/its life whatsoever, suggest in all sincerity that reading my blog should be used only as a last resort, an emergency medicine for souls unable to bear the maddening boredom engulfing their lives, the maddening boredom that my daily time-table is.

I'll be putting up a lot of what is happening in my life, my daily experiences and the like. Most of them will be pretty fantastic. Co-bloggers and other readers might find my accounts unbelievable and yet envy them but I swear I have been through each of them. Its simply that dreams don't have a physical limitation to what we as humans can do and thats what I do - sleep for three quarts of a day and for the remaining part I day-dream. About sleep And siesta And stuff like that. You get the idea, right??

What I am sure of though is that I am not alone - the people I sat with in the last bench in my school days, the people that I snored with during my high-school days, the people that I dream I am sitting with in the last bench in my college nowadays - the world, I am sure is full of people like me. To all such people I dedicate my first blog. To Chaitu, to Duggi and to Santu, (who'll all be duly introduced later) a little prayer here wishing them luck for their CAT exam tommorow, to Kashyap who is sleeping behind me right now and is deeply engrossed in checking out the smell of his book with his eyes closed, to Bhanu and her auto-batch - almost the ideal vagabonds I was talking about and the many others that I am yet to meet. I'll take a break now, sleep a bit maybe...