Nostalgically, Yours.

I've been a procrastinator all my life. Perhaps that's why, it took me a year and a half to finally sit one night and write this post. I have Neil Young and a borrowed, tattered Dostoevsky keeping me company and I feel content with life right now. Here in my messy room in the hinterland of Haryana with beer bottles lying around and the laundry strewn all over the floor, I'm as happy as a clam.

A lot has changed in the meantime. I have a job. That seemed like such a bleak possibility back when I wrote the last blog. Little kiddies who were preparing for class ten exams are all set to join college, and I'm now tagged as an "Alumni" which reminds me of silver jubilee alumni batches that come visit campus and who we beheld as ancient relics. Because when you're still in college, imagining that you'll ever turn fifty is difficult. Fifty = never. 

Convocation happens next week. Suddenly, I'm all nostalgic about Pilani. Yes, you can call this hypocritical; on the last day of college, 5-year degree friends would ask in concerned voices, "You okay?," ever ready to lend the proverbial shoulder to cry on.  And I'd reply with a shrug, "I feel rather exuberant, actually." I felt like some sort of a social misfit, not shedding my set of tears on the last day. The floodgates just wouldn't open for me. I could have looked a tad too happy, I'm afraid. "City" life beckoned and nothing was about to bring me down.
I've been turning over in my mind the question of nostalgia and whether I suffer from it. I certainly don't get soggy when I think of those four years. But if nostalgia means the powerful recollection of strong emotions - and a regret that such feelings are no longer present in our lives, then yes, I'm nostalgic about that place, those people and that time.
So, as it happens, all of my days in Pilani, I now recall with a soft vignette, golden hued, in slow motion. Oh boy.
Perhaps Pilani was never about the place. It was about ANC and SKY and Shiv G and endless cribbing over exams you didn't care much about anyways, like some sort of  perverse pastime. And the people who did all of these things endlessly. Who talked about making jobs in fortune 500 companies and going to the bus-stand to eat some deep-fried kachori and chai at Nutan's, all in the same breath.
And "city" life is so much dust in the wind. If Gurgaon even qualifies as a city, that is.
On a less morbid note, I plan to extend my college life well beyond my years at Pilani, that is to say, I hope to not change my policy of endless procrastination and general lethargy. Oh, and visit that place again. And again. Till, of course, I'm too old and people there start giving me the same half-incredulous, wherefore-art-thou-from looks that I saved for alumni. Then I'll go with half a dozen other old fellas, so that we can shamelessly roam around and act like we're 20 when we're not.  

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

It's such a typical Pilani night. I don't have any tut tests, T1, T2 etc coming up.. for a while atleast. And that alone makes me feel like I have no purpose in life. I mean, come to think of it, you give tests like every alternate day for a month and one day, just like that, suddenly, nothing. NOTHING! what do you even do? I feel this emptiness inside. Like I must now go in search of the meaning for life, the universe and everything.. if you know what I mean. But for now I'm going to content myself with infinite sleep and food and then some more sleep. :D

So, yes, I was saying..It's such a typical Pilani night. No tests for a while. After the scorching heat of the afternoon the night is chilly, I just attended the Gurukul night and now with nothing else to do, I finally turn to this blog, which I last updated like a bazillion years ago.


It looks weird to me, my own blog, like it belonged to someone else and I have no business to be here. Even the text on the screen looks back at me in this eerie manner, but I'm just going to ignore it for now.

So, yes, this sem. Man! It's been so weird. For one it's like the last semester that can be counted as a semester. I've decided in my last sem I'm going to go all psenti-semite and sleep for like 14 hours a day, and go to the insti like 3 times in the entire semester, for my t1, t2 and then for my compre. So, no, the psenti sem won't do. THIS is my last sem as a "student". And by student I mean this haggard, overburdened with tests, sleep deprived, hysterical creature.

My last semester as a student, I say. And I'm learning all this new-age zen stuff about the campus. Like, for one, the MB gate guard has got attitude, loads of it, and he'll troll you, so you'd better be nice to him.

And that after the batch snaps, you wouldn't want to look at a saree for like the next one year!


And that the batch snaps are fun anyways!

And that sometimes, while you attend your CDC course classes, you wouldn't be sure if you're getting an education or you're getting rigged. It's okay, this too, shall pass.


And that the number of likes on your facebook profile picture is something people notice. In an alternative universe I'd brand it as sheer joblessness, but, I don't know, Pilani has it's own weird logic.

And that sometimes, your profs can remind you of The National Geographic Magazine. I don't know about you, I have this particular teacher who always reminds me of one of those pictures of hippos yawning in some shallow river in some obscure part of Africa while zebras and elephants drink water in the background. And mind you, hippos are known to bite humans, CUT them into two freaking halves for God's sake!! Needless to say, I'm not particularly fond of this class, but that's a separate issue altogether...

And that the library has some amazing novels. You only need to search. And never look at the Matrix collection, the books would interest you just about as much as a vinegar cruet interests a bee.


And that Gunda is a must watch! If you don't watch this one with your wing, you're missing out on the finer aspects of college life. Don't watch it alone though, you wouldn't live to see the next morning. :P

And that the music club can totally pull off While My Guitar Gently Weeps, and it'll be one of the nicest memories you'll have!

And that people here are weird, and nice,and amazingly talented; and all you need to do is find your own niche.

And that though this title goes all "And thanks for all the fish" you need to understand that I don't mean it literally. Never, ever, ever, eat fish while here, you'll never eat fish again. :P


Thank you! :)

The-one-where-I-rant. Nonstop.

If you're reading this blogpost(boy, are you jobless!) and want to know why I haven't written in a while, know this : Life in Pilani in third year is a bitch. Nope, I won't change this sentence. It. Is. A. Bitch.
Period.

This post is going to be a rant.You don't have to necessarily read it. But since you've clicked on this link in God-knows-what doomed moment, you might as well stay on a bit longer.
So, what was I saying? Yeah, well, for starters, you have CDCs. Compulsory disciplinary courses. They're what apparently bring about that all important transformation from noobs to engineers. They're supposed to, that is. Not happening here, but hey! it's just me.

My CDC experience has so far been this:
Go to lab.
Look at the question.
Look at the question.
Stare at the question.
Make a diagram.
Code.
Code.
Code.
CODE!!
Compile the code.
Run the code.
Segmentation fault. (no, don't wiki this up. It's just geek for you're screwed)
Die.


And then there's this whole what-is-the-meaning-of-life phase that comes up from time to time. What happens then is that since I don't want to study for the next day's test, and I have nothing better to do, I lie back and stare at the ceiling fan. And stare. And then stare some more. Only, it never answers any of those all-important philosophical questions that come up in my mind from time to time. Like:  Wouldn't it make the world a better place to live in if rats ate up my test papers? ALL of 'em?

And I feel OLD!!!. Don't laugh. I really do. I didn't even feel like bugging any fucchas this semester.(No, I don't rag.) And then I keep coming up with stories of how things were in my first year. Seriously, who does that?! It's like my grandpa telling me how things were in his childhood!

My immediate seniors are getting placed, people are talking about MBAs and internships. Is it okay if I freak out? No, I don't mind getting placed and making a stash (:P) I just wonder who's going to come to hire me. I don't feel really wise or anything. I can probably use really complicated language for something as simple as chuck out whatever you don't need (parsing) and thanks to unlimited internet  round the clock (sarcasm, yes.) I have a better typing speed than I did when I first got here.But that's about it.

Hmmm. Wait. Lemme think.
..
..
..
Nope. Still don't see why someone would hire me.

Phew! That's about it for now I guess. :D

P.s. Okay, I re-read what I wrote. You can trash me for this one. It's okay.One of my classes was cancelled you see. I don't have a pen, so I can't doodle. And I had nothing better to do. :P

A Day in the Life

(this post, I'll be writing from a guy's perspective. Why? Just wanted to try my hand at something different. After all, this blog is meant to be an expression of creativity, ain't it? :) )


You cycle towards the examination hall, not late, but not early either, and you feel the cool wind on your face, and the winter sun on your back. You notice the black long tailed bird in the tree tops (wonder what it's called), the dog sleeping by the drain (while another one tries to hump it), you notice the electric wires and the knots they make, and the Australia shaped cloud in the horizon. And that's because you are not concentrating. You've let yourself go, and your brain is in it's default disengaged state. Each time you glance at your watch, it reminds you that you have an exam awaiting you, but then the main building gate catches your eye, and wonder why they open the way they do, and not open the opposite way...

You reach the examination hall, and a little juice from the adrenal glands is pumped into your body. Your senses spike as you collect the paper, there is that excitement of anticipation. It's interesting how fragile the adrenaline balance is - too much of it and you go blank and freeze, too little, and there is no motivation or intensity. But the perfect amount can put you in the "zone", heighten your senses, make you feel as alive as can be. Near the start though, you have too little of it, the paper seems uninteresting. You gaze out of the window. You look at the misty tree tops, and a waft of sweet aroma tickles your nose. A song bird chirrups in the distance. Oh yeah, the paper. You glance at the watch. The wrist watch - that amazing contraption. It's almost like a crystal ball, which binds the present in it's faint tick-tick. Looking into which snaps you back to reality. 10 minutes past already. Some more adrenaline rushes through. Now you're ready to get to work.

You rush through the initial questions with utter and total focus, your world restricted to the A4 size of the question paper. Any signs of lurking fatigue or boredom get obscured, and the body curls around the wooden desk, the head inclined as the hand scribbles away. The limits of the human body are nowhere near where they pretend to be. You haven't slept in two days and had a throbbing headache. But for that moment, the physical world dissolves into the background, it's just you and that sheet.

And then the guy on your left coughs. That cough which breaks your chain of thought. Or maybe it's the invigilator who does the honors - " I card please?". He has an apologetic look on his face. You suppress your irritation, and feel a little sorry for the guy. Stand all day in examination halls, asking for I cards and trying to weed out cheaters. Not better than a constable's job, without the pay. You rummage through the many stapled pages, and find your name. You sign next to it. The invigilator hastens to collect the sheet from you, and shuffles off. Poor guy.

You look at your watch. Snap. An hour to go, more than an hour's work left. You take a sip of water, take a look around. Your gaze wanders unconsciously to all the pretty girls seated in your range of vision. You muse about how effective your"pretty girl" filter has become - you could probably spot them while hanging upside down in the middle of a fish market. the You notice one to your left. That explains the sweet aroma. She has pretty hair too. "Look into your own paper!" someone shouts from the back. He's shouting at someone else, but he has a point. You take another sip. That's another ten minutes gone.

The adrenaline kicks in again, thank god for that. You rush through the remainder of the questions, without looking up again. Fifteen minutes to the end, and there's one question left. You've solved a similar question the day before, this shouldn't take much time. And then you make that dull mechanical table that every last question inevitably has , and while you do it, you think about what you'll do after the exam. Take a hike, finish that book, watch that movie you never had the time to watch. Then you look up, massage your strained neck. The invigilators seem to be getting restless, like predators gearing up for the kill. They repeatedly tell you how much time is left, and whisper things to each other, strategizing the best method to round up the prey. "Two minutes left !!". Oh damn.

You realize that you made a mistake in the table, and your answer is absurd. So much for "mechanical". You scramble to fix the error, the adrenaline kicking in in earnest. You find it just as the invigilators move in, fangs bared and claws out. You arrive at the answer in that final burst of calculation, just as the once polite and harmless invigilator rushes towards you, a man possessed. You turn in the paper before he does you any bodily harm, and try to get away from the guy. No need for that - he runs off in another direction, thirsty for answer scripts - I wonder if they have some way of turning the answer sheets into equivalent amounts of gold, judging by their desperation to grab a few. Or maybe there is a thriving black market for answer sheets, people probably buy them and use the cheap paper to light fires.

You alight off your perch, scratch your head. Now that was pretty good. Somehow extended periods in the "zone" always fill you with a faint euphoria, an irrational contentment. You walk out of the examination hall, and notice people milling around in the gallery. "What was that? No i didn't get that answer, you screwed up!" your friend smugly tells you. You think about how you could have made the mistake. It was the pretty girls, it's always the pretty girls. And the open window. And that invigilator. The exam room was also not a good one, the seats were low , the desk was too high. You had a headache too, and you hadn't slept the night before. Your pen was not the one you preferred, it was that cheap ballpoint disposable. You look at your watch. Snap. Oh, hell with it. Let's get to that movie.

The Sem That Was....

We all have a few embarrassing moments in life. Its the same with me. Just that I don't have a few moments, I am the living encyclopedia on how a situation can be utilized to the maximum possible extent to embarrass yourself.

After 1-2, wherein I attended like 5% of all classes, I decided that this sem, come what may, I WILL attend all classes. Okay, almost all classes (its totally reasonable to not attend classes if you're sick and all, ain't it?).

So here I was, beginning of the sem, and all determined to drag myself everyday to the FDs. Perfectly fine. Just that on one particular day, things didn't quite go right. 

Here's what happened. What really happened.

I wake up at 9, somehow. I drag myself out of bed. Get dressed. 

I've lost my timetable,but I have a vague recollection of some class at 10. So I go. And I enter the class. And a couple of people are already sitting there. Strangely though, I don't seem to know any of them. 

I wonder if they're even in the same batch..but then come to the conclusion that maybe some of them aren't all that great as I am.. and perhaps have never attended a class before.. and so I don't recognize them. Of course. Makes perfect sense. 

So I sit there, half dozing, waiting for the class to begin, when some totally different guy walks in and starts talking about ATM machine designs and how similar models are being employed in industry. 

He pauses midway through the class. Tells students the date for the next project submission, gives them feedback about their previous project, eyes me suspiciously, and moves on to describe other things, which I didn't bother too much about.

What was I doing in the meantime?

A lot of things:

1. cursing myself for losing the time table

2. praying like mad for the class to get over.

3. trying to hide under the table and pretend  that I was invisible

4. hoping that the ground below me would part, I would fall into a deep hole, and never be seen or heard of again.

P.S. Still no clue of what course it was. Some questions just don't have answers. 

P.P.S. Maybe it was God's way of showing me that attending classes is just not my cup of tea. 

Rewind, Pause, Play....

           So, its 4 A.M. , two days to go for the first compre of this semester. Not exactly the right time for a blog post... but then what the heck, I'm the one writing :P
           Now, where were we....yeah... okay....another sem gone by, howz it been? I'll get to that. Some historical facts first.
            Seniors.... and their seniors...... and their seniors (I could trace this back to a lot more generations, but then space is a constraint) have told us, time and again, that 2-1 is the "litest" sem in BITSian life (of course, I presume that psenti semites are too detached from reality to even be counted among the people studying here, so we're not including psenti sem in these stats). THIS is the time to get a life, or so they say. Tales of how people fall into the big, black hole of CDCs after the second year are recounted with shivers and shudders, while second yearites listen to them for the billionth time and are still overcome with the strange feeling of impending doom.
         So this, dear Reader, is the background with which the sem started. And what a start it was! Now,  I had waited patiently for an entire year to get a single room (please imagine Beethoven's symphony playing in the background. It'll add to the feel :D ). For nights I would dream about how I could keep it the way I wanted.. days would be spent imagining how I would keep it sparkling clean and not the way I had "maintained" my room all of first year (no, even I have no clue of just what I was thinking then.). Needless to say, when the sem did start, I, brimming with enthusiasm, came two days in advance. I needed to set up my room, make sure that it was just perfect before the registration, make it the bestest room that anyone had ever set eyes on.... you get the gist.
       Well, turned out, my room was the cloak room.. so unless every person had collected their luggage from my room, it could not be handed over. Hell broke lose. My plans came to naught. I lived in a spare room without a mattress and pillow, and without unpacking my luggage for the next two days. The tone, or so I imagined, had been set for the rest of the sem.
       Of course, then there were nice times. No tuts (yeah, first and third years reading this, be jealous ), says Murphy's Law means no classes. So that was it. Soon followed 18 hours of sleep in a day, nights of watching nothing but random sitcoms, cartoons (yeah, I watched endless episodes of shin-chan :D ) and other similar acts of heavenly joblessness.
       Then there were MT classes. I don't know a single person who didn't curse them. They were the reason I had to wake up at friggin 9 in the morning. I donno about you, but 9 is inhumanly early, at least as far as I am concerned. So I would enter class looking like a half choked fish, somehow manage to finish the experiment, come back and.. ...what else? SLEEP. :D
       Tests came. Nighouts happened. More tests came. Some cursing happened. Nightouts increased. And just when they got over and I felt like I'd conquered the world, came the T3 s..and the repwri report....and the maths assignment...and the ES assignment...and the.....err....something.. I forgot. So, the crux is, that there were like a bazillion assignments to do, and I had absolutely no clue as to how this was the...ahem... "litest" semester on campus. Then came the marks, then came the heartbreaks, then came the inevitable BITSian lifesaver, "Lite lo".
       Discovered a lot of new things. Realized that the ammeter in the physics lab can be made to work correctly if banged on the table with just the right amount of force. Learnt that an external hard disk is a must have. (It nearly broke my heart when I deleted Godfather from my comp, but with just 18 mb of memory left, I had no other options *sigh*). Learnt that duct tape is the best weapon against unwanted....errrr....animals in your room. Learnt that too many intros with juniors can get bugging after sometime. Learnt that Oasis stimulates weird homeostatic conditions in some species of human. Learnt that making paper planes is not easy. And realized that "OMG! They killed Kenny",  does not sound like such a cool ringtone when your phone rings in class. And that Rajnikat  ver2.0..well....don't even get me started on what he can do.
     Oh, and now while I glance at the calendar and the feeling that there really are just two days left for the compre to begin,  dawns upon me.. I also realize that I still don't know where my MT manuals are and that I haven't seen them around for quite sometime now...and that if I'm to save myself from eternal doom, I'd better do something about it soon.
      Ending on that note, and wishing all BITSians the very best for their compres.
                     .... May we all survive to see the golden dawn when comprees are but a thing of the past. (yeah, maybe I should just sleep now...I'm beginning to write lame poetry.)

Close Encounters of the Winged Kind and Other Absurd Stories.

       I've always been an exceedingly lazy person, I shamefacedly admit that. So while the world around me changed and changed some more, I couldn't bring myself to write something until today.
A lot of new things have come up since my last blog post. Before I proceed to actually getting to the topic I intend to write about, here are some updates on whats been up:
        MT < the unbelievably irritating 2(!!!) point course > is getting on my nerves.
They've introduced stuff that is supposed to make our life simple (oh really???!!! I don't think so) and wherein we are supposed to "decorate" our graphs (heaven knows what that means. Should I be using glitter pens for plotting?). And for an unfairly low 0.5 points out of that TWO POINT COURSE, I'm supposed to study Bio, a subject, which I must confess, I am not destined to ...errr.... well..umm...get the drift. :D
So, to cut it short, MT classes are spent pondering over the unsolved mysteries of life, like..why should I have to enroll for a B.E. course if I was so desperate to study bio, ..or why on earth must I write down everything that is given in the Chemistry manual into the observation book AGAIN, and then have a viva on the EXACT same thing. < Lab assistants showing tadi has also been known to piss off a lot of people >.
    No sign of redis yet :( and the IC is so super stuffed at 5, that its impossible to get anything at all.. so.. yeah.. I'm also going through a minor starvation period here.

 And NOW, the most important thing, its been raining in Pilani. Nope, I don't mean the pseudo rainfall that begins when you're walking on the road, and ends as soon as you're drenched and thereby reach your tut section looking like a sewer rat. < excuse the terminology, but thats the closest thing that I could thing of >
So...this has resulted into three things:
1. An increased number of insects
2. An increased number of lizards.
3. Weird zoological activity.

#The Insect Story:


Ok, so... its also been raining insects here. They're everywhere you look. Early morning you find them in the washbasins, or on your table. But its the evenings when they become a real nuisance. lgmfs < all Bitsians know what that means, if you don't...assume its a new species of insect, and don't bother > make sleeping a very, very strenuous activity. You really need to make sure you are covered by a bed sheet from head to toe.. or by the time you wake up the next morning, you'll have all sorts of red shapes on your skin, ranging from a butterfly< yeah, I saw a bite mark that was shaped like one > to .. well... the possibilities are endless... say .. a map of Tamil Nadu.
As if that was not enough on your plate already < oh..I'm sorry... did I forget to mention that they are omnipresent, so.. if you're not careful.. yeah.. you'll have a lot of them literally on your plate in the mess >
there are also the jumping brown crickets, which are not so bad, considering they don't leave you with any tattoo work... its just that they have a tendency to jump on your back, when you least expect it, thereby causing you to 1. yell at the top of your voice , and 2. jump 10 feet into the air.
Of course, given the wide variety of fauna present in our hostels, and limited space< the blog post needs to be readable you know :P > I couldn't possibly describe all the other rarities that I have seen around. Exotic species have been excluded from this list.

#The Lizard Story:


Now, this one's personal. A lot of people in this world have absolutely no problem with lizards. Lizards and the aforementioned people coexist in perfect harmony and stuff .. well.... I am NOT one of them . I'm scared of those sickly pale, tail swishing, insect eating remnants  of the Jurassic age. So, when one of those THINGS entered my room, apparently chasing one of the brown crickets...well...my world came crashing down < literally here, 'coz I fell off my bed and ran to save my life when I saw it > . The next few days were filled with misery and horror. Various options were considered, including sleeping in the sidie room, and many a days were spent looking at the tube-light behind which that monster hid. My troubles finally came to an end, when an exceptionally brave wingie.. well.. lets just say.. dealt with the situation. :D

#Other Absurd Stories:


1.  Neha entered her room to find a couple of sparrows sitting on her bed, which .. when they did go < hours later > .. left behind... errr.... a lot of blessings. :D
2. Sidie room had a cat jump in through the window, and onto the bed, and she made me check all of her room to make sure that the area was cat free.
3. A dog came running down the road and crashed into one of my wingies, leaving her traumatized for life.
4. I found a frog in my balcony. I simply have no idea as to how it got there.

Well, I guess thats about it from my side. Looking forward to the rest of the LEGEN-DARY stuff thats going to come my way this semester. :)