Thought Crimes

Southern sojourns

2012-02-28T07:59:00.001+05:30

It was an interview with Mira Nair that I was reading about. Asked why she called Uganda her adopted home, the director said “Love takes one to strange places.” Since then, I’ve often dreamed that one day, another jobless reader of interviews of the Mira Nairs of this world will read about Megan Fox calling India her adopted home with the same explanation. Hope is truly what the dreamers of this world live by.

Since joining the Big Bad World, I’ve realized that love notwithstanding, work takes one to stranger places still. Case in point- Trichy. Well-known for being a town(?) some place near Chennai. Hosts an NIT from where emerge the most colourful of characters, along with the grandparents of most Chennai folks. Sometime in February, also hosted Lefty who for the life of him, could not figure out how exactly he came to be there. But that’s just one story. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been familiarizing myself with the hinterland of TN and Kerala. The journey has been a fulfilling one, full of character-building incidents as you may well imagine.

Lesson 1 has been regarding the dynamic nature of our fast-changing nation. I told a colleague that we would be working, amongst other places, in Calicut, Trichy and Trivandrum. What-ho, said he, and called up his biggers and betters to relay the same to them. 15 minutes of complete confusion followed, post which, turning to me with a truly somber look, fitting one watching 8 consecutive overseas collapses, he said- “Brace yourself old man. There are 3 additional places we need to work out of- Kozhikode, Thiruchapalli and Thiruananthpuram.” Class 4 geography lesson goes here.

Lesson 2 was a much pleasanter one. The hinterland, it seems, is a prosperous one. Practically each location has an airport, and an international one at that. With 2 different terminals. And to top everything off, the connectivity to Dubai is miles better than the connectivity to Chennai. OK, so that last part wasn’t unexpected, but contrast this with dear old Bihar where Patna and Ranchi are the only 2 cities with airports. And last I checked, the Patna airport was only international because there was a weekly flight to Nepal. You will, of course, have heard of the great Ranchi airport story, where I was delayed for 2 hours because there were too many birds in the vicinity and a gun, a helicopter and a dozen AAI staff failed to clear them off.

Politicians in India are of course, the same breed everywhere. So huge posters of Amma greet you anywhere you go. However, there’s a lesson to be learned here as well. While the Noida-Ghaziabad border has a giant cut-out of an MLA who’s visage is the subject of most children’s nightmares, Amma’s cut-outs would give most Bollywood posters a run for their underworld money. There are always 2 profiles, she’s always smiling graciously, and one profile would usually have a classic finger-on-the-cheek/chin pose as well. Not very different from Amity Institute of Competitive Examinations’ pictures of their candidates who’ve managed a 5 figure rank in the soon-to-be-late JEE. Seeing those posters got me thinking- why aren’t election campaigns run like movies. Imagine BSP trailers before the UP elections- accented Hollywood baritone saying dramatically “They said a woman’s place was in the kitchen. They said a Dalit could never rule the most populous state. From the makers of multi-crore parks in Noida and Lucknow, comes the story of one woman who dared. A story of perseverance, intrigue…” you get the drift. Such a pleasant change from the mundane rallies and irritating telephone calls.

The best part about this journey of self-discovery has been the food. Specially in Kerala. Appams, aviyal, mutton and karimeen. Everyday. Let me leave that for another detailed post. I’ve also realized that Mallus are by far the most endearing people I’ve met. The accent, the lungi, the utterly-mild and helpful nature- they’re so adorable that its not a wonder that the lady with who’s story I began my tale has a Mallu-sounding surname and managed to find love in Uganda.

And now, dear readers, you must excuse me. I need to write Megan a long mail describing the wonders of Patna. Keep reading her interviews for more updates.

Public transport

2011-12-12T00:03:00.002+05:30

It was supposed to be one of those stay-at-home-feel-good days. Loosely translated to not going to school during the plus 2 years so that one could spend time with the FIITJEE packages and HC Vermas of the world. Or hope to. Unfortunately, one particular teacher had other ideas. A phone call around 9 am, a thinly-veiled threat and Lefty was in the white and grey garb, looking for a means of public transport to take him to the dear old alma mater.

Noida was different place from what it is now. The metro was yet to change the skyline (meaning the mater had to find other topics to write about in her blog). It also meant that auto-rickshaws plying to and fro from the several metro stations that have sprung up now were also few and far between. In short, it was the era of the cycle-rickshaw-walah. They would saunter unchallenged through the ample roads of the city, disregarding any signal that came their way and enjoying the upper hand when it came to bargaining with most hapless commuters. The disregarding signals holds true to this day, and sudden swerves and screeches can still be heard as drivers like yours truly overcome their inner desires to knock the rick off the road and if possible, off the planet, but the metro has shifted the balance of power to the commuter. Six years ago, or was it seven, one simply thanked one’s lucky stars if one got a rick and then prayed that drivers would not succumb to temptation.

And so it transpired that on that fateful day, my eyes lit up on seeing a rick approach as soon as I reached the crossing near our society’s gate. The lord and master acquiesced to my request of Sector-44. ‘Just you give me thirty rupees only’ was the legendary line uttered, one that I doubt I’ll ever forget. The niceties having been established, conversation flowed easily as we rolled along our way.

Like most of his ilk, the good fellow was the son of the soil. Unlike most of his ilk, he had a fascination for English and spent a fair bit of his time practicing how to speak the language. His opening remark to me, as we started along was- ‘Rickshay to aapne khoob liye honge, lekin aaj tak aapko koi Rickshaw-walah nahi mila hoga jisne aap se kaha ho Just you give me 30 rupees only’ (You must have taken many ricks, but you would never have met a rickshaw-walah who said Just you give me 30 rupees only). As the story often goes, he’d wanted to get some government job and had started learning English for the same. However, things didn’t work out and he came to the Capital where hum shaan se rickshaw chalate hain. The ride went from ‘Which class you read in’ to tales of the gent’s ability to fleece tourists thanks to his command over the queen’s speech, most if not all in English. Sooner than I’d have liked to, we reached the brick-red campus and it was time to part and return to the mundane everyday world of Physics, Chemistry and Maths.

******

Another day, another era. I was in the dry state, having come to visit Srishti as we’d wanted to watch the final Harry Potter movie together. The less said about that the better- the most exciting part about the movie was that we decided to sit on the stairs and watch it as our seats were that bad. Soon, it was time to go and this time, it was an auto-walah who was going to be the star of the story. As we made our way to the airport, he told me he had to stop for a moment at his house- would I mind? Ever the accommodating fellow, I found myself waiting in the auto in a narrow lane, while the fellow started a barrage of Gujarati underneath his balcony. There was some banter, something was thrown down at him and he came back, asking if I would mind changing vehicles.

Now, it often happens that one completes the journey with a different auto-walah and I expected something similar. In this case however, I was asked to sit in a white, obviously second-hand Maruti 800. Soon, the fellow’s wife and kid came down and joined us and the motley crew of 4 made its way to the Sardar Patel airport. Apparently, their mamaji lived somewhere close to the airport and they had an evening get-together planned. From an unsuspecting passenger, I was suddenly the unwitting extra member in a family trip. Phone calls kept coming on the way- ‘Yes, mamaji. We’re on our way. 10 more minutes and we’ll be there.’ The kid kept getting admonished- he had evidently not got ready on time. As we neared the airport, my erstwhile auto-driver asked me to pay a little early if possible, as this was his personal car and not a cab- a fine would be levied if it was found that he was using it for commercial purposes. We reached the terminal and I got out of the car and into the show-ticket-check-in-wait-show-ticket-5-more-times-before-you-take-off routine that is so familiar now. Somewhere not too far away, a dinner table was being set fo a family of 3 by their waiting mamaji.

Asmanjas

2011-09-07T14:51:00.001+05:30

Asmanjas, noun, means dilemma in Hindi. Quandary for those of you prepping for GRE/CAT/GMAT. And while we’re at it- plenipotentiary, phantasmagoria and pernicious. You’re welcome. So somewhere between the time we coined talent* and tutun tutun, Sajal and I came up with a new usage for Asmanjas- dilemma resulting in an awkward situation. More specifically, what one should do when one happened to meet a gentleman, who let us refer to as Asmanjas Inducing Gent (AIG- not to be confused with the bailout begging, taxpayers’ money sapping, United’s 3 championship season jersey sponsoring insurance agency).

Now AIG was a year senior to us at the Dogs’ own department at dear old R. One fine evening, he what-ho’d along to the Farmhouse to see how his worthy successors were doing. Being a scholar who’d been there and done that, his presence was enough to get the more materially inclined amongst us to throw questions on him about projects, labs and nanoparticles. Yours truly was there during the entire hour when phrases like Zinc Oxide coatings, nano-FETs and FE-SEM were bandied about with ridiculous ease. Participation certificate gained a whole new perspective. In fact, it was this conversation that gave me strength to approach a visiting professor from Sydney to coax him into giving me an internship down under. His look of undisguised contempt after having grilled my fellows on the papers they’d published only to hear me say- “I have an interest in Micro-electronic packaging. I’ve read the Wikipedia article on it” was epic. Anyway, so AIG and I had had this brilliant conversation where we’d not spoken to each other at all but had silently acknowledged each other’s presence. I had no idea what social protocol dictated on the kind of greeting that I was to mete out to him, whenever we crossed paths- which was quite often. Was I supposed to what-ho in the cheeriest of fashions, mutter a respectful hello or go for the Royal Ignore? More often than not, I resorted to play-acting with my phone or hiding behind a pillar to check that he was back in his room and then rushed along. College is truly a difficult time.

With Asmanjas now firmly entrenched in our colloquial dictionaries, I began to look for other situations that could be described such. One of them was specially easy to find- the situation of the 4 figure rank. Aged relatives, chance acquaintances and casual passer-bys would ask- so you’re at IIT? Yes, would be the pat reply, pride writ large on the face. ‘What rank?’ would follow, and the sound of a million deflating balloons could be heard in the background. For by the time one hummed, hawed, coughed, tried to change the subject and eventually started off- two thousand…, the aged relative would have emptied his glass, refilled another and turned around to the other aged relative saying “ladka laayak hai. ITI me padhta hai”. Going to FIITJEE felicitation functions was all the more damning. Along with all the congratulations and ‘you’ve-made-us-proud’s, there would also be the darned tag that displayed your rank. That was a remainder of caste in the contrived meritocracy. That separated the wheat from the chaff, or as Rapu might say, the geeks from the dorks. Trying to smudge off the first or last digit, depending on what rank you felt you could carry off better, was the kind of number-fudging that we would go on to practice, perfect and perform with great aplomb, eventually resulting in one Lehman Brothers that is no more.

Not that the 4 figure rank was all asmanjas. It had its glorious highs too. While the whole world and their brothers-in-law knew what rank the neighbourhood achiever had managed, your rank was yours alone. None of kids cast you malevolent looks for constantly having to endure speeches on how they should emulate that guy and get that rank. And as all of my ilk would concur, choosing your ATM pin was never easier. As our more accomplished batch-mates set about trying to zero-in on the appropriate mathematical constant, we of the 4 figures had our pin posted to us by the JEE. In today’s brand-conscious world, we were the ones who’d got the bargain buy. 4 years, 4 figures- how symbolic. Mark my words, we shall all be cast as masons in Dan Brown’s next novel purely because of this. The best part was B-school, when your top 50/100/500 peers suddenly became your equals as you all started afresh. Aha, we chuckled, what was the point of sweating it out in CS/ Electrical/ Mechanical when you had to read Kotler and Hull eventually. Jai Meta. Jai Civil. We Are The Studs, we would say to each other conspiratorially. That was until the Wall Street bank made an 8-figure offer to the top 50/100/500 guy while we tried to disguise the 4 figures in ‘top 1% amongst x lac students in JEE- 200X’ (‘top 1%’ and ‘JEE’ in bold). B-school is a difficult time too, I tell you.

None of these instances can compare to the many asmanjas-es that the office thrusts upon me, day in day out. The Mulva incident in Seinfeld is far more realistic than I had ever imagined- I have ‘Gym guy’, ‘Car-pool guy’ and ‘Random Guy’ stored on my phone. And its not even been 6 months yet. Office , my dear readers, is the most difficult time of all.

Things I've wanted to write about...

2011-07-06T01:53:00.000+05:30

... but haven't. And rather than keep wanting, I might just spend this very brief moment where I have an illusion of having some free time to list bullet points. I should really be good at that, seeing I'm paid for it these days. Obviously, I jest. I'm really creating impact and delivering value to my clients. Bazinga.

So here goes:

1. Paul Scholes calling it a day: Football shall never be the same again. I now have a sense of what one feels like when one realizes that memories of a hero will now have to be restricted to youtube videos.

2. Movies I've watched at Bombay: where one has to stand up for the national anthem every ruddy time. The deaf and dumb version is extremely inspirational, but that doesn't mean the farcical show of patriotism isn't a pain. Sensitizing lessons on 'why we should be kind to Biharis' might work better in Maanoos-land. Ravi Kishen will perform.

3. Who said I was Djoking 4 years ago?

4. A long-drawn theory on how Air India, jokes on Bihar being undeveloped, Salman Khan flops and posts by Ashok Rajaraman, Abhishek Sundar and Shrey Banga will soon be a thing of the past.

5. My blog turning 5 somewhere in June. 5 years, 85 posts, thousands of words and millions of characters. Yet I never tire of turning back the pages- bit by bit, to laugh at forced usages of words like perspicacious and verdant. And the audience tracking feature of blogger still gives me a kick. To all my readers in Slovenia, Azerbaijan, Samoa and the suspiciously regular ones in Brazil, Netherlands and Israel- you are too kind. Your putting in a good word for lefty bloggers from India to your personable female near and dear ones will go a long way in furthering international relations in today's strained international-relations environment. Think about it, you'll be saving the world. And to all those of you who I actually know read what finds its way on Thought Crimes... I can only smile in eternal gratitude. Specially when I turn back the pages- bit by bit, and laugh at forced usages of words like perspicacious and verdant. And know that you've been around through it all.

Life around a cup of coffee

2011-05-01T07:02:00.001+05:30

Coffee. Easily the most talked about, discussed, deliberated and described beverage in the world. Being the thorough, rigorous and analytical fellow that my internship tutor took me to be, I decided to conduct a Google Trends analysis for the same. No beverage could even come close- beer was the only one that offered some respectable competition. The peoples of Maddu-land, Mallu-land, Brazil, Mexico and Ethiopia can rejoice while those of Germany, Czech and dear old Belgium order another keg in despair. I then proceeded to compare Coffee with greater stalwarts. Rajnikant was blown away, Big B found a bigger C. Even Sachin was dwarfed. Not to be outdone, I entered personal virtual favourites- Angelina Jolie and Megan Fox into the fray. Horror of horrors- coffee again. Slimy thing, I thought- take on Pam, feeling much like that Pokemon guy when he calls upon Pikachu. And lo, one cup beat two jugs. The fact that I completely skewed the competition, or in corporate terms, did a thorough stress-test by entering insurance, porn and sex should take nothing away from the mother of all chocolates and just be treated as a footnote.

When Shakespeare composed the Seven Stages of Man, he might as well have pivoted the whole thing around coffee. As a kid, coffee is right up there with Archie comics, late-night TV and sugar-cane juice sold by street vendors- forbidden fruit. Longing looks are shot at that box of Necafe while the perennial shuffle between Bournvita, Maltova and Complan goes on. Patience is only rewarded on that glorious day when the house suddenly runs out of drinking chocolate, and since one refuses to have unflavoured milk, the mater is generous enough, for one day only, to add the teeniest amount. Joy to the world. Such are the simple pleasures of childhood.

Time goes by. ESPN displaces Cartoon Network as your favourite TV channel. Aishwarya Rai becomes the Miss of your world. Queen Elizabeth staunchly refuses to be past tense. Jyoti Basu gives her tough competition as he ensures Calcutta remains as she would have last remembered it. Shah Rukh Khan is still Rahul and refuses to leave college. A student of high school now, Barrista is the place to be. Make that place to hang-out. Their ACs work the best, there's always a guitar, a chess-set and a scrabble board. They never kick you out either, even when 10 of you order 3 coffees and sit around feeling cool. The menu has tantalizing words like frothy, delectable, sinful and elixir. The illustrations are all the more mouth-watering. And there are brownies too. The best-looking girls are always there, more often than not with an oversized lump. Such is life, you say, as you take another sip of the hot/cold coffee depending on the weather.

By the time you've entered college, Bournvita has become a strict no-no (partly because of Derek O'Brien and his ridiculous habit of asking quizzers to dance barefoot to earn points) and Milo is no longer sold in India. As the Crime-master Gogos of this world call up relatives in Singapore to demand Milo, the majority of us decide to move on, to coffee. At this point, if you spent 4 years at the weirdo ghetto affectionately called R, Cafe Coffee Day takes a special place in your heart. The menu has been memorized and devoured multiple times already. Yes yes, Kapi Niravana is the best. And the Spinach Corn sandwich is better than all the non-veg ones put together. Be it EPL or IPL, Barrons' mugging sessions or pseudo-intellectual discussions, CCD is a second home. If you're a dinosaur masquerading as a Tam-Brahm, you've even called over a waiter to ask him the difference between the Aztec and the Ethiopian. The hapless soul has hemmed, hawed, said I-don't-know and slunk away with his tail between his legs, much like Cesc Fabregas when asked why he continues to play for Arsenal. Or the director of Jhoom Barabar Jhoom when asked why he chose to make the movie. Or George Bush when asked if two and two make four. You get the idea.

The characters in F.R.I.E.N.D.S. hang out at the coffee house. The Coffee Bean serves some of best cheese-cake. You start wondering what Pamuk was talking about when he told of a section of society not liking coffee-houses. What's there not to like? It's indulgence and mellowed and has fancy Italian sounding accompanying words.

And then you enter the big bad world. Suddenly, your wardrobe has more shirts than T-shirts and more trousers than denim. You have to shave everyday, posting once a month is an achievement and more kids are calling you Uncle. You agree whole-heartedly when your team-mates ask you if you want to take a coffee-break. And that's when you get those imaginary Jack-ass ears that remind you of your Cartoon Network days. Suddenly, two glasses of coffee a day have become a compulsion that make sure you're not yawning when the Big Boss is talking about impact and growth. Sleep, the enchantress that one has forever loved, treasured and wooed becomes more elusive with every drop. Say coffee and the picture of relaxation, timelessness and a rich chocolate creamy froth is replaced by words like productive, break and industrial effluents in a forbidding cup. The lamb has been fattened, the altar of sacrifice is ready.

You take another sip, slip further into that caffiene induced stupor, start playing Nothing Lasts Forever and smile ironically. And then you walk over to the IT guys to ask if they can write a code that'll keep running searches for Beer and Megan Fox so that, in however small a way, you can have your revenge.

Why we need the cup

2011-03-25T19:27:00.000+05:30

I must say I’ve been an exceedingly good follower of the Cup that counts. In this fast-paced, time-constrained, sleep-deprived, Joginder Sharma-infested world that we live in, I’ve managed to wake up almost every day before 1430 hrs and willed myself to watch 8 hours of the Gentleman’s game. Those 8 hours have also included Sourav Ganguly, uncharacteristically with a shirt on, and Navjyot Singh Sidhu, the less said the better, with the inexplicable absence of Mandira Bedi, who for the last decade of so, one thought was the official mascot of the cup that counts. While Irish banks saw their likelihood of a default plummeting and sales of Bailey’s sky-rocketed, I chose to take the path less followed and sweated it out with the 24 spectators as Something Not-too-spectacular Happened in the Kenya vs. Canada match. For 10 minutes anyway, before I realized that I had forgotten the name as well as the team of the one player of these 2 admirable nations that I’d included in my cricinfo fantasy XI. It was also then that it struck me that the love child of these 2 fine cricketing nations was sure to be a Surd- Ken-nada, geddit? Tee hee.

Much has been said by Ravi Shastri, in very original terms, about how for India, its ‘now or never’, how ‘it’s Sachin’s swansong’ and constantly reminding us that ‘it doesn’t get any bigger than this’. I agree that we need the cup. And more urgently than Ravi Shastri thinks we do. Let me elucidate why, as articulately as I can with the customary dash of panache. Conversely, you could check out this, this or this. If one or more of the this’s are un-hyperlinked, blame Ashish Nehra.

As Indians, we have this very annoying habit of analyzing everything that comes our way. It is because of this very reason that all B-school entrance exams have a section on Data Analysis and why all products of the said B-school claim, without batting an eyelid, that they have ‘strong analytical skills’ before accepting 8-figure pay packages to cause financial downturns. So as soon as we succeed to fail to win the cup that counts, the analysis will begin. Why, Navjyot Singh Sidhu will ask, did we not win this cup when we comprehensively won the world T20? And pat will come the answer, it’s because that team had Joginder Sharma in it in place of, hold your breath, Sachin Tendulkar. You don’t have to be this girl to figure out what’ll happen next- Sachin out, Jogi in. Parents all over the world will start naming their young boys Joginder instead of Sachin, leading to an unprecedented number of suicides around 2020, when the said kids develop enough sense. Instead of aspiring to make 100 international centuries, young ’uns will discard the willow and start practicing the unhealthy art of mediocre slow almost-bowling.

Superstitious that we are, there will be immediate calls for Dhoni to grow back his hair, to divorce Sakshi Rawat and for Lehman Brothers to be resurrected. We shall also look to the other World Cup winning captain- something-or-the-other Dev and demand everyone to sport moustaches as well. This will have several dire consequences- first of all, with everyone refusing to get a haircut or shave, there shall be another round of mass hara-kiri as the word barber gets eliminated from the dictionary. Seeds of civil war shall also be sown as people like this, this or this, who have over time, consistently shown the inability to grow any form or facial hair, are deemed unfit for civilization to prosper and are either packed off to concentration camps or forced to rise up in arms. This unhealthy trend might also percolate to the women’s team, who it must be reminded has yet to win any cup whatsoever. Thus, the percentage of women with long hair and fancy moustaches, which has stayed constant at 0.034% for the last century (the majority of which co-incidentally happened to inhabit Roorkee in the 4 years that I spent there), will rise faster than the average of any mediocre batsman who tours India.

The other reason has to do with gratitude. Public memory, we all know, is very short. Already, everyone except bankers in Switzerland and Cayman Islands have started saying- Kalmadi, who? For how much longer then, can we expect the noble populace to remember the sterling contribution made by the likes of Dodda Ganesh, Amey Khurasia, Harvinder Singh and master of all- Noel David. Was there ever a more glorious sight in Indian cricket than Vikram Rathore running to take one catch after the other, than MSK Prasad manfully keeping to the express pace of Abhey Kuruvilla and Tinu Yohanana and more recently, Dinesh Mongia and Sanjay Bangar clamouring to get into the playing XI as Parthiv Patel calmly tossed back balls hit to the boundary by Ricky Ponting? I tell you, their names must not be allowed to fade from posterity. 2015 shall see 10 teams compete for the cup, by 2019 we will have kicked out Zimbabwe and Bangladesh as well so that we can have a shorter tournament that can be fitted in between then Maxxx time-out in IPL-12. Paksitan will surely have ceased to exist by 2023 and the venues chosen from then on will be so politically, racially and safety-wise charged (read- Bhagalpur, Chhapra and Purnia in Bihar) that Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and England will refuse to play there. Obviously the 2027 World Cup will be won by Sri Lanka and so 20 years from now, we shall see yet another Ayodhya ruling which will claim that the Lankans are descended from Ravana and therefore, do not qualify to play in a tournament meant for manava and not Rakshasas. And then, ladies and gentlemen, We Shall Win The Cup That Counts (West Indies will have become the 42^nd Indian state after Telangana, Bodoland, Vidarbha, Gujjarpur, Jat-bhoomi, Great Iyerangar-rrzhu, Greater Iyer-rrihlkjskldfjslkahzrrzhu and a few others). Can you look me in the eye and honestly tell me that anyone will remember then that Vinay Bharadwaj had won Man-of-the-Series in the LG cup played in Kenya?

And finally, there is that matter of the lesser sports. Already, we see unhealthy signs of some shuttler called Saina Nehwal being shown in TV ads instead of God Incarnate- Joginder Singh. We’ve travelled down that road already. She will have a couple of fatwas passed against her by the VHP, marry some Mr. Nehwal, get divorced, have an affair with Ranbir Kapoor and eventually marry Shing-shon-zhu and move to Gongzhou before you could say Arunachal Pradesh. And poor Jogi, whose sublime acting skill we should have rightly witnessed, as he told us to substitute our Ohs with PSPOs, will be denied the Filmfare Lifetime Achievement award that shall be won by Harman Baweja instead. In an attempt to excel in some sport while continuing to turn a blind eye to Kabaddi, we shall organize some more of the Kalamdi’s wealth Games, our kids will have to pepper their vocabulary with words like ‘Scull’ and ‘recurve’ and Ashutosh Gowarikar will have to resort to making a movie on Equestrian Show-jumping. Yes, the same shiver went down my spine as well.

Therefore, if we are to be saved from this dystopian future, India must win the World Cup 2011. Or Megan Fox must agree to marry short bespectacled bloggers who write Saagar with 2 a’s.

The king is dead

2011-03-22T23:27:00.000+05:30

There was a pregnant pause before 'Long live the king' could be uttered. So I decided to conduct a hypothetical thought experiment. The last of these was discussed with PTV a couple of days ago. He disapproved quite vehemently. But then, he's going senile. And bald. And he's a Haddu. And he writes poetry. So one should treat his opinions in much the same way as the rest of the world treats Asif Zardari. This particular thought experiment focuses on who one should call the King. Let us put things into perspective. Say, George VI, having finally succumbed to the misery that he felt at not being able to emulate his elder brother in saying 'Screw you guys, I'm-a goin' to the US of A to marry that babe', has just passed away- may his soles rest in one piece. Folks across the universe are deliberating who the next 'king' should be. Assume here that the universe is much like that of the eminently forgettable movie- Delhi 6, i.e. transitions between the worlds of the living and dead are quite possible, even encouraged. And so the contenders begin.

Let's deal with the obvious ones first. Prince Charles is heard remarking to some jolly good fellow how he shall one day be the king. That he shall be to the throne what Tim Henman was to Wimbledon is yet to dawn on him. Jolly good fellow says Top Drawer and lets things be. Out of sympathy, he offers one Diana Spencer as Georgie boy turns in his grave.

Abdullah Bin-Abdul Aziz of the House of Saud, Custodian of the Two Mosques, Husband of the Two Hundred wives and Two million others, great protector of all that is oily, bearded and answers to Osama, kind jewel of the scorched land and part-time hair-stylist, also known as His Potbelliness, proffers his majestic persona. He is ruled against because Google searches for King Abdullah yield 'Did you mean husband of Queen Raina'.

David, Charlamagne, Caesar and Alexander turn up, announcing that their kingship has been on the cards long enough. The time has come for them to turn to the real thing. However, the contemporary world discards the traditionally stronger suits of David and Charlie and tensions break out among Caesar and Alexander regarding which is more desirable- diamonds or clubs?

Bahadur Shah Zafar is also summoned. But then, he writes poetry. Back to Burma. And a letter of invitation to PTV.

Elvis Presley announces that he has left he building to take the throne. A consensus is reached. The crown is called for. Elvis realizes he would have to wear the silly thing on his head. He refuses to compromise his "Abdullah Bin-Abdul Aziz of the House of Saud, Custodian of the Two Mosques, Husband of the Two Hundred wives and Two million others, great protector of all that is oily, bearded and answers to Osama, kind jewel of the scorched land and part-time hair-stylist" styled hair. He abdicates. And Michael Jackson is busy playing with little boys.

A loud commotion is heard. One discerns a thousand splendid surds, all the way from Punjab, Kanneda and Southall combined, dancing to Singh is King. They meet Burger King on the way. Heated exchanges follow. Burger King agrees to include aaloo in his menu. His business multiplies several-fold. The songs turn to burps. They all live happily ever after.

Kenny Dalglish arrives uninvited. So does Eric Cantona, who takes him to the Manchester ship canal, shouts 'This. is. Manchestaa' and kung-fu kicks him into the water. Just as he is about to ascend to the throne, Ken Loach clears his throat and announces that it will not be possible to Look for Eric if he's seated on the throne. So he is made to disappear. To New York Cosmos. No one goes there anyway.

The scenery dissolves. Swiss mountains appear out of thin air. Identically dressed men and women start dancing in cohesion as SRK makes his way. He starts off, My name is K-k-k-k-k... Last I checked, he was marginally ahead of Ekta Kapoor and Karan Johar combined on the number of K's used.

Just as we begin to despair and you start scrolling down to see when the post will end, A. Raja emerges and argues that since he can own everything on the planet anyway, it is only logical that he be the king. To cement his point, he presents his surname, which incidentally, is the one thing he didn't have to buy. He then decides to give something of his vast fortune to the rest of the world. So he creates the common wealth and installs Queen Elizabeth as figurehead. Why, you ask? Because he wanted a hefty royalty.

I do have a lot of free time, no?

Feel free to conduct similar thought experiments. And post a bit more.

Homecoming

2011-02-01T01:05:00.000+05:30

The train pulled into the Rajendra Nagar station in the wee hours of the morning. A little less than 10 years ago, when I’d left my hometown, impossibly inconsolable, the place barely qualified as a station. One knew of its existence only because one occasionally heard trains rumbling through during those many mandatory visits to Bua Dadi.10 years and 4 visits later, I found myself using the station for the first time. The sojourn was as transitory as it could get- Phuphaji arrived in no time to pick me up and we started on the way back to good old Kadam Kuan.

It’s not as if this was my first visit back. Barely 3 months after moving to the NCR, we’d returned home. Home to the rumbling old house, the familiar muhalla, the old friends. Uncles, Aunts and cousins had turned up too and we made it a New Year’s to remember. 2003 March was another great trip. A visit back to school- the priceless reactions of the teachers on seeing that I had finally crossed the 5 feet mark and how. There was some cricket at Congress Maidan as well. 2005 June was the turning point in so many ways. Patna was now bereft of all of the Don Bosco gang. Arjun-Aneesh had moved to Delhi as well. Moni-Priya and Harshit Bhaiya-Abhinav were the only remnants of what had once been. And with my world having been rent apart only some months before, Jamal Road no longer held the same allure, the magic or the love. That was also perhaps why the lines of home were blurring so fast. I remember being adamant that I wanted to be home, in Noida, on the 16^th of June when the fateful results would be declared. I came back once more, in December 2007, for Anuj Bhaiya’s wedding. Now it didn’t really matter that the wedding was in Patna- we were just there for the many ceremonies. Although I did spend a pleasant evening with Sir Ghazali who’s “Saagar Sinha, you’re a young man now. Today, we won’t just talk about the weather.” will echo in my mind for the quite some time to come.

This time, there was no one to accompany me. Rather, I was representing the folks for Bua-Phuphaji’s 25^th Anniversary. Poised like never before on the brink of education and employment, this was to be in so many ways, the end of a chapter. I persist in saying that the decade ended on 31^st December 2009. Posterity will record an end on 31^st December 2010. But one far more significant decade, made up more of memories, milestones and mourning than of days, months and years, lasted roughly 10 years from 23^rd August 2001 to this day.

The cricket pitch seemed so tiny. Was it really such a wonder that the ball had once been hit right over the building across to the temple complex on the other street? The panes on the opposite house were still broken- priceless reminders of the elation and alarm that those shots had brought us. We had to reverse the pitch in the end. The terrace was not that high after all- but it would still have taken the fearless outlook that only a pre-teen has to life to have scaled it without using a single stair. There were too many flowers and too many boundaries on that dusty patch where countless games of Pitto had been played, where Srishti, Swati and Moni used to sit once every year around that cow-dung contraption and make those haldi and cotton bracelets that Anupam and I would wear before grudgingly eating what we called the gobar waala chana. A sparkling new i10 now adorned Moni ka Maidan instead of the ancient Premier Padmini around which the restriction of 2 rounds had been put to tilt the balance of play a bit in favour of the den. A new extension had been built to the out-house. The narrow lane which had been home to rubbish and some very rowdy games was a thing of the past. Our own part of the house was locked, though I did catch a glimpse of the courtyard from the first floor. Weeds and undergrowth had made their way through the paved floor and rumour had it that a family of mongooses was flourishing where our own family had once blossomed.

Moni and I decided that we’d never been atop the Gol Ghar after all. We’ll have to wait a bit longer. It was dusk, dusty and deserted by the time we reached the ancient granary. A floating restaurant has now been started in Patna. I’ll have to wait to visit that as well. The steamer doesn’t run beyond a certain time. But I did sample Mango-Malai in a location that was not Powai, and it tasted just as good. The actual function came and went, and I managed to convince everyone that I had managed to pick up some directions in the first 14 years of my life when I guided the car correctly to the airport. This part of Patna was spick and span. The roads were broader, the cars were fancier- things are looking up indeed.

The last day was a social scramble to meet everyone I hadn’t already. Most embarrassingly, it took me 3 calls to Rashmi Bua and one to Phupha Baba to reach the house which I’d visited countless times in the past. En route to Arti Mausi’s I crossed the CBI building, and recalled the days spent at Anuj’s house just around the corner. The flyover on station road was now complete, and it took some doing on my part to identify the correct turn. This time, the feet did not automatically stray left at Kishore Medical- one glance at Om Raj was all I allowed myself before moving resolutely on. Harshit Bhaiya’s white house was being repainted a shade that the painters had given some fancy name to, but I’ll call light pink.

Somewhere between all this, I had jalebis for breakfast and got a shave at the old saloon that was now in a decrepit state. Optico corner was as empty as ever, although the friendly guy on the counter had now moved to greener pastures. I noticed that the post office was as red as ever, that Uma Cinema was still around with its offering of “Jaag utha khunkhaar Raakshas” and Khataal or no Khataal, cows still reigned supreme at Machhli Gali. One would say that in many ways, Patna had not changed at all.

Yet in all the other immeasurable infinite ways, the place that I grew up in, the city I called home for 14 long years and the land that I learned to accept, admire and adore as my own- had changed forever.

Thank you, Joka...

2010-12-26T23:50:00.001+05:30

... for life after Roorkee.

Snow

2010-11-26T12:07:00.000+05:30

I'd been waiting for this day for quite some time. Sometime earlier this week, when I was in that friendly, fuzzy state when you're not really sure if you're awake or asleep but would like to remain where you are, I'd thought I'd heard Rawat telling Victor that the mercury was supposed to really take a dip. Victor echoed my emotions all too exuberantly and the state was lost. At least for a couple of hours.

A few hours earlier today, I was chatting with Rapu. Precipitation had greeted Canada in a solid way and I could only express my fervent hope that the chocolate-land would not be given a cold shoulder. I didn't have long to wait. Some minutes passed and Victor bounded in, rushing wildly to the window.

There's a street-lamp outside our window which I'll never forget. For dotting the mellow hue that it cast were these tiny magical white orbs. And every so gracefully, they were falling. Time then warped, as it has this amazing habit of doing all-too-often. One minute, I was in the room, putting on whatever warm clothing I could find. The other, I was out, with the door not yet shut on a flatmate's "You've never seen a snowfall. How sweet."

There's many an occasion that stirs a song in each of us. Strangely enough, it was 'Sweet Child O' Mine' for this moment of mine. I didn't really realize when it happened. The initial impression was to make sure that it wasn't just rain playing a cold trick. But a few minutes to get acclimatized, a look to the heavens to confirm and a short-sighted southpaw's look at the white powdery stuff shrouding a passing very non-HIMYM, non-yellow umbrella to confirm what the not-very-good-eyes had thought they'd seen; and GnR took hold of me.

Some passers-by smiled in a knowing sort of way. Others betrayed quiet amusement. And under the said street-lamp, in a moment of pure bliss, amidst tiny little white flakes swaying to the song inside me, I began to dance. The raised arms ballet-type swirl, the delighted skip, the madcap capering- I waltzed, I whirled, I promenaded. And it continued to snow.

It really was quite lovely.

One small STEP for man

2010-10-22T02:47:00.001+05:30

It was Matty Boy who started it all. In that era long gone by when I used to spend the majority of my time in a ground-floor room at the farthest corner of the farthest hostel of one of the far flung wonderlands of the country, I was chatting with this third member of the once-famous great Lit quadrilateral regarding Nihilanth. The finer details of the even that subsequently followed can be read on Rapu's epic post on the same- one I never tire of reading. However, what transpired during the chat was that Matty Boy, then a proud student of the dry campus, informed me that Nihilanth would be shorn of the likes of Sriram and Miglani, both of whom have by now probably sold their soul to some corporate for a heavy profit, who were going to be spending that time in some random country in Europe thanks to the exchange programme which is offered to students in most B-shcools in India. "Cool," I said. "Who gets to go?" "Practically anyone who wants to. There's some academic criteria, but it's not very stringent" was the encouraging reply. My mind was made up. If and when I went to a B-school, I too would participate in this wonder of exchanges. After all, back in our younger days, Sajji and I used to dream about doing our MBA from the Harvards and Stanfords of this world. "We shall not take a step down from the IITs" was our refrain. The prospect of taking a step down or entering the big bad world introduced us to the ugly world of trading your dreams for comfort. However, it might not be Stan, but at least I would have spent some part of my academic life in a foreign land.

More than a year after this historic conversation, traces of which probably don't exist anymore, I turned down one responsibility after another to seek this ultimate goal. They came, they talked, they offered- I never concurred. A few more months and Louvain School of Management found its way over ESSEC-Paris in my list of preferences, well after the deadline, and saw me inadvertently say Adieu to 3000 euros that would have come my way had I not dithered at the last minute. Add it to the list of what ifs. I packed my bags and said my goodbyes. It was a wrench to realize that I'd be staying away from the DebD's and PJ's of this world for over 3 months and a bigger wrench to leave home after having firmly ensconced myself there for over 3 weeks. Just before leaving, I had to say my last goodbyes to the faithful gay orange Toshiba that had served me more than well for the better part of over four years. The VG chip or something shot, some problem with the display etc and it was eventually Sajal who came to my rescue, as he has so many times in the past, by offering his laptop- not gay, not orange, not a Toshiba but a laptop nonetheless. It was only the prospect of Europe looming ahead that saw a cheerful self boarding the flight to Istanbul.

The exchange programme is different for different people but for almost everyone concerned, it's a wonderful 3 month holiday. A break, and a refreshing one at that, from the rigours of B-school and perhaps a last blissful time before one becomes a corporate slave. It's the opportunity to see Europe as the quintessential student- penniless, adventurous and a never-say-die spirit which is put to the test every time one takes 10 trains in a day. I've been here for over a month now and it's been a great 30 days. I've taken aimless scenic walks in Brussels and gazed with wonder at the tower when I was In Bruges. There have been walking tours in Berlin and the impressive Reichstag and going bonkers at Oktoberfest. The Austrian countryside has mesmerized, the ice-caves have dropped jaws. Scandinavia was the promenade at Copenhagen, the star-shaped island with trees in varying shades of green. There was Oslo with its manically designed Opera house who's pictures never seem to be enough. I travelled from Machli Gali in Patna to have Fish and Chips at Goteborg. And then there were the Fjords...

There have been lazy walks around the Elbe and strolling across the Charles Bridge over the Vltava which catapulted Prague right up there among my favourite cities in the world. I could picture Rapu beaming, or at least thinking "There's some hope for this idiot, yet" as I sat in the Church of St. John in the lesser town of Prague, enjoying the magical tunes composed by Vivaldi, Mozart and Bach that resounded from the Organ-players fingers, after having spent the majority of the last month listening to Julie Julie from Jeete hain Shaan se. Buda and Pest combined to show that Eastern Europe can compare favourably after all with its Western cousins. And no trip to Europe can obviously be deemed complete without the customary picture taken in front of the Eifel tower- it's probably a greater proof of your Eurotrip than the visa stamp in your passport.

We've apparently played the part of poor India, hungry India with great success, being served extra bread with Currywurst in Germany and being given some free snacks at a Chinese takeaway in Budapest. There've been negotiations with a Slovakian TT that brought out the Indian bargainer in us. A Norwegian who had enjoyed his own wild days in Goa made us revise our first year course. I've also shopped for groceries, seen my eyes water as I peeled and cut onions and regularly cooked rice and daal, both edible to the point of being tasty. The number of nights spent in a train can compare almost favourably with the number of nights spent at home. The teeth have clattered in Hamburg because I packed 2 pairs of the chest inner, mistakenly thinking one to be for the bottom half. And in all this, almost 2 seasons of Boston Legal have been wrapped up.

I'll be here for close to 2 more months now. Sunny Spain beckons, bringing along with it the giants in the football-club pilgrimage that I plan to go on. There's the south of France, there's Switzerland, there's Italy, there's Greece, maybe even Translyvania if I can manage it.

And there's also the day when I'll be sitting in those long-acclaimed perfectly romantic surroundings- seated in a Gondola in Venice, the boatman singing a melodious tune, the sun about to set, casting that poetic hue over the skies and 4 hirsute fellows as my companions seated next to me.

All in a day’s work

2010-09-05T03:25:00.001+05:30

Every day, as I wake up closer to 12 than to 8, I find myself in quandary. The subject and cause for many a sleepless night is the course of action to be followed regarding the friend suggestion sent to me regarding one of my many n-removed uncles residing in some corner of a foreign field. To accept or to ignore is the question. Hamlet, it is said, used to ask himself something similar. The uncle in question would probably go into raptures if he had the remotest idea that such a great amount of thought was being spent on him. This would, of course, be after he'd asked, "Lefty who?" but he would still be very flattered. I'm not very sure if we exchanged more than the usual "you've grown so tall" last time we met. It's easy for the older generations- all pipsqueaks will, by the laws of nature, grow into something slightly or substantially more than pipsqueaks depending on many a factor, most of which can be found in medical journals. The pipsqueak can however only risk responding with "and you've grown so wide" if the aged relative in question has shown a propensity to reward impertinence with confectionary or it's One Tight Slap.

Having put-off the monumental decision to the ever-obliging Later, I hungrily scroll down my facebook homepage for anything that can make me spend more than 30 seconds on it. The updates are the usual. New FB joinee nee dumb blonde at school has posted a video that I saw when I was about 8. The dumb blonde component has ensured 20 likes and an equivalent number of "Too good, must not miss" and the ever-hopefuls "when you coming to NCR? Let's meet up this time". A cousin, who I believe turned 2 recently (or it might be 5, but what's the difference), has a status message proclaiming his dislike for homework, his teacher, vowels and punctuation. His equally itsy-bitsy friends have responded with a generous smattering of dudes, awsms and !s. The attractive part of my friend list, yet to reach double digits, has not uploaded any pictures. The part of my friend list with access to attractive friend lists, which has reached double digits, has posted but most of them feature the non-attractive part more prominently than I'd like.

A ctrl-t and soccernet.com later, I find that Murphy's insistence on dogging my footsteps has meant that instead of taking in tasty tidbits on the likes of Benitez, Mourinho and something or the other on the Premiership, I am forced to glance through Cory Evans' reaction on scoring his first for Northern Island as they beat some other unimportant European country and drab details of other equally drab results. There is no need to check the fantasy league either. There go a happy 30 minutes. Scott at the Republik, however, is far from a disappointment. There is an entry showing the scousers to be hypocrites, the blue-noses to be pimps and the rest-that-should-matter-but-don't to be scum and I'm smiling again.

Just then, wonder of wonders happens. A ping. A look at the pinger tells me that it is one of those I-need-this-info-from-you pings but social norms dictate pointless chit-chat and forced banter. Had this been Sajji or someone, and I knew what they needed me to tell them, the chat would have been me saying "first turn to the right, second to the left" after his hi and then both of us would have recorded this as yet another instance of talent*. But it's not Sajji so the conversation proceeds along these lines:

Random guy: Hey

Me: Hey

Random guy: What's up?

Me: Not much. Was just wiki'ing some random articles. Did you know that in early hunting techniques, hunters would make noise around the tree in an attempt to flush out the game and make hunting easier?

Random guy: Ok, so?

Me: This gave rise to the phrase, beat around the bush. But you were saying…

Random guy: Oh cool. You wiki and all regularly, huh and keep yourself updated?

Me: Umm, yes.

And this is followed by a frantic visit to cricinfo to learn the latest of the perennial Paksitani scandal and then give 'informed' opinions on how the truth is Butt, obvious. Some more formalities are observed and we do, later rather than sooner, get to the point.

Random guy: … and so I must go. We should catch up again. Take care.

Me: Tata

The moronic lot has insisted on observing a blogger's menopause. I'm actually reduced to checking if there are any new comments and/or replies to the wisecracks I'd put in earlier comments. But then, I guess it is expecting too much to expect a post/comment every 2 hours, PTV or no PTV.

Despite knowing that one doesn't need to, I've clicked on inbox at least 5 times in the past 15 minutes yet there's no new mail to which immediate replies can be sent and the whole process repeated. The welcoming green dot and the more-true-than-you-can-imagine available written next to my profile notwithstanding, incoming pings have also dried up. The usual suspects have decided to stay invisible rather than be greeted by my daily what, hos?

Ah, what's this? Inbox(1)? Excited to the point of hyperventilating, I click on the inviting tab. And it's yet another alert from one of those many obscenely-paying companies to which I hope to someday apply to and have my application diligently perused by a Savile row-donning, Porsche-driving, jetsetting Wall Street corporate honcho before he chucks it aside to rave about the resume of the next guy who's a 9.xx B.Tech- CSE, AIR 100-something. The alert is opened, no sense made of it and it joins those of its kind and under the rapidly-burgeoning label.

I go back to facebook. The 1 friend suggestion continues to haunt me.

I really could do with more of these days.

The First Eleven

2010-08-02T22:07:00.001+05:30

For the last couple of weeks, or to be more honest, days, I've been trying to keep my eyes and years open for anything which I might be able to use in a Sports quiz that I'm planning to make. The decision to finally do Sports was not an easy one. In the past, I've started to make all kinds of topical quizzes. I've even succeeded in making a Star-gazing one, a newspaper one and a Lit one, to name a few. However, towards the end, I find myself putting all the questions I have, and then some more, into one complete general quiz. For frankly, there's no other kind of quiz that offers that kind of flexibility and freedom in picking the questions.

A long time ago, I posted on this page, how college quizzing had practically ended for me. Unknown to me then, I was going to come to a place which would ensure that one particular love of my life was going to live for at least 2 more years. Now I find myself on the cusp of the beginning of the end of it all. I'll be lucky if I can get double-digits worth of quizzes before I enter the big bad world of open quizzing. And what does one do when faced with an uncertain future? Why, look to the past of course. So here goes. A short history of quizzes conducted by Lefty over the last half of the previous decade. Since most souls reading this page have usually had something to do with that particular, and generally considered obscure, aspect of life, I daresay the list will elicit a number of exclamations, not all of them good, kind or benevolent.

The RJB Quiz: Aptly conducted in the RJB TV room, this quiz saw triple digit participation, probably because of the very short walk involved for most participants. The prelims were read off by me off a scrappy piece of paper which in turn, contained cues rather than questions. Sajji's laptop served as the screen for the finals. Most questions were the kind that I'd seen in the many school quizzes I'd watched as part of the audience, though people were heard to comment that elements of the quiz had been 'inspired' by an inter-bhawan quiz that had been conducted a few days earlier. The importance of this quiz was that it served as the cornucopia of most of the questions that we used for the mandatory Fresher's quiz that we had to prepare for the would-be minions later.
Knight's quest: A quiz that never got its due. Having painstakingly prepared all the questions, along with some innovative rounds, I was thwarted by the sheer laziness of the Bear and the very bespectacled brilliant Geek. While most of the better questions did manage to find their way into the sun thanks to other quizzes in the coming years, and a chosen few did get to see this quiz in its original sacred form, I've always considered this the unacknowledged one. Regarding the name, it was supposed to be an acronym, which I've conveniently forgotten by now.
Science and Tech quiz, Cogni: A quiz that I like to think, changed the way quizzing was done at R. Khandekar and I put a number of rounds apart from the usual infinite bounce, had a disproportionately large number of workable questions, covered most areas to give the quiz balance, gave a reasonably general bias to a science quiz and most importantly, introduced the concept of fokiyaap connects. Go-haathi still prompts an inadvertent grin.
Newspaper quiz: A universal truth is that a peak is always followed by a nadir. Rapu and I were enthusiastic enough when it came to volunteering to do the quiz, but it was only when it came to setting the questions that we saw how crippled we actually were. Poring over the week's newspapers to make good questions is no enviable task. Add to that the fact that we chose to make the finals rather late and found ourselves with half the quiz done and the audience assembled at DOMS waiting patiently for the quizmasters. Knight's Quest obliged, a straight face had to be kept when a suspecting soul said- good questions but was this in the news this week, and Sunky's antics took care of the rest.
Dangerous Liaisons: The first of its kind all-connect quiz. Also the first very long quiz that stretched well beyond the usual 9. The questions were mostly ordinary, but the concept provided enough entertainment for the quiz to be generally appreciated. That, and the AoE question. Moh won this quiz, starting a habit of doing well in my quizzes, which luckily for me, was reciprocated at Naman's and his Ashesh Memorial. This quiz also started the concept of dedications, thus providing the QM with a slide to vent out all his demented wisecracks.
42: The name says it all. Remembered for the name, the master-lands and the accompanied eff-off, the appreciation by the DOMS guys and Rapu's annoyance at finding some of the questions that he had planned in his coming quizzes (co-incidentally) replicated on the Bose auditorium's screen. Sunky showed where his strengths in quizzing truly lay and last I checked, Dela and Kaka occasionally use 'We Won 42' as their team name.
Gauntlet: A quiz that pissed off everyone but Rapu when I put the 30 opening lines as the first question. No one really ever recovered. Over 100 questions to accommodate the 12 lone wolves, some great cracks by Sushi, Murty and of course, the Dinosaur and a lot of very good questions missed thanks to what I call intellectual fatigue. Gauntlet was meant to separate the best from the rest and on that day, I believe it did just that.
Spoliers: The lit quiz that Rapu and I did to 'foster a culture of reading and lit quizzes at R'. Prondi continued his purple patch by winning this one, much to the surprise of everyone present there. There were some great questions on Mangas, Tintin and the works. The greatest success of this quiz was perhaps, that Dela and Padhey did one the following year. Hopefully, it'll become a permanent fixture in R's quizzing calendar.
His Last Bow: Goodbye to R, goodbye to Lit, goodbye to the Ol' Monks. There was an unexpectedly appreciative audience here, even in the finals. Some good connects and a lot of popular allusions masked as questions did the trick. This quiz was supposed to be my day and was naturally one of the most memorable days, if not the most memorable day, of my quizzing years at R.
Pilot/Encore: To kick-off my QM days at C, I naturally called my first quiz Pilot. I then went back to R for Convo and conveniently repeated the entire quiz. By now, most my quizzes have become the usual mix of workable, trivia and dementia and this one was no different. Good cracks by P-Sri (a reminder of Rapu) and a fitting connect to end the proceedings were the highlights.
SLATFATF/Campus Revisited: The acronym stands for the corresponding H2G2 book. This was a quiz to say goodbye to the IcQc guys and contained tribute questions for all. Atul's was brilliant, Cram and Shobhit's cracked up the two and the none of the rest got to the person to whom the tribute was paid. I then snidely used all the question by putting them in a Nagaraj-inspired format and did the quiz at R. Murty later told me that in that quiz, the first year won the first year round, the second year the next one and you get the general idea.

Eleven. I'd not realized that before. I now find myself in a perennial fix when it comes to deciding whether I like conducting quizzes more than taking part in them. Both have certain draws which likens them to a FRIENDS vs Seinfeld like conundrum. For now, though, I'll just stay content thinking that I'll probably never have to choose and get back to finding more questions for the sports quiz that I hope to do in the coming fortnight.

Goodbye, Lah!

2010-05-29T04:31:00.001+05:30

On a non-descript Thursday evening in Singapore, I'd finally managed to get my iPod synced. The pod, incidentally, had been a gift from the Company, when they'd organized a Treasure Hunt for us interns. No prizes for guessing who's team won. So it was on the way from one of my informal residences to my formal one that I finally plugged those precious earphones in, and turned on mankind's marvelous machine. And on a road some 1000 miles away from India, from a set of more than 1000 possible songs, it was the shehnai of Rahman's Ye Jo Des hai tera that found it's way to my ear drums. Co-incidence, I believe, is a simple yet effective term that people use to describe such incidents.

In less than 12 hours from now, I'll be leaving on a jet plane for home sweet home. Many a flutter is caused thinking of all that awaits. At the same time there is the familiar little pinch of regret that one has when a visiting cousin is departing after a long visit, when cherished meetings with bosom buddies draw to an end- to put it in verse, I feel a tad sad.

They say that if you look close enough, you might find a paradise on earth. I have a feeling I was pretty close to it when waiting for the sun to rise atop Mt. Batur, one of Bali's many active volcanoes. The climb up started at 3 am, in pitch darkness and a drizzle to top it off. There was many a time when I felt like one of the umpteen Hindi movie policemen of the 70s, chasing the villain in the rain through thick undergrowth as my flashlight tried to keep track of our guide. Sitting in the wooden shack that served as the base point for the sunrise-awaiting party, shivering slightly due to the sweat accumulated over the 2 hour climb, and holding a mug of hot coffee to do something about it- watching the sky turn from a dark grey to an opalescent crimson to a clear blue, as the sun managed to gradually weave its way out of the looming clouds, is a sight and an experience that I'd never want to forget. If this was the stairway to heaven, then the trek back came close to being a highway through hell. Have a look at the Facebook album of the same if you can. The eight hours alone made the trip a success and the fact that I was to see the sun set that evening surfing, or rather learning to surf, on a white sand beach was just to be a footnote.

My last day in office, there was genuine pinch as I said goodbye to so many wonderful people who'd made me feel at home for the past 7 weeks. There were pictures to be taken and post-it notes to be left, to wrap up all the tiny little details. As I exited the building for the last time, the spring in my step that had accompanied a similar moment during my last 2 internships, was notably absent.

I find myself waiting excitedly for the time that I'm back on home soil, among people I love and at the places I call home. For now though, I must say goodbye. Goodbye to the days of being a denizen in this delightful little world of Second Life. Goodbye to waiting for the 65 each morning, to the occasional realization that 15 minutes spent on the treadmill always seemed much longer than even 15 hours spent at the office, to window shopping for items that were beyond India Today's objects of desire, to making plans so often of visiting that pretty little neighbourhood church and watching the plans go awry each time. Goodbye to recharging the EZlink card, to admiring the futuristic skyline, to making mental notes of all the dishes I was going to include in my equatorial food series. Goodbye to all the people- the front-desk staff downstairs who would always be ready to greet with a smile, to the fellows at the food-court whose stalls I frequented, to the taxi-drivers who'd wish Udi and I luck on our many sojourns to Resorts World Sentosa and most of all to the 15 fellow interns, who were pleasant fellow-travelers on this memorable 2 month journey. Goodbye to this dynamic city located on the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula that kindly hosted Lefty for 8 precious weeks- Goodbye, Lah.

Fun times

2010-05-13T22:28:00.001+05:30

Getting my internship location as Singapore was a godsend. Having Udi here at the same time was another and sometimes I'm confused regarding which the bigger one was. People for whom 'Wander-must' (and here I must pay my respects to Committed Shrey again) is more than a compulsion will agree with me when I say that having a travel-happy companion is a definite pre-requisite for any good trip. And the gentleman doing his internship here at NTU, before he heads out to U-Penn to prefix Dr. before his name is making sure we remain the kind of good times, alcoholic beverage notwithstanding.

The last weekend, we were supposed to go to Malaysia. Despite my being a lazybone, I'd gone to great lengths to ensure that I got my visa made on time, in such a way that none of my weekends would suffer. But some guy once wisely remarked- 'Old habits die hard' and he must be laughing away in his grave right now. In case it was a dame, then there's a spot six feet under giggles can be heard if you listen carefully. The point being that at 7.30 am, 8.00 am and 8.30 am on 7^th May, Udi tried in vain to wake me up so that I could append my country count. Again. After the third time, he gave up. The weekend, however, turned out to be one of our better ones in the end.

Considering we'd just been robbed of a trip to KL, one would think that we'd have been pretty low. The omens to the weekend had also been unexpected and not of the best kind. Grim, but not the Grim grim. There had been a dinner the night before, organized for all interns from Joka and our sister institutions in India, who were interning at the fair equatorial city. It can best be described by twists and turns. A sumptuous spread greeted a hungry Lefty, the chicken and mutton were piled on to the small paper plate and a couple of bites later, it sunk in that the inverted commas in the chicken and mutton had a purpose after all- the "Chicken" was tofu and the "Mutton" was some other cheap and not-too-tasty masquerader. The organizers played the safe veg card in the end. A couple of moments earlier, one of the prettier girls in the room had asked me for my gmail id. I was somewhere between jumping with joy and the dot in my username when I saw that the paper that she was scribbling on had 2 names written already. "Networking session" now took a completely different meaning and I realized that there are still people in this world who take things more than a little seriously.

Coming back to the weekend, we started off with lunch at an Indian buffet that we'd noticed the week before. Nothing great, but unlimited quantities do give you a soft spot for any restaurant. Well-fed and happy, we let the geeks in us guide us to the Singapore Science Park. On arrival, we were greeted by several posters that told us that a Pixar exhibition was being held there. The geeks rejoiced and rushed in gleefully. The exhibition was marvelous. The interviews with John Lasseter and some of the other Pixar designers and coders were just a small part of it. There were original sketches of the now-familiar characters, copies of the designs considered before being finalized and what was called a colourstrip- a comic like sequence of the entire movie. There were also videos showing how their Renderman makes converts geeky code and lines into the smooth contours of the animated faces. Huge screens were showing both old Pixar clips- right from the 80s as well as movie scenes in a more primitive stage of animation than what we see on the screen. A good 2 hours were spent strolling around the area, reading the panels, checking out the sketches, watching videos and generally having a good time. We even managed to catch a bit of the Science park itself before leaving- sections on illusions, nanotech and maths. Rapu, I have a couple of Pixar postcards. Send me your address.

By now it was time for us to head to our usual place in Singapore- Resorts World Sentosa, also known as the Casino. The old lady at the entrance checking our passports gave a familiar smile welcoming me back and wished us luck. We got to the table and found Hero there already, having an uncharacteristic run of bad luck. We also managed to get a seat on the table pretty quickly and in no time, hardly-earned money was converted to chips. As usual, Miss Addicted was on one of the other tables, wearing grey again if I remember correctly. Soon Aunty turned up too, and our spirits got a lift- our own lady luck seemed to have arrived. We had a good run that day, and left for Aseem's place richer than we'd come. The plan was to go to a haunted house next, but we could never find the address. So it was to our initial plan that we reverted, and HRC got a new visitor in yours truly.

As soon as we entered, I saw a sign saying- Enigma playing live. It was a minute later that I realized that the Enigma in question was a local band. My spirits, not the alcoholic kind, did dampen for a moment, but even the local stuff turned out to be really great. A fantastic rendition of Sweet Child O' Mine was the highlight of the day. Somewhere along it, Udi and I finished our first LI Teas and ordered another set. The head banging had already begun, something that even the appreciative guitarist acknowledged. There was the other LI Tea and a Mojito after that. The next thing I can remember is Aseem telling me to get a move on as HRC was empty but for us. Sometime before that, I'd trudged to the shop and bought my first HRC tee as well. Somehow, I managed to get home, making sure along the way that tangible sings of Lefty remained in certain streets of Singapore for some time to come. Udi, I later found out, managed to hold his own till the next morning.

Two weekends now remain before I head back to India. A trip to what claims, and not without reason, to be a paradise on earth, is in the pipeline. There's loads of shopping to be done. And then there will be a Sunday in Bombay when I'll meet Boka and Vaibhav and with a little bit of luck, Midha, L.O.V.E., Tejo and Vinu (yes, he's still alive) as well. I've decided that Mahaquizzer will have to take a back seat again. A couple of days in Bombay, a couple of days at home and then, June mein hum phir se Joka aaye. Fun times are ending, but they're also about to begin.

PS- Still hoping to get an Equitorial Food Series started here.

Sleepless in Singapore

2010-04-26T22:46:00.000+05:30

Dusk brings to mind many memories. Dusk was the first Saki story that I read, one that is also synonymous with a bar of soap. Srishti would prefer to call the time Twilight but that is another story, one that does not deserve to share wordspace with Saki. It is usually dusk by the time I leave office, and start the 1.7 km walk to my place. A couple of roads crossed and then the wait for the pedestrian sign to go green. There are people around me, a different set each day, and usually of many nationalities. Generally, I have my earphones plugged in by this time, and curious stares pointed at me indicate that I’ve either started singing too loudly or am too off-key, more often that not, both. The green walking man flashes and we begin the walk, crossing an equally diverse set in the middle.

There’s an uspoken rule that the office is pretty relaxed as far as dress codes go. Even jeans topped with a T-shirt is fine as long as it’s not an everyday occurrence. Yet, despite my hatred of formals and a positive venom for leather shoes, I find myself donning the same everyday. By now, I’m used to it, to the point of being comfortable. I think it’s because the sight of myself decked in business casuals makes me take myself far more seriously than I otherwise would. And so it is in those goody-two-shoes that I continue my walk. There’s the Plaza Singapura on my left- one of the street’s n-malls, and the very convenient MRT station on my right. Lefty the employee gives the two a friendly nod and carries on three blocks away where the current home is.

Entering the building is a different story altogether. As the glass doors slide open and the cool air provides a pleasant change from the generally humid evenings, there is that renewed sense of disbelief that these plush surroundings are where I stay. The same gives way almost mechanically to that of heartfelt gratitude to my very good kind and benevolent employers. Inane activities follow, and its time to plan for dinner.

My 3 weeks in Singapore have been the story of a new citizen and an old tourist- 2 tracks running sometimes parallelly and sometimes interwoven so intricately that it’s impossible to tell one from the other. The guy making a futile attempt to get the creases on the shirt is definitely the citizen. The guy preparing to take the luge ride down the little hills of Sentosa is without doubt the tourist. But what do you call the guy looking with wonder at the manicured lawns, the spotless streets and the buildings, which he doesn’t know will pass Tejo’s high standards of architectural perfection or not? The leather shoes might be replaced by the familiar floaters, the unbecoming trousers by the comfy shorts, but the open mouthed wonder is the same. The new citizen takes the bus to office every morning and feels a sense of belonging to the city every time he uses his MRT card when availing of public transport. The old tourist emerges from the formal attire every afternoon, when the time comes to sample a new cuisine. Mental notes are taken to start a Singapore Food Series on the blog soon, but the new citizen has not succeeded in teaching the old tourist not to procrastinate. The tourist becomes the citizen after a sojourn to any new location, when on returning home, there’s a mental check done to ensure that everything is ready for office the next day. Each day brings greater familiarity with the city that I’m growing to love with each passing moment. There are bus routes that are memorized now, and the people at the food-courts that I frequent give me the kind of smile usually reserved for acquaintances.

The best description that I can give of Singapore after 3 weeks is that it’s a game of Second Life. Everything is just too organized, to the point of being unreal. In an animated discussion, someone said that you don’t even see mosquitoes here, let alone birds of the feathered kind. Clockwork precision is the order of the day, and one wonders who is at the controls. There are no raised voices, no roadside quarrels, not even screaming kids. And if you take the personal experiences out of the equation, everyday is the same. Only the weather seems to relent sometimes, and there are unexpected showers, which cause joy and rancour in equal amount, depending on whether or not the day in question is a weekend.

More than anything else, these 3 weeks have been a tentative foray into the real world. Monica got it right when she said- “It sucks. You’re going to love it.” There was the unforgettable evening when I received my first salary- and the excited pictures taken thereof. There was the delirious call home after I’d walked into the apartment for the first time. There have been hours sitting on the laptop, crunching data and pruning templates, only to be followed by leisurely minutes at the pantry, sampling the latest flavour of ice-cream whlist enjoying the breath-taking view.

And to sum it all up, one thing that these 21 days have done, has been to remind me that perhaps I can no longer put off growing up. Maybe this was the heartbeat that Fred Savage talked about. The day I turned 18, the day I left home for Roorkee, the day Tanvee took her boards, the day some kid called me Uncle, the day I turned 21, the day I got my first job offer, the day we threw Mamma her surprise party and someone said, “ab bachche bade ho gaye”, the day I left Roorkee, the day people started taking my gyaan seriously, the day I got my degree, the day I realized Srishti would soon be off to hostel as well… the indicators had been growing less subtle and more in-your-face by the day but the ostrich in me had refused to take its head out of the familiar sand of my own oasis. But in the end, you realize that you just have to let go sometime, and maybe it took a new citizen and an old tourist to tell me that the time is now. There will always be vestiges that I will hold on to though- I’ve always maintained that I will truly accept growing up only the day Sachin retires and the chocolate brown of my room back home in Noida will always be the sepia of my carefree days. And when nothing else suffices, there will always be albums on the bottom shelf in my room back home and the archives of this blog- my own chronicles of my Wonder Years.

18 States

2010-03-23T02:45:00.001+05:30

Faithful readers of Chetan Bhagat, on reading the title, will undoubtedly be reminded of his latest bestseller. They will therefore be wondering how Lefty managed to get involved with not one, but at least 17 members of the fairer sex to have attempted this post. Rest assured, the post is not about my romantic escapades, or their lack thereof. Similarly, readers with a scientific bent of mind might be wondering whether I have done what mankind can only dream of, and moved far beyond ionized gas in the search for new states of matter. Worry not, for I shall most certainly ask a girl out before discovering a new state of matter. Political commentators will by now have counted all new-state movements, even including those that have yet to reach infancy, and realized that the number still doesn't reach 18. But most importantly, all you normal folks out there would now be mentally shouting at me to stop cracking my demented jokes and get to the point. Which I will. In the para after the next.

Having completed my first, and to many the most difficult year of a management programme, I decided to take a well-deserved break, along with 5 other of my friends. We chose our destination as Sikkim- publicized as the Ultimate Tourism Destination. Uncharacteristically, the Sikkim tourism people are dead on target with their tagline. Sikkim's beauty is beyond description. Unlike many other hill-stations in India, it is still relatively untouched. Gangtok might be like any other big hill-city, but as you go further north, the raw beauty of Sikkim hits you. There are snow covered peaks which glance over powerful rugged terrain, barely tamed by man. Yet nestled right between these brutal mountains are the most serene of lakes. It is said that not even a leaf is able to cause a ripple in these calm waters. Lachung, in the lesser Himalayas, is called by the locals as a second Switzerland. If you're lucky, you can even catch a glimpse of the Kanchenjunga, the third highest mountain in the world. Even Gangtok, despite being a city, has one amazing market street. Boasting of a quaint cobbled road, it is closed to traffic and offers all material pleasures that man can dream of at 10,000 feet. All in all, a very big reason of why India is Incredible India.

As we were nearing the check post that separates Sikkim from West Bengal, I started a mental count of the number of states in India that I had visited. As of 2.00 am, 24th March 2010, the count stands at 18 out of 28. Of course, a new state might be formed by the time this post is published, in which case the count would be suitably modified. At this point, I must clarify what a visit constitutes. Mere passing through a state by train or road does not make a visit. However, visiting at least one town/city and staying there for at least a night does. That being clear, let me list out the lucky (or unlucky?) 18, in the order of first visited.

1. Bihar, 1987: On 21st July, Lefty was born and Bihar was the state that obliged. From her, I've inherited my remarkable intelligence, and to quote the citation that I received from my school, my "ready smile and witty repartee". Thank you.

2. Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka, 1989: Union Bank of India is easily the best bank in the world. It has an LTC system that allows my family to visit all kind of awesome places, within India as well as abroad. The great South India trip was when the 4 of us availed it first. Naturally, I remember nothing of the great trip, but my parent's tales and the ample photographs have made it very dear to me. 19 years later, in late 2008, I would visit Chennai and thus TN once more.

5. Uttar Pradesh, 1991: I'll have to confirm this with my mother, but I think we visited Allahabad in 1991. My Mausi, who later would become famous as The Mausi, was posted there. A visit to the Sangam is something that I recall. Otherwise, there are always photographs. Incidentally, UP is also the state which now holds my permanent address and in which I've visited the maximum number of towns/cities.

6. Jharkhand, 1992: To be fair, Jharkhand was not really a state then. But we did go to Jamshedpur to visit Chacha. Fun time with cousins.

7. West Bengal, 1992: First of many fond visits to Calcutta. Sadly, we did not go to Tangra then. But I do remember the fluffy double omelet's that the cook at Mama's used to make. Read- The quest endeth for vivid descriptions of later sojourns. And keep visiting this page once in a while for even more anecdotes from the City of Joy.

8. Rajasthan and Gujarat, 1993: Second LTC. Unlike the first, this trip is well-remembered. Jaipur, Jodhpur, Chittorgarh, Udaipur, Ajmer, Pushkar, Bikaner, Jaisalmer- we covered them all. There were forts and palaces galore. There was also the ship of the desert and the Palace on Wheels. Gujarat boasted of the Gir Forest and the lions there. We also visited Porbandar, Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar, apart from making a trip to Diu. 17 years later, I would return to Gujarat for a fun weekend of catching up with old friends, eating gujju food and some amazing quizzing.

10. Orissa and Andhra Pradesh, 1997: Third LTC. This trip saw us visiting Jaggannath Puri, Konark, Cuttack, Nandankanan sanctuary and the Chilka Lake in Orissa and Hyderabad and its near bouts in Andhra. The Salar-Jung museum and the Hyderabadi Biryani were what particularly stood out there.

12. Haryana, 2001: Cousin's wedding in Delhi. We were put up at Surajkand, and what a wonderful 3 days they were. Madcap times with cousins and a wonderful wedding to boot. Little did we know then, that less than 3 months from then, we would have been transferred to Delhi, and a new chapter in our lives was going to begin.

13. Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, 2001: Family trip to Kasauli. Via Chandigarh, Pinjore gardens etc. Trip famous for Ramit's- When will we reach Kasauti Zindagi Ki (Pardon the single K's)? Later, Punjab (Amritsar and Wagah Border) was also the destination of choice for our famous Elder's trip.

15. Uttarakhand, 2002: Summer holidays at Mussourie. Sadly, we'd chosen the peak season to go, so the beauty of Mussourie was not really discovered. Ramit's "hero bhi darpok se darta hai" made this particular trip immortal. And of course, I was to later spend 4 of the best years of my life at Roorkee sweet Roorkee.

16. Maharashtra, 2006: My first visit to the other big city in India. Short but eminently sweet 1-day trip. In the 4 years that have followed, I have visited Bombay 3 more times, and it can be said that each trip has been better than the last. Aamby Valley and Nihilanth are some of the fondest memories that I have of the city, apart from the good times with cousins, and I have a feeling there are many more to follow.

17. Goa, 2009: The English language is yet to come up with a word that can describe a Goa trip with the best of friends.

18. Sikkim, 2010: If I were singing, the appropriate line would be, which brings us back to Do-o-o.

As of now, the 7 sisters remain, along with the central 2- MP and Chattisgarh and J&K. I'm hoping to cover all 28 before I turn 28. That should be a fair deadline. In the event of more states being created, the deadline will be extended accordingly.

With each visit to each new state, I've come to appreciate the vastness, beauty and the cliched diversity that is India. There have been enthralling new customs, captivating stories that form the local folklore and examples of development driven by both intelligence and diligence. With each new visit, I've caught snippets of new languages, tried new food, been awed by new sights and more often than not, touched by the kindness of new people. And with each new visit, the immense pride that I have in being an Indian has only multiplied manifold.

That's all I had to state.

Lunch, Irony and broken eggs

2010-02-20T12:29:00.000+05:30

The (usual) hungry self walked into the mess the other day. Without so much as a cursory look towards the regular fare, headed straight towards the 'extras' counter. Read- what you eat by paying extra. Was greeted by plates of Tandoori chicken, kebabs, chilli chicken, chicken 65 and even the rare fish fry. Repeated the puerile exercise of asking the Mess guy what each dish was, mainly to hear the familiar names pronounced yet again in the increasingly familiar Bong accent (Chee-cane shikshty phaa-eeb).

And amidst the apparent problem of plenty, amidst deciding what to choose and what to save for the inevitable tomorrow, the only thing that self really craved for at that point was the once-everyday and forever-cherished anda bhujiya, served on display of those cheap 3 Rupee pink, yellow or white coupons, to desperately salvage and give some taste to a lousily prepared meal, cooked in front of you by that sixty-plus bhaiya whose name I never got to know, to whom I remained just another face amongst the many for whom eggsshells were cracked everyday and with whom the only conversation I had involved him expressing his views on the kanwar march. And that, dear readers, is what I just could not have- not then, not later, and perhaps not ever. For there was so much more to those scrambled eggs than just oil, salt, onions and the occasional jeera and laal mirch...

Barbeque Nation

2010-01-16T00:34:00.000+05:30

A week or so ago, Horn-ok-Tata! (that's the name we call our wing, owing to the fact that we live in Tata Hall) went to dine at Barbeque Nation. For those interested, the said restaurant also has branches in Delhi, Gurgaon, Bombay, Thane, Chennai, Bangalore, Jaipur and many other towns of India. Owing to its rapid development, it's only a matter of time before there's one in Roorkee as well. A toast to that at this point.

The system at Barbeque Nation is like this. It's a buffet. They start with kebabs and keep serving you till you feel that you'd better move on to the main course. To indicate the same, there's a little flag at your table that you drop. After that, you enjoy the main course and finish off with dessert. Oh, and there's a complimentary drink too- either a small 100 Pipers or 2 glasses of Coke. No prizes for guessing what I had.

So we started with the kebabs. Now when we'd entered, if the maitre'd had suffered any heart attack on watchin 9 fully grown and from the looks of it, ravenous guys enter his place, he had done a good job hiding it. The same sadly, cannot be said for the waiters. In the first 2-3 rounds, we had all the kebabs. The mutton seekh was easily the best. Malaysian Prawn had some ingredient which made the taste not too enjoyable. Chicken Tikka and tandoori were fine, but more filling than you want kebabs to be. Overall the qualilty was very good, though not as good as Kebab Factory's or Dal Bukhara's, something which the prices also reflected. Succulent, ideally the first word that comes to mind when describing kebabs, did not come to mind here. So naturally, in the later rounds, we kept re-ordering the Mutton Seekh and the fish kebab, which again was awesome. Much to the surprise and annoyance of the waiter, we even gravitated to the veg kebabs, on discovering that the mushroom one and one particular potato variety were very edible indeed. The flag on our table was given the level of respect second only to the tricolour. It fluttered proudly. Eventually, and at this time a collective sigh of relief could be heard around the restaurant, we decided that enough was indeed enough and the main course must be feeling left out by now.

The main course had the regular soups and varieties of salads, of which I only tried Tuna and French beans. There were a lot of veg dishes that I didn't bother to have a look at. On the meaty side, there was mutton biryani, chicken cooked in red wine, another mutton dish, a fish preparation and crabs in garlic sauce. There was also an option of taking fish and prawns to a guy and getting them fried. By now, we were pretty full with the generous amounts of kebabs that we'd had so didn't exactly hog. I did however, take a helping of the biryani, as here, the mutton was succulent. It was also my first time with crabs and I look forward to more. Although,the pieces served weren't exactly the most helpful. One of us had also got some fish fried, and that was good too.

The best part of the evening however, was the dessert. There were chocolate brownies with vanilla ice-cream, fresh fruits, firni, gulaab jamun, Chocolate Trufle cake. And there was The Cheesecake. It was really really soft. I've never appreciated the phrase "melting in your mouth" more than I did then. The taste was not very sweet, but just right. Each of the 9 of us fell in love with it immediately, and it told. The first 3 of us had already gone and finished off whatever cheesecake was left on the buffet table initally. Then 3 others went and managed to take huge slices that finished off the next cheesecake. The obliging folks replaced it. Some other soul had a bit, then 2 more of us went and finished off that one. Things were desperate now, and while you could imagine the ecstatic cheesecake baker doing his customary dance, the management on the whole wasn't sharing the joy. Yet another cheesecake was brought, yours truly had a large, but gentlemanly bite and other people also had some. The rest however, were by no means done. Another cheesecake was bit into dust. Finally, we had some more gulab-jamuns and trufle cake and called it a very very good night.

The waiter was called. We expressed our immense satisfaction with our experience. He gritted his teeth. We asked for the bill. He brought it and it took all the training he'd received in hotel management school to not throw it at our faces. We wondered aloud if Barbeque Nation offered a student discount and fished out our identity cards for proof.

And that's when he shot us.

PS- Just came back from winning my first quiz here at C. Had on my team a guy uncannily like Rapu- TamBram, lived in Delhi, very similar mannerism and highly eclectic knowledge. Dante's layers of Hell and El Chupacabra, anyone? This guy's much older though. It was as though I was back in that WONA meeting when Atulya was introducing himself.

PPS- The location has changed but fests continue to offer earning oppurtunities. 5k for an online quiz, 5k worth of prizes for the same and 8k for a puzzle solving event. Fingers crossed for getting the cheques and prizes now.

The beautiful book

2009-12-31T16:10:00.000+05:30

Did you know that a full 9 years before the Munich disaster, many players from Torino F.C. in Italy perished in the Superga air crash? Some of you might be aware that long before Korea produced an Asian footballing hero in Ji Sung Park, there was Paulino Alcantara Riestra from The Phillipines who scored 356 goals in 357 matches for Barca. And if you knew that the whole world should be grateful to 4 businessmen called James Taylor, J.H. Davies, J. Brown and W. Deakin for keeping a club called Newton Heath afloat and renaming it Manchester United, then you have my complete respect.

Don't be disheartened if you didn't know any of this. You're not the proud owner of 1001 Football Moments, are you? Glossy pages, awesome illustrations and 617 pages of tribute to the beautiful game.

Happy new year, little ones.

Solstice sans winter

2009-12-23T04:27:00.001+05:30

The 22^nd of December, my Geography books used to say, was the shortest day in the year. Winter solstice it was called. Counterpart to summer solstice, the longest day of the year, which occurred on the 21^st of June, both solstices happen when the planet is at some angle to the sun or something. Then there are equinoxes which I always thought were a cross between horses and cows, but aren't. Over the years, I try to keep track of these important geographical dates, and try to see if the day feels any longer or shorter. Usually it doesn't. Today was slightly different. Caught in a slight breather between days of two submissions, pushed to my most patient limits by the never-functioning e-service IRCTC, and deprived of sleep for the most part, the day in hindsight seems to have been long. But it was short in the sense that I could not complete this Jeffery Archer book that I've managed to pick up, I could watch only 2 episodes of 24 and was not able to meet Kaptaan, who is back from his Euro Trip. A subtle reminder perhaps, that while life does invariably suck, things keep happening to cheer you up.

The 22^nd of December, before climate change threatened to end the world, also marked winter, hence the first part of the term. By now, schools were usually closed, there was Christmas and New Year to look forward to and sweaters, fog, convector, quilts, socks etc were the buzzwords. Then why, I ask myself, am I not covered in layers of warm clothing, wrapped snugly in my favourite Nepali blanket with a feeling of contentment that only hours of sitting in front of the heater can give. The answer, dear reader, is not too difficult to fathom. The city of Joy is not just warm in the metaphorical sense. You don't sweat at this institute just because of the workload. Here, I might mention that I wouldn't be getting so heated up had my seasonal puns been able to include hot women in their ambit. But they don't. So blast the Bay of Bengal and its temperate effects. Winter in Calcutta is a joke, an insult, an excuse and a mighty poor one at that.

When I look back at the places I've lived in, I find that I've been moving, albeit in small degrees, to cooler and cooler places (pun totally intended). Till now that is. Winter is not my favourite season for nothing. Be it Patna, Delhi or Roorkee, how I miss the lazy mornings and afternoons spent with the newspaper, a book, or even the odd course-book in the delightful winter sun. The precious ritual- adjust your chair so that you're directly facing the sun, prop another chair for your feet and start off with a blanket and sweaters. As time wore on, the sweater would start becoming redundant. The blanket would follow suit. The newspaper was done by then. The eyes half-closed. Lazy conversation going on. People around me following their own sun-facing preferences- some with their backs to it, some with their faces in the shadows. This is what people should really have in mind when they say warm up.

The heater is another romance that tries to console the sun-deprived self. I always find it strange that people miss out on sitting in front of the heater when they talk about addiction. It's great fun to expose one foot to the heater after another, and keep switching between them as and when the heat gets to you in that biting manner that the heater provides. The palms take their turn in the moments when both feet are trying to cool off, so that they may regain their rightful place sooner than later.

The fog. The description of Amity's brick red building appearing out of nothingness can give any Hitchcock thriller a run for its money. Fog succeeds where laws fail, and makes cars adhere to the speed limit on the most awesome and deserted of roads. And sheer volumes could be written about long solitary walks in Roorkee, with the incandescent streetlamps providing a blurred glow somewhere in the distance, the white aura of nothingness providing a perfect setting.

Sleep. The enchantress becomes all the more captivating as the year begins to fade and the new one emerges. The seductress has me forever in her thrall with every dip that the mercury takes. The affair with the pillow, the mattress and that Nepali blanket is never more intimate. This is one of the rare moments that I wish I were, and now would be a good time to stifle your laughs, a polar bear so I could hibernate and not have to wake up because the stomach demanded it.

Winter is all this and more. Winter is one eternal side of the much loved perennial human activity cycle. Winter is packing away your T-shirts and making room for all the woolens stowed away at the end of last season, while anticipating what new arrivals the doting Grandmother would bestow. Winter is more dinners had while watching TV together, because no one wants to leave the comfortable heated room to go sit around the table. Winter is the fresh feeling of the outdoors suddenly refreshing you, gradually turning into an association with the invisible man thanks to your reddening nose tip. Winter is bonfires, with memories of litti parties and the farmhouse- Wall-E and the 31^st of last year to name a few. Winter is deliberately setting the alarm for six even on a holiday, just to get that incomparable feeling of being able to afford more hours of blissful sleep and being aware of it. Winter is annoying your relative who is all nice and warm in a blanket by making contact with your cold glove-less hands. Winter is barely 3 months long, yet memories of it get you through the remaining nine. And winter, much to my chagrin, is hardly to be found in the eastern metropolis of India.

"I'm a Lefty, with a predominantly rightwards ideology, in the communist bastion with vestiges of burgeoning capitalism everywhere. But even the Cold War has ended." - Me, on ending this post.

There and back again

2009-11-16T02:51:00.001+05:30

On 14^th November 2009, at close to 1400 hours, Lefty became an engineer. The Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, with the power vested in it by the senate, and by its recommendations, declared me one. Fully decked in the quintessential graduate attire- robes, cap, sash; under the gaze of perhaps the most respected and accomplished engineer in India- E. Sreedharan, I was handed my B.Tech. Several moments later, along with over 250 of my batchmates, the Engineer's oath was taken. Somewhere along this entire ceremony, an attitude of flippancy and frivolity was replaced by feelings of immense joy and unmistakable pride. True, this was not one small step for man one giant leap for mankind. True, better and more deserving hands have accepted the same degree and shall continue to do so. And most importantly, true that the attitude of flippancy and frivolity came rushing back moments after the ceremonial hats had been joyfully tossed once the last dregs of nauseating formality had left the hall. Yet, this was a Moment in the two decades of my life. And for those infinitesimally few seconds as I accepted my degree and walked down, with Mamma, Papa, Chacha and Dadi intently watching, I did feel that with each step that I took, strides were made into another era, into another stage of my life. E.R.- two letters that no one can take away.

Back in Mech 254, most familiar and some unfamiliar faces in front of me. A blackboard showcasing different languages of India (and some imaginary ones, klingon being conspicuous by absence) all saying one word- the word that is not right- behind me. The encore had begun. I still believe I could never have asked for a better last bow, but this was a quiz to remember too. Dela proved, more than once, how my faith in him was never unjustified. Murty had some amazing cracks and didn't disappoint on the ones I'd hoped he wouldn't, yet another reminder how any hopes that I have from that particular trio can never be high enough. The Silent Assassin spoke little, but spoke exceedingly brilliant. And all this while, Ahuja, Raka and co. slowly but surely inched towards their first first. The joy on their faces was palpable, and increasingly reminiscent of that night in April more than 2 years ago, when a certain dinosaur and southpaw had celebrated after finally overcoming the final frontier. Vinu was the quizmaster then, and that was somehow comforting.

Some 40 minutes on my stairway to heaven. Constantly surrounded by ghosts of my past. So many good times came flooding back. The wisecracks would never be the same, the camaraderie had changed forever. This was an orchestra I didn't belong too- there was no Khandu, Shrey, SriP, Midha or Sarthak with me. As I blabbered incoherently, visions of the past would keep flashing by. Baadshah, thank God, made sure I concentrated on only one thing, and on its part concentrated on satisfying only one sense. Changezi, Afghani, fried, none of my demanding taste-buds was left complaining.

An evening like so many at Nesci. Sumedh and Aato on my left. Mittal and Boki on my right. 4 of us keeping up a charade for the benefit of the 5^th. A charade that had been so comically and mutually discovered only moments ago. Aimlessly shifting the conversation from this to that, all in an attempt to remain rooted to the spot during those ever lengthening minutes. The black Pajero arrived, and out emerged that familiar lovable silhouette. Google maps tells me that 4136 miles need to be traversed to come from London to R and Sajji had traversed each of them to answer the call that he decided could just not be kept waiting. The hugs and greetings fell woefully short of describing the happiness that that moment held, and trying to put it in words would be the most futile exercise I've ever undertaken. I'll just say Euphoria and carry on.

Random moments from 4 days just gone by. Random reminders of 4 years that flew past. So much happened over the weekend, yet so little now that I look back. I had planned to go back, it transpired that I had never left. I wish I could claim to be the first to make this profound statement, but I have to accept that a certain balding pot-bellied best-selling author did make an observation along similar lines. There's a lock on G-81 but some things can just not be locked in or out. Physical absence notwithstanding, a chunk of the 20 grams of Lefty's soul flits around from corner to corner at a spot 172 kms from the Capital of India. 25 years later, when I finally go back, perhaps I'll take it away.

The times, they're a-changing

2009-11-06T12:10:00.000+05:30

Ah.

A post at long last. A moment to pause. To take a breath. Two perhaps. To stretch out. Smell the roses. To have time to reflect and to contemplate. And not about your strengths, weaknesses, successes and failures, but about this, that and the other. I never thought it would bring so much relief. I'm usually able to manage a post a month, if not more. Never did I think I would be as low as double digits in the pecking order that is there on Dela's and Murty's respective blogs.

It all started with the Inexplicable Result, which built great expectations. The hot season then loomed ominously around the corner, making mental peace and free time a thing of the past. Nothing was as unattainable as leisure. The last month has brought so much to mind that I'd thought I'd like to share with you, but opportune moments would refuse to present themselves. So I'll just ramble on a bit here.

One of the n-things that I did prior to The Week was to prepare what is colloquially known as 'personals'. It was around the same time that Dela came up with his hilarious knotty post. The two things taken together made me foresee that the time was not too far off when some Management grad, who was also some lass's dad, would adopt a similar process to weed out prospective grooms. Questions that I could think off were:
1. What are your long term/short term plans with my daughter?
2. Why do you want to marry my daughter?
3. What are your strengths/weaknesses/successes/failures?
4. Recount one incident from your past which shows you'll make a good groom.
5. What is your statement of purpose (150 words)?
... and so on.

On the D-day, the tragedy of almost becoming a Brilliantly Cool Guy unfolded. I realized that 7, while undoubtedly the most magically powerful number, could be extremely cruel as well. But as always, Lefty took it in his stride, said remember remember the 5th of November and finally phinissed off the game, ra.

Home beckons now. And then it's off to the magic land. Kaun, woh? indeed. Times have scarcely looked more alluring.

Roll out the red carpet people. Lefty might have left, but it's time to rekindle the flame.

Dipassointments

2009-08-30T07:01:00.000+05:30

My love of spoonerisms manifests itself in the title. I admit it's not exactly a spoonerism, more of an internal version of one, but in the wise words of Phoebe "Princess Consuela Bananahammock" Buffay, potato potato. This post is about Dipassointments, or in Her Majesty's words, disappointments, that I've faced over the years. In case you're bracing yourself for a nice emotional outburst, undo last command. These are dipassointments, trivial ones. Ones that you mind, but not so much. The ones that come to my mind now are, (and as my favourite line after the elims of any quiz goes) and in no particular order:

1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: After PoA and GoF, JKR comes up with that. And to top it all, she took almost 3 years to write it. 700+ pages where nothing happens. Sirius dies, Cho is made a crybaby from an awesome hot girl, Dumbledore cries and Harry pretty much shouts throughout. The big surprise in the end- we always knew it. In the wise words of someone, I don't remember who, "(S)he who has nothing to write, writes a lot." For a long time, and maybe to date, I believed that I could have written a better OoP. On a personal note, reading this book was what was my first night-out. I kept reading, and once I was done, I realized it was morning. That's the fondest memory I have of it.

2. CBSE's AISSE results 2003: Having sent most of the school, all of the teachers and Yours Truly into a frenzy by my legendary pre-boards performance, I have to concede that Expectations were Great indeed. CBSE thought otherwise, apparently. In a year when 42 (that's where the relationship began?) students got over 90% from the school, Lefty's name was the one conspicuous by its absence. An 80 in Angreji and a 78 in Hindi put paid to my dreams of getting the 8400 cheque, though the 6000 one was pretty cool too.

3. Nihilanth 2008: Before anyone starts getting wrong ideas, let me clarify that I am referring only, and I repeat only, to our and more specifically my lamentable quizzing performance during that time. I'd expected a couple of podiums and most of the finals, but that was sadly not to be. Dela, Sunky and Kaka did us proud in the General Quiz and SriP and I piggy-backed on Rapu to make the Lit finals, but that was all. Admittedly PTV, Rapu and I were really unlucky in the General Quiz while our teams also missed out by the narrowest of margins in the BizTech and Sports quizzes, but still...

4. Fanaa: Aamir Khan and Kajol playing the leads for the first time. Self doubled up with excitement. This should be a real treat. Turned out to be one of the greatest dipassointments. Hours and hours in the godforsaken house. Dragging and dragging on. And then some more dragging on. I couldn't listen to their brilliant track for days, for fear of being reminded of the movie.

5. UEFA Champions' League Final 2009: United vs Barca. Easily the best 2 teams in the world. I had seriously contemplated going all the way to Rome to watch this one. Luckily I didn't. Only one team played like Champions that day and dipassointingly, that team wasn't the one I love. Records would show that Barca won this one, but football was the loser that day, despite some classic Spanish free-flowing play by the Catalans. One almost cries when one thinks of what could've been.

6. ICC Cricket World Cup Final 2003: India's dream run to the final. Sachin in sublime form. And Ganguly said, "We'll bowl." And Zaheer opened with a wide, or was it 2? And the Aussies hit. And they hit. And they just kept on hitting. The PM down under was to remark later, "Only the fear of the Kangaroos could have made the famed Indian batting line-up choose to field first." The match apparently, had been lost even before it had begun.

7. Amartya Sen in PanIIT 2008: I was poised with my notebook open, pen quivering and ears cocked to take in some invaluable gyaan from the man himself. The Man showed himself to be all of his 75 years. He babbled. I'm sure he had some very enlightening things to say, but he babbled. I couldn't make anything out. It was only out of respect that we decided to sit out the entire speech.

8. The One where it could have been: The only F.R.I.E.N.D.S. episode which had the dubious distinction of making me bored. The only one which I didn't watch completely the first time. Out of great loyalty, I did watch it eventually, but it was dipassointing nevertheless. I wished it could have been something else.

9. Asparagus: From all I'd heard courtsey W. Somerset Maugham in the delighful short story, The Luncheon, I was expecting nothing less that Ambrosia. I got a vegetable. Better than most perhaps, but definitely a vegetable. I had Asparagus roll again recently. The only thing remarkable about it then was the dispropotionate price and quantity.

10. Emma Watson in HP#4,5,6: She was a cute little thing in 1, pretty in 2 and va-va-voom in 3. Why it had to stop there is what I ask myself almost everyday. I'm guessing it was God's way of punishing the unfair sex for claiming Raj Thackeray as one of it's own.

11. Bharatpur Bird and Wildlife Sanctuary: It's supposed to be the largest in the world. And the entire family jingbang had gone to see it. Our respective Ricksha-wallahs showed us one white bird after another, and I'm guessing they were all the same, and kept assigning different unpronouncable names to each of them. We were told that there was a tiger 'going round and round' to try and keep our enthusiasm levels up, but the stomach prevailed. Mami's "Why did we turn around?" went down in history as the Angry Young Lady's dialogue of the century. The lunch that followed thankfully, was awesome.

I think that's dipassointing enough for now. I might add a couple of ammendments later. Hate to leave you on a dipassointing note though, so good kind soul that I am, I'll just remind everyone that 3 weeks from now, HIMYM and BBT will resume with their new seasons. May the Force be with us till then.

45 hours

2009-08-23T04:49:00.001+05:30

I've been at C for two months and ten days now. It's been an eventful time- busy for the most part, obviously. It's also been a very quiet time on a personal note. Barring an incident here and there, Lefty has kept his head down and adhered to the general norm. if my presence here has created any sort of flutter, then I must say it has been successful in eluding me. In these two months, I've mainly done what psychologists will tell you most adolescent spend ther entire adolescence doing- fit in. Find my place. And stay there.

This is usually the time when I'm supposed to compare the situation to my first few days at R- and how it was different from here, what I did, what I didn't do etc etc. Relive the good old days. Share a few anecdotes. Look back and smile. However, I won't. Mainly, because I'm not exactly sure of what my initial days there were like. I know Sajal was there with me, and we met Sumedh pretty quickly. After that, whatever I tell you would just be the Rashomon Effect (allow me a pause here while I go enjoy Nihilanth all over again). Some things stick out though, and there are differences between here and there which don't need a genius to figure out. While beginnings anywhere are unfamiliar and any n00b is the newly hatched chicken finding it's way about the strange new world that seems so different from the comforting shell that it had called home for so long, R provided the distinct comfort of knowing that the egg was never too far away. 4-5 rather uncomfortable hours were all it took to traverse 150 km on rickety buses, in precious company, and reach familia. While these visits grew less frequent with time, and home began to have double connotations, one was always practically a phone call away.

How different it all was here. While there was no fear of Ragging, a dreaded word in that era, and prior experience of living in a new place to keep you undaunted by anything, home here was light years away. No more packing your bags whenever any whim possessed you, no more boarding the familiar buses because you needed to get your clothes washed and definitely no more going to Noida to have 4 good meals. I'm never sure what was more unsettling, the physical distance or its cognizance.

You can imagine then, how welcome the decision would have been to say to one and all here that 'I'm leaving on a Jet Plane'. It had been two months after all, punctuated only by the brief yet lasting visit that Mamma had paid to the City of Joy. Plus, it was only a matter of days now before some of the other Lords would head off seek their fortune in foreign lands and any kind of rendezvous would become, if luck permitted, an annual ritual at best. Languid hours of companionship at the Farmhouse were most certainly a thing of the past, there was just this one opportunity for some semblance of one last hurrah.

The precious 45-hour visit could not have begun on a better note. One day prior to the moment of departure, Amul and Ashwini, my former room-mate, landed up at C. Their Visa interview was in Calcutta, and it'd gone off as well as could be. They'd both been cleared to pursue further studies at Ohio State University and a bright future beckoned. We spent a happy evening talking of this and that, recalling some madcap memories and getting gyaan from my current room-mate on the Dos and Don'ts of US. The next day, I inaugurated those 45-hours with a visit to Park Street to meet the two once again, before we finally parted. From there, to the airport. To another more awesome airport. To home.

I spent most of the weekend, relaxing with the folks at home. Fooling around, talking and more talking, exchanging some news that had not been exchanged over the phone, looking at the newest set of photos that had been developed and the customary look around the house to try and spot the changes that had taken place. There were lots of laughs, plans were made for a holiday that is very looked forward to, I even managed to squeeze in the first weekend of EPL matches between the conversations. It was home all over again- great food, the familiar comfort, the loving folks- my family, my home.

There were a lot of au revoirs lined up, and I fulfilled each of them. I met Rakshit and Sagar, spent an evening with Sajji and Chirag and was even generously treated by the now 'Bald and Dutiful' PTV. There was lunch at Mausi's where I caught up with my cousins. The only commonality to everything was that time seemed to fly. And fly very fast. In no time at all, I was back at the awesome airport, alighting the flight that would take me back, the short 120 minute haul that would end this shorter 45-hour journey.

Through most of the trip, one thought had been going around my mind in various forms. I'm far away from home now. This was the first time I wasn't there for my birthday. Srishti's card caught the joy of my turning 22 and the pain of doing so alone, in the unique yet delightfully apt way that she has come to master. This was also the first year I wasn't home for Rakhi. I doubt I'll be there for Diwali, I'll almost certainly miss Mamma's birthday and I'll probably greet 2010 with a very different set of people than the ones I'm used to while ushering in the new year.

While C seems more familiar by the day, there are still impending uncertainties that plague me. The road ahead is an alien place, yet one that I must embark upon. I don't know if I should take the highway, the by-lane or the path less travelled. There are questions that I ask of myself, there are doubts that refuse to be cleared. At the same time, there are expectations that stack up against them. There is promise, there is belief. There is hope. And all I know is this- whatever I'm missing is only so that I can have all that and more in the times to come. It is irony- and I don't know if it's kind or cruel, once more. I'm spending 22 and 23 away from home so that I can spend 24 and the ones to come right there. The crackers I light here will be to resound my faith in lighting future lamps in the dearest company possible. Not just for me, but for most of us, this is a determined effort to make this particular arc the lesser segment in the circle of life. Call it a strange quirk of fate, call it a divine paradox but in the end, C'est la vie, mes amis.

Laughing out loud

2009-08-04T07:17:00.001+05:30

Back in the Farmhouse one day, I was engrossed in a (somewhat) deep discussion about how I'd changed in the four years in college. What I'd started liking/disliking, what I'd discovered about myself and the et cetras. I think the discussion lasted about 10 minutes before we decided to move on to more important things, namely AoE. Incidentally, that was one of the things on the aforementioned list. Blogging or writing, to be more general, was another. Yet another was a love for SitComs, which I considered so significant that it even found a way on my B-school application forms a couple of months later.

Musing on the point in consideration some time later, I realized that I'd always had a fondness for sitcoms. It was just never that pronounced or never brought into the fore in as explicit a way as it was in college- 5 epistles in 8 sems, need I say anymore? TV at home had mainly meant sports and cartoons, but as I thought back, it occurred to me that there had been sitcoms slipped in here and there. The first sitcom I recall following avidly was Mind Your Language. It used to air on some channel (probably BBC) at 2130 hours Tuesday night. Mamma, Srishti and I used to enthusiastically look forward to it, codenaming it, and not very cryptically, MYL. It was followed by Murder She Wrote at 10, and we were not allowed to watch it. Packed off to bed we were, trying to make something out of what was happening in the episode from the distorted sounds we got to hear through the door in the next room. Small Wonder was the next sitcom that caught my fancy. I managed to watch the entire series in English, in Hindi and then again in Hindi before I ultimately moved on to bigger and greater things.

I'm not sure if this was before MYL or after, but I remember avidly watching Dennis the Menace- not animated, black and white, and probably aired on Sony. It was dubbed like most other 'imported' shows of the 90s. They used to show I Dream of Jeanie on the same channel sometime later. Another brilliant show. I think it was black and white to begin with too, and later became coloured. Some of my cousins used to watch Bewitched, but I never liked it too much. And then of course, there was Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad. Not a sitcom, but I just had to slip that in. I always considered it 'the' thing in awesomeness. That guy used to get into the comp and fight viruses. What more can an imaginative geeky kid want?

At some point, Zee started telecasting Silver Spoons, Who's the Boss and Different Strokes- dubbed again, of course. I usually missed the first because it coincided with my cricket playing time. Who's the Boss, I used to catch snippets off. I always found the young girl cute and she sure did a brilliant job growing up to become Alyssa Milano. Different Strokes was the one that I followed. I came to know that they've started showing re-runs on Zee English now.

After our move to Delhi, the cable-walah decided to oblige us with Nick, and more importantly Keenan and Kel. Awesome again. It was around then that I started watching Full House too. I think it's good that I managed to watch it while I was still at home. I have a feeling I wouldn't have liked it so much had I started it in college.

You will, of course, have realized, that this list lacked more than a few big names by the time I'd entered college. Hence my earlier admission of discovery. 2-1 changed me from someone who was only vaguely aware of what F.R.I.E.N.D.S. was to someone who has the Rembrandts' title song as one of his many ringtones. Re-runs, re-re-runs and some more re's followed. I went home, and Srishti proved that this affinity was apparently genetic and managed to watch the entire 250+ episodes twice, or was it thrice, in the short period of a week or two. I accompanied her, obviously. By then, I'd adopted the simple and therefore effective policy- a sitcom a semester. Had I been a Boy Scout, I would have received many a badge of good work as more and more of the Lords of the Farmhouse discovered, thanks to me, that they too, had a thing for sitcoms. Coupling, South Park, HIMYM, BBT, That 70s Show, Two and a Half Men etc entered our lives, our conversations and some of our GPAs and left us more happy and content beings.

All in all, I'd say that there are 2 things in sitcoms that appeal to me. There are people who'd rather spend their time watching movies. It's not that I don't really like movies. It's just that I'm a lazy bum. Movies require commitment. 1.5 to 2 hours. Sitcoms allow you 20 minute windows. It's up to you to watch one or even 10 episodes at a go. Plus, each episode is complete in itself, which is not something that a series can boast of.

The more important thing is that a sitcom sends me to some kind of a comfort zone. When I'm watching an episode, be it on my lappy or on TV, I'm at home, at G-81 and at my current (and air-conditioned, mind you) room at C all at the same time. I'm relaxed, irrespective of whether there's nothing to do or too much to do and I really shouldn't be wasting time on frivolities. For those 20, 40, 60 or more minutes, I'm not just lying down at an odd posture with the laptop lodged somewhere on my torso. I'm both engrossed in the story, and somewhere deep down, in my own world where incidents relating to the time when I'd watched that particular sitcom earlier enmesh me in a net of fond reminiscence. That particular moment finds its own little place in this world, to be recalled unexpectedly at a point in the future. For those 20, 40, 60 or more minutes, God is in his heaven and all is right with the world. For those 20, 40, 60 or more minutes, I just sit back, with back support, and let Chandler Bing, Jeff Murdoch, Stephanie Tanner, Eric Cartman, Barney Stinson, Steven Hyde, Sheldon Cooper or any of the many familiar lovable characters crack me up.

Bliss.

And so we begin. Again.

2009-06-27T20:48:00.000+05:30

New place, new start. The journey from R to C has been completed and the journey from C to I don't C where has just begun. The next set of posts will be about them, I guess, with frequent jaunts to R and beyond.

The settling in process is over now, meaning I'm no longer unsettled as I was initially. Lefty's great aphorism#23: leaving college for home doesn't really rattle you. It's when you leave home also and are in an unfamiliar habitat that you ask yourself- What am I doing with my life? You'll all see for yourselves when your time comes. Anyway, wise words over, I see that I'd probably like this place. It's full of overachievers obviously, but it's a decent bunch overall. There are 7 lakes which make the campus very different and mighty pleasant in the evenings. That's a welcome change from the hot humid afternoons that we have to bear.

The food in the mess is actually pretty good. Great relief considering that the schedule is so packed that going out as often as you please is a stern no-no. For all those of you who thought I was in Cal, think again. I'm on the very outskirts, at a place called Joka. Going to Cal is quite an ordeal. But yes, the place is still as brilliant as it was before. I had a recci prior to actually coming to the campus, and I discovered that heaven still exists in Tangra, there's a place called Flurie's where the confectionary is definitely something to write home about and that good times overall can be had outside of Joka.

The lifestyle is here is like that of any other college, except that students are far busier. But they still manage to enjoy themselves, and there's a lot of camaraderie and frolicking to be observed. We had our Fresher's Party the other night and heard the Joka song for the first time. It's a swinging melody, and suggests that people spend two happy years here and are quite sad when the time to part comes. I hope that two years down the line, I'm one of them too.

I'm a thousand miles away from R now. Away from the farmhouse, from WONA, from Lit, from Meta. I still can't bear to look at the pictures of those good times. My wallpaper is all I can manage for now. It's been almost a month now since I said my last goodbye, in a car piled with luggage, some 100 bucks in my wallet, meagre balance on my cell and a mind-vault full of priceless treasures. Yet, even now, despite the change in environment, people and schedule, Roorkee is just a fond memory away.

Heartbreak Honeymoon

2009-05-19T16:03:00.000+05:30

I’ve always considered myself more of a thinker rather than a doer. An excessively intelligent mind coupled with an excessively lazy bum is probably the reason. True or not, I often have thoughts, ideas and notions that I like to call profound. Some would agree with me. Most would not. Some of these aforementioned thoughts have been mentioned earlier on this page for others to mull over. The rest have, fortunately or unfortunately, escaped that honour.

An era of my life, the smallest in real time but easily the longest by any other yardstick, is slowly but painfully surely drawing to a close. One of my greatest friends called this place Wonde-R-land once and, in the hours of leisure that I now have at my disposal, I see fantasy in the name rather than frivolity as I once did. The hours of leisure mean that I’ve been doing a lot more thinking and I’ve come to a certain conclusion that I’d like to share with you all. The last few days of college are like a second honeymoon with it. It’s the time to fall in love with the place all over again. The metaphorical rose-tinted glasses are on, and everything seems to fall within their vision. The notable exception is of course, what is usually considered the fairer sex, but as always, that is another story.

As the honeymoon progresses, the magic in R is becoming more and more apparent. The main building grows more majestic by day and more enchanting by night. Sojourns at Nesci seem to stretch for hours now and the seats are no longer uncomfortable as I once thought they were. CL is no more a crowded cacophony of Mom-and-Pop stores but a heart of winding alleys full of promising haunts. An exciting midnight dip in the swimming pool has had a more lasting effect on me than the waters of the Styx could ever have had on Achilles. Even the monstrosity opposite the farmhouse can be excused as a poorly constructed building now.

While honeymoons are meant for hearts to join and become one, this one has been full of heartbreaks. DC returned to R for 3 stolen days before it all began. I could only see it as the Return of the King. The visit was bittersweet. Sweet for all the memories it stirred. For the trip to the years when We Had Issues. For the trips to IITD and Venky’s. For a reminder of that fateful evening long long ago in a galaxy that is now so far far away when I was told, in a way only DC can, to come out of the shell that I had been in and become me. I’d like it, he said. He was right. Me was different then from what it is now but the discovery has been fulfilling. The visit was sweet for so many other reasons that, as another of my thoughts went, are too sacred to write about. Yet, it was the most bitter visit too. A harbinger of the difficult moments to come. Of those painful awkward minutes of farewell. It’s never adieu but always au revoir, I believe. Someday, we shall meet again. However, as DC departed on a rickety bus with only a raised hand for farewell, I realized that while we would certainly meet again, and hopefully again and again, this was the first time when the ‘when’ part of the next rendezvous hung like a Damocles sword over our heads.

Rapu had his Ol’ Monks on the 12^th. It was perfectly Rapu-esque and I’m sure none of us would have had it any other way. Someday, I hope to tell you of the wonder that Rapu’s Ol’ Monks was the culmination of, but that again is another story. On the 12^th too, it was goodbye Gulate. The hours wore on. There was the Meta Bash. The Men of Steel melted under the influence of His Majesty Prongs. The honeymoon was back on. And all too soon, Susaant was in G-81, collecting media for the last time in a long time to come. Another ‘all the best’ and ‘have fun’. Another hug and handshake full of emotions difficult to express and it was literally Tata to the successor.

It’s the 13^th now and despite it being a Wednesday, it’s more dreaded than any Friday the 13^th could be. There is no Happinezz as Udi and Bansi pack up. It’s night and Sunky is in my Cautley for the last time. Sunky of the loveable bulk and a plethora of photogenic expressions. Sunky of Africa who would agree that this moment is very hard indeed. While conventional goodbyes are hopelessly inadequate, adequacy here is fairly impossible to achieve. Unrealistically, United’s 2-1 victory over Wigan seems irrelevant. There is to be no rejoicing that night. An Arsenal supporter is the reason and ironically, I’m thankful to him for it.

The 14^th is here and FAQ has made a quiz “for the fourth year”. Mech-254 has scarcely looked so alluring. The faces on the other side of the laptop are not the usual ones but this anomaly is deeply appreciated. A call from Praneeth, an au revoir to Kaka and it’s honeymoon to heartbreak yet again. We go to Baadshah but there’s not way that this particular visit is going to be any kind of last. There’s a memorable game of Scrabble. A discussion with the latest batch of Morons reveals them to have the same starry eyes as the 2 batches before them. I silently rejoice. The mag is in safe hands. My celebration is painfully cut short. Anirudh, the latest successor to my cup of joy, the cup that was drained of Cola Shikanji so long ago yet only just now, joins the au revoir bandwagon.

The days are flying now. It’s 15^th and Ronzy’s departure is inconsolably imminent. Is it irony once more that Govind, the bhawan I was least familiar with, is where I kick the football for the last time in R? No time to think about that. I won’t be meeting Pratap Singh again so better go ahead with what is by now practice. The BTP report submission date draws closer now and takes up many hours. Too many, if you ask me. Another Sunday passes by and I’m yet to visit the Church, something I’ve been meaning to do since 2-1. Shreyas and Arun drop by on Monday night to “seek my blessings” before they return home. I try to find happiness in the fact that there is enough of a bond between us for me to feel some pangs of misery at this moment of parting. I fail. Somehow, pain has a way of scoring over happiness once more. There were so many people I’d liked to have gotten to know, and so many more people I’d liked to have gotten to know better.

The streetlamps are positively mellow by now. The long solitary walks home to the farmhouse, that I’ve always treasured so much are becoming more and more enchanted. It’s impossible, I know, but I long for it to be misty so that these walks can become ethereal rather than just beautiful. Ah, guess I’ll have to make do with memories of January. The lights in front of the library are brighter than any stars could ever be. MMED went from haven to heaven long ago. I’m back at G-81 now. My sanctum sanctorum. My four walls of constant care and comfort. This is where the entire thought process began after all.

The good part is that there’s a lot of the honeymoon still left. The bad part is that there are more heartbreaks along the way. And the worst part… is yet to come.

Red Devil forever

2009-04-26T00:40:00.000+05:30

This was a week when God turned 36. And this was a week when Man United took their brethren close to God.

2-0 down at half time, and the most die-hard fans couldn't help but hope that the miracle of September 2001 would be re-enacted. Re-enacted it was and how. I've never seen a more fired-up and menacing United side. Berba, Tevez and the Boy Wonder Wazza up front. Carrick, Scholes and Ronny in midfield. The solid back 4. Wenger, Scousers, Rentboys beware. Sadly, I'd missed the first half thanks to the very unpredictable Noida electricity. But what a second half it was. Right from the word go, it was evident that the hairdryer had done its job at the break.

What do you call it when a team, 2-0 down at the half, begins the second half as though the first had never taken place? What do you call it when the same team, in the same half, looks set to score at will? Imagine the moment when Christiano Ronaldo, who's one of the surest spot-kick takers in the world looks tense before a penalty. How important is that? And just imagine the emotion when a guy, who knows he's going to get a yellow, takes off his shirt to celebrate. How significant is that? 5 goals in 35 minutes and almost 2 more in the last 10. Rooney's the man.

The FA Cup semi-final in '99. The UCL semi-final in the same year. The victory over Sheffield some years ago. Kiko's brilliance against Villa last month. September 2001 against the Spurs. April 2009 against the Spurs again. And I've not even mentioned the Nou Camp fairytale yet.

Martin Tyler was right when he said, "This place has a habit of inspiring players to play on a different level." This is a team which cannot be written off even with a 2 goal cushion. This is a team which relishes coming back from behind, and has proven itself again and again. This is indeed the Theatre of Dreams. And that is why this is just one more tiny piece in the infinitely large mosaic which makes Manchester United so much more than a club.

Believe.

The Golgappa race

2009-04-03T02:06:00.000+05:30

They’re called Paani Pooris in Maharashtra, Phuchkas in and around Bengal, Gup chups in Orissa and Jharkhand and Golgappas in most of North India. According to Wikipedia, they originated in Uttar Pradesh- literary sources indicate Benares. Gradually they spread, literally by word of mouth, to other parts of the country and then to Bangladesh. Golgappas generally mark the end of a chaat eating session.

In the heydays of my childhood, I confess I wasn’t too fond of these miraculous snacks. I was even more rigid when it came to sour or chili food then and Golgappas in Patna tend to be on the khatta side. But following our move to the capital, it became next to impossible for me to stay away from these orbs of temptation. In the city where there’s an Aggrawal (various spellings included) at every nook and cranny, ready to dish out lip smacking plates by the dozen, the tongue learns to make allowances and discover new tastes. Delhi is the land of aaloo-chaat after all and eating golgappas here is an adventure by itself. The local thelas will give you a plate (5-6 pieces) for 5 bucks. Aggrawal or Evergreen, will have their proper token system, will offer both aata and suji golgappas and will charge 10 bucks. Nathu, the MNC, draws the health conscious. They use Bisleri and accordingly charge 25 bucks per plate. As far as the taste is concerned, I’ve found all 3 classes more or less the same- and that is extremely delicious. You could avoid the thelas perhaps, if you’re concerned about the dust and the grime and feel that ambience does matter.

For me, Suji golgappas win over their aata counterparts any day. I know the shell is supposed to be tasteless, but suji does seem to taste better. Perhaps it’s the texture- Suji being smooth and aata being rough and porous. As far the stuffing goes, I’m not too fussy. Mashed potatoes with the usual jeera, black salt and some chili powder is perfectly fine. I’ve been to places where they stuff the golgappa with chana and that’s ok too, but I’m just more comfortable with aaloo. The stuffing doesn’t really contribute to the taste. It just makes the golgappa substantial, you feel that you did have something solid. I guess it’s the reason why I’ve never gone beyond 3 plates at once. In my opinion, it’s the water which really makes or breaks the golgappa. There are generally two kinds of people- those who prefer the golgappa khatta (sour) or those who prefer it meetha (sweet). Since Facebook as declared that I’m ‘sweet as pie’, I suppose it makes sense that I fall in the latter category.

When I bite into the phuchka, I like the golgappa to explode its various flavours right then. The sour taste generally engulfs my mouth first, making me all the more eager for the meetha to hit the right taste buds. When that happens, bliss. At that moment, I find it the easiest thing in the world to forget everything and just savour the tangy sweet taste that holds me in a trance. I’ve tried golgappas that are predominantly sweet but they’re not the same. Just like you need to cross a desert to taste the elixir in water, you need the khatta to love the meetha. Somewhere during this heavenly moment, I chew the crust and aaloo and swallow it, not really noticing when. The process over, I hold out my plate eagerly for the next one.

The golgappa eating ritual is particularly interesting. As most of you will doubtless know, you order a plate and stand there with the bowl in hand, while the vendor stuffs the phuckha and gives it to you one by one. In case there’s more than one person, as is usually the case, he follows the card dealing routine- one golgappa to everyone, two, three etc. Whenever this ritual is enacted, I always have a mental race with the vendor. The rule is simple. If at any point of time, there are 2 golgappas in my plate, I lose. Otherwise I win. Nice and easy. I’ve seen that when there are 3 or more people, I usually win and rejoice in my puerility. In case of 2 people, the going gets tough, and the tough bites on the golgappa, desperate to win on one hand and eager to enjoy the golgappa on the other- pondering on the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything in the meantime.

As the first golgappa is served, I take a bite and am hit by ecstasy. Having been told that it is healthy to chew the food 42 times before swallowing, I’m somewhere around my 20^th munch when the worthy opponent, may he serve many more golgappas, pops the second into my plate. A couple more munches, a gulp and the next golgappa is in my mouth. Not to be outdone, the vendor has already prepared his third round and it lies on my plate now. Frantic chewing follows amidst silent mmmm’s and I manage to pop the third one in before the fourth golgappa finds its way to my plate. Things are difficult now. I’m on the brink of defeat. I resort to grey tactics. There shouldn’t be two golgappas on my plate right? Very smartly, I pick up the fourth one with my free hand. So now, there’s a half-eaten golgappa in my mouth, one in my hand and my slimy though respected opponent has put one on my plate too. Recognizing that defeat is near now, I turn philosophical, thinking- there’s more to life than winning the golgappa race and its in my mouth, hand and plate right now. The fourth golgappa is taken, the fifth is still on my plate and the final blow is dealt. The last one slips into the place left on the plate and Lefty bites the dust. Or Suji and aaloo to be more precise. With grace, I finish off the last 2 pieces with great relish; think about having another plate, occasionally do and toodle off towards the sunset. Chequred flag.

Fourth time lucky

2009-03-22T17:22:00.000+05:30

Exactly a year ago, according to R's calendar, I posted after being third time unlucky. The post can be read here. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride were the operative words. Well, it's the bride that speaks now. We won Quizzotica and how. One of the best days of quizzing I've had. I guess the quizzing kitty is full now.

Sadly, this first also marked an end. And end to Rapu's and my days of quizzing together. Before someone points out the MMS, let me say that General Quizzing is quizzing for us. The others don't count. Although, the fact that we almost won MMS as well is heartening.

These 4 years of quizzing were amazing. A major reason behind why these 4 years overall were so precious. College quizzing, at least the serious part of it, has ended now, and I'm happy to have enjoyed it. A big thanks to everyone who made it what it was for me. The senti post might follow later. The biggest thanks, however, to the man, the legend, who was beside me throughout. I'm certain I could never have had a better quizzing mate. A toast seems to be in order. To one of the best quizzers I've met and an ever better friend. To Rapu. Cheers.

And I'm richer by 3500/3. That cheers me up too. Naman, I sincerely hope we get the money.

PS- Once again, congratulations to Dela and Prondi for winning TATA Crucible Chandigarh. For the uninitiated, it was the zonal round of a national business quiz.

C for Catamite

2009-03-14T21:24:00.000+05:30

Before I begin, a big thank you to everyone, who in the course of the past month, has wished me luck on the phone, through sms's, in person, or on this blog. It's wonderful to think, that even if for an infinitesimal second, a wish is made for one. So now that I've thanked you for your kindness, and you've thanked me for the brilliant title, let's get down to the GD/PI.

The GD: Topic was 'Ethics should be taught'. Usual kind of GD. Everyone speaking at the same time, and very few sensible things being actually said. Very predictably, both Ramalinga Raju and Maddoff were mentioned. Obama missed the bus here. The only sensible thing that I thought I had to say was that ethics are often subjective. People misappropraitng funds might be doing so believing themselves to be in the right- for their families' sake for instance.

The interview: 4 panelists this time (1,2,3,4). The fourth was the strong and silent type- didn't utter a word throughout. 1 was painfully verbose- I could never make out what I was asked.

1: Final year Meta? See metallurgy is specialized. Management is general. Won't there be dilution of skills? Creative destruction?
Me: Some gyaan on acquiring new skills, more job options etc. Talked about Meta not being that specialized. We're trained not just to be good metallurgists but to be good engineers, were the operative words.
1: No, but you have no work ex, you don't know anything about a job. You're talking about satisfaction. I'm looking for concrete answers... blah blah.
Me: Some nonsensical blah blah. I could never figure out what he wanted me to say.

2: Can you name some metallurgists from the industry?
Me: (Like an idiot) I don't think so sir.
2: What about the head of TISCO?
Me: (Like a bigger idiot) I know about TATA Steel. I don't know if it's the same as TISCO. Althought TISCO is TATA Iron and Steel Company so it should be the same (was told it was the same). The CEO of TATA Steel is B. Muthuraman. He's from IIT Madras. I never knew he was from Metallurgy, but yes, it makes sense for him to be.

3: See, you know that 2.5 lakh people apply to the IIMs. Only a couple of hundred make it to IIMC. So you have to be among the top 1%. You're not even in the top 10% in your batch (I'd mentioned my lamentable DR earlier), so how can you be amongst the top here?
Me: I've proved myself in CAT sir. I'm in the top 0.5% there.
3: Ok, so that cancels out your college performance. Otherwise?
Me: Sir, I've been a consistent academic performer. Cleared JEE and CAT on first attempt. Always done well in school. Not 96% perhaps, but you don't just want toppers, there are so few of them.
3: What are you top at then?
Me: Sir, the skills that are tested in CAT for instance- DI, Quant, Verbal...
3: No, no. I mean wholistic etc...
Me: You mean my strenghts sir. Rattled off.
3: So, can you say that you're among the top 1% most creative people in the world?
Me: In my opinion, yes sir. But my opinion counts for nought.
3: On what do you base your opinion?
Me: Mentioned the Mag. Was asked for more extra-curricular details. Mentioned quizzing and debating.

3: So, do you think IIT should be at R? Do you like the place?
Me: Yes sir. It's in its own little world. University town etc.
3: Outside of campus?
Me: Very calm sir. Scenic beauty. Depends of perception of course. Hardly any academic distractions?
3: No what do you think? Good or bad?
Me: (Like a further idiot) Bad sir. No cinema theatre. Not too many colleges outside so fewer events to take part in. Placements get screwed. (Translated to- I don't care if there are no academic distractions- the lack of a cinema hall irks me. Is my DR that surprising to you?)

There were some questions on placements in general. And reagarding the spelling of my name. Otherwise, that was it. 8-10 minutes. Short, and very confusing.

And that, dear readers, is it. Regarding the title, after 90 of the most miserable minutes of my life, I daresay I'm feeling like one.

A for Abracadabra

2009-03-07T19:06:00.000+05:30

The most important thing that happened before this interview was that for the first time, I knotted my own tie. And what a knot too. The king of knotters would have been tongue-tied at its symmetry and perfection. And on that knot, er note, the details:

The Essay: The topic was "India's space progaramme is misguided ambition". 10 minutes to write. Some 29 lines to fill. I wrote about how any space programmes is always fuelled by want rather than need, metioned poverty and illiteracy as being pressing issues, slipped in Dan Brown and Deception Point and concluded with national pride. Sadly, 2 or 3 lines were left unfilled.

The interview: 2 gentlemen again- one with a moustache (M) and one without (NM). Yours truly walked in.

M: What all do you read? (I'd mentioned reading and writing as interests in my interview form)

Me: You mean novels, sir? (a nod). I generally read fiction. And a lot of it. Practically all genres. I love comedy so I read a lot of Wodehouse. I read thrillers by Dan Brown, Jeffery Archer, good storytellers like Sidney Sheldon, I've read some Frederick Forsyth. I liked Agatha Christie a lot when I was younger. I love fantasy- Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. I read practically anything I can get my hands on.

M: Which Dan Brown novels have you read?

Me: He's written 4. I've read all of them- (named them).

M: What was the controversy surrounding the Da Vinci Code?

Me: (Talked about its attacking the tenets of Christianity leading to the ban by Catholic countries. Also about the plagiarism issue. Mentioned Holy Blood Holy Grail.)

M: Who's your favourite Wodehousian character? Why?

Me: Bertie Wooster and Psmith. Explained why.

M: What do you like about Wodehouse?

Me: Talked about his genius and his way with words. How he can make you split with laughter. Then on his depiction of the English nobillity and upper classes that no other author has managed.

M: What do you write about?

Me: Mentioned my blog. He asked me how I judged myself. Talked about that.

M: What was your last post on?

Me: The L interview sir. Some questions on how the interview was. I said I was satisfied as I answered the questions to the best of my ability.

M: Do you consider content more important or form of writing?

Me: Content, sir. Both as a writer and as a speaker.

M: Do you read newspapers? Which ones?

Me: HT and I subscribe to India Today. On being asked why HT: I've been reading it ever since I can remember. Started with the sports page and then went on to the rest of the newspaper. Familiar with the columnists.

M: Apart from IPL and the attack on Sri Lankan cricketers, what has been happening in sports?

Me: Champion's league round of 16. First leg over, second leg on 9th and 10th. Davis Cup against Chinese Taipei results. Some women's asia-oceania triumph in tennis.

M: There's also the Women's world cup.

Me: Yes, sir. Mentioned Mithali Raj and some Australlian allrounder of Indian origin who's considered a great player.

M: What about international affairs?

Me: Mentioned the BDR mutiny, attack on Sri Lankan players and Pakistani response, LTTE, some embezzlement going on in Taiwan, Obama removing incentives for companies outsourcing.

NM: Why did you do an internship in Genpact after 2nd year? Seems strange for a metallurgist. You could have left knowledge of finance to whenever you did an MBA?

Me: Gyaan on not wanting to do a project as I did not want to go for higher studies in metallurgy.

NM: Why didn't you go to a DoMS prof?

Me: The idea never struck me sir.

NM: What did you do in your intern at L&T? What is the role of Temperature in boilers? I can see the role of pressure but why temperature?

Me: Sir, efficiency is a function of difference of temperatures. We want higher efficiency so we want materials that can perform at such temperatures...

NM: No no. Water boils at 100 degrees. Why go above that? (When I mentioned superheated steam) Superheated steam ok. 200 degrees. Why such high temperatures?

Me: The higher the Temperature, more the energy given to steam. So it will lose more energy which will be used to do the work.

NM: Does Pressure depend on temperature in a boiler?

Me: Yes sir. On increasing the temperature, the number of collisions will increase leading to an increase in pressure.

NM: Ok. Why this Tungsten material? A new material, huh? Ok isn't it expensive? How can I know I'll get enough returns?

Me: Now we're moving towards supercritical boilers. More efficiency. So we need materials that can perform at higher temperatures. This material can perform at 50 degrees higher T.

NM: Why W?

Me: Meta meta

NM: Why not more W?

Me: Said it would decrease strength. Wrong answer. It actually decreases ductility.

NM: Where exactly in the boiler do we use this material?

Me: In superheater and reheater tubes and pipes. We don't want them to burst so we want enhanced strength.

NM: How do we know how much alloying?

Me: We know the range. Then we conduct experiments to see properties at different compositions.

NM: What is the difference between an alloy and a composite?

Me: An alloy is homogenous...

NM: Whoa, I'm a layman. I don't know this homogenous. Explain properly.

Me: I'll give you an analogy. Suppose you colour a piece of paper red. Then you take some yellow paint. If you paint the whole thing yellow now, you'll get an orange shade which is same everywhere. That is alloy. If you just use the entire paint and put dots everywhere, that is composite.

NM: No but concrete is a composite and it is same everywhere.

Me: No sir. You're talking at a macrolevel. As you go deeper and deeper into the concrete, you'll see that it has different properties as different places.

NM: Ok, you live in UP? Always lived in UP, as in are you a UP-ite?

Me: No sir. I'm a Bihari. I lived in Patna till 2001 then moved to Delhi when my father got transferred.

M: Ok, that's it. Take a toffee.

Me: Taking an alpenlibe. Thank you sir.

And so ended this one. 4 down 1 to go.

L for Lollobrigida

2009-03-05T17:09:00.000+05:30

The break after the first two bouts has ended and it’s interview season once more. The only thing of note, and of considerable note that has happened is that ‘We are the Champions’ in more ways than one. Man U won the Carling Cup. Rapu, Good Girl and I won the inter-dept quiz at last. Trophy-less, true, but richer by 3k. In the dying minutes of the quiz, Good Girl showed that she was, metaphorically, the Man, and we short-circuited the Electrical boys (Bad luck, guys. But you were really good. You’ll probably win next year). Anyway, that’s another story.

So I was back at home sweet home and this time the interview centre was in the neighbourhood sweet neighbourhood. Got their in time, discovered an acquaintance and with that, let the story begin:

The GD and Essay: “You should not expect old heads on young shoulders” was the topic. 20 minutes each for writing and then discussing. Very well-mannered discussion. Hardly any interruptions. Everyone got to speak and air his views lots of times. Big smiles all around. From Obama to Advani, Dhoni to Sachin, Bill Gates to Ratan Tata, almost everyone was discussed. Bhai Paramanand was conspicuous by his absence.

The interview: During the aforementioned GD, yours truly was the first person on the panel. Hence, yours truly was also the first to be interviewed. And before you start reading, a word of caution, the interview bore a strict resemblance to Amaron Batteries. It lasted long, really long.

2 professors- P1 and P2. P1 had hair, P2 didn’t have too much of it.

P1: Tell me about yourself…

Me: Mentioned college, some activities, Noida, Patna etc

P1: Metallurgical Engineer, right? What is the scope of your branch?

Me: Meta meta

P1: In an economy, would you want a Materials Engineer or a manager?

Me: I would want a healthy mix of both. You need one for engineering and technical applications and the other to commercialize what the first does and to make efficient use of resources. In fact, I would say that I would want a healthy mix of not just these but doctors, lawyers, economists etc.

P1: Give some examples of semi-conductors.

Me: Si, Ge, Ga

P1: Is diamond one?

Me: No, sir

P1: Why not? It has the same structure as Si? Can it be used as a storage device?

Me: I’m only conjecturing, sir. But I think not. Some random funda on why not.

P1: What is the melting point of Si? Why should we know it?

Me: I don’t know sir. But we should know it because during fabrication we have to melt Si. Also when we dope it, we want resultant material to be homogenous so doping is in liquid state.

P1: How do you find out the strength of materials? What does it depend on?

Me: Stress, strain, structure, grain size… meta meta

P1: Metals have been around for ages? What is your contribution as a metallurgist?

Me: We improve on them. Develop better alloys and composites. Mentioned what I did(?) at L&T as I was studying better materials for application in boiler industries.

P1: Why do modern laptops get heated up so quickly?

Me: I didn’t know. Was encouraged to guess. Guessed wrongly. Was told correct answer. Humbly apologized. Was told it was ok.

P1: What do you consider you most significant accomplishment?

Me: JEE on first attempt. It was my dream, got into IITR etc etc.

Now enter P2.

P2: Where’s your scorecard? (I got it out) How are you in Maths?

Me: I’m pretty good sir. Never had a problem.

P2: No because your grades aren’t too good. You’ve got Cs (I had 6 in my first 2 sems)

Me: Sir I didn’t do too well in my first 2 maths courses. But in my third semester I had 2 maths courses and I got an A and a B+ in them. So, I’ve always been good in maths. Cleared JEE and CAT also. Plus, I like maths, so it’s really not an issue. (Here, like an idiot, I forgot to mention Maths Olympiad)

P2: Ok, because in IIML, if you make it, you’ll need maths.

Me: I’m sure I’ll cope with it sir.

P2: yMBA?

Me: Blah blah.

P2: Ok, so you do an MBA. Then HLL, Marketing head, selling Lux soap. How doest that tell for a metallurgist from an IIT?

Me: Gyaan.

P2: What is the probability that you’ll get into IIML? What will you require from us to answer that?

Me: I thought he was asking for my opinion. Talked about weightage given to everything. How my interview was. Luckily I also said I’ll need to know how many you called an how many you plan to take. He’d asked this question as a maths problem.

P2: What is probability?

Me: Oh, you mean favoured events upon total possible events?

P2: Yes, so how does weightage and all come into it?

Me: Sir, if I knew all that, I could give a better result for favoured events as it would help me eliminate certain cases.

P2: How would probability change if I said 50% seats were reserved for girls?

Me: Explained with example.

P2: Ok. Which are your dream companies?

Me: It’s too early to say that now sir.

P2: So you don’t decide the destination before the journey?

Me: Depends on context sir. During JEE, I decided I wanted to get into IIT and then went about preparing. Now I’m keeping an open mind while doing a management course. I know I want to get into a good well-respected company, but I can’t say which field or sector.

P2: 3 Indian companies you admire?

Me: TATA, Reliance, Future Group. Talked about how they’re diversified and doing well.

P2: So you think a diversified company is a good one?

Me: Gyaan on how both specialization and diversification are good.

P2: In a way, you are also diversifying? Is this sort of risk-management?

Me: You could say I’m diversifying, yes. But I don’t see this as a risk. I consider it a well thought out decision.

P2: What are your hobbies?

Me: I read a lot. I’m fond of quizzing and debating. I follow most sports, specially football. I also like playing computer games.

P2: You like tennis?

Me: Yes, sir. I even play tennis for my hostel (didn’t think it prudent to mention that I’d played one match against the mighty Yashu-with-the-big-serve and lost so badly that I’d won just 3 points in the entire match.)

P2: Your father is a bank officer? Can you tell me why banks have reduced their home-loans interest?

Me: Some gyaan on encouraging consumerism. Boosting up the economy. People were not willing to invest in Real Estate and companies were doing badly.

P2: What about the Repo rate and reverse Repo rate?

Me: Sir, I know Repo rate is the rate at which RBI lends to other banks but otherwise I don’t have too much idea. However, I can learn fast.

P2: That’s ok. No I just wondered, since your father is banker, do you talk about all this?

Me: No, sir. We generally talk about cricket.

Then there were some questions on correlation factor. I explained to him, emphatically, how I had never been taught that in maths. Said that there were some things that I’d been taught and forgotten, but this I knew I’d never been taught.

P1: Ok, that’s it. Send the next person in please.

And so ended round 3.

I for Insomnia

2009-02-20T02:08:00.000+05:30

They say that life is full of ups and downs. I love the saying, specially because of its tacit assumption that there are ups in life.

The gory details then:

The GD: Case study. Not too tough. Half an hour given for writing down the analysis, something I was very thankful for. The discussion went well, specially because in the end we gave everyone the chance to conclude, giving his own reasons. The panelists appreciated that. We thought they were cool. Till then, anyway.

The Interview: This is where the fun begins. Two gents again. Silent (S) and Not-So-Silent (NSS, pardon the initials)

S: So, you're from R? Quite a number of R boys here today.
Me: Yes, sir. I met some seniors from the 2005 batch. It was great meeting them. It'll be even better if we can all do an MBA together.
S: hmmm

NSS: So, are you doing your BTP? Or just GD/PI preparation?
Me: No sir. I've started.
NSS: You've started, eh? Very good.
Me: Yes, sir and my BTP is Extraction of Copper from Metallurgical Scrap/Waste by Cementation.
NSS: Cementation, huh? Anyway, what are Self Lubricating Bearings?
(Readers be warned now. The rest of this post only says one thing- I got screwed. Otherwise, people with an interest in Metallurgy might read further.)
Me: Self Lubricating Bearings? I know they're made by Powder Metallurgy...
NSS: Powder Metallurgy. ok. Evil glint in the eye. I will come to that later. Now go on about SLBs.
Me: Remembering, remembering. Er... I remember pores and... oil. I'm sorry sir I don't know. NSS continues to stare at me. I can't recall sir, I'm sorry.
NSS: Ok, what are the other processes apart from PM?
Me: Casting, forging, extrusion, rolling, forming, yeah and welding too.
NSS: How do you make Printer Circuit Boards?
Me: WTF? I don't even know what Printer Circuit Boards are. I don't know, sir.
NSS: Which metal is used in Printer Circuit Boards?
Me: Mustering courage... Er, what are Printer Circuit Boards?
NSS: I don't know, you tell me. Which metal is used?
Me: I don't know sir.
NSS: Ok. Powder Metallurgy then. Tell me some applications. You couldn't tell me about Self Lubricating Bearings.
Me: PM is used to make aircraft brakes sir. For emergency braking. And for... Iron Phosphorus systems. NSS continues to stare... I try to recall more. That's all that I can remember, sir.
NSS: Ok. You know semi-conductors?
Me: Yes, sir.
NSS: Is Silicon one?
Me: Yes, sir.
NSS: Why?
Me: Told him.
NSS: What is quartz?
Me: A compound that is a Silica form sir.
NSS: Would you call it a compound?
Me: Er, SiO2. It's basically a ceramic.
NSS: Ok, tell me its uses.
Me: Ajanta quartz comes to mind. Used in watches sir.
NSS: Watches? Ok, tell me one property of quartz because of which it's used it watches.
Me: I don't know sir.
NSS: How do you make engine cylinders?
Me: Casting, and welding (Wild guesses)
NSS: Casting, and welding?
Me: Sir, we make it by casting. In case the product required is too big, we join the different parts by welding.
NSS: Hmmm. What is Eutectic point?
Me: Finally, something that I know. Meta meta...
NSS: Ok, ok. Can you tell me the name of the Engineer who designed the Roorkee canal?
Me: Can I? Can I? Cautley sir. Sir Proby Cautley. And Sir Thomasson was the one who did most of the field work.
NSS: Looks at S. That's it I think. Thank you.
Me: Thank you, sir.

2 down, 3 to go.

K for Kandukondan Kandukondan

2009-02-17T18:31:00.000+05:30

D-Day, or at least the first D-Day had arrived. I somehow managed to get up at the crack of dawn (6.30, not 10.00), suited up, took my folder and started off for my rendezvous at Qutub Institutional Area- home to some of the less famous B-schools of the country. Arrived well before time and realized that for reasons that will remain unknown to mankind, I was a nervous wreck. Jittering all over, hands shaking, not even able to make a single phone call. I took a couple of deep breaths, nothing happened. Took some more, still no effect. Sat down. Kept sitting down. Had a look around and finally time did what meditation and breathing exercises couldn't. Lefty was in his element once more.

Pleasant chit-chat followed with a guy who'd turned up from Bhopal. He knew Falana and Dhekana, most notable being Chiraunji. Fellow R-boys were discovered soon, and some more chit-chat followed. A gentleman who looked like a cross between Shibu Soren and Arul Mani walked by and I prayed that he would not be the one to ask me the dreaded question- Why MBA indeed? My prayers were answered when the 3 panels were announced, and I adjourned to the chambers of panel 1.

The GD: Some article on God's (dis)owned country. Kerala (pronounced Ker-ul-uh), it started off, has a per-capita income of around $2, most people don't even have a bed according to a study conducted in the 1980s. Yet life expectancy there is 70 years, literacy is 100% and birth rate is 18 per 1000- figures that match up to those of the United States. Puts the entire concept of Money Hai to Honey Hai into perspective, what? As in any GD, there were some 'eager' speakers. Yours truly was polite enough to let them speak most of the time. Chipped in here and there with the role that education has played, the importance of a population that can be controlled, the fact that a simple life makes people immune to stress and lifestyle diseases like OCD and that it was essential not to take life expectancy at its face value but look into the quality of life also. All fair and above board. Almost everyone came out of the GD happy happy.

The interview: There were two interviewers- a young-ish gentleman (Y-ish) and a young gentleman (Y). I made a memorable entry by sitting down and dropping my folder immediately.

Y-ish: Nervous, anxious?

Me: Just wrong-footed sir.

Y-ish: Tell us about yourself.

I started off. Mentioned Patna and then...

Y-ish: What do you think of Lalu Yadav?

Me: He's not been a good CM, sir. In fact, in my humble opinion, he's been a very bad CM. But he's done a remarkable job with Indian Railways.

Y-ish: Why the sudden difference?

Me: As CM, he was assured of a strong votebank, so he never had to do any work to remain in power. That doesn't work on the national scene. You've got to work to make a mark.

Y-ish: So can an incapable person suddenly become capable, or a dishonest person suddenly become honest?

Me: I wouldn't say he was incapable sir. He's always been very competent. It was just that he didn't want to work for Bihar and was more interested in minting money. As Railway Minister, he decided to work and has done a good job.

Y-ish: So will he make a good PM?

Me: He could. He's certainly proved himself as railways minister. (I guess a seat in the RJD was reserved for me as I said this)

Y: yMBA?

Me: Blah blah

Y: But Lalu has not done an MBA. He's doing so well?

Me: Yes sir. I agree that it's not essential to do an MBA. But there are a large number of skills that are taught to you through an MBA programme which equip you to be a more effective worker in whatever you do. Since I have an opportunity to do an MBA, I belive I should take it and learn those skills. Plus, for every Lalu, there are lots of people who have done an MBA and have done equally well.

Y: Ok. So metallurgy, right? You've probably studied the T-t-t curve. Tell me about it.

Me: Meta meta...

Y: Phases present in the Iron-carbon diagram?

Me: Meta meta...

Y: Hot working and cold working?

Me: Meta meta...

Y: Is stamping hot working or cold working?

Me: Cold working, sir (I was guessing). It's below the recrystallization temperature.

Y: Are you sure?

Me: (hesitantly) Ye-es sir. If it's above the recrystallization T, then phase changes will take place. We do stamping for Iron for instance, to get Iron Powder for PM.

Y: Can you tell me the recrystallization T of Iron?

Me: 723 degree C, sir.

Y: What is rolling? Can you draw and explain. Also the different types of Rolling mills.

Me: Drew meta meta... 2 high and 4 high rolling mills...

Y: What is the difference between rolling for Al and for Steel?

Me: Meta meta...

Y-ish: How are you in Maths?

Me: (What kind of a question is that? Do I say yes and invite a horde of questions?) I've always been ok, sir. Never had a problem.

Y-ish: (bemused) Always been ok? What is a singular matrix?

Me: When the value of the determinant is 1. (Wrong answer). Drew one when he asked me to.

Y-ish: Sure?

Me: Ye-es sir. I think so.

Y-ish: Sure. (Stares at me long and hard)

Me: No sir. I'm sorry. I'm not sure.

Y-ish: Can you find out the inverse of a matrix?

Me: Yes sir.

Y-ish: Does a matrix always have an inverse?

Me: It has to be nxn sir. Same number of rows and columns.

Y-ish: Anything else?

Me: (Recalling) The value of the determinant is in the denominator when finding out the inverse. So it should not be zero so that the inverse can have a finite value.

Y-ish: Sure? The long hard stare again.

Me: (Yes. What I'm saying seems to make sense) Ye-es sir. (I should have been more confident while saying that)

Y-ish: Draw a matrix where you can't find out the inverse.

Me: Drew one with first two rows having same elements. Put last row as all zeroes.

Y-ish: Are these zeroes necessary?

Me: No sir. As long as two rows or columns are same, the other elements are immaterial.

Y-ish: So you can't find out the inverse of this matrix?

Me: (Again hesitant, damn it). N-no sir. The determinant has a value zero and it's in the denominator, so you can't find out the inverse.

Y-ish: OK, calculus. What are maxima and minima?

Me: Blah

Y-ish: Draw a curve and show me maxima/minima.

Me: Drew (x-1)(x-3)=0 and showed minima. Was asked to draw a cubic curve. Added (x-2) there too and made it a cubic curve. Said that it'll cut the X-axis in 3 places. Showed the maxima and minima, saying it was local maxima and local minima.

Y-ish: How do you find it out?

Me: Slope has to be zero. Differentiate and put value as zero.

Y-ish: Ok, differentiate.

Me: (Ludicrously) You want me to differentiate (how old am I, five?). Started differentiating.

Y-ish: Forget it. How will you find out maxima/minima?

Me: (Realized what he wanted me to say) You double differentiate sir. If negative then maxima, if positive then minima.

Y-ish: Ok, I think that's it. Any questions?

Me: (Taken aback by the abruptness) That's it? No, no questions from my side.

Y: One sec. Roorkee, right? There's a hydroelectric power plant near Roorkee. Do you know where it is?

Me: (Trying to think) N-no sir. I'm sorry. (Damn you, Tehri Dam)

Y: What is the hot-topic in economics these days?

Me: The slowdown sir.

Y: Has it affected educational institutes?

Me: As far as placements are concerned, definitely (Don't we all know too well). Otherwise, I don't see how it has.

And, that was it. Pow-wowed with the others once out. Came to know that a singular matrix was not what I'd said it was. On the plus side, also came to know that I'd been right as far as the inverse issue went. 1 down then. 4 to go.

Travelling in December

2009-01-21T01:48:00.000+05:30

Two-thirds of January is actually over, and now I’ve begun this post that I promised myself to write before the New Year got underway. Another classic case of procrastination, but then, Aisa hi hoon main…

December of 2008 was one of the most amazing, no wait, legen… wait for it… dary months ever. It started with a twisted delight, led to a brilliantly executed surprise party for mother dear (Click here for details), and continued into some memorable days spent frolicking in the far-off corners of the country. This post should have been about them, had the author not chosen to be so shamelessly lazy. But then, that’s another story altogether. Let my try and stretch my memory to those amazing days, and recollect at least half of the amazing stuff that happened. Here goes.

The South: Sajal, Mittal, Sporty Hunk and Yours Truly, went to the capital of Tambiland to hear great minds speak. The occasion- panIIT 2008, the first time the conference was being held on a campus. Apart from the gyaan that I was pretty sure the conference would bring, there were naturally other reasons. It had been 2 decades since I’d last visited Chennai, and there was no saying why there shouldn’t be 2 more unless I did something about it. Plus, people in the know had raved about the food there, and Lefty believes that there can be no higher calling. The south, ahoy then.

The conference was amazing. It instilled in us a pride we could never have imagined for our and our sister institutes. Seriously, we’re brilliant. Around 2000 people had turned up- over 300 of which were CEOs, 500 VPs, MDs and what have you. It was very normal to see industry bigwigs and corporate honchos, so far only familiar through the yellow pages of ET, walk a bit faster than you to get to that cookie that both of you wanted at the tea table. A badge pinned to their lapels would denote their year of graduation and the insti and lo, the bigshot was one of you. In a panel on Innovation, Kris Gopalakrishnan, CEO of Infosys, asked the audience how many of them had their own businesses or companies. Sajji and I could only watch in awe as more than 80% of the hands went up. There was a TATA CEO panel in which the CEOs of TATA Steel and Motors both turned out to be IITians. There were 6 tracks, most notable of which was a panel on infrastructure dealing with PPPs. And the thing that set this conference apart from its previous ones was that this time there was not just the usual policy setting and talking big, like any other drawing room conversation- people were actually implementing on-ground solutions. There was something concrete being done, and participation was sought.

Chennai, the city turned out to be way better than I’d imagined. The railway station was probably the best I’ve seen in India, and the auto-rickshaw we took from there to the insti has one of the most colourful characters to have driven me around. Parts of the city had a decadent, Raj-time look- narrow streets with old buildings, reminiscent of Calcutta. The insti turned out to be more of a disappointment, however. One can literally say that it’s a jungle out there. On the first night, there was a music competition where the judges were Naresh Iyer and Karthik of ‘Behka’ fame. Both of them are around 25-ish and it was wonderful to see them performing on stage. The kind of energy that they were radiating was infectious. Here were two guys who were genuinely enjoying themselves, not just singing for cash. IITM seemed like home to them, as Karthik even explained later.

The next night, we went to Eliot’s beach in Beasant Nagar. It might be my name, but I’ve always loved the sea. Mountains are great and all, but there’s something about the seaside. Mountains awe you, the sea talks back, as Rapu once wisely said. It was around 10 by the time we arrived and the beach was fairly deserted. Standing there at night, with the wind blowing, the waves crashing on your feet, staggering you every now and then, the silence only being broken by the aforementioned crashing waves and watching ripples form in the distance, only to grow into billows, get bigger and eventually end up in drops of water was magical. How long I stood there, I cannot say, but that is one memory that I can recall with effortless ease. Ultimately, I left to sample some authentic prawns and other fish at the obliging Nithya fish stall.

The Bulk cutely turned up the next day to be our gourmet guide. He took us to some Chettinaad place, sorry I forgot the name, and then to some fruit shop on some road; sorry I forgot the names again. We ended up at Grand Snacks Point where Sajal bought around 5 truck-loads of snacks. The next day, as we were leaving for Delhi sweet Delhi, we had the most loquacious of taxi-drivers- an imminently likeable guy. I impressed him immediately with my supernatural knowledge of Rajni dialogues and we had a great time thereon. He could hardly speak English and I spoke no Tamil, yet we could understand each other fairly well. The power of human expression, eh?

The north: Srishti’s already done justice to this trip, thankfully. Check out her post for details.

The food: Here comes the best part. Those last 10 days of December were a never ending feast. 6 meals and 5 course dinners were the norm rather than the exception. The conference had a 5 star hotel as caterers so my meals were generally such- I would start with some pasta/lasagna and salads, along with something veg that I found interesting. I would then move on to copious quantities of chicken, mutton and fish- different varieties everyday, and follow it up with a helping, sometimes two. After which, the sweet dish and burp, a good meal had been had, let’s look forward to the next one. I had Fried Fish in Tartar sauce, chicken Chettinaad, Rogan Josh, Fish Malabar amongst others. As for the sweet dishes, there were all the ingredients of a sundae, Gaajar ka halwa, pudding etc. Ranga took us to a place called Sangeetha lounge where we had a traditional Tamil Nadu thali. There were poriyaal, special poriyaal, kootu, payasam and the et cetras. Good stuff. The Chettinaad place that the Bulk took us to was a non vegetarian’s delight. Turkey Biryani, Chettinaad Chicken and some very good fried fish.

Naldehra, Simla, Fagu, Barog and the other hill stations were no different as far as the food was concerned. Here my meals were just a wee bit different- start with some variety of soup that I’d never had before (coriander specially comes to mind here). Follow it up with all kinds of salads, Russian salad of which was the most simple. A continental or Chinese course, an Indian course, sweet dish and a bigger burp and a bigger meal over, let’s look forward to the next one again. Over the 3 days, I had some new types of kheer too- made of some himachal grains. Very tasty again.

December is over now, sadly. So is 2008. It was a great year. Hope this one is better. Cheers and more importantly, bon appetit, everyone.

Blast from the Past

2008-12-12T18:24:00.000+05:30

I've never told you about my computer. Not the icon that all of you have on your desktop, but MY computer. It was bought way back in 1997, in the 20th century, before magical '99 when Man U won the glorious treble (I had to slip that in). The config- 32 MB RAM (later updated to 64), Windows 98 OS, 350 MHz and a 3.8 GB Hard Disk. All more than well for a comp of that time. But the strange part was that we persisted in using it till only a couple of months ago. For the last five years or so, it was already antique- a mere machine to access the net on, or occasionally, do some C++ programming. Before that, Lefty used it for the sole purpose of playing 3 games- FIFA 2002, Demonstar (demo), Tony Hawk's Pro-skater 2 (demo) and some game called something where there were racing cars which looked like cornflakes boxes. Before that, we were in the pre-'99 days.

All good things come to an end, and the day has at last come when we are parting with the good old comp. My sister and I decided to keep some of the files we'd stored on it with us- no mean feat considering there's no USB, no CD Writer, and the floppy disk doesn't work. In the end, we mailed everything we wanted to ourselves. I was just going through them now. There are pictures, poems, ppts, results of early attempts on MS Paint- all very reminiscnent, all exceedingly delightful. Most of them belong to an era long gone by- my days in Patna and later, my days in high school. Browsing through them, random incidents from those days kept showing up, bringing a wry smile or occassionally an embarrassed one to my face. An exercise filled with pain and pleasure at the same time.

Anyway, I came across something I wrote towards the fag end of the good old comp's days. I later wrote it agian, and it marked the beginning of another cherished era- another one which has since then ended. Enjoy.

Height Please

After an agonising 8-hour wait trying to indulge in a relaxing exercise which is referred to as ‘sleep’, I woke up with the 16^th sunrise of June, a nervous twittering self. The cause of my apprehension was simple – the IIT-JEE results were to be declared on that fateful morning. It was full of anxiety that I logged on to the net, went to the JEE site and typed in my roll no, all the time keeping my fingers crossed and praying to the Almighty to try and remember any good deed that I might have done in my previous incarnations and reward me for it. As the web page changed, my trepidation changed to elation, for I had just cleared IIT-2005 and was on the way to realizing my dream of becoming an IITian.

Subsequent celebrations followed. There was the general hugging, clapping of backs and calling up relatives and friends atmosphere. A thunderstorm of phone calls ensued, each caller expressing his joy and wishing me the best of luck. The next day, I received the IIT brochure asking me to report for counselling and bring with me the completed version of a medical check-up form that was enclosed.

So it was a cock-a-whoop self that went to a nearby hospital with his mother to complete the medical formalities. The superintendent guided us to the physician’s chamber, where the doctor and a nurse awaited our arrival. The weight, blood-pressure and chest were triumphantly measured and duly recorded, and then came the turn of height…

For a person who broke the 5 feet mark when in class X, height has naturally been a sensitive issue. Most of my life has been spent in the first row, first line etc and meeting wise guys who would chuckle and say- ‘You’re in VIII, why I took you for a primary school student’ or some such thing. It was therefore a great relief when I finally attained a decent 5’ 8’’. It can thus, be said that my height has been measured any number of times and in countless ways yet, I was more than surprised when the doctor asked me to lie down and told the nurse to measure my height. Images of Munnabhai – Circuit asking a Japanese his height, ‘How long?’ flashed by as my ‘height’ was converted to ‘length’.

My mother, watching from a corner, asked the doc if a height machine was not available. Something like comprehension dawned on the latter’s face and she made appropriate enquiries and then informed us that the coveted instrument was being used in physiotherapy and was therefore not accessible. The nurse then put one end of the tape-measure on my shoulder, flashed a brilliant smile at the doctor and asked ‘Yahin se height naapni hai naa?’. Having no intention of entering the portals of IIT minus a head, I quickly brought to her notice that height was generally measured from head to toe, a fact which the doctor confirmed. So an orderly was summoned, and along with the nurse, he proceeded to measure my height (length). The tape traversed the topography of my body – over the head, down the neck, through the torso and came to rest between the knee and the ankle. To solve the problem of the short tape, a pen was produced and a mark placed on my foot. The above proceedings were then continued and the doctor was informed that the patient was 181 cm tall. Converting the figure to inches I found, that miraculously I had become 6 feet in a matter of minutes. Attempting to bury my laughs within or converting the same to coughs, I halted the doctor in the task of writing the figure on the form and told her that the height was definitely wrong.

Me mum then adopted the role of the Bollywood ‘Maa’, and took matters into her own hands. I was made to stand up near a wall (It’s back to ‘height’), the top of my head was marked and the orderly got to work to produce the magical figure. Now my height was reduced to 5’ 10’’. When the same was measured in inches, it turned out to be 5’ 5’’. The role of ‘Maa’ was now added to and the mater took up the tape-measure and made the measurements herself. The 171 cm mark was attained and recorded, the doctor signed the form, the nurse beamed and I accompanied the Mater to the car in a blaze of glory.

Winds of Change

2008-11-13T09:38:00.000+05:30

I visited the United States in the summer of 2006. Thank you, Union Bank of India. My dreams are certainly not mine alone as long as you are there. It was a great trip. I met my cousins after a fairly long time, visited loads of places in California apart from an unforgettable trip to Vegas and the Grand Canyon and had a whale of a time. It was also my first direct contact with America and American Culture (is that an oxymoron?) and the experience was insightful.

There was a particular road trip where we went to some of the lesser known scenic places in California- Monterey, Pismo Beach and Hearst Castle (of the Citizen Kane fame for movie aficionados). One of the best things about this trip was the drive. Mountains on one side and the Atlantic on the other- how much better could it get? That night, we went out for dinner at a Mexican place. Ordered what we believed was an authentic Mexican meal- tortillas, enchiladas, quesadillas- the works. The restaurant was a smallish place- the complete seating area was smaller than my room. There were some youngsters sitting at the table next to ours. As we placed our orders and waited for the food to arrive, one of them said, “Oh my God, Indians. Let’s go,” or something to that effect and they walked off. The whole experience left a decidedly sour taste in my mouth and I’m not castigating the food here.

Before anyone dismisses this as a one-off case, a canard or a misunderstanding, let me substantiate. I have lots of relatives living in the US. Many of them have been there for decades now. Yet, barring a very small number, all of them have one thing in common- their social circle comprises only Indians or Asians. They work alongside Caucasians at their offices, study with them at schools but when it comes to social interaction, the whites are conspicuous by their absence. However, you’d be hard pressed to get anyone living in the States to admit that they are victims of racism, that they are treated as repugnant beings, at some level or the other. Perhaps they choose to turn a blind eye, perhaps they look at the bright side- racism in the US is much much lesser than that in the UK or Europe. And it is decreasing, although vestiges of it remain, as movies like Crash point out, or as my own humble experience seems to suggest.

So far, when I’ve talked of racism, I’ve been referring to the behaviour meted out to Indians or Asians. This is only the tip of the iceberg. The African-Americans get a far more invective deal. Their history in the New World is a long sad saga of misery, iniquity and pain. Brought from Africa to be sold as slaves. Made to toil on plantations under inhuman conditions. Ferocious mastiffs used to capture and/or kill runaways. ‘Masters’ a thousand times more feral than the aforementioned mastiffs- floggings and rapes being the norm rather than the exception. Thomas Jefferson, the so-called champion of slave-rights, wrote about slavery, “We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other”. Regarding marriage between blacks and whites, he contended that "The amalgamation of whites with blacks produces a degradation to which no lover of his country, no lover of excellence in the human character, can innocently consent."

The American Civil War was fought because half the United States felt that slavery must not only be not stopped, it must also be allowed to spread, and tried to justify these pestilential principles as by shrouding them in a metaphorical cloak of the ‘Cause’. This was followed by the Klu Klux Klan and the Jim Crow laws. Slavery ended in 1865 but it took a hundred years for the Civil Rights act to be passed in 1964. And even to this day, subtle reminders turn up to show us that while racism is no longer overt, it is also not non-existent. Blacks still live in ghettoes, Harlem being the most infamous. The quintessential black, thanks to Hollywood, is a rap-loving, overeating, promiscuous basketball buff. Interracial couplings in sitcoms and movies are few and far between. A Will Smith or a Denzel Washington is always paired with a Thandie Newton. In real-life, such couples are practically non-existent. None of the friends in FRIENDS is a Black, in fact the entire ten seasons feature only a smattering of Black characters.

Such was the image in my mind when the US went to vote for Elections 2008. Even when the Democrat elections were going on, I was confident that this would be the election to decide who would lose the White House- the US was not ready for the president to be anyone but a Caucasian male. Despite optimistic exit polls, my view remained staunch- the racist bias would show its hand on the D-Day. Thankfully, I have been proved wrong. American society seems to have matured at last. While anti-incumbency and McCain’s rhetoric might have ensured that any democrat would have been victorious, the margin by which Barack Hussein Obama II won the top office speaks volumes about the changing Yankee populace.

From “I have a dream” to “Yes. We Can”, the journey has been long, and to many, scarcely believable, but one hopes that it has reached its destination. One hopes that the elevation of the son of a Kenyan immigrant to the office of the most powerful man in the world is a significant step in the eradication of that turpitude called racism. One hopes, and one hopes ardently, that this is the dawn of a new era- when not just colour but all other human walls of caste, creed, sex and religion are shattered and humans are viewed as a monistic entity.

Stags aren't dear

2008-10-26T01:06:00.000+05:30

Our college fest is going on as I write this. Before some smart Alec gets incorrect ideas regarding what I’m doing at my room while the fest is in full swing, stop ideating at this very minute. It’s 12.30 am and even by our liberal standards, rather late for anything to be going on. The intoxicated star attraction has just been rushed off-stage by none other than iPrond (take a bow) to prevent him from being manhandled by the stern security men. All in all, good times. Add a pleasant influx of the fairer sex, and the times get better. Lefty the wingman emerges from the shadows and prepares to improve the life of some lucky soul. Being a thinking wingman though, I couldn’t help making a couple of observations. This post is regarding them.

First of all, it makes wingmanning really difficult if more than one girl chooses to hang out with one guy. Didn’t anyone hear that three was a crowd? Plus, there are more eligible guys just waiting to be introduced by the suave wingman, if only the thorn would detach itself. I know how the system works. Boy meets girl. Laws of attraction come into play. Girl’s friend attaches herself to the wannabe couple as a chaperone like figure to help break the ice, and people live miserably ever after. The only problem in this tried and tested system is that the girl’s friend is taken out of the pool of ‘single’ girls that guys can hit on and instead gets the protection of some Johnny who is, in nine cases out of ten, taller and bigger than the wingman.

This led me to the wiser observation- on how the system is never inverted, i.e. you’ll never find a guy filling in as the unwanted third man. Except of course if you study in my college or one of its sister institutes, in which case you’ll be hard put to find (a) any thing that looks remotely like a girl and (b) an (a) which is not surrounded by a gaggle of males. I pity you. But coming back to the point. If there are single girls looking for prospective mates, they never have a problem with these prospective mates playing helpful pal and sheltering under some Amazon’s shadow. Which made me realize how simpler things are for girls. And a tale that a dear friend told me confirmed this.

Dear friend and some dear friends of his wanted to go party at some disc on a weeknight. Fair enough, one would think. There must be plenty of watering holes which would welcome a dozen hearty drinkers with open arms. How wrong one is! The same places which had rolled out the red carpet during ‘happier’ hours now gave the proverbial cold shoulder. “Sorry sir, Stag entry not allowed,” was the standard answer. In some cases, “You can come in and drink sir, but you can’t dance,” was the trying-to-be-helpful response. Dear friend and his dear friends shuddered at the thought of being treated like second rate citizens and declined that latter offer immediately. Like all stories of mine, there was a happy ending. The stags managed to find an obliging moto-bar and spent the best part of that night spending the hard-earned taxpayer’s money that their parents had accumulated. But mention the incident and indignation is visible on their faces. This kind of thing, One strongly feels, should not be allowed. On a weeknight, for crying out loud.

On making further diligent enquiries, it was found that these clubs are the epitome of chivalry. They not only allow single girls to enter, they even encourage them. Entry for them, is free of charge. But this is unfair not just to the shunned stags, but even to the very girls the club is trying to be helpful to. Let’s face it, not all girls are there just to booze or have a girls’ night out. There will definitely be a few who are looking to meet a pair of eyes across a crowded room. Under the current system, woe betide the pair of eyes that meets them. They’ll probably be gouged out by the hands of the lady with whose eyes the earlier pair should have been making contact. In other words, misery, violence, unpleasantness and possible blindness.

So now that I’ve made my point, and club managements who read this have decided to change their sexist laws, I think I’ll update you of what’s been happening ‘pichle saat dino me’ before I turn in. I spent 4 beautiful days at Venky’s, debating and thanking God for His creations. While falling in love several times, I remarked to L.O.V.E. that I might be partial to small noses. Returning to R, I conducted what I consider is the best quiz I’ve made so far. It was the official insti quiz and Rapu won it in style, truly deservedly after having finished a close second to greater geeks for the last 2 years. Nice going, mate.

That’s all for now. Think about what I’ve said earlier, all of you. Nighty night.

For formality's sake

2008-09-28T00:51:00.000+05:30

Truth be told, there's nothing much I have to say. The only reason I'm actually updating my blog is because I like to see an entry a month and September, being one of the best, certainly deserves one. I could go on to narrate the thousand and one everyday, irrelevant, unimportant yet inexplicably much looked-forward to things that have happened to me in the near past. I could concoct some Tale and tell it aloud with much gutso. Or I could just express my views about this and that. But I'm just not in the mood. Let this post be short, for a change.

I went to Bombay earlier this month. I've decided that the trip was too sacred to be written about. 3 of the best days of my life. I do have some great stories though, and I'm not averse to telling them in person.

I've read a couple of books lately. Discovered (and very late, I might shamefully add) a gentleman called Leon Uris. His Exodus is bleddy brilliant and QB VII is pretty good too. There's just this bad habit he has of killing off his characters. Chetan Bhagat's Three Mistakes... is better than One Night..., I thought but not as good as FPS. Once again a promising start is botched up towards the end.

I'm in the middle of Shantaram now. Seems really good so far. Roberts has the rare qualities of being a good storyteller as well as dishing out lines one might ponder upon in the hours of solitude. I specially liked the one which went something like- "This story starts like any other story- A woman, a city and a little bit of luck". There are others too that I can't recall right now. And between any other books that I might read, there's always Wodehouse. Again, he is too sacred to write about.

On the movie front, I watched Rock On (am still humming the songs) and Bachna Ae Haseeno. The latter was seen in the company of 2 demented souls so naturally we loved the movie.

Formality over, I should think. And all the very best to Rapu and the Lazy Labrador.

Love is in the air

2008-08-23T04:13:00.000+05:30

It’s not really spring at the moment. Matters of the heart, one would be led to think, would manifest themselves upon the unsuspecting public keeping the seasons in mind. Wrong. Romance, apparently is impartial to the solar cycle. Or maybe autumn touches more heartstrings than one thinks. Whatever be the reason, Coupling, minus Jeff Murdoch, is in vogue at R at the moment. New players have entered the field, old favourites have returned from snowy Scandinavian stints and rose-tinted glasses (actually a necessity here) have become all too commonplace. From classroom benches to tennis courts, smiling sunshine to mellow moonshine, phone calls to IMs, the romantic sphere of influence has become an ever expanding Chandler Bing from season 4 to 8.

All of this is very pleasing to observe. It is even more pleasing to write about. Few things give me as much satisfaction as seeing good kind souls hobnobbing with better kinder ones. And when one’s Hand of God has been instrumental in making two hearts beat as one, it’s difficult not to think too highly of oneself. There are times, however, when your good works tend to turn on you and you wish there was an escape route. This evening was one of them.

Sporty Hunk, having unsuspectingly executed some exuberant dance maneuvers in front of an admiring Lefty, left for his rendezvous with Woman of Substance. Good old Rapsy Dapsy was 200 kms away in the National Capital, preparing to prove to the nasal nitwits of North America that his knowledge of the English language was better than all of theirs put together. Two of the lousier louts declared their intention of moving to the library to indulge in, and I take full credit for the word about to follow, Catting- the ubiquitous pastime of all Gentlemen at large these days. Since I abhor going to the library, I was in what intellectuals call a dilemma. The truth is that I probably bolt as fast as His Speediness when confronted with the option of going to the library to do some constructive work. It is one of my wiser sayings that “people either study or go to the library”. If I have to do some Catting, I’d rather I do it in the friendly comfort of my own ground floor room. It was then that I was told that Good Boy’s good bye, which I had interpreted, erroneously, to mean that he, that is to say Good Boy was about to waddle off, was supposed to mean that we, that is to say the not so good boys were waddling off, while he, that is to say Good Boy, was, as the saying goes, staying put.

A word on Good Boy in particular, and in my defense in general here. As I had mentioned, love favours no season. Over the summer, Good Boy had joined the coveted League of Committed Gentlemen. It took him three years, but when one has a brain that large, it is bound to take its toll on the rest of the body. So it had become the norm rather than the exception for Good Boy to go toodling off in fine weather. Hence, my earlier erroneous assumption.

Hearing that I was to have company in the Farmhouse after all, I what-ho’d with glee and hopped across to confirm that the Committed Gentleman would be with me through thick and thin that night. Affirmative came the answer, right-ho said the self and I hopped right back to confront problems of complicated routes and shadowy sports seeds. An hour of grappling with the best, and stomach dear said that enough was indeed enough. Very well, said the obedient self, and toodled across to 3 Doors Down to enquire if Committed and Uncommitted stomachs felt the same way.

“O, friend since Bachelor Days,” said Good Boy, “it gives me great pain to say this, but at the moment, it’s not just my heart but my tummy too that is fully occupied.”

“Very well,” said obedient self once more, “I shall wait, and while the wait for the heart to be free might be long-ish, the same for the stomach I trust, shall not be more than an hour. We shall toodle off to the new and improved canteen then.” And with these wise words, it was to familiar nine square that I returned.

The hour I spent doing this and that, notable of which were rejecting the Lazy Labrador’s invite to eat out, and once the clock struck 12, I went 3 Doors Down once more.

“O, friend since Bachelor Days,” said Good Boy, “tonight’s dinner you shall have, but you shall be able to play solitaire when you do, for the night is young, the moon is full, the wind is calm and Lady Love beckons. To be precise, I am going for a Walk.” Being the epitome of courtesy he added, “would you care to come as well?”

Having had Grooming Classes every Thursday in class IX, I had been taught how to take the elusive hint and not say Right-ho, and at that time of my test, I proved that I had never been caught napping. While my groomed self celebrated a victory, the groom leaving meant both solitude and hunger, never an exciting prospect.

“Very well,” the self thought for the third time, “I shall return to the 70’s and find two and half men to spend the evening with.” A frantic search for heavy media ensued, MiM and his ilk were cursed for being careless and of no use, and finally the least lunatic of the minions obliged with 250 gigs of pure digital pleasure. Take a bow, you two. A minion in need is a minion indeed.

The cycle, the grand welcome of the hero at the library, the 2 lousier louts and Mittle, the Canteen of the Urban Wasteland, the Mouse’s lappy and the Goat’s room, Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome and Mr. Tall, Fair and More Handsome, the unexpected Gift of the 2^nd “The Sun rises in the East…”, the doubly unexpected loss of the same to the Wild Bore and at the stroke of midnight hour, when committed people were coochy-cooing, Lefty awoke to the true meaning of life and newer sitcoms and movies.

The End?

P.S.- A fair number of people will not be too happy to see this post. I hope that a fairer number will be happier to see it. However, being an Indian, it is my duty to pander to the idiotic claims of a small minority and I shall add the following disclaimer:

“The events described above might or might not be true. Any resemblance to a living character(s) is a result of good writing and the author feels honoured. In the very good probability that the events described are true, there’s an even better probability that they are exaggerated.”

P.P.S.- I really hate adding all these footnotes, but 13 August was supposedly Left Hander’s day. A belated Yo to all fellow Southpaws.

Writing Under Influence

2008-08-07T14:53:00.000+05:30

I drank tonight. And not water or juice or any of the other beverages. The real stuff. And not mere tasting or surreptitious sipping of the Blue Label that everyone at home was raving about. I drank to the point of feeling light in the head. It would be too harsh and decidedly untrue to say I was drunk. But it would also be stretching the truth to say I was completely sober. I was in the condition where I certainly shouldn’t have driven. But I was in control of most of my faculties. To confirm the same, I cycled to and fro a bit almost in a straight line, gave a near-flawless rendition of ‘Johnny Johnny Yes Papa’ and could recall that the capital of Chad was N’Djamena and that of Burkina Faso was Ougadougou.

I’ve held out against alcohol for quite some time now. However, unlike smoking against which I feel very strongly, I never saw the point of being a teetotaler. No harm in socially drinking. Plus you miss out on a whole world of liquor tasting if you choose to abstain. And I’m always one for new experiences. Moreover, the alcohol in question had been thoughtfully brought from Europe by bosom buddies and you don’t get Danish Vodka and German Whisky everyday.

The light-headedness has worn down now. I didn’t throw up and am quite certain I won’t. Others, after having danced to ‘Main Talli ho gayi’ a dozen times, have retired to sleep. And though not drunk, I’m still in a bit of a haze and it occurred to me that it would be dashed good thing to have a go at the keyboard.

Having downed 3 shots of Vodka (neat), 1 of whisky (equally neat) and 1 mixed, not to mention a couple of very diluted pegs, I spent my calming down hours sitting in what used to be fondly called the Farmhouse. Melancholy was gradually stealing over me and the sight of my once lush green home didn’t make matters any better. Ever since I’ve returned, everything around me seems to portend, and rightly so, that my days at R are sadly numbered. There was a mass clearing out of the hostel last year and it just doesn’t seem the same. The familiar corridors are dotted with unfamiliar faces. Happy memories of days gone by manage to break through the armour of stoic nonchalance that I’ve tried to create and leave me craving for those days again. The hostel is young again; the newbies will soon develop their own culture and make it a happy home, but for now I’m stuck in the kind of limbo in which Hewitt managed to sneak in a Wimbledon title.

The damage done to the farmhouse has specially been heartbreaking. Those calm nights of endlessly gazing into nothingness while silence spoke comfortingly to me will never occur again. The Farmhouse was equally comforting to Lefty when he was struggling to scrape a respectable B, when he was looking to while away sleepless hours and when he was brimming with bouts of confidence which admittedly were few and far between. A monstrosity of pillars and foundations stares at me now, with the profs’ quarters glaring malevolently from behind. The little tranquility that remains in the wee hours is but a hollow vestige of an era gone by.

The air is thick with the news that my time is all but over. These losses are small, soft and subtle yet sudden and shattering. The farmhouse is one of the first of the things that I’ve had to forego and coming after the mag, it is now certain that the wheel of losses has turned into a relentless juggernaut. The rat race for CAT, XAT, GRE and the dozen other exams intensifies with each passing day. Placements begin in December, turning friends into foes vying for the limited places in the limited dream companies. DC leaves at the end of the year. And then the scramble will begin to say good-bye to every nook and cranny, to cherish the last of the moments spent in this long forgotten town before life becomes miserable ever after.

Lines written in the end of Summer

2008-07-24T02:59:00.000+05:30

It’s been an excuse of a summer, weather wise, here in the capital. But thank God for that. I could do with more of these. With climatic and metaphoric end of summer right around the bend, I decided it was time for the much-awaited report of my activities over the last couple of Lunar cycles. Highlights.

The Summer Internship- Having been rejected unceremoniously by Reliance (Big Brother’s), TATA Steel and Abhishek Industries, Lefty had come agonizingly close to losing the evergreen smile on his face. However, Messrs. Larsen and Toubro chivalrously came to the aid of this damned cell in distress. A great lesson in life was learned and I pass it on to ye less wise ones- “What can be done in eight weeks can also be done in six and can be done even more brilliantly in four”.

Gone with the Wind- L&T and self having parted with mutual pleasantries and admiration (one always hopes), the quintessential happy ending had been achieved. It was naturally time, in this life full of care, to stand and stare to the heart’s content. Standing being strenuous exercise, I preferred sitting and staring. Read earlier post for details. I also started reading the third mammoth novel that I have ever read. Reasons for doing so were simple. I had the Vivian Leigh-Clark Gable starrer on my hard disk and it, being a VOB file, was taking up an immodest 4.5 GB of precious memory. In order to delete it, I felt I had to watch it first, and in order to watch it, I felt I had to read it first. Plus, the book had been spoken highly of in Kane and Abel. I finished the thousand page war epic, taking the better part of 3 days to do so. Then I deleted the VOB file without watching the movie anyway. 4.5 GB well earned.

Kung-Fu Panda- Good movie. I didn’t enjoy it as much as others would have because I’d had some unrealistic expectations. But I recognize that it was good movie. 2 specially amazing sequences. Some funny scenes. An empty air-conditioned hall in which one could put up one’s feet on the seat in front. What more does a man want?

Hancock- Decent. Will Smith’s done a fine job. I liked the concept of a lazy unwilling much-maligned and even more hated superhero, but thought the rest of the film could have been much better. A soppy end spoiled what could have been a good film.

Osian Cinefan Film Festival- Was held in Delhi from 10 to 20 July. Lesser known Asian and Arabic films were screened. Went there with The Complete Man on his Mean Machine. Was reminded how much fun a bike-ride could be. The ambience in the film festival was good. There was a panel discussion with some young directors constituting the panel. Speakers I enjoyed listening to were- a Pakistani who had made a gory film about zombies running loose in the land of the pure and had hoodwinked the traditional authorities in order to shoot such a non-traditional film, a Chinese who had made his film for a paltry $2,000 and was quite witty to boot, an Indonesian lady who had demanded beer and had been rather unhappy when denied and then revealed that she had raised the money for her film through her bevy of ex’s. The film we eventually watched was a Lebanese one- Under the Bombs. It turned out to be more of a documentary so we left halfway.

Jaane Tu… ya Jaane Na- Stupid gay movie. Idiots made Garfield pink.

The Dark Knight- Now this was a movie. Showed the true spirit of Batman, I thought. My words can’t really do it justice, so I won’t say anymore. Go watch it. Then watch it again. And again. And again.

Food- Quality and quantity were appreciated. Some of the more delicious meals were at Dilli Haat with the Incredible Bulk, 2 at Asia’s Kitchen- a great new Chinese Joint and a couple at the ever-mouth-watering KFC. Many more but it’s getting rather late and it’s been a long hard day.

I also turned 21 over the summer. The happiest day of the season, perhaps.

Next year, many will be able to say to me- I know what you did last summer. Muhuhahaha.

And Happy Birthday, Kaka.

One afternoon…

2008-06-20T04:04:00.000+05:30

Chocolate dark brown, peach on the darker side and white. The 2 walls and ceiling of my room converge at the less holy confluence and my eyes inadvertently stray to that spot. The bean bag I’ve stretched myself out on becomes more comfortable by the minute. A good meal has been had and all is right with the world. The lights are off, but some friendly rays are allowed to filter through the curtains, allowing the room to be shrouded in a dark cloak. But there is just enough light for each object to proclaim its existence though not its identity- a comfortable state of hazy darkness that I feel most at home in. The fan whirs above me- silent but effective. It is always dynamic yet everlastingly static, something that never tires me of my fascination of watching it for hours on end. Siesta time means there’s peace and quiet around, though the faint drumming of men at work can be discerned in the distance. Dozens of thoughts flit harmlessly through my mind, to be replaced by dozens more. All non-sequitur. My eyes wander, lazily going over the knickknacks here and there. A sudden guffaw breaks the calm of silence- my sister is watching Friends close by, using earphones at my insistence. A thorough knowledge of the sitcom coupled with what is audible through the phones allows me to acknowledge the source of laughter and I smile within, allowing my mouth to twitch a bit in the bargain. The hands of the clock tick by, but somehow, my sanctum sanctorum is unaffected by the merciless tide of time. Within these four walls, stillness reigns supreme. Some minutes pass by and I adjust my posture a bit to make myself, if possible, still more comfortable. The whole cycle is repeated. Again. And again.
Heaven.

Opinions and Speculations

2008-06-20T03:22:00.000+05:30

The top story in sporting cliques these days is all the guesswork and speculation regarding Christiano Ronaldo. Will he move to Madrid? Won’t he? Why should he? Why should he not? What he gains and what he loses? They just keep on coming. Why then, I thought, should I not join the bandwagon. Keep reading to glimpse my take- thoroughly amateur and what could easily be optimistic gibberish.

The way I look at it, Ronaldo is definitely going to Madrid. As a cousin of mine who’s also a Real supporter told me a couple of months ago- “I hope United win the Champion’s League. Then there would be no further initiative for Ronny to stay on and he’ll come to Madrid.” It makes a lot of sense. Ronaldo has had a dream run this season. His purple patch can’t turn a more perfect shade of purple. And it’s always best to go out on top. He might have the fear of being booted out (literally in Beckham’s case and figuratively in Keane’s) by the sacred SAF, thought the Gaffer has always been firmly behind him. Ronny’s recent interviews also indicate that much. And for all the talk of his manager advising him to stay on and his mommy insisting he’s not going anywhere, balderdash is what I say. When you’re at that level, you don’t listen to your manager or your mom.

Secondly, as long as he stays at United, Ronaldo will know that the club is always greater than the player. It’s that way for us Red Devils. Even the great David Beckham couldn’t take supporters with him to Madrid. Here at United, you’re a great glittering jewel, but you’re part of the crown. Take yours truly for example. I’m a Man U fan first, a Scholes fan second, a Giggs fan third and so on. Its not that way for Madrid. They play with their Galacticos. It’s always been like that- right from the days of De Stefano and Puskas to those of Figo and Zidane. The motives for buying the big names may be different. As I read in a book on Beckham’s transfer once- Figo was bought to annoy Barca, Zidane for purely footballing reasons, Ronaldo to cement the Galacticos brand and now Beckham to sell shirts in Asia and to add that extra glitter. In the Royals’ crown, the jewels are often so big and bright that you forget there was a crown in the first place.

Moreover, getting wooed by Real is a huge status symbol for any footballer. It’s like dating the hottest cheerleader in school. You announce to the world that you’re the star quarterback. The Galactico of the day- that’s got to mean something. And Ronny being from Portugal might even consider it on grounds of moving to a country that is most similar to his. Iberian sisters I ask you- what more similarity could he want? He’s had a great stint at United, he’ll be missed, but it’s a great challenge for him. One wants to play along the most glamorous footballers of the day, and he’ll be doing just that.

For United also, I would say the move makes a lot of sense. You’ve got to realize that if not today then tomorrow you’ll be searching for a new no. 7. So better do it now when Real are really hungry for him. And they are. The Galacticos they generally buy are either pushing 30 or on the wrong side of it. Our Ronny is not even 25. If they’re willing to pay 75 million dollars, take it I say. Take it with both hands. It’ll be a pity if Ronaldo doesn’t play this well next season and we have to sell him for lesser. And now that there’s a real prospect of his leaving United, I can shed the rose-tinted glasses I used to watch him with and admit a few home-truths. While I admire him tremendously as a player, one has to admit that he’s selfish. Despite the Champion’s League final goal, he tends to buckle under pressure and you get the feeling that he leaves a lot to be desired in the big games. And Ronny is a diver. He has less integrity that most other footballers even though he’s cut down a lot. One can’t forget that it was Ronaldo who pleaded with the Ref to give Rooney, his club partner, a yellow card in the bad-tempered Euro 2004 quarter against England and was then caught winking towards the camera. But of course, when he scores 42 (see. Again) goals for you in one season, all this goes to the wall.

So now we come to the question of who will take his place. Nani is not half as good now. He might improve but not being too fond of him, I have my reservations. He’s pretty good, and will definitely get better, but I don’t see him as a successor to the jersey that has been adorned by Cantonna, Becks and Ronny. The guy I have my eye on however, is I think. I’ve had an eye on him since Euro 2004 but since we never needed him then, I never envisaged him donning the great red jersey. However having just seen the amazing spectacle that was the Euro 2008 quarter between Germany and Portugal, the idea has been pushed in my face. And he’s come off the superior midfielder in this match. Yes, my dear readers. The man I’m thinking of is none other than Bastian Scweinsteiger.

It’s probably too puerile to even be called optimistic but I’ll still go on to explain why he’s such a great choice. He’s incredibly young- ’84 August born. He’s as creative as Ronaldo. I concede he hasn’t got so many tricks up his sleeve or is as good dribbling. But he’s on the same wavelength as far as free-kicks go, possibly better. And he definitely scores as far as shooting outside the 30 yard area goes. Leave today’s performance. His performance in the third place play-off against Portugal in WC-06 is ample testimony to that particular facet of his footballing skills. Anyway, why compare the two? Fact of the matter is, he’s a brilliant young player. And most importantly, the qualities one would use to describe Scweinsteiger are almost the same that United epitomize. He’s got flair. He’s like Rooney in the sense that he’s a no-nonsense stick-with-the-ball juggernaut. And he’s got a similar temper. Then he’s got that wonderful never-say-die attitude. I can actually see him in the glorious red jersey now.

But harsh realities have this really annoying habit of coming in the way of our most wonderful dreams. While Scweinsteiger’s contract with Bayern does end in June 2009, it’s bound to be renewed. He’s been with them as a youth player since 1994 and might well retire in Bayern’s colours. He’s happy there and it’s going to take a lot to get him to come. Plus, as Old Man Poochie told me, Juve have been after him for 2 years now. But then, if we can get $75 million for Ronny, who knows? It’s a lot of money. Old Man’s take is CR7 = Robinho + Sergio Ramos + Cash. Take Scweinsteiger with the cash, he says. Or even Podolski will be good enough. Lefty’s dime a dozen opinion: CR7 = BS + Cash. Do whatever you like with the cash; just bring Bastian Scweinsteiger to the Theatre of Dreams. Is Sir Alex listening?

Bloggiversary-II

2008-06-14T23:55:00.000+05:30

Right then. It's my second bloggiversary. Thought I'd mention it.
I'm in a really happy mood these days. Couple of reasons why:
1. Euro 2008 so far has been... wait for it... Legendary. Netherlands and Spain have both been doing great. Here's to it getting even better.
2. The 'work' part of my internship is over. So now even my boss says I just have to go relax and bide my time for another couple of days.
3. My cousins are coming over in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to that.

So as I exult in this once-again found joie-de-vivre, here's wishing all of mankind, specially the very very small section that reads this blog, a very happy time too.

Cheers.

Almost Famous? Definitely Infamous

2008-06-10T20:13:00.000+05:30

After three very eventful years at R, which I’ve done my best to record faithfully on this URL, when I used to look back, I had only one constant regret. As far as the Dep was concerned, Lefty was an absolutely unknown entity. As far as the learned Keepers of the Dep’s Keys were concerned, I was a complete nobody. Neither a boost to the attendance register nor a blemish on its hallowed pages. Average Joe would have been in the limelight when placed next to me. While all this went well with my philosophy of peaceful co-existence, and served as a huge blessing as far as proxies were concerned, there were moments when I would long for recognition, for my name to have some memories attached to it, for even a nod in my direction recognizing my presence. Sadly, as far as the one-floor MMED went, to use the popular internet joke, in the list of Who’s Who I was the unflattering What’s That? All this might have changed however, yet I don’t think I should be celebrating.

Like any other academic omphalos, the Dep places some importance on that absolutely otiose ritual that in colloquial parlance is called the Viva. Apart from its name, the only other thing it has in common with Channel V’s first popstar band is that no one wants to hear it. When yours truly has to face the music, I am usually in excellent company. There’s the inimitable Sajji, the unflappable Shailesh and last and also the least- me. Apart from being legendary at C++, the three of us are also any examiner’s dream come true. When our turn comes, we spend the maximum amount of time in pleasantries. We wish the prof a very good morning/afternoon. He in turn wishes us an even better morning/afternoon. We take our seats. He is already seated. He shoots off the first question. One of us gives some semblance to the correct answer. He shoots of the second. We say we don’t know. He shoots the third. We say we don’t know again. The ground-rules are very firmly established. No beating about the bush. There is absolutely no attempt by either party to waste the other’s time by pretending to know more than one actually does. We believe the prof knows what he’s talking about and expect him to accept that we know very little of it. It is only a matter of time that the prof bids us a fond farewell. We bid him a fonder one and lo, another quintessential happy ending. Throughout this supposed ordeal, we are the epitome of the calm and composed. James Bond couldn’t be in better fettle when seated in his favourite Aston Martin. The results speak volumes about our competence in the aforementioned ritual. While the rest of the batch sweats and swots for the top and treads on the unfortunate bodies of those who constitute the bottom, the Three Mouse-keteers are place in that comfortable bracket- Average.

The last viva, however, saw a break from this tradition. Like the lion who demanded one animal a day in the stories of yore, the Smiling Surd and the Beer-Belly Bird decided to interrogate individually each lamb to the slaughter. Robbed of my faithful band of brothers, I could be forgiven for being a shade nervous. However, I did feign enough confidence into what I hoped would be the longest sentence I uttered when I exchanged the perfunctory pleasantries. I had no idea on what I was getting myself into.

For the benefit of the readers, all thoughts of any person have been italicized.

Smiling Surd: Well young man, what have you learned in these practicals?
Lefty: Thank God. A repeated question (Answers eloquently).
SS: Easy now. No need to be nervous. So you’ve learned this, that and the other. Sheesh. Another nervous type
Lefty: Damn. Seems I was less eloquent than I thought. Yes sir.
SS: What is the difference between “this” and “the other”?
Beer-belly Bird: I’ve been waiting a long time for my Ph.D. Let the idiot answer correctly so he makes me, i.e. his prof, look good
Research Scholar: (Snore)
Lefty: er… ummm… “This” is … and “The other” is …
BBB: noooooooooooo
SS: He makes rookie mistakes. Think carefully and answer. What is “this” and what is “the other”?
Lefty: (comprehension dawns). Oh This and The Other. They’re the same. I thought you meant That and The Other. Let him fall for it. Please.
SS: Hmmm. I think I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt this time. But better make sure he doesn’t repeat this trick, though. Yes. Yes. See you can think carefully and answer. No need to be nervous. I won’t make you answer anything. You can even write down your answer.
Lefty: Very good sir.

Now the next question ought to be understood by one and all. It was an exceedingly obvious one. Like what is five times one, where the answer is always the number itself. Or what is five times zero, where the answer is always zero. I think I’ll go with five times zero for this tale. I might or might not be the One but back then, I was closer to being Zero.

SS: Let me ask him a simple question before I move on to Big Things. What is five times zero?
Lefty: (mind racing frenetically) five times zero? Five times zero? Er. Is it two?
BBB: nooooooooo. (Kurt Cobain's "I'm not the only one" starts playing in his mind)
SS: (admirable impression of Janice) Oh. My. God. Two?
Lefty: Er. Two. No wait. It’s 2.34345.
SS: My. He’s certainly innovative. 2.34345? I’ve never heard of that. I thought the answer could only be a natural number.
Lefty: Two then. Yes. Two.
SS: Are you sure? See I won’t make you say anything. I’m not hurrying you. Take your time. Here, write down whatever you feel is correct. Five times zero is ___
Lefty: (takes the proffered pen and pad. Hands tremble. Writes down five times zero is two)
RS: (Shaken out of his somnolent reverie) Wow. He is stupid. He should become an RS.
BBB: I’ve taught this for four months without killing either him or myself?
SS: What a story to tell my wife when I get home. Now, let’s see what other students of your class think. (Consults attendance register) Call Chiraunji.
(Enter Chiraunji)
Chiraunji: What has the idiot gotten into now?
SS: Ah. Chiraunji. Tell us. What is five times zero?
Chiraunji: This has to be a trick. He couldn’t have messed this up. Zero sir.
Lefty: (comprehension dawns again) Yes sir. Zero. Anything multiplied by zero is zero. (goes on to explain, very incoherently, why anything multiplied by zero is zero)
SS: (Smiles even more widely) See I told you to take your time and answer. I didn’t press you. You wrote down what you felt was correct yourself.
Lefty: (Continues explaining, even more incoherently, why five times zero is zero)
BBB: (Furious. Livid. Apoplectic.) Mr {first name} {last name}. You know absolutely nothing about the subject. I suggest you study {some subject taught last year} thoroughly first, before you even start bothering with this one.
RS: (Snore)
SS: (Still smiling)
Lefty: Does this mean the viva is over? Guess it does. Yes sir. Sorry sir. Thank you sir.

After my dismissal, the Surd and the Bird asked Sajji to wait a bit so that they could discuss my plight in further detail. Later, the HOD came over and was shown the legendary piece of paper adorned with my erroneous handwriting. “Look what this third year student has written”. I guess the Bird resented that more than I would have. The story will probably circulate around the dep for many years to come and posterity will remember the deeds of the four-eyed Lefty who made five times zero two.

I hate viva. Vodka shots, anyone?

Another first

2008-05-26T23:09:00.000+05:30

Life is full of firsts. You look forward to most of them, counting the seconds. Teenage, the day one turns 18, your first cycle/bike/car- the list is long and varied. Well-begun is half done, they say, and any beginning certainly seems to linger in one’s minds long after the task itself. You might not know your current salary, but unless you’re a poor Sub-Saharan African kid who had to endure slave labour before being adopted by Angelina Jolie, you won’t forget your starting pay package in a hurry. In fact, a considerable part of any biography is spent describing the numerous firsts no one particularly wants to read about. Then there are the firsts of a romantic nature, of course. After the disastrous cataclysm that was cryptically called MI-20, the less said about them the better. With every passing day, I’m lagging further and further behind in my race against 21.2, which is looming ominously close every second. The writing on the wall seems to be crystal clear in saying that any Green Field investment in that sector is not likely to yield even decreasing returns to scale, let alone normal or increasing ones. (On an immodest note, I well and truly aced my economics course this sem). Coming back to the Queen’s English of a less confusing nature, just as there are firsts that you can’t remember- your first footsteps, your first words etc, there are first that you don’t want to remember. This post is about one of them.

Exceedingly intelligent fellow that I am, it dawned on me one fine day last sem, that I was months away from turning 21. Unlike some people, I believe that the 21^st birthday, thankfully unlike its predecessor, is a cause for much celebration. However, the abomination that the educated call examinations had put my normally sunny self in a clouded mood, and I was tending to focus on the downside more. It occurred to me that when I think of a 21 year old, the image that comes to mind is that of an earnest, responsible, eight-hour working, browbeaten fellow who toils to earn his daily bread to support his fledgling family. A far cry from the carefree, United supporting (Kings of England, Emperors of Europe) that yours truly is. Having expressed the same to Good Boy who at that time was with me, the gentleman shared an experience that troubled me so much that it would be the understatement of the year to say that it sent shivers down my spine. When he was off gallivanting in Singapore, it transpired, some chit of a girl had referred to him, as ‘Uncle’ much to his righteous indignance. That the same might happen to me one day did cross my mind but wishful thinking ruled the roost.

The reader would by now have guessed what this post is about. Those who haven’t are requested not to read any further, respecting the IQ limits that this blog demands. I concede that it being internship season, I was decked in the much loathed formal attire- spotless shirt and trousers immaculately ironed. I would have passed off for a very, and I mean very, young executive learning the ropes of the ruthless corporate world. Or I could even have been one of those unfortunate creatures who insist on wearing formals even though the far more comfortable casual attire is both easier on the eye and body. They are both young and stupid, like the quintessential youth, and I could have been one of them.

Armed with my laptop, I walked into a computer shop, intending to get my charger repaired for the umpteenth time, little knowing the dangers that awaited me. I was greeted by a kid, a laptop and the owner of the shop, in that order. The owner neither noticed nor acknowledged my arrival. The laptop, I am sure, noticed my arrival, but lacking the faculties to speak, did not acknowledge it. The kid, much to my chagrin, did both the noticing and acknowledging part with great panache. A “Good morning Uncle” might have been heard in the distance. Now kids being well mannered enough to say Good morning is a rarity that can be measured in ppm (parts per million) kids. Kids calling me Uncle is, of course, something that had never happened before. The two happening together should ideally be an impossibility, so it is quite natural that my ears filtered out the greeting before it could be registered by my brain. The toddler, however, was obdurately persistent. He insisted on displaying his thoroughbred upbringing, his admirable desire to catch my attention and his complete idiocy. Come to think of it, it wasn’t even morning at that time. Half-a-dozen “Good morning Uncles” later, even my finely tuned ear-filters had to accept that the unflattering salutation was for self.

In another bout of immodesty, one thing will have to be said about us Lefties. We can take blows on the chin and grin about it. Inside, my bones had been chilled to the marrow, my heart had suffered several palpitations and I had fainted some five-six times. The true meaning of the world “swimming before one’s eyes” had dawned on me vividly, as the world was at that moment executing some very athletic underwater somersaults. On the façade however, none of this showed. I beamed even more widely, said hello even more effusively and showed off my own good manners by enquiring about the game that he was playing on said laptop. So amicable was my disposition, so genuine my interest in his activities, that like most of his ilk, the two footer took an immediate liking to me, and proceeded to explain how he had just cleared level 2, how his robot had become faster and more advanced and what the game was called, peppering his titillating explanations with generous doses of ‘Uncle’. Having thus broken the ice and shown that I came in peace, I hobnobbed with the owner himself, got my charger fixed and returned, poorer by two hundred quid and sadder by infinite degrees.

Maybe, I should take Grace Bedell’s advice for Abe Lincoln and grow a bit of a beard. A star spangled hat, a stern look and a pointing index finger could complete the ensemble and posters could be printed- “Uncle Lefty wants you.”

Or on second thoughts, maybe I should just wallow in my misery.

Magic of Madhushala

2008-04-20T02:46:00.000+05:30

I’ve always been rather fond of poetry. Not as fond of poetry as people who are actually fond of poetry- you know, the types who can quote Wordsworth and Keats and Tennyson and the et cetras any time they want or from who’s tongues the terms Victorian and Romantic roll off like anything. I just like to hear good verses and try to get hold of them. That’s it. And while I have an extremely soft corner for the English Language, I do believe that there is absolutely nothing in the world that can even come close to the kind of wonder that Hindi poetry is. We had a long discussion on the same in the Farmhouse one fine day but had to conclude with the usual “it’s all perception”. As far as novels are concerned, give me the Roman Script any day. Apart from Mrityunjay, I’ve not even read a single Hindi novel. But poetry is something completely different. I mean, Wordsworth did give a pretty good account of Westminster’s Bridge and there’s The Light of Other Days, The Brook, The Charge of the Light Brigade and The Sea (I’ve got to like it, it’s my name after all) but how do you compare anything to geniuses like Maithilisharan Gupta, Jaishankar Prasad or the inspirational Ramdhari Singh ‘Dinkar’. And then of course, there’s the master of them all- Dr. Harivansh Rai ‘Bachchan’.

It was my Nani who instilled the love for Hindi literature in me. One of the million things that I consider her legacy. While she did introduce me to most of the legendary lines that any beginner who’s just begun to dabble in verse should be introduced to, Madhushala was somehow left out. I knew that Madhushala was Dr. Bachchan’s masterpiece, of course, but that was where my knowledge ended. Last week, when I was at home, Mamma and I spent a lovely evening going over the magical verses of his Magnum Opus (can Madhushala be called that, I wonder?). Trying to describe the many things it says would only take away from its beauty. They did remain at the back of my mind though, and I would recommend anyone who’s stumbled across this page to go read Madhushala ASAP.

A practical demonstration of the magic of Madhushala was in store for me the other day. Before I proceed however, a bit of background info might be in order. After having been through the banalities that comprise our Department Formals, where Yours Truly also obliged by doing the Boogie-Woogie on stage, Lefty and the Lousy Louts had unanimously decided that the batch just senior to us in our revered Dep was full of idiots with a capital I, and it would be up to us to uphold the integrity and coolness of good old Meta. The impression was far from the truth actually, but sensibilities would change later. The reason for this misleading impression was simple- the specimens of the senior batch that we were subjected to lacked a lot of the qualities that we were looking for. The ones that did possess these qualities- we were never subjected to. A classic case of ‘I get what I want not and I want what I get not’.

Having moved to the Farmhouse a year later, we modified our stand to- “most of them are idiots, with a capital I”. There were some fine gentlemen but they were in a minority. Luckily for us, they were in the same hostel. The minority increased as our years in the hostel grew and when the New Year brought with it daily games of cricket, we finally began to suspect that they might actually be a bunch of pretty cool guys. However, what two years couldn’t accomplish, Madhushala did with great ease. A couple of job parties, abundant liquor, and the previous viewpoints had been permanently reversed. It cost the seniors some dough, it cost me my old mattress and shoes but then, all’s well that ends well.

Having thus broken the ice, regular tete-a-tetes with the seniors became common. It would be too immature to say that we became bosom buddies but there was definitely some sort of a bond that was built which was enough to tell us that we would miss these guys a lot next year. So, we decided to give this now-declared cool batch of seniors a grand farewell (read, more liquor). Since I was the host this time, I couldn’t very well bolt myself up in my room or lock it and disappear as I had done previously after having borne the repercussions (read Nice Guys Finish Last). I therefore made an effort to be the life and soul of the party. Being one of the only sober guys in an inebriated group leaves you with a lot of responsibilities. You are the person who carries the extra wobbly ones to their rooms. You’re the ones who hides the empty, and occasionally full bottles, from the guy who tends to smash ‘em up when in a drunken stupor. You have to fill in as bartender occasionally and also see to it, as host, that the supply is constant. And on very rare occasions, you’re the one who has to see that the watchman is safely seen off with a glass of whiskey.

During the party, I could not just feel the disappointment regarding this late realization but had people coming up and talking about it too. Both our year and the senior one felt that we’d spent too much time being aloof and unconcerned. We had the same lifestyles, we had the same taste in music, we ranted about the same subjects and the same profs, for crying out loud. But unfortunately, we’d wasted too much time forming hasty impressions and not bothering to mix. It’s one thing to say that there are still a couple of weeks to enjoy, but as one of the best of them wisely said, “All of us know what we’ve lost out on.” On the bright side however, we did manage to see each other in the right light in the end. It might be too little too late, but at least it’s something. Incoherent chants of “Three Cheers for Third Year for throwing such a great party” and “Three Cheers for Fourth Year for deserving such a grand party” along with promises of a fully funded vacation at Goa rounded off a memorable night. Fresh from the verses of Madhushala, I could help twist some of Dr. Bachchan’s lines, which he uses to describe the religious divides and how Madhushala overcomes them, to fit into the present context:
“Bair karate Thomso-Cogni, Mel karati Madhushala”
Cheers.

Third time unlucky

2008-03-29T06:46:00.000+05:30

Always the bridesmaid. And still the bridesmaid. 1 freakin' point. But, as the wise bodybuilder turned guv'nor said, "I'll be back."

Just another ‘Holi’-day

2008-03-22T07:28:00.000+05:30

Another sleepless night. Another early morning of watching the sun rise. The only thing that makes this particular night different from countless others is that today is Holi. The festival of colours. What I believed was the Hindu New Year till an argument with other wise-guys in the hallowed portals of our ever-alluring mess forced me to be less confident. What was surprising was that everyone else came up with his own opinion of what the New Year was. The result of the argument is still pending, probably because all of us are too lazy to check up the facts on the net. Note to self- check up the facts on the net after typing out this post. Unlike most other people, Holi holds no charm for me whatsoever these days. Before my aunt announced that she would be visiting this evening with my cousins, something that I’m eagerly looking forward to as I’ve not met them for some time now, the high point of today was going to be the latest Roadies episode. Followed by Premiership Saturday, which again pales into comparison with Grand Slam Sunday that awaits us tomorrow. Here’s hoping for a United victory. How different all this is from the little Lefty who would be shivering with excitement till a couple of years ago, as this momentous day dawned.

Back in my hometown, the night before Holi, I would be quivering with excitement, supremely confident that I would never get any sleep in this titillating state of exuberance. I’d get up early in the morn, don the clothes discarded so long ago, that would miraculously appear that day, and impatiently wait for the ‘council of elders’ to deem it sunny enough to go out and indulge myself. Our huge ancestral home was more often than not filled to the brim with near and dear relatives, who had managed to squeeze some time off to be at home that day. For us younger ones, the festivities would begin with filling up buckets of water and adding generous amounts of colour to them- ammo for our pichkaaris, those beloved piston shaped plastic weapons. Some senseless and almost ineffective squirting on each other would set the tone for greater things to come. We would then all unite and proceed to the terrace. An unsuspecting stranger in an inviting spotless white shirt or kurta, a squirt, a splat, a triumphant whoop and a gleeful “Bura na maano holi hai” would round off the proceedings.

By then, the council of elders would have decided that time had now deemed it prudent for them to start too, and the entire melee would proceed to colour the grounds. The optimistic mater and the aunts who chose to minimize the damage by applying oil, would be wiped clean of the same before being subjected to considerable doses of colour by the doting devars. We, on our part, would go from house to house in the neighbourhood, armed with buckets, pichiikaris and colour, waiting to pounce on the clean friend who came out. The same soul would come out with his own ammo, hopelessly outnumbered but determined not to go down without a fight. In the vicinity, the infamous gwalas of our beloved Railway Minister’s fame would be playing their own brand of holi- cow-dung galore. Eggs and even mud was considered positively genteel. Considering the high standards of rowdiness that were set before us to try and emulate, it is nothing short of shocking that we didn’t even tear off each others pockets. How disappointed the gwalas must have been with us. The only way we allowed ourselves to be affected was to be exceedingly careful in house-hopping, lest some stray cow-dung found our way to us.

As morning wore on, the festivities would become more intense. Water balloons, Holi battles with teams, pukka rang- you name it. Our innocent and charming visages would soon become a palette of badly mixed colours, the already worn clothes now resembling rags. Exhausted and hungry, and outdoors in the same ragamuffin guise, we would gorge on the puas and steaming hot mutton that had been prepared. Then the time of undoing the damage done would come. Water, soap and shampoo, scrub-a-dub-dub, expletives to that malicious soul who had put dry colour on your hair so that water would exacerbate the damage rather than mend it. An hour or so of hard work and one was almost clean again. In my case, the palms would always bear telltale signs of holi. Pulao-meat for lunch and then, siesta time.

Holi evenings and mornings are as disparate as chalk and cheese. While the mornings are nothing but exhausting wildness, the evening rituals are solemn and formal. Everything is arranged in its proper place- the abeer in that segmented glass plate surrounded by tempting dahi-bades and other assorted snacks as one either goes visiting relatives or waits for the same to come calling. Apart from touching the elders’ feet in the quintessential gesture of asking for blessings, the same feet are adorned with abeer by the younger ones. The elders then reciprocate by sprinkling abeer on your face along with the traditional teeka. It was a standing joke that I would be given my own spotless white kurta-pajama every year for the evening which I would only wear that once in the entire year. After meeting some relatives and friends, we would generally all assemble at some place for a mega-gathering. While the elders sat and chatted, we would indulge in the mindless but eminently enjoyable games of tag or something, our games punctuated by the arrival of yet another relative who would be added to the gathering, meaning the aforementioned ritual had to be repeated on the latest additon. Wiping myself clean of the abeer with the new hanky that came along with the kurta-pajama, totally spent, I would, with some regret, call it a highly successful day which had sadly ended.

Those days of innocent mirth seem so far off now. Today, I shall probably just wish my folks a happy holi, have my breakfast of Puas and doze off while they go play holi with the neighbours who I hardly know or make any effort to know. I’ll join them for the traditional lunch of Pulao-meat of course. Except that it’ll just be us. A lot has changed since back then.

My cousins and friends who made anniversaries of this day so eagerly awaited and enjoyable are scattered across various corners of the country- Manipal, Kolkata, Tumkur, Bangalore, Kanpur and even as far as Malaysia and Arkansas. The others are in that merciless grind which is sadly necessary to put you in a decent college. Following our move to the national capital, the ancestral house has lost the tag of ‘home’ that it had borne for almost 7 decades. Every year on holi, a relentless wave of nostalgia comes crashing down on me as I recall all those memories that form an indelible and cherished part of my life. I miss it all. I miss my hometown. I miss the rambling old place that I used to call home. I miss my narrow gali and the familiar muhalla. I miss the frequent meetings with my cousins and the daily games with my friends. Like all other paradoxical beings who “long to grow up when they are children and long to become children again when they’ve grown up”, I miss my childhood.

The Chicken Pox Diaries

2008-03-18T01:24:00.000+05:30

I realized in the beginning of March that the purest, most magical of words could have negative connotations. Word in question being Chicken. The word so far synonymous with succulent kebabs, oriental genius and continental creativity was suddenly associated with big fat spots that quarantine you for the best part of ten miserable days. Worst of all, for those ten miserable days, you are denied the culinary pleasures of life. To be precise, it’s not nice. The previous sentence rhymes, by the way.

The prolonged hiatus from the outside world that was enforced upon me had, like everything else, some up sides. It meant that I could rekindle my long lost love affair with that amazing invention of John Logie Baird. The flame, I saw, still burned strong. I watched every episode of MTV Roadies 5.0 around 5 times. For those interested in following the show, Praabhjot was voted out in the last episode. It was a bit sad to see everyone ganging up against her. But it did mean that Shambhavee, who I might add is very very cute, remains for at least one extra week. I also managed to see every goal that was scored in EPL about a dozen times. United, sadly, lost to Portsmouth in the FA Cup. But at least they’re top of the league now. And the Gooners drew their last game which means we could have a 3 point lead. Woo-hoo. The Champions League draw is out, leaving me in the hope of a repeat of last year’s heavenly thrashing of the Italian behemoths.

I’ve also been watching many of the news channels with great interest. Zee news, in all seriousness, had a half-an-hour show discussing whether The Great Khali, of the WWE fame, needed a girlfriend to win more matches. They lamented on how he was losing to the lesser opposition of the Undertaker and Batista and went on to harp on the benefits of a ‘female partner’. The same fight sequences were shown again and again along with profiles of the eligible ‘female partners’. A complete waste of half-an-hour of news time, some might say, but very entertaining to watch. I also try to tune in to CNBC once in a while. Udayan Mukherjee is at his knowledgeable best, analyzing the tremors in the market. It’s all very intellectually stimulating and there’s a lot to learn from it. Sadly, I don’t understand a thing, but continue to watch it due the feeling of superiority that it entails. There’s a nice late night show on it where they analyze NYSE and the Dow Jones Index and some wise people give financial advice to some not-so-wise people.

I’ve finally got around to appreciating the NBA. I actually woke up at 5 one morning to catch some matches. I’m finally beginning to realize what terms like ‘point guard’ and ‘fast break’ mean. Still looking for a team to support though. Phoenix Suns had a good match with some guy called Abutmeyer or something playing very well. Shaq too did a good job as point guard. Boston Celtics have Kevin Garnett and the Lakers have Kobe, which is all very nice. I was specially impressed by the Hornets though. They played together very well as a team. Chris Paul was impeccable and some 7-footer called Chandler was very good too. They beat the Lakers in a close game helped by some atrocious shooting from the more-fancied team, despite a great game by Kobe.

Despite the absence of a grove to recline in, I’ve managed to do a lot of soul-searching. Enlightenment is only a tree away now. Placed in room-arrest, I often was in that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts brought sad thoughts to the mind. And the opposite. I concluded that the timing of Chicken Pox was Life’s subtle way of telling you that there will be times when things just won’t go your way. It was bad enough missing the Trip due to jinxed calendars, but to have missed the PD after a month of blood, sweat and toil was pretty much the last straw. I felt that I let the Decayed Canine and L.O.V.E. (previously known as Politically Correct Person) down for we’d really thought we had a good shot at the title. Sadly, things just didn’t go our way.

In the end, Chicken Pox also turned out to be Life’s subtle way of making me thankful for the amazing set of friends that I’m lucky to have. Amazing is so much of an understatement here. A Kurta from Udaipur as I wasn’t there. And here, I must break the cardinal rule of this blog which hitherto had been so easy to follow- thou shalt not betray any emotion. It’s ironical that there are around 20 synonyms for touched and overwhelmed in the best of the Thesaurus’s but I still can’t put how I felt in words. What was even stranger was that in some way, when I saw all the photos and heard the juicier tales, I felt as though I’d not really missed everything. I felt as though I’d been there with them for most of the trip. I could actually picture myself there, picture my reactions to the (mis?)adventures as they took me through the happening 5 days. Every pic I saw had a Lefty in some corner with some characteristic expression on his visage. And in some small way, they knew it all too. My physical presence might have been missed along with my brilliant jokes (one always hopes) but that, I think, was it. In every other sense of the word, I was there. And I guess that’s what friendship is. Thanks guys.

Nice Guys Finish Last

2008-02-16T16:09:00.000+05:30

Every person is supposed to be gifted. Some can sing exceedingly well. Sadly, I’m not one of them. My gift is slightly more unique. I observe. I analyze. I reflect. I contemplate. And then, I dish out an amazing aphorism. Posterity might hold me in higher regard than Nostradamus, for unlike him, I shall have proof of everything I say. This is one thing you learn from being a science student. Assumptions and postulates have to be backed by solid proofs. Or maybe, it’s just that I’ve just been subjected to 2 days of a harrowing TS and have had to mug a lot of postulates and assumptions. My aphorisms are made after hours to months of deep soul searching. From why “the best school in the world” started seeing its bad days to why the Indian diaspora seems to criticize the mother country at every chance presented, Lefty has all the answers. And can anyone forget the evergreen Boomerang Theory? The proof behind 42 is in the offing now, or who knows? 42 itself might be in jeopardy.

My latest aphorism is what this post is called. There are others who propound this, but few can give an example of the likes of which I am about to. Be prepared, ladies and gentlemen, this will be no joy-ride.

The beginning of this semester saw the passing-out batch of our great department reap great results. The companies came, they saw and they were conquered. Placement was the buzzword and everyone we knew got a cushy job. It was time for celebration all right. 4-2 (42 again?) they say, is the time to relive the simple pleasures of life, and how right they are. The music blared, the willow swished, the sun smiled fondly at the multitude of lazy bodies sprawled on the lush green lawns and the professors encountered one empty lecture hall after another. There was fire in the hole, there were attacks by the enemy, DOTA did the rounds and of course, the liquor flowed free. The Worthy Seniors (as they shall be henceforth referred to) were actually stymied by the task of deciding the liquor bash schedules. Weekends after all, are limited.

Now, it so happened that one of the aforementioned bashes took place last Saturday. Amidst the cacophony of sounds being mixed by the obliging DJ wannabe, I could make out, from the confined solitude of my room two stories below, that a wild party was on and was getting more and more obstreperous by the minute. As the bottles emptied and swaying walks and incoherent speech became commonplace, I appointed myself the guarantor of the inebriate’s safety. Without me, I was sure, there would be hell to pay for. Twenty or more drunk guys roaming freely around the hostel, half of which’s inmates are boring studious ugly naked guys, were sure to attract trouble.

One of the Worthy Seniors, a nice obliging chap who I’m rather fond of, managed to stumble across to my humble abode. Anxious not to let him remain out in the cold, I managed to coerce him to come inside and got him to lie down. It was only a matter of time before I had tucked him into the covers and switched off the light. One good deed at least, was done. I then continued my vigil outside to see if any other soul needed my able assistance. An hour later, I went room-hopping to find refuge for the night, as my room was now occupied by the Worthy Senior. An empty room was found, the quilt was declared warm and sng and Lefty and sleep were one once again.

The next day, as I woke up and prepared myself for the tortures that the upcoming TS preparation would inflict upon me, little did I know what awaited me. I went to my room to find that the Worthy Senior, in his inebriated state, had chosen to literally unburden himself within my four walls. The floor was full of newspapers, a feeble but good-hearted attempt to clean up the jettisoned mess. No harm done, I thought, as I spotted the sweeper making his way to our wing, reaping the rewards of the excesses of liquor. The man with the golden broom noted that G-81 was also the victim of the Second Great Liquor Bash and let his twigs do the job. He left, richer by twenty bucks and a stack of old newspapers, leaving me with a spotless room once more. It was then that I noticed that the worthy soul had even affected the guardians of my soles in his outburst. Washy wash then, and the shoes were cleaned up and left out to dry.

A couple of hours of struggling with Iron-carbon diagrams later, I went off to the canteen to reward myself with a snack and returned to find solace in my room again. And then that another bombshell was dropped, greater than the other 2. It transpired that the Worthy Senior, while snoring off the after-effects of binging, had decided to leave an indelible mark on my mattress as well. And seeing my favourite blanket innocently lying on the mattress, for a minute I was almost cataleptic. Not the beloved blanket too, I ardently prayed. My prayers were luckily heard, and a minute examination showed that Worthy Senior had thankfully been selective in his choice of blankets to pour his woes on. The lesser one showed sorry signs of being used and was immediately hanged on the clothesline, to await the onset of the Dry-cleaner. The mattress was not so lucky though, and it was with great sorrow that I unceremoniously dumped my faithful friend, my constant support for 2 years whenever I did what I’m best at- sleep, out into the corridor. Chiraunji obliged with his guest mattress, Sajal with his room, Boki with his heater and viola, a new household had been set up. That night, when I went to get a drink of water, I saw that my dear old mattress had literally gone to the dogs.

The ordeal was not over yet. Then next day, when I went to see if my shoes had dried, I was greeted by the sight of only one. Searching around a bit, I found the other in the Farmhouse’s lawn. It didn’t take an Einstein to figure out what had happened. The dogs, so wrongly called Man’s best friends, had decided to repay my generosity by playing with my right shoe and had left it in the lawn after having had their fun. A pair had just walked out of my life.

All didn’t exactly end too badly though. I spent 4 enjoyable days in the other rooms of the Farmhouse, lavishly treating myself to the heater. I got a new mattress. It’s even pink. The lesser blanket has been subjected to a thorough job by the dry cleaner. And my mother will be happy as she has been after my life to get a new pair of shoes. But most importantly, the list of Lefty’s Legendary Aphorisms got appended- Nice Guys Finish Last.

This is the End...

2008-02-06T00:39:00.000+05:30

I’m a huge fan of The Doors. I’m not much of a rock music aficionado otherwise though. In fact, like most people, I started enjoying rock after joining college. Now, of course, I swear by Pink Floyd, but The Doors are amazing too. Riders on the Storm, LA Woman, Roadhouse Blues, Hello I love you… the list is endless. The Decayed Canine has actually got one of his Philosophism posts featuring them. Like all of his other posts, that one too is a must-read.

The End is another of the Doors’ numbers that I love. It’s depressing (Father, mother… what the hell?) but still enjoyable. One can imagine oneself to be obviated of all emotion when one sits back and enjoys that song. 11 minutes and 42(!) seconds of bliss. The message it carries is universal. There are times, when it is, the end. The End, in fact. Like all movies, like all books, like all good series. There has to be an end. Hoping for something to last forever while knowing at the back of your mind that it is going to come to an end one day is the most common aporia ever. It is also one that one can be forgiven for. Hope and knowledge are, after all, two of the main things that humans are made of. Two abstract quantities that set us apart from the lesser beings of the animal kingdom. You can put off thinking about it, you can ignore the thought, you can use mindless activities as poultices but someday, the end will stare you in the face.

Every time you watch a movie like Taare Zameen Par or Schindler’s List (both of which have posts due), which you are absolutely wrapped up in, there is a small voice inside you that says that the first-time experience has only some counted minutes left. Every time you read a book, the thinning stack of pages to your right tells you what its thickening counterpart on the left does- you are closer to the end. While it’s true that the same movie can be watched again and again and so can the same book, the fact remains that in most senses, one amazing experience has ended.

You can pickle your fruit, you can freeze your meat, you can store your medicines in a cool dry place. The question is, for how long? Preservation is not a solution, it’s more of a placebo. A way to put off what must eventually follow. School days are fun, college even more so, but it has to end.

It’s not all negative though. For better or for worse, every disease must end. No bad experience can last forever. Every pain has an expiry date attached. Every sorrow must give way to happiness.

The 11 minutes are over. The 42 seconds too. Time to get back to the other 42. Yes indeed, This is the End.

Strangers on a train

2008-01-23T02:04:00.000+05:30

It never rains, it pours. How else do you explain the fact that after more than two and a half years on not having set foot on a train, I find myself traveling thrice, and that too three overnight journeys, in the space of a month? Allow me to elaborate. The first of the three was an accident, but the other two were far from one. Unless accident has now acquired a new meaning which means ‘meticulously planned and looked forward to’. It’s not that difficult to imagine. Words do adopt new meanings. Look at pathetic. A beautiful word killed by the excessively negative use bordering on asperity. And then of course, there’s the G-word, as Dela politely refers to it.

I’m beginning to prevaricate, I see. Let’s get to the point. In this case, a flurry of train journeys. The latter 2 happened because the geek in me (a very very small one, hardly noticeable) decided to go to Allahabad with some others of my geeky ilk to take part in a geeky celebration. The whole trip is worth another post. I shall try to do justice to it in the near future, unless of course, I do what I’m beginning to think I’m best at- procrastinate.

I’ve had far more than my fair share of train journeys. My Dad gets an LTC from his office which allows us to travel at the Bank’s expense once every 4 years. Those weeks are like moments stolen from paradise. They’re actually better. Trying to describe them would only belittle their aura of ‘special’. The truth is that I just cannot say how important they are to me and how much I look forward to them. Every family has some features which set it apart from the thousand other families that share what happened during the day on the dinner table, look forward to a quiet Sunday after a highly social Saturday night and subtly but determinedly fight over who gets to read the morning paper first. Having members that are often not aware what mornings are like helps matters to a great extent, of course. In our case, one thing that I feel sets us apart is a collective wander-lust. We all love to travel and in our unique, what we rustically call, ‘khutta chhoona’ way. Hence, I’ve train-hopped across Tamil Nadu, Kerela and Bangalore when I was 2, Rajasthan and Gujarat when I was 6 and Orissa and Andhra when 10. That’s not to mention the countless trips to Calcutta, Lucknow, Jamshedpur and the et cetras. The strange part is that during the latter half of my life, I’ve hardly traveled by train. The usual stories of Boards and JEE and other dampeners of a happy life would naturally take the blame.

In both the train journeys to and from the land of the Kumbh mela, I had repeated jaunts down memory lane as I observed, that despite the years that had passed by, the co-passengers in a train journey had not been affected by the relentless tide of time. They could still be classified in the same earlier categories. While we were going, there was a kind old gent sitting in the side berth. He was the epitome of that class of people who are exceedingly helpful but do not hesitate a fraction of a second before giving unsolicited advice. Just before the train started, he saved us from a mammoth problem by dealing expertly with a pair of eunuchs who would, otherwise, have hassled us no end. The small smile of gratitude that I offered in return could not even begin to describe how indebted I felt to him then. For most of the remainder of the journey though, we were treated to a lecture on the various routes that trains in India take. This was followed by one on tea plants (I think) and then some bazaars. All fascinating stuff I’m sure. He was just the person I would have said KGND to had I not been brought up to be so well-mannered. Mind you, his intentions were the best. He even had my best interests at heart. The reason he was sharing all this knowledge was in the hope that I would clear the IAS and improve the current scenario. Later, he even told me that it would be better to do an MBA as that was where all the money was. I was specially touched when he said that I reminded me of his nephew and hence, he was talking to me so much. The rest of the story doesn’t get very sentimental if you’re wondering. He just told me bit about himself, played around with the caste card a bit and then I got away. Later, at night, as I tried to sleep, I could hear him offering generous helpings from his bottomless box of free advice to some other soul. This one though, was a far more appreciative receiver. They even discussed politics, and I came to know that the guru was a Congress supporter while the shishya knew some hot shot in the SP.

On the return leg too, there was some guy who insisted on treating the whole compartment a number of times on the intricate arrangements he had made to fight the winter chill, and his success. We were made to listen time and again, and with enthusiastic gestures, to the layers of clothing he had adorned himself with, the blankets he had chosen and his escapades with the cold in previous trips. How reminiscent it all was to the hundred odd trips that I’d made a long time ago. There was once some guy we’d come across who, if he were to be believed, would in every train journey meet someone that he was ‘acquainted with by name but not by face’. That someone would mysteriously be in some trouble and our friend would naturally rise to the occasion and help him. Clap clap.

There have been a couple of memorable incidents as far as co-passengers are concerned too. When I was traveling to Hyderabad, in the Coromandel I think, I’d met this really nice lady. She was the one who’d answered the question that had been troubling my 10 year old self- if compartments are the bogeys in the train, what would you call the inner compartments, i.e. the set of 6 main berths and 2 side berths? Cubicles, she said. Why, indeed, I replied and the ice was broken. This was the time when I was either taken to be the younger sibling or my younger sister and I were thought to be twins and the lady in question was no different. When I said that it was probably my short height that caused this confusion every time, she said that it was not just that, but I had a very youthful face too. I guess I still retain vestiges of that youthful face. Just the other day, some guy, on finding that I was about to graduate in a year, remarked that I was too young to work.

On the first journey that I made to my hometown after taking my entrance exams, I had a symbolic surprise. My mother had come to drop me off and as she bid me a fond farewell and left, some stranger on hearing her say my name asked her, “Are you Lefty’s mom?” (A subtle Up Yours to all those who think mine is a common name comes here). Mother dear replied in the affirmative, and the guy introduced himself. He turned out to be a neighbour that my folks had had when my Father had had a short stint in Tarapur (not to be confused with the one of atomic fame). I’d often heard of him. He was a young fellow then and would often come down to play with me. He had a baby of his own now, a teeny tiny chap. I was summoned to meet the gentleman and he told me, now a high school graduate poised on the brink of adulthood and making my first independent journey to the land of my forefathers, that his offspring was as big as I was when he had last seen me. The wheel of time had indeed turned a full circle. And the lesser wheels of the train chose to emulate that great one and turned their own small circles. The train gave that familiar lurch forward and another journey began.

Sultan of Swing’s back

2008-01-12T02:56:00.000+05:30

Statutory warning: Most of this post is highly narcissist. The author is aware of the fine line between boasting and lying; the reader should be aware of it also.

It’s been ages since I posted. Whenever that happens, there usually is a lot that has occured between my last post and the current one. This time is no exception. It’s not that I’ve not written for so long for a dearth of things to write about. In fact, I’ve thought of posting something at least 5 times but have not, either because what I was contemplating was too personal, too opinionated, too iconoclastic or because I was too lazy. The last reason generally dominated. Better late than never though.

The year of Bond ended on a high note, not alcohol wise. Spent 31^st night chatting away with two great friends, both long-time neighbours. One of them is actually my oldest friend. I believe I’ve known him since I was 5. There was a party, too. My cousin tried to get me to dance but I didn’t feel like it so didn’t, much to the chagrin of her friends who, I hear were hoping to dance with me (It’s my blog, I decide what to write here). My mom as well as my friend’s also tried to persuade us but we were stubborn mules. Plus, there was a bonfire where we were sitting and it was pretty comfy.

Back to college then. The sem’s just started. Everything seems hunky dory. I’ve not screwed up my attendance yet. It should be party time 24*7, but for reasons that will probably remain unknown to mankind, I’m just not enjoying myself that much. There’s often an emptiness that seems to be gnawing at my insides. On the contrary, there are these sudden unexpected bouts of uncontrolled mirth when I find myself laughing away with friends at any odd place. Passers-by may look askance at us but who cares. Good times indeed.

I’ll get to the title justification in my own verbose way. The placement season is on and most of the seniors here have landed cushy jobs with fat pay packets. CAT results were announced the other day and I believe there are more than half a dozen BLACKI’s this time. Another dozen or more have got calls from the IIM’s. To be precise, the seniors are on a roll. Great work, guys. It is but natural then, that in their last semester, they have every right to indulge themselves. What else are the poor souls supposed to do, with only 12-15 contact hours a week? It so happens that the means of entertainment that they’ve chosen is that perennial favourite of young lads and old men throughout the subcontinent- cricket. The farmhouse is proud to be host to their desires and the lords often join them for a game.

I’ve been an avid cricket enthusiast for most of my 20 (Goddamnit) years of existence. I might not be able to bat for nuts, but boy can I bowl. To see me bowl is like poetry in motion. Appearances notwithstanding, I’m quite the pace spearhead of the team. Being Lefty, I aspire to copy Wasim Akram, the original Sultan of Swing, as much as I can. I generally bowl left arm over (right arm around for the ubiquitous right-handers), pitch the ball between middle and leg, good length, and let the pitch do the rest. More than once, I’ve been told that I manage to get the ball to move. I confess I have no idea how I do that. The other day I bowled a peach of a delivery to get the prize wicket of the best batsman in the opposing team. The minute the ball had left my hand, I knew that this one was going to be a beauty. The ball pitched at middle stump, began to move away from the right hander who rightly decided to leave it. But then, it swung right back in and hit the top of off. Thank you. Thank you very much.

The only glitch in this apparently perfect scenario is that after 2 days of intense cricket, my body began to show vigorous signs of protest. I couldn’t move a muscle without causing pain to myself. I had to stop watching South Park because my sides ached so much whenever I laughed. Coughing became a strict no-no too. And it was then that I decided that it was just too high a price to pay. I would take no further part in the gentleman’s game.

I might have chosen comfort, but sometimes I think of what I’m missing out on by not playing. The truth is that I love to bowl. The air that blows against my face even on a still afternoon when I take my run-up, the hopeful scent of a wicket that beckons whenever I jump, the will to put the last ounce of energy into that one delivery to get that extra yard of pace, the desire to pitch the ball in the right place stemming from the knowledge that pace alone is not enough, the elation that begins to form when you instinctively know you’ve bowled a beauty, the boost in confidence every time the batsman is beaten and above all, the incredible pump in adrenalin when a scorcher gets an edge or better still, a stump- am I prepared to forego all this just because of some sissy excuse regarding ‘Hai meri kamar’? You bet I am. Give me a cozy bed any day. Toodle-oo.

PS- Steve Bucknor is a bad bad person.

Movies, Masti and Chandler Bing

2007-12-19T00:30:00.000+05:30

Winter vacations are on in full swing. The mercury is dipping day by day making the beloved blanket dearer and dearer. My belief that there is no greater happiness than sitting out in the sun in the day and in front of the heater at night during winter has been reaffirmed, for the umpteenth time. Due to the cold, all natural processes have obviously been stultified, resulting in what appears to be laziness. But is not. I think that winter serves as excellent practice for calamity planning. Take my case right now. I am comfortably settled on my bed, wrapped in a comfy blanket, and within easy reach are- a bottle of water, my mobile phone, the landline, Sam Walton’s autobiography (which I claim I’m reading right now), headphones, the TV remote and several cushions. If need be, I can stay like this, perfectly happy and entertained for hours. However, just when I find myself all warmed up, some idiot rings the doorbell and its back to the drawing board. Plus, mankind is still to come up with a way to keep nature’s call at bay.

The hols so far have been a perfect blend of going out and meeting friends and lazing around at home. I’ve watched 3 movies so far. The first was Dus Kahaaniyaan. I saw it at Priya with some of me oldest and best friends. The highlight of the movie was that we decided to bring our parsimonious selves to the fore and bought front row tickets, thereby saving 50 bucks apiece. The result was that we watched the movie with our necks straining to be at 180 degrees with our backbones, reminding me of the time when I watched Bunty aur Bubli in the ‘special’ section at Ashok at my hometown. More on the hometown later, though. Contrary to expectation, Dus Kahaaniyaan turned out to be decent enough. 2 or 3 of the ‘kahaanis’ were actually pretty good- most inspired by Roald Dahl, Saki and O. Henry stories. I believe all the better stories were directed by the same guy, Sanjay Gupta if I remember rightly. Not worth watching at the theatre perhaps, but definitely at home.

Next up was Hitman. Dodgy dearest and I went to watch it together at Wave, CSM. Naturally, when 2 enthusiastic eaters like the Lazy Labrador and yours truly Lefty get together, the food factor will always dominate. We had a light lunch at McD first, where, to my utter surprise, I found out that LL had never had a McChicken Sandwich. Kind soul that I am, I introduced him to what I believe is McD’s finest offering. I think we also had something at the snack bar before the movie started. Then we managed to fit in the movie between our meals. Hitman is a pretty good action movie. Unlike Dus Kahaaniyaan, it won’t be half as fun if not watched in the theatre. There’s hardly any plot, only the basic setting and stunts are good. The best part, however, was the censorship. It was rated A, leading me to believe that there was probably a smooching scene and maybe some ‘touchy touchy’ parts. The scene cutting started when expected- when the anti-hero (I think Timothy Olyphant was one) and his girlfriend started making out, but then we suddenly got more than we bargained for. The Indian Censor Board, I thought, had matured all of a sudden. Too soon though, as the amateurish scene cutting started again. I had to conclude that they’d overlooked the movie a bit.

Having got the formalities out of the way, LL and I discovered a new Italian place at CSM- Sbarro. Since we’d hardly heard of any of the dishes on the menu, we eagerly went in to give the place a try. I ordered Pasta with Chicken Parmigiana, pronouncing it Par-me-long Ji-yana. Well aware that the best of us can look like utter idiots when it comes to pronouncing Italian words, I enquired of the waitress how Rome demanded the word in question to be uttered. Her ‘Chikkan? Which Chikkan?’ left me in no doubt whatsoever that despite appearances, this was not the horse’s mouth from which I would get a straight answer. We also ordered a slice of pizza (just a slice mind you). When the order came, I was happy to see that the Parmigiana did not include the taste buds in its war with the tongue. The whole pasta had a tomato base with generous doses of cheese and a crisp chicken patty on top. The sauce on the patty was also quite good. Surprisingly, the ‘snack’ turned out to be pretty heavy and I was full, much to the disappointment of LL who’d been looking forward to some ice-cream. Well-satisfied with the meals and the movie, we bid each other a fond farewell.

The next, and till date the last movie I saw this winter was I am Legend. Since the Lazy Labrador was down south, I took Ketan along to play the role of the Geeky guy. I am Legend is easily the best movie I’ve seen this winter. It’s based on the Science Fiction novel by Richard Matheson. The remaining paragraph is going to contain spoilers so, unless you’ve seen the movie, skip to the next one. In I am Legend, Will Smith plays the last man alive on Earth, which has been destroyed by a man-made virus. The other survivors are Dark-Seekers, a brilliant concept. They prey on human flesh. They can be human or animals. Dark-Seeker symptoms include hair-loss, something with the pupil and a fatal aversion to light, specially sunlight. There’s an amazing scene in which the sun is about to set and forms a thin band of light between two skyscrapers. Will Smith is on one side with his pet and 3 Dark-Seeker canines on the other side. The good guys are protected by the rapidly narrowing Lakshman-Rekha of sunlight, while the dogs wait for it to disappear. The photography in that scene is really good and in my opinion, it’s the best scene of the movie.

When at home, my experiments on myself have shown that I’m spending most of my time eating (no surprises) and sleeping (no surprises at all). I’ve also been watching a lot of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. Again. And Again. And Chandler rocks. He is absolutely class. His lines are easily the wittiest and his jokes superbly classy. And some of the expressions that he makes make me repeat that particular scene, something I detest otherwise. There’s one episode in which Rachel’s Mom and Dad get divorced and the gang is trying to prevent them from seeing each other at a party. There’s a particular scene in which Chandler, Ross and Joey hop across the hall in order to shield Mr Greene from the Missus and it’s enough to get the sides aching. There’s also the episode in which Monica is hell bent on getting Chandler to go for a jog and he manages to get out of it. Awesome. There are many many others of course. In the one where the apartment is bet, Chandler makes that amazing face when they win. Could he be and classier?

I’m beginning to think that Chandler was the inspiration behind the personality disorder funda. If you’ve seen the episode in season 1 where he’s ‘trapped… in an ATM vestibule… with Jill Goodaker’, you’ll get a fair idea of what the personality disorder can be like. I heard that the makers had initially planned to make him ‘happy’, but the decided to hitch him with Monica. This proves that everything ends well for those who suffer from the personality disorder. So… be my General iPrond… I am your Supreme Commander. Search your feelings… you know it to be true. Join me… and together… we, Commander and General, shall rule the galaxy.

I have way too much free time, huh?

The Quest Endeth?

2007-12-13T15:36:00.000+05:30

It is said that every person has a goal that he/she seeks to reach. Many people spend their entire lives looking for their goal or trying to set one for themselves. This, they believe, is the reason for their existence- their small role in the huge Master Plan. Some people are shown their goals by good Samaritans, other stumble upon it by chance. For me, ever since our move to the National Capital Region, the goal has been loud and clear- find a joint in Delhi that serves as good Chinese food as the Tangra Chain in Calcutta.

For those unfortunate enough never to have visited the City of Joy, let me explain in greater detail. If there’s a paradise on Earth, it exists in the narrow smelly alleys of the Capital of West Bengal, home to the Tangra Chain of Chinese Restaurants. The food there is heavenly. Words can never suffice to describe how satisfying a gastronomic experience it is. People (read Lefty) have been known to go without dessert or even breakfast the next day just to preserve that amazing taste. And just like heaven, Tangra is extremely difficult to reach. Only those who possess an unbelievably strong desire to devour Chinese food are allowed into the hallowed portals. The road to Tangra is perilous. It is narrow, dirty and filled with law-breaking ricks. Once you reach the general area, the strong smell of seafood being cooked can knock the best of us out. Vegetarians fear to tread within 10 miles of it and even hearty non-vegetarians can have a trying time. Once in though, it is all more than worth it.

There are various restaurants in Tangra. It is difficult of decide the best one. If my memory serves me right, I have been to Kim-Fa, Lily and Marlboro with Kim-Fa being the first and the favourite. Tangra has had a major role in my personality development (so you know who to blame). It was there that I discovered that my favourite dish was Garlic Chicken. It was there that I had my first Golden Fried Prawns. And I believe that it was in Tangra that I took to Chicken Sweet Corn Soup as a duck takes to water. It was also in Tangra that I, along with everyone else present that day, discovered how much I could eat when I wanted to.

After my goal was made clear to me, I set about, with great enthusiasm, to reach it. I tried 2 Golden Dragons in South Delhi but they fell quite short of expectation. I then went to Bercos Garden in Noida. The ambience there would give one million Tangras a run for their money (not that that’s saying much). It’s a wonderful place for a family lunch/dinner. The music is good, the gardens well kept and the food superb. There’re just 2 flaws- the minor one is that they take too long to seat you and the major one is that it’s just not Tangra. Fortune Cookie in Sector 18 was just a tad above the ordinary- extremely disappointing considering the fame that it enjoys.

After long last, it seemed I had found the best Chinese joint in Delhi, if not equal to Tangra’s impossible standards. Chopsticks in Ansal Plaza and its sister restaurant- Bamboo Shoots in Sector 18. Both these places served by far the best Chinese I’d had in Delhi. For a long time, I would tell one and all who cared for my free advice that Chopsticks and Bamboo Shoots were the Places to Be At. However, these two excellent joints were also surpassed the other day. It was my mother’s birthday. I guess there was a lot I should have written that day for her. I also guess that there was even more that my mother would have wanted me to write about her. My only defense is that this is a public blog. And yes, I am a procrastinator of the worst kind.

Coming back to Chinese food, we went to Tea House of the August Moon in the Taj Grand to celebrate me mum’s happy birthday. And it was then that I realized the quest might have ended after all. The food was superb. English adjectives can never to justice to it and I don’t know enough French to describe it well. The Rice noodles were so fine that the made Hakka noodles look like great coils of rope. Chicken with Asparagus tasted delightfully similar to Garlic Chicken. The asparagus part however, turned out to be disappointing. I’d read a Somerset Maugham short story- The Luncheon, a long time ago in a galaxy far far away, where a waiter in a posh French Restaurant had described their asparagus as being so soft so tender that it was a delight. Ever since that day, I had wanted to sink my teeth into that so soft so tender asparagus. When the momentous occasion did come however, I felt a bit let down. Asparagus turned out to be just another green vegetable, maybe tastier than most. It was soft enough, but I couldn’t see what the fuss was about. Give me baked beans any day.

The high point of the quest ending meal was the Shredded Lamb. They’d been fried to perfect crispness. The seasoning made the outer part crisp and on the sweetish side. The core however, had the delicious taste of well cooked meat. Wordsworth might have written a poem on how scrumptious it was.

Since most of this post is about Chinese Food, I must digress and let you know that there’s an amazing place in Mussourie- Kalsang Friends which serves excellent Chinese and Tibetan food, in gargantuan quantities at amazingly low prices. A testimony to that is that 7 hearty eaters had a huge meal there, soup and starters included, for a mere 880 bucks. The same food in Delhi would cost around 250 per head.

Coming back to the Tea House, it seemed now that my quest was finally over. Here, in the Taj was a restaurant that could proudly boast that it had matched Tangra, maybe even surpassed it. But I found myself unwilling to bestow that mantle upon it. Then it dawned on me that the charm of Tangra was perhaps, not just in the food but also in the memories that shrouded it. Tangra was, after all, the first place that I had such amazing Chinese food. There are certain memories that remain with us forever- the fist visit to a foreign country, the first movie watched in a theatre, the first bite of Ferrero Rocher etc. I guess that Tangra is one of them.

Added to it is the fact that those visits to Calcutta were some of the happiest days of my childhood. They were those visits that made Calcutta my favourite city. Every visit brought something new with it- Nicco Park, Science City, swimming at Tollygunge, the Metro. Calcutta was where I had my first Hot Chocolate Fudge. It was so huge I couldn’t even finish it. Every new visit also meant that my Mami, who I’ve heard used to make elastic rotis when she got married, had made another significant step towards becoming the expert Chef that she now is. The proof of the pudding naturally lay in the eating and I saw to it that I got a lot of that. Calcutta also meant that Mama had chalked 5 more places for us to visit and that my cousin was a bit older and exponentially more adorable.

I have to accept that my quest might have been over ages ago- at Chopsticks, Bercos, Golden Dragon or even at Fortune Cookie. I still persist in maintaining that it ended at the Tea House. And come to think of it, this entire post could have been encapsulated in 3 lines (all credits to MasterCard)

Chinese Food at Kalsang and Friends- 900 Rupees

Chinese Food at Bercos Garden- 1500 Rupees

Chinese Food at Tea House of the August Moon- 5000 Rupees

Chinese Food at Tangra- PRICELESS.

There are some things money can’t buy. For everything else, there’s MasterCard.

And it’s accepted at all the aforementioned restaurants.

Listen to the tube

2007-12-08T20:30:00.000+05:30

One forms many views after reading ‘The Alchemist’. Like any other of its ilk, there are lots of things in that bestseller which one feels one can relate to. Most of the ideas expressed might be too quixotic to implement but there are some that do make a lot of sense. The line “When you truly want something…” in which there’s something about the world conspiring to give it to you has become so popular that it has been used in both Iqbal and Om Shanti Om. Talking of these movies, Shreyas Talpade is turning out to be quite a brilliant young actor. He was inimitable in Iqbal and has done a pretty decent job in Dil Dosti etc as well. In fact, he’s almost the only reason one should watch that movie, though on second thoughts, it’s not really that bad.

Overcoming these puerile vacillations, let me, as the Magi who presented the baby Jesus with Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh might say, Come to the Point. But again, they might not. And talking of Jesus and Myrrh, if you can endure some not-too-gentlemanly language, do watch South Park’s episode where Cartman starts the Christian Rock band “Faith +1”. Ah, there I go again. The Point then. Paulo Coelho mentioned some stuff about following omens. Good omens. Bad omens. Omens with scary kids in them. Urim and Thimmum. You get the drift. Lefty however, chose to royally ignore these presages earlier in November. Royal Ignore with a capital R and I. They portended that things may not be hunky dory unless something was done, but I just wouldn’t listen. It was the Fudge syndrome. So much easier to pretend that everything was ok. Or Hawk-Eye as I’m fond of saying these days.

At this point, readers should be warned that the remainder of this post will be dedicated to what most of us don’t exactly like- Exams, subjects and even grades. I generally avoid writing on these taboo topics and refrain from expressing my true views regarding the revered CG scale. Here too, there shall be no iconoclasm whatsoever. However, the matters about to be discussed might bring unwelcome memories of unpleasant days gone by to mind. But be of stout heart and steely sinew. After all, the solitary reaper also might have been thinking of worse days when she was beheld, single in the field. If she can continue to reap without anguish, is it too mean a task to read what has been written after hours of sweat and toil?

To omens and grades then. It was foretold to me, though not by Gabriel, that the semester was not going to be a bed of roses. The magically most powerful number, so far considered easily attainable, now seemed a distant dream. Any visions of English equivalents of alpha and beta were rudely interrupted by the 40 other ‘Meta’bolites asking “How dare you even dream?” And it must be said, that by procrastinating at every opportunity presented, I did not exactly help things along. And so it came about, that with 4 days to D-Day, enlightenment finally dawned, and I realized that whatever I did now would be too little too late. It was then that the self made one of its wisest aphorisms.

Every sound is associated with an emotion. A feeling. A message. The bell at the end of class signifies relief. In the days of dial-up-connections, the weird sound made by the modem after the lull following the dial tone would mean success. The cry of a dog is supposed to mean death knocking on your door, and is the much-loved topic of all discussions involving the supernatural. And as the 11th month came to an end, I discovered the deadliest of sounds. It is heard hardly, if heard at all. And to those who have the misfortune of hearing it, it signals an impending doom.

The sound is the buzz of the tube-light. Not the buzz when it’s flickering to life, but when it’s well-on. Readers should pray that the tube remains a source of light energy for them and never takes it into its cylindrical head to try out sound. For when the world seems to have gone to sleep in the dead of the night, when lights all around you are off and the sun threatens to show up any minute, when a pin drop would be enough to rouse hell and when you’re staring desperately at a different book every passing day, the tube-light buzzes loud and clear. You can discern the different tones changing with time. And in various tunes, in various ways, in various languages, in various melodies, the prescient tube has only one thing to say.

You’re screwed.

For 0.42 seconds... I swear the heart stood still

2007-09-25T07:39:00.000+05:30

The final of the Twenty 20 world cup. And the world got its cup of emotions filled to the brim. As far as the subcontinent was concerned, the cup overflowed. What a match! What an unbelievably brilliant cliffhanger. You couldn’t have asked for a better ending to a tournament, written off as ‘circus cricket’ by pundits, which had captured the heart of all its viewers. In a packed canteen, with more than 300 pairs of eyes riveted on the huge projector, and the sweat flowing free, I realized what being ‘drained of all emotion’ truly meant (no indirect reference to the sweaty masses here).

17^th over. Harbhajan Singh. India poised for a maiden Twenty 20 victory thanks to some intense and inspirational play over the past one week. A young team waiting on the threshold of history. Pakistan down. Almost out. With the entire hopes of a nation, albeit a chaotic failed one, on one man- Misbah. And boy, did he deliver. You got to hand it to the gutsy guy and the other young team from across the border. They knew what resilience meant. For much of the match, India had had the upper hand, however slight, but unlike another team in green, they preferred not to choke. And in that 17^th over, a billion plus people switched from celebration mode to God-help-us mode. 4 sixes off the 2001 India-Australia series hero. 4 lusty blows clearing the ropes and denting the morale of every Indian watching. 4 maximums making what was increasingly becoming an impossibility, a very probable outcome.

18^th over. Sreesanth. 2 effortless sixes by the no. 9 batsman. 2 more steps towards the cup. 2 more cracks in India’s armour. The young man fell to the other young man but the damage it seemed, had been done.

19^th over. RP Singh. The bowler of the tournament (Lefty’s modest opinion). Overshadowed by Irfan Pathan in the final, but nevertheless the bowler who delivered under pressure. 20 to win. A score for the Score. And yet again, with a billion hopes weighing upon his young shoulders, the young gun delivered, 18.4 ball. The stumps knocked down and Umar Gul walked back. 9 wickets down now. 1 more and the match would be ours. Asif faced the last ball with the sole aim of surviving it. The result was more than he could have asked for. An edge to the boundary, leaving Pakistan with a very gettable 13 to win off the last over, with Misbah, the Messiah, on strike.

20^th over. Joginder Sharma. Wide on the first ball. 12 to win. 2 a ball. Next one fully tossed. Misbah charged down the pitch and sent the ball to the hysteric crowd. A billion hopes had fallen now. The canteen stood still. Horrified looks everywhere, the famed 300 stunned to numbness. This couldn’t be happening. But after all, the valiant Spartans had also lost. Only 6 to win off the last 5 balls.

20.2 ball. Full. The shot pre-decided. Skillfully skied toward fine leg. And as it began its ascent to the heavens, my heart rose, stopped and a chill of dread engulfed me. These shots are generally sixes, if not fours. The background of the white version of the cherry changed rapidly. 0.42 seconds. The sky… The grandstand… The crowd… and then… Sreesanth. The ball had not yet reached the safety of his cupped hands before the 300 came alive. Before a billion burst into celebration. Before the young Team India, having played just one T20 prior to the tournament, claimed its place in history. In the musty dusty canteen in a long-forgotten town, all hell broke loose. Bodies fell upon each other in glee. My joy our joy. My sweat our sweat. The shouts almost brought the roof down and mad uncoordinated victory jigs were started. The ground shook ever so slightly, acknowledging the effort of the 11 valiant runners up and congratulating the 11 heroes.

Jeet gaye.

Morning's here

2007-09-12T16:58:00.000+05:30

The quintessential morning begins with the crow of the rooster. Rather rummy, the crow of a rooster. If it’s a rooster, shouldn’t it leave crowing to the crows and spend its time roosting? But then English was never the most logical of languages. Check out what Old Man Poochie has to say about it. Crowing and roosting aside, the point that I’m trying to put across, in my own verbose way, is that morning’s here. Here, I must pause and remember fondly one of the greatest FRIENDS episodes- The One Where they bet the apartment. It begins with the neighbour singing, “Morning’s here” much to Rachel’s chagrin. Or does it begin with Joey’s and Chandler’s rooster crowing? I think it does. That’s when they realize that the chick is actually a rooster. Which brings me back to the rooster.

This morning, I heard a rooster crow for possibly the first time in my life. At least the first time at the crack of dawn. Faithful readers who’ve read Ding Dong Clock will wonder what Lefty was doing up and about at the crack of dawn. You guessed it. I didn’t sleep tonight. A great pity really. For sleep is one of the greatest things a man can ask for. For me, the entire process begins sometime between 11 and 2. There are times when, like the proverbial hard-working honest soul, I hit the pillow and drift into a peaceful slumber. But those times are rare, very rare indeed. Generally, I spend anything between half an hour to indefinitely trying to coerce myself into sleeping. I count sheep, try not to think of anything, put on soothing music, anything for those 8 hours of bliss. Advocates of “6 hours is substantial sleep, 7 is luxury and 8 is vice” can go watch Jhoom Barabar Jhoom for all I care.

Once the unthinkable has been achieved however, I am in paradise. My head and the pillow, my shoulders and the mattress, all rejoice in tacit joy at their union. I plunge headlong into the deepest fathoms of sleep, content and at peace with the world. Sleep enmeshes me into her loving arms, caressing me as I cherish the moments spent with her. Dreams occasionally interrupt this lover’s rendezvous, trying to lure me away by showing me quixotic visions of myself as a plenipotentiary, a Croesus, an Adonis or even as a champion general of my AoE forces. I resist, but there are times when I have to give in. I am human after all, and entitled at least one Achilles’ heel.

The first rays of the sun are supposed to be one of the greatest sights mankind can behold. These rays, a mere glimpse of which is coveted by thousands, find me blissfully unaware in my ground-floor room at the Farmhouse. They peep in through the tiny window and illuminate the content and occasionally vacuous expression, on my visage. These rays must be beautiful, everyone says so. If there’s a heaven on earth, then as long as its prepared to let me sleep in peace, I’m prepared to accept that it exists.

The cry of the rooster is greeted by Raps hanging his washed clothes on the clothesline. What he does before that is something that no one knows. Its slated to appear on History’s Mysteries on the History Channel any day now. All that is known is that Raps, like Tolkien’s Tom Bombadil, like the Bible’s Adam and like our Manu, is the First. The First who hangs clothes on the clothesline. Once he’s done though, he walks past the 11 doors that separate his spic and span room from my not-so-spic and span one and bangs the door open. It is then that the mother of all battles begins. Sleep continues to hold me tight in her arms, enchanting me into believing that she and I are inextricable. Raps uses clear logic and the threat of attendance backs to convince me that we better not be. Sleep is magniloquent, whispering to me that this disturbance is ephemeral, and should I let it pass, we shall be One once more. Raps adroitly puts on the light, shakes me by the shoulder and shouts, “One more cross on the Bunk-O-Meter.” Occasionally, he is joined by Good Boy, who lends him a helping had in this mammoth uphill battle, the Newspaper-waala, who shows the same look of saturnine indifference at this epic everyday battle and dutifully drops the morning’s copy of HT and ET, and the Dhobi, who still calls me Bhaiya (Refer: That Ubiquitous Relative).

Having got me to open my eyes, they mutter threats and move out, letting me know how much time I have to get myself to class in a presentable manner. Sleep exults at the retreat of her foes and tempts me into her arms again. New, hitherto unexplored adventures are offered for the next couple of hours, titillating each nerve of mine. I find myself succumbing to these wiles. My eyelids begin to droop. The pillow gets softer and the mattress more comfortable. A hundred reasons explaining why missing class wouldn’t make any difference flash before my heavy eyes. A thousand promises saying that I will go to class the following day, week and month are made to myself. My eyelids droop further, eyelashes looking to meet the cheeks with the touch of finality.

Somehow, denying sleep her victory, I groggily get up, reach out for my spects, curse anything and everything and move towards my toothbrush. Morning’s here and another day in the life of Lefty has just begun.