Memoirs Revisited

The Original AR

2010-05-03T21:34:00.000-07:00

One of the major (rather only) major imports from India from the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” has been the song “Jai Ho” by the Mozart of Madras A R Rehman. However before we get carried away, a few terse points are to be made. Firstly, it is not A R Rehman’s best musical composition by any stretch of imagination. Good yes, but not the best. It is only the movie’s popularity that catapulted the song to international prominence. Secondly, the reason it is so popular among the international masses owes largely to the bastardization of the song by “PussyCat Dolls”.

It is interesting to note however that there was a time when Indian music was accorded international prominence and standing ovations. No I am not going back to the Jurassic Era but only as far back as the 60s. The other day I was watching the “Monterey Pop Festival” , the precursor of the legendary Woodstock music festival.

The word Pop is a misnomer if seen through the prism of today’s times but not so back then. Pop is the short for popular and back then the popular music was classic rock and roll. How I wish it was the pop music of this age!

For sheer quality of the line-up of artists assembled on stage over the course of this event, it will probably remain unmatched. The acts included Simon and Garfunkel, Johnny Rivers, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, The Byrds, The Grateful Dead and the small matter of The Who and The Jimi Hendrix Experience. As I said at the start anyone who has attended this live over the course of those three fateful days has probably attained musical nirvana.

This was in 1967, part of an era of chemical experimentation and long tresses of hair irrespective of gender. The videos of the audience all dazed and in a parallel universe of their own is especially amusing. The closing ceremony of this fantastic musical celebration was about to start. The music to conclude the show was definitely not “pop” per se. As the saner ones tried to gather belongings and the stoned reluctant to leave, the performance commenced. Eighteen minutes of sheer pleasure followed. It was superb guitar and drum playing except that the sound was divine and the instruments were different. Sitar and tabla combined to give an exhibition which only a privileged few back home had had the chance to witness,. Immediately droopy eyes were brushed and serene calm seemed to pervade the atmosphere.

It was the concert that catapulted Ravi Shankar to modern-day super-stardom. All the more appreciable considering that only tenets on classical music were attended to. But to me the highlight of the show was unquestionably tablist Alla Rakha Khan. If you look at the concert, on the link provided, there are times when Ravi Shankar is in open appreciation of his companion even midway through the routine. It was a triumph of Indian music – no remixes, no beats, pure unadulterated music. For a video of the same click here.

It is a pity that Alla Rakha Khan is but a mere footnote in many of our lives. To us of the modern era, the more enduring image has been that of his son, bashing the tabla and the “Wah Taj” that followed. For the tabla, like the drum is an instrument of accompaniment. It thrives with an accompanying instrument.

Now guess, when A.S. Dileep Kumar decided to turn to Islam what name did he choose? Why, Alla Rakha Rehman of course!

When Bragging Rights Are Up for Grabs

2010-02-21T16:26:00.000-08:00

The palms were getting sweatier by the minute. This was not the time to let them slip through the fingers. If there was ever a time to pull off that ace up my sleeve, now was it. We were both running out of options and this would definitely be the knockout blow. Eyes locked on each other we focussed to see who would blink first.

But wait! The first move wasn’t mine to make. Those were the rules. So I was left pondering my options. Anticipating a move is the hardest thing. The wait seemed arduous. Add to it, it was a family feud. Which meant that we each knew the other’s strengths and weaknesses.

What was he going to pull off? Would he bring his experience of the bouts to the fore? Is he flexing those biceps yet? I hope he does not use the reach to intimidate me. I had the massive shoulders and chest to bulk it up if needed but height was not my forte. Hope he does not lash the belt out yet. In some circles it wasn’t considered fair but again this was within the family. Bragging rights were up for grabs. This was as raw as it could get.

And then he made his move. Ever so perceptibly he made the call.

Chests fifty two inches clash. I knew I had him by the jugular now. Abdullah fifty six inches clash! And yelled out I did as my brother disappointed chucked the rest of the cards away. I had yet again emerged the best player in this version of the game!

P.S. : Watched a fight on TV last night after a fairly long time. Brought back all those memories!

Hath not a Jew Eyes?

2009-11-30T13:46:00.001-08:00

My mother was an avid reader. Something she picked up from her own father and in my case genes did the rest.

The first time I attempted to read this book was about 10 years ago now. During the summer vacation in my 8th standard, we had been to grandpa’s place. From his vast collection of books, Mummy carefully picked out “The Merchant of Venice: William Shakespeare” and handed it to me. She told me it was one of her favourite books and that I should also read it. Maybe eagerness had got the better of her because frankly the old English just put me off straightaway. Reading the book without the legends, Biblical references and Elizabethan references is really hard.

Thankfully Mummy did not press on but time did take its course. So when an year later in Standard 9 it was announced that we would be reading this very book I was somewhat concerned. I was worried that I would again be put off by the unfamiliar diction. However thankfully being a course textbook, the pace at which we progressed and the adequate references made it a lot more comprehensible. Being the prescribed book for the Class X Board examinations meant that this book was given more importance than any other English textbook I might have ever owned. Yet on the completion of the course there was something both Mummy and the teacher Fr. Thomas had said. Read this book again when you are a little older. There may be something in there you might have overlooked.

I was surprised. I mean I had read the book from ear to ear countless times. What more was there to read? I mean Antonio and Bassanio’s friendship, Bassanio’s love for Portia and Shylock’s excessive greed being dealt with were the main themes which I had fully understood.

So last week with a little time off and not much to do I decided to read it again. Tell you what there were things that I had overlooked! Last time around “The Merchant of Venice” was definitely Antonio but this time around it was unmistakably Shylock. The whole book is about him. Here is a man who is loathed for where he was born rather than what he is. His only way to command respect from people who otherwise spit at him and hurl abuse is to make sure he has got them by the scruff. The only way he can do this is by lending his money to them at the exorbitant rates he sets. But even here he is outdone by Antonio who lends money “gratis” i.e. at no interest. His daughter betrays him in the worst way possible eloping with a Christian, trading his deceased wife’s ring for a monkey and stealing a fair few ducats from him. My interpretation is that the pound of flesh he demands is initially just to keep Antonio on his toes. Yet the news of his daughter’s elopement and his subsequent ridicule leads him to a rage uncontrolled. His desire for revenge blinds just about everything else, even reason and mercy. These attributes are something only witnessed by adults in later life and hence we missed these the last time we read the book. In the end, he is denied his revenge, asked to turn to the very religion that has taken from him everything he had and is consigned to die a penniless old man.

This is actually a fantastic tragic story veiled in the elements of love, kindness and virtue. And herein lies Shakespeare’s greatness. For a man of that age to understand the reactions that the Anti-Semitic feelings harboured could ignite is just praiseworthy. Four hundred years later another Christian who believed that his father was wronged by a Jew heaped scourge never seen before on the Jews in form of the Holocaust. The country of Israel is doing the rest as we speak.

Racism and Multiculturalism : Conflicting or Co-Existing

2009-05-12T22:18:00.000-07:00

To say it has been a while would be a massive understatement. Probably just being the procrastinator I am? Probably not. All this while it has been more about introspection than finding the time. Most of my writings up to this point have dealt with nostalgia or frivolous happenings. This time around I did not want the pen to move smoothly but pause as I pondered at every meander.

So the ideas of multiculturalism and racism: Are they conflicting or co-existing? After my stay here in Australia for close to two years I tend to feel it is the latter. Let me tell you when I made the choice to move to Australia for my new job it had a lot to do with the zeroes at the end of the pay check. Being a keen cricket lover I had seen on TV umpteen times the racial sledges heaped on Indian players when they went Down Under to play cricket in Sydney and Melbourne. Sure I was worried if some more of the same would be in store for me. My work here in Australia working at mine sites leads me a lot more into country Australia rather than Sydney. This is in stark contrast to most Indian expats in the US & UK who tend to live among the urban populace. However I much prefer it the way it is. Singleton, the town where I currently reside is a majority Anglo-Saxon based populace with a virtually non-existent expat Indian presence. Unbelievable isn’t it? I mean with the popular notion of an Indian “Chai ki Dukaan” or a “Billoo Punjabi Restaurant” you would think we have conquered every foreign outpost. Not really so. As a result, everyone I meet here and most of my “mates” here are white. So do I get the usual racial taunts because here it is just me against ‘em. The answer is a resounding NO. Most people know of India as “Chicken Butter Masala”, “Sachin” and our very own Harbhajan “Monkey Singh”. So when they see me they ask if I am Indian. They ask if India is all about “Slumdog Millionaire” or is it the next economic powerhouse-in-waiting shown in Bangy and Hyd. I tell them it is both and much more. I tell them about Holi, Diwali, Dussehra, about how and why I cannot share a beef steak with them. These people are obviously ignorant about Indian customs but not once do I hear a sneer or derisive comment about these being weird or antiquated. In fact they relish a conversation as they learn more about India. And I am only more than happy to help. Are these country towns multicultural? No. But are they racist? No again.

Sydney though is a different kettle of fish. Of course you find numerous Indian, Lebanese, Chinese and other populations, fantastic food variety, temples, mosques and celebrations of all festivals. You get to see the superb piece of architecture that is the Sydney Opera House. But also time and again you are faced with that ugly stare, a rare taunt. You hear stories of Indian students working as cab-drivers to supplement tuition fees getting bashed by non-paying customers. In fact I have a story about cab-drivers in Sydney with me on the other side. I and a few white mates from the town had been to Sydney for the week-end. When we called for a cab, the white-cab-driver raised objections on letting me in saying I was “one of them”. One of the blokes I was with wanted to beat the crap out of the driver but I told him to back off. We got him reported in the end. So is Sydney multicultural? Yes. Is it racist? To some extent yes.

So why does this happen. In order to understand this, I will give an Indian example. When the first Bihari went out of Bihar to Mumbai to drive an auto/taxi the Marathis did not go up in arms. It was when most of it was handled by the Bihari population that Bal Thackeray managed to stir so-called Maratha emotions. The fact is only when a population is in fear of being outnumbered that they resort to hatred. They fear that they may lose say in their home-town or home country. But then we do say that Mumbai is “cosmopolitan”. Also another example I shall give is that of “Gults”. I know in KGP for a fact there was a certain loathing for Gults. Also people in North India tend to class Tamils, Telugus, Kannadigas and Malayalis as “Gults”. Similarly people in South India tend to refer to the brethren in the upper half as “Northies”. It is a similar phenomenon with xenophobia and racism only on a much bigger scale. And when the odd American hears that his job is going away to a person willing to work on cheaper wages, sometimes in another country, the angst only grows.

By no means do I justify racism or its acts. But what I have tried to present is a case of the circumstances which lead to it. Rather than pass anti-racism laws, it is these circumstances that need addressing. I know in KGP, during the “Orientation Period” seniors tried to split the herd mentality with regional communities and get a better interaction among people from all regions. It is a pity that something of the sort on a national or international scale would be regarded as undue interference in a person’s social life.

The Distances Still Remain

2008-07-13T21:17:00.000-07:00

An oft-overused term is “the role of the internet in the ever shrinking world”. People go on and on about the internet making distance just another physical dimension. Access to data on your fingertips and all that bull-crap.

For the last year I have been away from home. Do I miss what’s happening back there? And when I say that, I do not mean my home in particular but even just India in general. When I need to know about the latest reservation policy or celebrity scandal, I get on to Times of India Website, for cricket there has always been Cricinfo and if there’s a video worth watching, it’s definitely on YouTube.

However is it adequate to make me feel at home? Where is the hustle and bustle a billion people muster up when going to work each day? The scurrying of the mums, the yelling of the dads and the crying of the kids going to school every morning? Where’s the democracy unique to our country that allows dogs, cows, buffaloes, tempos, cars, buses, bikes and pedestrians the equal right to share the same roadspace? Where’s the yell from children in the neighbourhood or the bursting of crackers every rare time India manages to win a cricket match? Where’s the smell of curry wafting through the kitchen as you sit around in the living room? Heck, though I hate to admit this, I even miss Himesh’s latest songs blasting through the tempos on roads. Taare Zameen Par is all that it is to me, three words. Even if I do download it and watch it, will I ever be able to keep abreast of all that a populace of a billion people and a few billion cattle can conjure up every day when the “Breaking News” section on every channel come up with the most ridiculous happenings. A DIG turning to Radha, Prince being rescued from a well, Ganeshji drinking milk are just all I can recollect at the moment.

The other day I saw a blog by one of my mates about some show named “Rock On”. Dunno anything about it, yet from the way he writes, it’s a much watched series back home.

10,000 kms away from home surrounded by an ocean named after the very country I come from seems a fair distance away by all accounts. There is no way the smells and tastes can be replicated on the internet and the sights are only what you are shown through the limited viewspace of a TV/Monitor screen. Home does beckon. And I eagerly wait for when I can get back, even though, a month of it is all I may get. But then going by what happens in India everyday, it may be all I can handle at the moment.

Swinging the "Fairway"

2008-04-01T03:52:00.000-07:00

Being part of a one billion strong population born eating, drinking and sleeping but one sport, I consider myself decent enough at swinging a piece of willow. Hence when the proverbial Aussie "mates" here invited me on a game of aquagolf, I was more than willing to come over. After all, who does not like to play a game where he can (or in my case ,thinks he can) dominate. Because though this was a new sport, the similarity of bashing a ball just made me a lot more confident or overconfident shall we say. Add to that the fact that here the ball is stationary and there is no way I could have put a foot wrong. Now the rules of aquagolf are even simpler than actual golf. Keep teeing golf balls till you hit a few nets in the water which would earn you some extra bucks and improve your swing.

Hence aping the others up I went on my exaggerated upward swing to meet the ball on the way down. Only to my utter disdain and everyone else's amusement, the ball was unmoved. I had swung through without actually hitting the ball. Just a rare miss for the first shot I thought and up I went again. And again the ball somehow craftily managed to dodge my club. Now I brought all the technical speak of cricket into play. Similar to cricket, advanced down the track to hit the ball. Though this time the ball did soar up a few feet, I was told my technique for cricket was not be applied at this sport.At cricket where the elbows are bent and the wrists supple, this male chauvinist GOLF (Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden) requires everything dead stiff!

And so now knees bent, stiff upper body, gritted teeth with the most ridiculous posture and a new swing I went through again and this time the ball had trickled a few feet away. Everyone around me meanwhile was belting the crap out of the balls.

So yeah, never mention cricket and golf in the same vein. Very very different sports. Right now it's not the Tiger but his famed swing I search for in the woods.

The picture of the futile exercise has been provided for the viewer's delight and author's misery.

Face-Booked!!!

2007-10-07T13:58:00.000-07:00

Most of my blogs are initiated after a conversation with “the Swamy”. After a long long wait over to finally kickstart my fledgling corporate career, I decided to call him up yesterday.

Well as always we have myriads of topics for discussion and somehow conversation veered towards “Facebook”. It’s one of these social networking sites similar to Orkut where you get to meet old friends, old flames (:P) and others. When Swamiji gave me the “nirdesh” on joining Facebook which in his own words is where the “niche junta” is headed I thought of giving it a miss. After all, I had successfully kicked off the Orkut habit and did not want to get started on another. However infused with the hopes of finding a special someone spurred me on to give it a try.

Now let’s rewind to May-July 2006. I had been on an internship to Canada and had made a few friends particularly my flat-mates with whom I gelled instantly. When I reached there I had not an idea of where to start with my culinary skills and both Paula and Andre gave me an introductory course in this. A short description of the affair is to be found here. Not only with cooking but they helped me on with a lot of things without which the going would have really got tough. (Come on now you perverted minds don't get the wrong idea about things :D) Facebook being more popular over there I had opened up an account and added them but not done anything else.

However since I returned I had not once got in contact with them. Saying that I was busy would be just a plain pack of lies. At least dropping by a word or two by e-mail would have hardly taken anytime. However my foray into Facebook after all this time set me on rectifying some of those mistakes. I still remembered my login and password after over a year which says something about my memory (joking, I was just plain lucky to have remembered). However on re-entering I did find my old flat-mates still very much on Facebook. Paula had indeed got a scholarship to Oxford. So I decided to send her a message congratulating her and got a response within the next few hours. She was plain glad to have got back in contact and has welcomed me to visit Oxford if I ever get the chance to go to England (which is very remote). However Facebook seems to have egged me on to get in contact with all those old friends.

Hence Facebook has my attention for now. It’s a cool site with lots of features and I am looking forward to familiarize myself with the various nuances of it. My only fear is this time the addiction should not be intense enough for me to get hooked on to it during office hours in which case if my boss finds out, it could be another long wait in the murky world of joblessness!!

Public Means of Transport

2007-06-15T23:29:00.000-07:00

My efforts in reducing this newly-acquired pot-belly of mine has met with mixed results. For the last few days rain has been playing spoilsport to my plans in the evening and an early riser I am not. So still a long way to go in search of that elusive flat profile.

Anyways, this long stretch of holidays has given me ample of time to watch anything and everything on the idiot box. With the ever-pervasive saas-bahu serials on at every imaginable hour and the cable network offering limited access to viewable channels I had to switch on to MTV. Now I am not a very big fan of MTV ( [V] is rather my favorite..but then beggars can't be choosers). Cyrus's jokes seem to be taking the poorer route every day and Nikhil's MTV Select seems to have come with strict instructions to receive calls only asking for Hindi songs. Either MTV has been hit by some desi syndrome or more likely, its database of songs is not what it has been.

So a few days back when I switched on the television I saw a new female anchor on one of the shows VJ Sophie. The show she's hosting deals with the current Hindi chart-toppers and yet she's churning out English in a manner comprehensible only to those on a flight back from the US of A. She's making a tour of Mumbai on an open top bus while doing all these gimmicks. And it is then that she drops the bomb!!! She has never made a journey by any of the public means of transport : no buses, trains, autos or the like. To me, an Indian not having experienced these is simply unimaginable. It just shows how out of sync she must be with the general Indian "junta". The fact that a VJ who is supposed to be the means of communication between the television and the public of India does not have an inkling of the average middle class Indian's daily life is really reassuring. However she cannot be faulted for not having had such an experience. Maybe she was indeed born with a silver spoon in her mouth. But kudos to MTV who has such people on its bench making it truly representative of today's Indian "youth".

For some reason Cyrus Broacha as an MTV VJ seems a much encouraging prospect!!!

A Few Pounds of Flesh

2007-06-09T22:24:00.001-07:00

For the first time in my twenty-three years of existence have I found the urge to shed a few pounds of flesh from my body (ohh not the Shylock kind!!! ) .... Well jokes and PJs apart I do find that my once slim waistline has already gained gargantuan proportions. I cannot pinpoint one single cause as to this fascination with getting rid of the extra flab on my body all of a sudden. But it may be due to several causes : meeting friends who have a slimmed quite significantly in the last couple of years or so (Swamy and Kanchan fall in this category), or watching photos of myself where for the first time my stomach seems to jut outwards in the most ridiculous fashion or else it is the latest Adnan Sami video where he's prancing around joyfully having lost an awesome amount of obese fat. Or it may have to do with the program hosted by Suniel Shetty "Bigest Loser Jeetega". Whatever the reason I have decided enough is enough.
The last few months at KGP consisted of practically zero physical activity. Sipping coffee at Nescafe and eating high calorie pizzas at the local confectionery shop have all contributed to this size. Now on I shall need to put extra efforts to reduce my bulk. I am not a big fan of gymming but a few laps of running may do no harm. Let's see how the month pans out.

Headache With Karan!!!

2007-05-21T01:35:00.000-07:00

Having returned home yesterday after an extended summer shift (which also included a delightful trip Down Under...all expenses paid!!!) I am slowly getting attuned to the idiot box once again. As I switched on to Star World to see how far behind were my favorite TV shows on LAN lagging behind here, I came across a very informative and entertaining show hosted by that guy oozing oodles of machismo, Karan Johar :P. And he was interviewing (for a change) someone who was not a Bollywood star or starlet whom he would be introducing in one of his upcoming duds on the silver screen or whom he already had. It was Richard Gere he was interviewing (thankfully the episode was shot before "that kiss" brouhaha). Unfortunately for Karan and thankfully for Gere, it did not provide any spicy gossip for our effete Johar.
For those who have decided to give the show a miss, I would ask you to please give one episode a look. It consists of him bringing in either siblings, friends or kin from the film fraternity, trying his best to have a candid discussion and falling flat on his face by the end of the show. Dunno if he's seriously gay or not (I do have my doubts tho') but am sure he does need some good shots of testosterone. His ability to pick up on romances and tiffs between film-stars is nothing short of the vivid imagination of a bored housewife seeking some attention from time to time. (After all his films cater to this very section of the society). And he did live up to his reputation in the Gere interview as well. I guess the only reason why Gere chose to appear apart from unwinding from a busy schedule in India is to provide a larger platform for people to hear about his work and his views on AIDS in India. Pretty noble indeed, except that it required someone from outside India to give us this shot in the arm. Our very own Big B had been offered the role for the Ambassador in the fight against HIV/AIDS but he preferred to give it a pass rather concentrating on shaking a leg with his newly wed beta and bahu.
And so while Gere is busy talking about his work and how he's mobilising resources over here Karan is a mute spectator all throughout. In between he quips in with asking the names of the actors/actresses he feels helped in a way more than the others did. While Gere does come up with a few names from his memory like Bipasha, Karan interrupts him with how "hot n sexy" Bips is. It is evident to any person that Gere is keen to continue with his speech on how people in India are very ignorant about the dangers posed by AIDS but Karan interrupts him again and tries to eke out from a reluctant Gere that Bips is indeed the hot n sultry vixen the media here has put her up to be. At least Gere stops at describing her as beautiful and bright , but our Johar needs the words hot, sexy etc" into this conversation. A cautious Gere in unfamiliar territory with the notion of conservative Indians just does not know what to do. Later on Gere describes about how India is to be lauded for its efforts in recognising Tibet as a state and giving the Dalai Lama protection. He also talks about the warming of Indo-China relations and how India can play a major role. Karan mutely nods his head in agreement to all that Gere says and I dare say he has no idea of what the older man is talking about. In the end Gere says "you should be proud for what you do" in reference to Indians' role in the Tibet issue. However our dim-witted Johar has no idea what is being taked about and thinks the you means him personally. And he rants and raves about how he's proud of being a director and making "inspirational" films "relevant" to today's society (:D). In the end he puts in an extremely dull rapid fire round and ends it with a host of TV stars raving about how sexy and good-looking the man is and how he has always been their guilty fantasy.
Loadsa crap for one night, isn't it. Thankfully the other awfully crappy show "Rendezvous with Simi Garewal" has now been taken off I guess due to amazing histrionics of the parody on MTV. Seriously one needs to do the same with this "Headache with Karan Show". Any creative ideas in this direction are awfully awaited!!!

The Art of Leaving

2007-05-04T13:13:00.000-07:00

So life at KGP finally comes a full circle. And yes the formalities have begun. First, you get to keep a small piece of plastic with your name engraved and are compensated for lengthy nostalgic speeches with a lavish treat. (The farewell). The frantic typing at keyboards ( for some lucky bastards Ctrl+C-Ctrl+V has done the trick) continues into the wee hours of the night to concoct some 25-30 pages of literature that can be passed off as a fruition of three semesters of painstaking effort (The B.Tech thesis). And then those myriads of signatures where one requires ten more and then the ten each require another ten more resembling a recursive program with no break condition. (The clearances). Yes these all are forebodings of imminent departure.
Train reservations for home have started and so have the good-byes to the juniors. Some analyse the highs and lows of their life @ KGP while others stash whatever they can of that vast volume of idiot box goodies on their computer hard disk and even their own. Many prefer the solitude of 90-D while others prefer the company of treats. And some fools like me are staying up late in the night to write blogs such as these. We all in our own peculiar way have charted our course of action for these last few days - We have been preparing ourselves for the Art of Leaving

Disgruntled "Bits & Bytes"

2007-04-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

Enough is enough!!! I mean there is only so much of incessant finger-tapping, memory overloading and unpaid overtime I can endure. This compared to my cousins elsewhere who are pampered with air-conditioning facilities, a table for their exclusive use and similar other perks. At some places even a speck of dust is intolerable and all footwear is banished from their presence. They have their own separate rooms where they live in absolute pleasure and luxury.

Yet, take a look at me. If you could have even a shred of pity at my current affliction after hearing out my earnest plea, my purpose in writing this rather lengthy blog would be achieved. A/C is a far cry. I am subject to extreme working conditions which would simply drive others to nuts. Dust seems to be all-pervasive. There is no separate place for me ; I have been slotted somewhere onto the allotted table which is strewn with books and myriad other paraphernalia leaving me with a sense of complete inadequacy.

Inadequacy is an understatement!!!

So you may ask; who am I? I am a personal computer or what most people call a PC. And no I am not cribbing because of what I am. In fact I take special pride in that I seem to be the only thing other than bandis my user gives special interest to. I am his daily dose of addiction without which he cannot function normally. Why? Because he would need to check out whether his scrap count or fan list increased during the time he wasn't by my side, if anyone had posted a comment on his rotten blog or else a sweet someone had visited his equally rotten orkut profile. And then from time to time I could throw up these minor tantrums like an SMPS burn-out or a major one like a full system crash in which case the ignorant user is shell-shocked for at least the following week. Some of those users who gain but a smattering of knowledge in operating my innards do some unwanted tinkering with the private parts of my anatomy and then I decide to give them the time of their lives. However all this was when I was a home PC.

At home, I was operated for a max of 3-4 hrs. During this time, the geek was mugging away to glory so that he get into some engineering college and get even with me. He would get a sharp rebuke from his dad or mom if I was operated beyond stipulated time. And the only purposes I was used for was very primtive gaming and a bit of internet (which anyway was so snail- paced that the geek used to get frustrated trying his luck at the net cafes!!!). These were the best days of my life. Soon the geek moved out of home and for nearly one year I stayed practically unused and went into hibernation mode.

But sadly things changed. The geek decided to bring me to some non-descript place called Kharagpur. And my woes began. First of all my pride at being the new 512 MB RAM 80GB HDD in town was shattered to pieces. Almost every comp here was as good as me and some even bettered me. And soon the torture followed. The geek was blessed with what I consider my biggest curse, the LAN. Armed with a high speed connection, he kept me perenially connected to it at every conceivable hour either for watching serials, playing those shitty multiplayer games or chatting with other friends. Gone were my days of rest. I would not be switched off for days together when I would be extremely nauseated and then a voltage fluctuation (Thank God my user does not have a UPS!!!) would restart me all over again. Even bloody power cuts are so rare that I hardly get time to refresh myself. And the old tantrums I threw up at home did not work any more. The geek armed with a bit more technical expertise than before decided to get even with me. He would now heartlessly pry open my cabinet to fix up the minor snags. Sometimes as a punishment he would not assemble me back, keeping me exposed to the elements around. When even LAN would take pity on me by piling up viruses, the user would get hold of some new fix or anti-virus and part those reluctant viruses from my self. Or else he would format me all over again to continue with his sadistic enterprises. And now with summer having arrived in all fury, and me overheated to the limit there's only so much I can bear. Probably my time has come to attain Nirvana. Probably he will purchase a new laptop and rid me of all my woes. Probably he will dump me back home as he joins a new job. But come what may, I am waiting for this ordeal to end.

P.S. : Even though this finger-tapping to produce the blog above has been further abuse endured by me and my time is already up, i believe it is my solemn duty as a sufferer to relieve my fellow-beings from this (in)human torture.

When God Became A Mere Mortal

2007-03-28T14:41:00.000-07:00

I had been itching to write this one for quite some time now. But then I had been busy publicizing my previous blog all this while. Also I wanted some time off before I write this one so that the spur-of-the-moment reactions do not appear. That would have made me appear more cynical than I already am. I had been encouraged to write on a number of articles like Woolmer’s death and other abstract sounding ones but this one is particularly close to my heart.

Let’s rewind back to the 22^nd of April 1998. A young man just shy of his twenty-fifth birthday single-handedly decimates the single biggest obstruction under immense pressure. Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar was setting up a carnage that had Tony Greig’s voice cracking like never before. It was the day he was handed down the ephithet of “Modern day Bradman”. He was accorded a special place in the pantheon of the select few. For those doubting Thomases that remained he repeated the feat proving it was no mere flash-in-the-pan. The victory was gained against the Aussies, mighty then but not yet unconquerable. His caution-to-the-wind approach and supreme confidence in stepping out and hoisting a certain Shane Keith Warne was simply a treat for the eyes. And I had found my first significant real life hero.

In the days that followed the star status only grew. One must note that it wasn’t that a completely new man had emerged that day from a shell. It was just that he had given a supreme example of skill in his art.

However no one knows what prompted him to do so, but he now donned the senior player’s role. Probably a bit too early I feel. He curbed his attacking instincts and mellowed down. His statistics bloated to unimaginable numbers yet he wasn’t the same. All who had witnessed that innings would vouch for that. He had set the bar so high that he started to fail not as a batsman in the true sense of the word, yet became less exciting. He had climbed down the steps from God-hood to mere mortality. And so the years meandered by till came the World Cup 2003 in South Africa. It was one of those tournaments that brought out the best in the man. And boy, did he look like of the yore!! Driving on the up, stepping out, all that was pleasing about the man was back. That innings against Pakistan was probably the second best I have ever seen him play. Though dismissed shy of a century, it was one of the innings where the bowlers were truly afraid to bowl to him.

But then the tournament ended and so did the man’s master class. His 241 at Sydney, his highest Test score was probably the most insipid performance of his. Hardly did he touch a ball outside off-stump and the tempo of his innings never gained momentum. However I always felt that he had it in him to step it up when the need arose. In between every memorable innings of his available on the LAN was watched by me with thorough interest.

Now let us fast-forward to the game a few days ago against Sri Lanka. In a do-or-die match following a shambolic performance against Bangladesh, with India in dire straits, in walks the legend to take guard. And in the space of three balls we see him playing all around a delivery, his once impregnable defense breached and his leg-stump pegged back. His walk back was accompanied by a noticeable din in the crowd and all my admiration replaced by a deep void. I cannot hate him for sure, he has provided so many beautiful moments but to be true he does not command my respect any more. And when the “Har-ghar mein Sachin” ad follows it only serves to add fuel to fire.

There was a day when I had dreamt there would be a standing ovation for the great man playing his last match. That he would decide to call it a day and quit on his own terms. With the passing days however, the chances of him doing that seem remote. The God has finally lost his immortality.

Arachno-Funda

2007-03-22T14:11:00.000-07:00

Mind you all, I am the mouthpiece for all of our kind and am here to speak on the trials and tribulations faced by the lot of us. Blogger gives me a great platform to voice my opinions and in the writer here an ally to document this for posterity.

Now why do ya guys think I would waste my precious time away from weaving those masterpieces to have a tete-a tete with you boring engineering geeks? Well to put it in a nutshell, come the month of March our numbers start dwindling. And when even the musty abode of an engineer “dedicated to the service of” making his life hell at a non-descript place called Kharagpur or KGP to give it a more hip name, also is not conducive environment, then something somewhere is surely amiss.

I guess for long enough now we have been misunderstood. Slotted into mean tricksters weaving elaborate webs to trap unsuspecting innocuous fellow insects hasn’t been fair. The only laudatory story about us ever has been the Robert Bruce one where one of our fore-fathers finally made a cobweb at the entrance of the cave after six prior failed attempts. Few know of this story and even fewer realize that as Bruce had to come out of the cave to fight, he must have destroyed the cobweb at the entrance to go out. So the final morale even there is that all our spidery efforts generally go futile.

However to rant and rave about the indignation faced by our clan at your race’s hands could fill up pages and more importantly that’s not what I am here for. Space and time are both limited and I have to go about making a new home with over-optimistic thinking that this will be still standing next March. You see, most people, especially at KGP must be wondering what’s so special about this month. Well it so happens that all the hall days fall in this importune month actually. And with these geeks ready to impress what they call “bandis” their rooms go over a significant renovation the day before only to degrade again till the next year. And this is betrayal of the worst kind for us. Because we truly believe that all these engineering guys living in hostels are our best allies. With things strewn around for as long as one can remember and lazy enough to pick up the broom, you people are the perfect foil we could hope for. Every nook and recess in your room has been utilized by us to set up our flourishing civilizations and we all live in perfect harmony. Till one day the testosterone-charged dork that has never had any significant contact with any one from the other end of the gender spectrum decides to entertain these bandis at his room. And at whose but our expense!!!! In fact you guys should rather stare and marvel at our masterpieces of architecture; those intricately woven webs which should inspire you onto greater achievements in engineering, rather than swishing away at them in one go. Okay maybe a bit too much of gyaan there but well I was trying my best to keep myself from being destitute and homeless. Can’t blame me for that!!!

So guys, invite all whom you want but please keep the walls of your room decorated by our embellishments. After all, your cleanliness for a day will be seen through by most and at the end of the day the unnecessary energy expended in this meaningless exercise is not worth it. And so my appeal ends. Even the writer is getting pissed at the length of my appeal. So adios guys coz I still need to search for a new corner to build my own world wide web!!!

P.S : The writer himself is a big hypocrite who took out 2-3 hours to clean his own room free of all cobwebs. The one in the pic is the only one he spared so that the room didn't look too picture-perfect :D

Travails of a Journeyer

2007-03-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

I have always found myself more convenient writing poetry than any other form. Maybe it's because it's more compact and many things unwritten get across through. Or maybe I think I am good at rhyming seemingly unrelated words really well!!! Ayway, here's one more from my rotten collection :

Hear me out, men of all age and clime
Free minds, toughened with the passage of time
Who yield not to the tyrant, vanquish his regime
Head held high, in character sublime.

A journeyer I am, my story I tell
Yet halt must I not, lest in purpose fail
Many peaks conquered, yet many more to scale
And proceed I must, till be not weary and frail.

The tallest of summits now lay ahead
Time had come to lead, not be led
The acclivity steep, the path contorted
My sojourn proving tough, all things done and said.

Firm and resolute, I inched my way through
As the end drew near, paces left few
Vanity set in, something I still rue
Slip and tumble I did, so in everyone's view.

Settle I could have, worthwhile the effort
Yet greater glory was all I sought
Minor hillocks I would scale not
Whilst the biggest mountain stood aloft.

Picked myself up, to set foot again
Utterly spent, belief ne'er did wane
Mustering strength, of what did remain
Tired bodily, though in spirit unbroken.

And this time sure, the peak gave way
What I sought all life, right here it lay
I knew claiming what I earned today
Lot more journeys undertake I may.

And yet easier it became, the road ahead
A daft of wind my journey pleasant made
And when a breeze turned, to it I swayed
And let this moment last forever I prayed.

Gradually gained force, became a gale
Wiped everything in sight, left not a trail
Knocked me off my perch, before I set sail
Pulled the curtain on a most memorable tale.

Yet took the blows, I, standing dead still
Held on to supports, till the storm had its fill
And strike when it did for the final kill
Its force I deflected, with iron will.

Ponder I on these journeys of life's endeavor
The breeze of love and it's long lost labour
I forget not every mate's helping shoulder
And not another storm shall run me over

Of Drews and Hardys

2007-01-30T09:39:00.000-08:00

These final days I have spent at KGP have been an anticlimax actually. Initially I always used to crave for these days when I would have not the slightest worry in the world. And at last with job in hand, hardly any classes to attend and all the time to myself, I do wonder whether this is the picture-perfect paradise I hoped for.
'Coz I have got not the slightest clue as to what to do with vast expanse of voidness I find myself presently in. The normal hustle and bustle of KGP bothers me not and there's only so much time I can be glued to the comp ticking off movies from the much-hyped "IMDB Top 250" list. Not being much of a sports or soc-n-cult person either I decided to head homeward last week-end. (Home being just 5 hrs away from here actually helps!!!) Attended a family wedding, met some friends,all in all, it was a welcome respite from the usual humdrum that has beset me in recent days.
It was on my return journey that a mother and her teenaged children boarded the train with me from Rourkela. The family seemed pretty much similar in upbringing to mine and many other middle-class families throughout India. And within half-an-hour of the train departing, they brought out their story books and no wonder!!! ...
The sister held in her hand a Nancy Drew and the brother a paperback edition of the Hardy Boys. Both seemed to be completely engrossed in them. As I seemed to peep into the books, the initial few pages, the familiar phrases "eighteen-year old titian-haired Nancy", "seventeen year old blond Joe Hardy" and the like seemed to take me to on a trip down the memory lane some 8-10 years back. It was then that I was absolutely mad about this series in particular and devoured almost every edition I could find either in the school-library or the nearest book-store.
And I could not help but chuckle to myself. It's been so many years. You grow up with these books and then move on but these characters tend to remain exactly where you left them. Nancy still remains eighteen and Frank and Joe eighteen and seventeen respectively. In the meantime we tend to go to the better detective mysteries like Christie's Poirot or Doyle's irrepressible Sherlock Holmes.
On my return to KGP I did some fact-finding on my own on these two series. I was amazed to know that these series have been published from as early as the 1920s. So for nearly a century they have been providing entertainment to millions of teenagers worldwide and yet their popularity seems not to have dimmed a bit. Also as expected I found that the authors Carolyn Keene and Franklin Dixon were but pseudonyms but I didn't know that these were infact written by a host of writers under the same names.
Of course I am now way past my time reading those books. Probably if asked many years later which books were the most influential in my formative years I may respond with the oft-repeated Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, Catcher in the Rye et al while these books along with those of the prolific Enid Blyton's remain in some corner of my home gathering dust or being devoured by a host of voracious termites!!!
We often tend to look past those years of life which made our transition from chilhood to adulthood. And yet it is those which are instrumental in making us what we tend to become in the years to come!!!

Uncertainty : The name of the game

2007-01-07T08:29:00.000-08:00

First of all a very Happy New Year to all going through this blog!!!
The myriad twists and turns that can occur in one's life is evident right away if you bother to go through the crap littered in my previous post where I thrust all importance on getting a good score in GRE. And although what I did get in the end was a good enough score I ended up applying to none of the univs I had set in my mind.
The placement season has been a revelation really. For all the neglect that I had given to the extra-curricular activities, I was pretty sure to get away with some meagre-paying job. And hence the tension kept mounting as rejection one after another kept coming. However as was showcased by so many companies they did not seek these activities as an important criteria in making their selections. One company in particular rather seemed averse to the idea of people pitching in efforts in events like SF and other gymkhana activities. While I myself may not have been involved to a great extent in such events I do understand the extra efforts put in by these people in order to make some events more fruitful in a mundane environment such as KGP. Completely undermining their efforts does not do justice to their potential.
Even in my own case after the initial rejects, I had set up my mind to try for Barclays. With the initial interviews having gone well and a great many deserving already placed elsewhere I felt I had a semblance of a chance getting through. Add to that the advantage of having taken Financial Management as an elective and the odds of getting in seemed to better a bit. The company I eventually got placed in, Rio Tinto, was one I did not even dream of at any point getting into until the last moment. I filled up the form at the eleventh hour courtesy one of my wingies, Kashikar and then completed it just a minute before the accepted time.
The whole day I focussed on the Barclays interview with my chances of being selected getting better by the minute. By the second interview which I felt went well I was quite sure of the job. However fate had other things in store for me. I ended up spurned by Barclays and selected in Rio Tinto. It was probably the biggest anti-climax in store for me and took me a while to actually rejoice having been selected in a well paying position.
The only place where uncertainty did desert my side was the CAT examination. I knew right after the exam that I had screwed it beyond hope. However it proved to be one of the biggest googlies for many of the other test-takers. English proved to be a major stumbling stone for most with a great many getting rejects there despite having a very good percentile in the other two sections. Even regular coaching institutes failed to provide correct answers to the CAT questions setting a flutter among the pigeons.
The past six months uncertainty has reigned supreme in KGP. Let's see how the other six pan out.

My Jeremiad

2006-08-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

I have a date with the GRE test-takers in a couple of days now. So instead of giving any insight into any of the recent happpenings around me, this is rather an exercise in trying to imbibe those esoteric 3500-odd words into my limited vocabulary.
I know that this is nothing more than a nugatory attempt as one's rhetoric is not something which can be developed over a period of time but gradually inculcated over the years. However having crammed up this arcane list of words many of which have probably been obliterated from normal English literature for quite some time now, I think that its total desueteude will result in an utterly abysmal performance at my GRE examination. Hence this painstaking effort of trying to conoct something which could be passed of as an utterly befuddling mumbo-jumbo of words called as a "blog". Now with the threat of bungling things even after a rather sedulous preparation looming large, I do not have any recourse to fall back upon. With an acute lack of managerial skills and a total lack of requisite materials even an outside shot at CAT seems a preposterous idea at this stage. And having not even been short-listed for the ITC interview last year for the training does hardly anything to bolster my hopes of a fat paycheck. So all in all a lackadaisical performance at GRE would practically seal all chances to further any dreams of raking in the moolah.
Now it's upto you guys to sift the chaff from the grain. And please feel free to indulge in a fitting diatribe if this post has in any way made you squander your precious time. That's all for now; a lengthy hiatus follows.

My Culinary Enterprise

2006-05-30T18:11:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since my last post and I am a rather sporadic blogger. So I tend to surprise myself this time. But this has been the best part of my life and a big learning curve. Okk I tend to go long on the philosophies and bore people.So let me cut the crap and get to the goddam point!!
During the past twenty-sumthin years of my life I ne'er felt the desperate urge within me to learn the oh-so-complex art of cooking. With Mom doing the needful, I never had the misfortune to go hungry at any point of time. My mom's an awesome cook!!! And then there would be times when my mom would have to be away. That's when Dad would get to the rescue act.So till I entered the "hallowed" grounds of a nondescript village near one of the most polluted cities in the world "dedicated to the service of" making life hell, I never had any problems in this regard.
But then we all got a taste of the KGP mess. The food is just awesome. You'll simply keep licking your fingers!! The chapati is but a hardened form of papad, the kheer is some sort of complex mixture and the vegetables..well you just have to keep guessing which of them is in your curry. Not to mention of frogs and lizards and other stuff that seem to spice up the food. It was then I learnt the art of skipping meals. If bathing is a luxury, breakfast is an indulgence. And we always crib about the food awaiting the turn when we could make our own food.
Well, my call got answered pretty soon actually. Now I am living in an entirely new place where the cost of having food outside everyday is rather skyrocketing expensive and hence cooking seems to be the only plausible solution. And so what to do when you are in such a quandary? Well I should have probably asked Mom to teach some dishes just for survival's sake. But such sense did not prevail and I ended up with no idea at all of making anything.
Now both my room-mates have done cooking at various stages of life and do not have any inkling of the Indian way of life. So it was a big surprise to them that I did not know any sort of cooking at all. They were ready to help me though in this arduous task to be able to cook up something decent for the remaining part of my stay. The eternal procrastinator that I am though, I kept myself away from this task till it was no longer possible. Finally my room-mate Andre told me to go on with a recipe which caught my fancy. After a long deliberation,mostly with myself to prepare something which was wholesome and quick, I hit upon Fried Chicken.
I found the recipe on the net and also found it to have the least number of ingredients. Andre encouraged me saying it is very difficult to screw this one. So I set off to the grocery store to buy all the things I needed for this adventure. Having got all the things, I set off. Not trusting eye-estimation at all, I diligently went about pouring ingredients to exactly the right proportions. For example, 1 cup for me meant exactly 1 cup to the brim of the measuring cup. My rather too accurate measurements resulted in the fact that things eventually began to run behind schedule.The preparation time given was way less than the time to get my things ready. Andre could not help chuckling to himself looking at my helplessness. Finally when it was sure that on my own it would take ages to complete, he offered me a much-needed helping hand.
Now I put the chicken in the oven to fry. As I always feared I forgot to note the time when I put it in so that I didn't know when to get it out!! After about 10 minutes when I checked, much to my chagrin, Andre told me it was under-cooked and told me to put it in for some "more" time. So saying he left for some work which he had to tend to. And I, all to myself, didn't know how much time was "more" time. As a result what happened is that when I checked in the second time the chicken had turned to an awful black colour. So now I had a burnt chicken for dinner :( But hungry I was and somehow decided to finish it off, the way it was. And so ends my first experience with cooking. Let's just hope it tends to get better in the next few days!!

Left To My Own Devices-I

2006-05-11T13:31:00.000-07:00

I boarded the Air Canada flight AC 879 at New Delhi at 1.00AM on the 8th of May.It was the first time I had boarded a plane all on my own.However lemme start with when my parents left me at the airport for me to fend all the problems myself.
There was a lot of emotion as I parted 'coz there has never been a time when I have not been to home for two and a half months. Staying at KGP which is but 5-1/2 hr journey from my home never made me feel I was too far away. However let's move on to what happened next.
My dad having travelled a lot, had been instructing me for the last two days on what-to-do and what-not-to. I being the diligent listener that I always am, committed it all to my memory. So I went in,checked my luggage,got my boarding pass and exchanged currency at the Thomas Cook counter.Having done that,I decided to call Dad to tell him all was fine. However the phone booth being a BSNL one (i.e. govt operated) was pathetic. The operator was stationed at the counter but said the phone would remain inoperational for the next ten minutes. On asking why, he refused to ascribe any particular reason for the unnecessary delay. Knowing my Dad, I knew he would not leave till he got that phone call. In hindsight it was a wise decision that I reached the airport nearly two hours in advance. Also on ending the call he refused to return the change saying I was going abroad and should not ask for it. I decided not to haggle wth him any more and got ready to board my flight.Once I had made it though I proceeded through immigration towards security-check. Well I do know that "Ca-naa-daa" is the land of "Sardars" and they were present aplenty. Infact most of them tho' seemed to know only Punjabi. English seemed to be completely incomprehensible gibberish to these people. I doubted if any of them had even gone to school in their lifetime. Hence,I was in for a real shock when these people produced Canadian passports. My oh My! To be citizens of a country and not have an inkling of the language. Infact when we alighted, the flight attendants in order to cater to the needs of the people issued the most basic instructions in English,Hindi,French,German(as the flight was through Zurich) and then "Poonjabi".
Once I had boarded the flight, because it was late i the night,the journey was rather uneventful.Infact I have no idea what the travel agent was thinking when he said that there was acute shortage of tickets because clearly the flight was travelling half-empty. I had two full seats to myself to sleep off the night.
After about 7-8 hours of flight,we disembarked at Zurich,en-route Toronto.Now, it is oft said that Zurich is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.Well,the city did surpass my expectations. The all-encompassing sylvan surroundings enchanted me and with highlands all around it is a feast for the eyes.The aerial view was breathtaking with a unique blend of the quaint and modern.
However what caught my eye was the duty shops. I sure do have a very sweet tooth and the Swiss-chocs were really mouth-watering. If only I had a few Euros I would have bought a couple right then.However my return flight is through Zurich and I have plans of doing so.Also the Swiss watches caught my fancy and I spent a lot of time watching the Tag-Heuers and Rolexes as buying them is yet a dream for me.So there I was at Zurich,paradise-on-earth, spending time away waiting for the flight to Toronto.

Idle Mind Is Devil's Workshop....Naah!!!!

2006-04-16T06:22:00.000-07:00

A few days back I and a school friend K Rohan decided to play a prank on Ankit Chowdhury,yet another schoolfriend. Well he did remark then in my scrapbook "Idle Mind Is Devil's Workshop".However he could not have been farther from the truth.He felt that the ample time here left me with nothing fruitful to do.
If you do look closely,the most creative ( read destructive ) ideas occur to you when you are piled with loads of work. It's when the impending mid-sem is knocking at your door that you come up with these fantastic ideas. There's Rohit Prateek in my wing who makes parodies of almost every possible goddam serial or song available. However all that skill and genius comes to play right on the eve of big-bang i.e. semester exams.Same's the case with me.most of my blogs are written when an important assignment is right around the corner.Just like this one. Also this is the time I get hooked up to some new TV series of the myriad available on our beloved LAN. The rather weird idea of playing TT right at the dead of the night into the wee hours of daylight is also an indulgence of this period.
So I do wonder and so do many of you reading this blog as to how we stay "comfortably numb" whiling away time throughout the sem and get those sudden influx of ideas at the end. Well I think I have got an explanation for this,lame or not,is upto you to decide. You may notice that those who are pretty regular all year long are not bitten by the "hyperactivity-before-endsem" syndrome. But most others tend to procrastinate till d-day when cramming is the most inevitable option.Now no one enjoys that sort of mugging and hence the mind tends to wander to things more trifle in nature. The urge to stash away books and have a good time increases till in the end we succumb to it.
So,my friends,it is only when you are neck deep in assignments that the most mischievious ideas crop up.And even while I write, Rohit Prateek's status message "Chal aaj kuchh karte hain" displayed on the IM window aptly sums up my point.

Adios....coz it'll be a long time before I return here....or so I hope!!!

From Dire Straits to Savage Garden : A Musical Odyssey

2006-04-01T04:23:00.000-08:00

There's been a common thread running through all my previous posts. And it's that they all have been "KGP-bashers". I have been planning to do away with it and Rohit Prateek's comments in my earlier post have certainly been the final nail into that coffin. By this time next year my arduous undergraduate academic career will draw to a close and to be honest it has not been frustration all through. I have made some everlasting frienships here which I'm gonna cherish forever.
However I want to dwell on a different topic here. It's not going to spicy as my previous posts but a truthful account of my experiences. As one could very well see taste in music cannot be "acquired". The right kind of music would stir your feelings and strike that perfect chord. And I am very much a music-lover to the core.
Now, the earliest music I remember hearing was 80s english music. Yes this was well before I was even into Hindi music. My Dad had been in the UK in the late eighties pursuing his PhD and it was during this time that we had loads of cassettes at home. I had heard Dire Straits' "Brothers In Arms" and Pink Floyd's "The Wall" as early as when I was 6-7 years old. Yet I was too young to connect to traditional rock and hence 80s pop music was all that used to be played at home. So MJ,Fleetwood Mac,Madonna and other fancy tingles were what caught my imagination in those early years. By the time I was around 10 years I had heard almost all the music that Dad had brought from England. MTV had not yet made its all-pervasive entry into the Indian TV scene as cable TV was yet a thing of the metros. Hence the only music I could fall back upon was Hindi music. Apart from occassional Rahman hits, most songs were the routine prancing round the trees or an over-weight Govinda gyrating his hips in some David Dhawan movie. Every now and then an SRK movie would pop up with good songs and then inevitably a plagiarized version of some Western music by our "original" Anu Malik.
Mark my words!! I have nothing against Hindi music.Its just that it was a lot of trash in those days. These days it has improved leaps and bounds and I do hear good Hindi music pretty regularly.
So in a few years time the Indi-pop was ushered in. Alisha Chinai's "Made In India" was a refreshing change with good music backed up by a well choreographed video. Remixes soon caught up on the bandwagon and now it was "old wine served in a new bottle". Daler Mehndi's vibrant bhangra beats ushered in yet another genre. By now all major singers like Shaan,Sonu Nigam and others were going the "album way".
Now,Cable Tv had come into the average Indian household. And with the advent of Channel V nad MTV I was once again hooked up to English music. It was during this period that a friend of mine lent me a cassette by a group named "Savage Garden". Now the fact that I had never heard of them made me rather wary of the music.Yet my friend did recommend it to me rather strongly. And well how right he proved to be!! I played the "Affirmation" album over and over. The songs "I Knew I Loved You","Hold Me" and "Truly Madly Deeply" have been my all-time favorites ever since.I could relate to these songs being in an emotional turmoil at that time myself. The lyrics are so meaningful and the lilting musuc just seem to set up a perfect romantic evening. Just for the feelings dormant in me which it made me realise and in making me the person I am I shall forever be enslaved to Messrs Darren Hayes nad Daniel Jones. This duo has split up but their music lives on for ever and ever.
My intention in writing this piece was that there is much more to English music than the traditional rock and all these rock-enthusiasts around KGP stop treating non-rock listeners as dumb,asinine fellows.

A Midsummer Nightmare

2006-03-17T00:19:00.000-08:00

The other day I overheard a couple of enthusiastic second years discussing their willingness to do a project at KGP this summer. Well it did bring back memories of last summer for sure.Not too fond ones though!!!
I too had been bitten by the "project" bug and was ready to sweat it out that summer at KGP. However since the entire two months were to be spent here I decided to go home for a week first. In retrospect it is probably the only sane decision that I took duirng those entire two months. It does baffle me even today as to how KGP, the place of so many dreams and ambitions always has that forlorn look of desolation and monotony written all over. However let's not dwell on this 'coz its stuff that volumes can be filled about. So driven by utter stupidity of the highest order, I set to do a project here after my 4th sem. There were quite a few detractors to this idea of mine. But with a confident shrug I brushed off such overt pessimism and set out to complete this arduous task. However many tend to forget and I surely did that all of life's luxuries and pleasures cease to exist the moment you set foot on this hallowed soil. In fact the only reason I can see the alumni hailing their alma-mater is that it puts them through so much shit that everything seems a cake-walk thereafter!!!
The worst experience is that of KGP weather. A lethal combo of scorching heat and energy-sapping humidity, it literally sucks out all vitality. In fact as soon as I reached KGP some guys did raise their brows enquiring if I had come for the SQ. Now for the ignorant, let me tell what the SQ is. Held during the most torrid time of the year, it is the harshest punishment that can be meted out to those who have failed. This is because I sincerely believe that no one could have it in him to brave the KGP summer. A one-time experience is a big-time deterrent for a good many and prevents them from undergoing intense physical and mental trauma the following year.
On reaching the hall I found it to be in stark contrast to that on other days.The usual hustle and bustle was gone. The unfortunate guys stung by the "fakka" dhaari nag , some nitwits like me braving this self-inflicted torture and some even dumber gunning down opponents at CS or locking arms in combat at AOE were all who remained. In fact probably the most significant point in my resume would me "utter steadfastness in seeing out the KGP summer."
Let's now come to the purpose I had in coming here - the project. On reaching I came to know that the Prof himself was out of station for a week. So now I was left to my own devices with absolutely no clue where to begin. Those who have done projects here will whole-heartedly agree that projects assigned here are rather vague and hardly ever completed in the allotted two months. Delving into books issued from CL is not an option either. This is because books are not for issue in the summers. So how's one supposed to work. Well I didn't have an idea for sure. Also, ever discouraging lab assistants and insufficient equipment dampen remaining spirits,if any, left.
Weeks went by in this fashion. With every week passing I prided myself upon hanging in there. Oh! and I forgot to inform the food chaos here. The mess is closed and if you are from PAN loop you are in for a really rude shock. You gotta pedal all the way to Sahara,DL,Billoo or else Gokhale's (Goo-Kha-Le) if your finances are not pretty strong. An eternal food over, in the initial days, I spent lots at lunch and dinner only to find myself delving into austerities to make up for the lost expenses.
A month and half and my steely resolve had metled. I decided to bid farewell and spend at least the remaining fortnight at home. I asked the Prof to continue it after the vacations. He however told me to complete a part of it. Try as I would however I could not get the damned instruments to work, let alone complete my project. I set my date of departure and was ready to leave then, come what may. A day before I was supposed to leave I decided to have a night-out and see what could be done. Groggy the next day I went to lab and all efforts paid off when at four in the afty I finally called the prof to show what little achievement had been made in the last one and a half months. Now I was to leave that night. I returned back to hall and decided to take a short nap. The short nap turned into a deep slumber and by the time I woke up it was four in the morning!!!
So now I had missed the train to home.However I was not to be deterred by anything else by now. So I took the next train homeward ready to go in the general compartment. The sun was beating down with all its fury and the bogie was heated like a furnace. It was jam-packed with passengers and I almost passed out standing there. However as all good things come to an end, so do the bad and utterly battered and exhausted I reached home.
By the end of this summer another batch of hapless second years would have completed a project here and I am sure they would not have any memories to cherish from it either!!!

The LAN connection

2005-11-11T22:44:00.000-08:00

Well it so happened that soon after Diwali here, the UPS at Patel Hall's server room was burned out. So no LAN....just think about it. They brought the spare UPS of HJB's and managed to burn that out too. Now they were in a great dilemma.It was speculated that there would be no LAN till the next semester.Imagine the plight of Patelians!!!! The other day someone carried his comp all the way from Patel to Nehru to download some stuff. And the there were those serial buffs who would write the latest seasons to CDs and carry them all the way back to their hall. No yahoo messenger,no DC...well pretty hard to imagine,right? So it was a big relief when sanity was restored yesterday.
However I just remember a poem I had penned down last semester..here's how it goes...

IIT LAN

The weary end sems drawn to close
A much needed break for all
The wintry Decembers spent at home
It felt like we were having a ball.

To the idiot box I was enslaved
Viewing it every day and night
The MMS scandal making news
And KGP involvement came to light.

Shocked all at home were
Issues of morality brought to fore
But troubled more I was coz
Our beloved LAN may be no more.

Well what is life without this LAN?
Seems really hard to think
Whether we’ll ever have it again
Thoughts like these began to sink.

On reaching here all I did find
A hoax it was the impending ban
But restricted it had now become
Our very beloved LAN.

Proxies were now all one had
Direct connection lost forever
DC on for limited hours
Else insti would connections sever.

Slowly but steadily as time rolled on
Our LAN regained its colorful fervor
Although hubs always kept changing
DC was connected every minute every hour.

Spiritual matters came to the forefront
For worldly affairs no one would fall
Penance and prayer all turned to
As bhajans became lifeline for one and all.

Loaded life here always is
Course submission or bandi rejection
Worse than hell this place would be
Without the quintessential LAN connection.

Do we really need to attend classes?

2005-10-24T04:02:00.000-07:00

Well, today morning I got up at eleven o clock missed all the classes. I think that this being the beginning of the week and that too when I have returned from home sets a rather bad precedent for the remaining semester. My marks this semester haven't been up to the mark and neither are my expectations. But I did contemplate the usefulness of attending classes in IIT. Well so here are my points in favour of not attending classes......
In retrospect my attending these classes from morning 7.30 to evening 4.30 do not seem to add any new dimensions to my limited knowledge. Rather it curbs my creativity as I am forced to sit right through it, like it or not. In US, one can leave the class if he does not find it to his liking. I wish such rules could be implemented here. One cannot think to bring tradition and culture in when one's liking is questioned. In the world's largest democracy we have no right to express our opinions on teachers. The assessment sheets at the end of the semester are just an eyewash and do not seem to really assess the teacher's abilities.
I remember in my second year, our analog electronics teacher had been horrible and we were all itching to give him his due. But he ordered us all to write our names on the sheets. What could be worse?....A clear tactic to write all goodies about him and let him get away with pathetic teaching.
And to tell the truth all the studying done here is rather one to two weeks before big-bang i.e. end semester. So how does attending classes make any difference. Rather this idiosyncrancy passed down ages does not really help anyone. One's aptitude for the subject is cruelly smothered by the monotony of the prof's lectures. How does it matter where I stay if the final result is that I am whiling away my time.
Video lectures seem to be the only positive to have emerged out of the IIT administration system. But the profs here have found a way to even put it to misuse. I remember this summer in thermo SQ the prof taught nothing and played the video lectures much to chagrin of all present warming the benches. Also not all subjects have their lectures available on the LAN. The greatest advantage that lies therein is that one does not have to sit through them all.
Tutorials are even worse. When I first heard of it, it was meant to be a way of interacting with students individually as classrooms here are pretty large. But the purpose of these tutorials is far from solved. Either you gotta be a bong or someone who puts foward a lot of crap. If a lecture keeps students aloof from the prof, the tutorial endears a select few to him. Now I sincerely believe that B.Techs are products and the PGs and rest are waste products of IIT system. So when we are taught tutorials by these people its a great personal affront to us. Problem solving is minimal, idle gossip is the hallmark of such sessions.
Hence I sincerely do believe that a survey needs to be taken by any prof after about 10 lectures. If about 40% agree that it's worth attending his classes it should be enforced compulsorily or else he should accept that he is inept enough and leave attendance to the whims of students.This could be the only way to improve teaching at an institute they call the best in the world. A single representative, the VP is not enough to represent the student community because his voice is clearly outweighed by those greying,balding beacons of enlightenment called profs. In fact a student body should be constituted to look into these matters which I guess should be put to thought and implemnted.
It is the apalling state of education and equally lackadaiscal attitude of the teachers here that drive people like me to the brink of frustration and prompts us to write such articles.

Intro

2005-10-23T10:22:00.000-07:00

Well so I too embark on this journey of posting crap on the net or as it is better called "blogging". I hope that this is not a one-off entry and I will be able to keep this updated regularly. Thoughts are always rather sporadic and hence I dunno how often I will be able to keep visiting. Well that's it for now.

Adios