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. :)

Second Year-ite's Joblessness Leads to Pointless Writing Part-1

It's 4 am, I have a first hour class tomorrow, and I'm not sleepy..hence the random, useless blogpost. This post contains crap, is about random nonsense and basically has everything to do with the most useless things in BITSian life...and if that does not compel you to jump up and read this..it's best if you go back to sleeping(if you're in IPC) or go back to sleeping(if you're in your room) [other options for bitsians could have included DC++..but then that's not active yet..so i just mentioned the sleeping in IPC and the sleeping in the rooms bit..in case you're a BITSian and you're doing somethig else besides the aforementioned activities..a trip to Sarvi* is highly recommended.]
Anyways, so I'm back on campus, and its nearly been a week into the semester. A lot of stuff has actually changed on campus, the "peeli" buildings of "Peelani" have been repainted with...well..what else?yellow!..but before you get me wrong here...its actually a MUCH BETTER SHADE OF YELLOW. No, I mean seriously, honestly.. pretty innovative *grim face*. Some bhawans have been renovated, and people who don't happen to be lucky enough to live in those few are seen walking around campus, staring jealously at them.
The redis are gone, and I really have no idea of how the KG mess people are coping up(my heartfelt sympathies), but then, they'll be back soon, and we can all hope that students would be able to survive until then. So much for campus news(I told you it this post was crappy. Don't blame me now. ).
          Whats up on my side? A lot actually. My sem started with me getting a hopelessly hopeless PR number 905, so, as you might have guessed, I'm in a soup(that is so much of my normal state actually, that I really don't bother anymore. People shouldn't bother too much about their circumstances.) < This last line I read on the back cover of some book on spirituality that I found in the library, and I did not bother to read. You see, I'm following their advice. I'm not bothered enough by my circumstances so as to go about reading..erm...such nonsensical philosophical stuff.>
So, yeah, well, getting back. That 905 PR and the blessed CG card(it was withheld < thankfully >, got it on the day of the registration) made sure that I was not mentally capable of making a timetable for the registration, and I opted for DTC* . Filled in a random elective, and worse case scenario: GOT IT!!! (don't get me wrong here, the elective's pretty cool. I'm just born lazy, so 4 extra classes a week kind of freaks me out.)
And in the past one week I have learnt that 1. There is much more to pigeons than meets the eye. 2. Cooking rice is the ultimate expression of a top-down approach 3.My cycle and I should not be within a 5m radius of each other. An accident just happens out of nowhere.(even when I'm just standing with it.)
Oh and now that I'm a senior *look, i'm showing off :P*, I have met a LOT of juniors, and boy! whoever would have thought that taking intros could be so tiring!!!. But more on that later, its 5 am now, I'd better get to bed....err...right after I figure out what to do with all the insects in my room.
Oh and before I forget:
GLOSSARY:
1. SARVI: (n) Refers to the Birla Sarvajanik Hospital, a place where BITSians land up when a trip to medical center fails. 
2.DTC: Difficult Timetable Case. If you're this, you've probably cursed and blamed everything under the sun for your bad PR number.Have given dirty looks to all the guys in your wing who've got a better PR and have now resigned to your fate in an I-have-attained-nirvana kind of way. 
    


 

DC, thou art great....

It was 9 am on a Sunday morning. I was sleeping as soundly as is humanly possible, when my phone began to ring.I stuck out my hand from under the covers and groped for the phone.  "Hello.., " I groaned, without even glancing up the number. "Hi, is this Anushree?, " the voice on the other end said. "You call me up this early on a Sunday morning to ask me my name?!!, " I rallied. Not exactly polite you say? Well then,  excuse me, you've obviously never been disturbed on a Sunday, have you?
"Ahh..of course its you, " she said. I recognized the voice now. It was Bee, my schoolmate, who was now studying in Delhi. Post some gossip update, she got to the point.
"Okay, when you get back I want you to get that Godfather game that we talked about and a couple of movies, let me see..." And so she read out an entire list...
See thats what happens to you when you have something like DC on your campus. Weeks before you're about to leave for home, stuff like this happens. Not that I don't enjoy it. Its only human to feel good after making your friends feel jealous with the sheer size of your downloads folder. :D

 I don't know about you, but I am so supremely addicted to it that when I'm leaving BITS, I'll probably write a poem about it. I'll call it "An Ode to DC" or something like that... Anyways, I'm digressing from our topic, so I'll get back to it.

The thing with DC is that its your all time-all season pal. Weekend night: Movie on DC.

Post tut test night: Series on DC. Gen tp night: Counter Strike on DC. Whoever said heaven couldn't exist on earth?

Of course, its not a smooth ride always... 

RESOLUTION:I will get up on time tomorrow morning, I will have breakfast properly, and I will still make it in time for the 8 o’clock tut.

CONSEQUENCE:

(9pm): I’m bored. I’ll watch one episode of himym/friends/arrested development/house/…

(11pm)(post four episodes): one last episode. Then I get to bed straight. *determination*

(2am): heck! Half the night’s gone already. I’ll just finish this season. And then I sleep. *determination squared*

(4am): OMG!! How did this happen??!! Fine. I’ll do a nightout.*determination raised to the power 16*

(7:35am): *suddenly wake up* how did I sleep?! When did I sleep??!!! And I am so very LATE.

(8am): reach tut, looking like I’ve just been half-choked, and of course, I haven’t had breakfast.
Lets just say it has its ..err...after-effects. :D
 If you're a ghot studious, the only reason you're going to use DC for is going to be for downloading lecture slides[:O], solutions to books and other traumatizing stuff; but then thats only a tiny number, so ever since the start of time, this amazing piece of software has been put to its rightful use(read: lan-gaming and movie downloads).

side-note: when it comes to poetry, my talent heads southwards, but here's an attempt..
An Ode to DC~
Many a nights have I spent playing counter strike, 
Many a movies have I watched, 
Whenever a tut goes hopelessly lame, 
You appear like a shining beacon of hope and light, 
err..
chuck it. Some other time maybe. :D 



P.S. : For the uninitiated, DC is short for Direct Connect [I'll cut out all the technical gibberish here, in case you're interested, you'll find ample stuff about it on wikipedia :P or feel free to post your query as a comment and I'll get back to you :)], and its the coolest thing that could ever happen on campus(a Martian spaceship landing right outside my room comes a close second). With close to 100Tb of data being shared, and 11Gb(yes, you read it right Gb) of games being downloaded within a few minutes, its as good as it gets.

From Fourier Transforms to Surf Excel!! Ab sach mein possible ;)

"NO!! NO!! NO!!, " said I , "thats not right, I mean its best if you scrub and rinse the clothes as soon as possible. They'll begin to stink otherwise."  We were sitting in the chemistry lecture, one month into college(and hostel) life. Exactly at that moment,  the professor turned to look at the class. "So these are the advantages of using Fourier Transforms when it comes to Molecular spectra..., " he was saying. I immediately dived into the notebook in front of me, pen in hand, furiously scribbling,  and nodded my head as vigorously as possible, acting as though I had imbibed every word of what he had just said(he could have been speaking in Greek and Latin for all I knew). When he turned his back to the class, to go through a few more course slides, we resumed our very important discussion.With no past experience whatsoever of having managed on my own,  laundry issues were obviously more important than atomic and molecular spectra.
The guy sitting next to me shook his head. "Nope, " he said, "its best if you soak them for 6 hours in hot water. And mind you, use only surf excel. Others are not that good."*Haloed, knowledgeable pause*
I was skeptical, but decided to give it a try anyways, and that evening, with Back in Black playing full volume on my i-pod I set out to wash clothes. And voila!, that tip really worked(if you're reading this, thanks a ton!! :D )
       Sometime later into the semester a funny thing happened in our wing. It seemed to be overflowing with the smell of dirty socks(please wait before you jump to any conclusions!). Totally bugged, we searched for the cause. One of  the rooms was found to be the culprit, and it was really weird since they maintained a decent standard of cleanliness there. Mysterious, if you ask me. Anyways, so the girl who lived there called up her mother for "technical" help on the dangerous situation looming up. Here's how the conversation went. "Umm...mummy....actually our room has been..ummm(here an awkward pause)...stinking... for some days now...and we cannot find a reason for it. So..umm..what do we do now?"
We eventually did find the cause, it was old sock buried somewhere under the bed.

P.S. Among other "soft skills" that I learnt were the following:
1. Banana's cannot be stored for more than two days(beyond that they are transformed into a jelly- like pulp, and their smell is more toxic than mustard gas). (As an aside, I wonder if they actually used bananas in gas chambers..hmm...)
2.Its a bad idea if you plan to clean out your room after watching "just one" episode of house/friends/himym/.. (you'll never be done with "just one" episode)
3. If you're using an alarm clock/cell phone alarm to wake up, put it as far away from your bed as possible, or else, chances are you're going to switch it off, and sleep again.
4. Never ever ever take a tut who looks like a dhobi. His face would remind you constantly of the unfinished pile of laundry you have lying on your bed. :D

Of Food, Friends and Foes....

I was lying on my back with a copy on Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children held high over my head, trying to make sense of all the abstract ideas...when an inverted face came into view. It was Neha. "Anu! I've had enough!! Lets go out for dinner!!, " she pleaded, giving a particularly funny puppy-dog look. She's usually in a better condition than this, but lunch that day had been exceptionally inedible...and if past experiences were anything to go by, dinner wasn't going to be any better.
REWINDING TO LUNCH:
The guy in front of me dropped a green blob of some sticky substance in my plate. "Ahhh.....palak ki sabzi..my favorite, " I said, voice thick with sarcasm. "No, " said Neha. "Its not palak ki sabzi. Its methi ki sabzi."The question of exactly what we were going to eat seemed acquire to the complexity of Schrodinger's equation, so we decided not to bother our brain, and ask the man instead. "Sarson ka saag hai, " he said with a stony face. Enlightened by this knowledge, we proceeded to the daal and the chapatis, which I do not have the courage to describe..

So, I smiled and put the book down, and sat up."Hmm.. okay...where?"

One of the things I really love about campus is the sheer amount of choice you have when it comes to eating out. Mind you, nothing high end.. open air joints with wooden benches is as good as it gets, but there is something distinctly heartening about having an absolutely no-holds barred dinner with friends and coming back to your room and watching all six parts of Saw back to back(I do it when I'm alone) or The Notebook (or some such cheesy movie, when you have company).

I remember rushing to IC (short for Insti Canteen) and the countless redis on campus,  in between classes during the winter months, because I'm too lazy to leave my cozy bed and ultimately end up missing breakfast everyday. (And the prospect of having Sam chat instead of sticky-white-so-called upma, was an added incentive of course).
Or going to Canot, where every dish tastes the same as the other ( except for certain "chinese delicacies" which were so overflowing with soya sauce that I never had the courage to try them out). And Bluemoon's MNB(midnight beauty:D) shakes and Sharma ji's gulab jamuns are a perfect recipe for that crazy evening out with friends.
Or going to Food King and Sky and envying the Budh Bhawan guys for having all these places a stone's throw away.
And where do BITSians get all there crazy ideas? Its got to be ANC. Thats short for the All Night Canteen. Everything from APOGEE  projects, to Fash P is discussed here, amongst the endless shouts of "Fried maggi, boss!!". If  there ever was a poll about the most loved food item on capus, ANC cheese toast would win hands down.And ever since the system of paying via ID card came, cash-strapped BITSians have begun flogging to ANC like never before :D

We were still pondering over the question of deciding on a place, when Neha's roomie entered the room, ice-cream in hand. "Wassup?," she said. "Nothing, we're done with mess food. going out. Wanna join in?"
She looked at us, puzzled. "What, you guys don't know? There's a veg grub in the mess today."
"Damn!! Its high time atleast one of us checked up on the mess notice board once in a while, " I winked at Neha, as we rushed to the mess.

Comprehensive Examination? You're dead.

"I'm going to flunk!!!, "was the sound that greeted me as I entered my wing. I looked up, a visibly paranoid female was pacing up and down the corridor, chemistry book in hand. "Uh huh.. you DO realise that comprees are a fortnight away don't you?," I said. She looked up at me, horrified."Thats the point, its JUST two weeks!!"

You see, compree time in BITS is weird. And i mean it, WEIRD. Its like some poisonous ghot-inducing gas leak  occurred on campus. People flock to the library, as though they screened free movie shows there. DC chat goes poof. Lecture strength increases (I don't attend lectures, this info is based on close sources). Facebook, gtalk and twitter are flooded with the cries of BITSians in agony and the only word that you can hear around you is av.

And on the last bit, trust me. Av floats like ether in the air around you. Conversations are reduced to: 

A: "Oye! what was the av for Physics last sem??"

B: "xyz."

A(irrespective of what xyz is): "pehle waala batch phodu tha be!!." (dives back into book with renewed vigor)

Back at Meera Bhawan, ANC orders increase exponentially. The nescafe stall wears a deserted look, and the few people who do sit there have books in their hands. So, putting it in a few words the entire atmosphere around you is one of extreme concentration...

And trust me, watching all this ghotting going around you..people talking about how many subjects they're done with while you're still trying to recall exactly where was it that you saw your text book the last time is scary...very scary. So, while the world around me was busy preparing, I was in a happy state of bliss, welcoming all the joblessness after the T1/T2/tut tests. I should have known better...

"Thats it!! I'm not studying any more." This was my roommate, as she slammed the book down on her table, and held her head in her hands, lest it should explode from the sudden charge of knowledge. "I'm going to sleep, I'm done for the night."

I looked up at her, and an inexplicable wave of self-pity rose in me.I had completed 4 chapters out of nine, it was 1 am and the compree was at 9 am, a mere 8 hours away. I sighed, and mentally pleaded,  "Dear God, please, please, please, let me complete my course by morning. I swear I'll go to Saraswati temple daily, and I'll always complete my course on time."

Post this white lie, I groaned and went back to ghotting. Needless to say, I did not complete my course on time, however the good thing is, that the topics I left did not carry too much weightage in the paper and I managed decently.

And the next semester, one day before the paper there I was, again, saying"Dear God....

:D

BITS?! Couldn't get through UPSEE/DCE/WBJEE???

Being a BITSian ain't easy. Nope. I'm not talking about acads here. I mean ya..ok..acads is not easy either but thats something you deal with on-campus, its the off-campus thing that really gets to you. Have no idea what I'm talking about? Let me get to it.

See now once you and your post-exam mangled brain have landed up in BITS here's what you're probably going to think: BITS-Pilani! heck! wow! And your brain is instantly filled with scenes of you showing off in front of your relatives. You imagine..wait..no... you can actually SEE how you will open your precious mouth in front of aspirants, and they will fall at your feet asking for tips on preparation..well..ok ..I may have gone a little overboard there..but you get the gist.

So you're basically in paradise, and believe me if you will.. it won't be very long before you fall on your face.

SCENARIO:

Characters: overjoyed, recently selected student(who's probably waiting to join), some fat obnoxious aunty/overly inquisitive uncle.

So what happens is, you're sitting like a bird, preening your feathers, feeling that oh-so-top-of-the-world feeling, when the human being visiting at your place asks about where you're joining. You try to be very casual. BITS-Pilani, you say in a huh?big-deal kind of voice. BITS? They say in a tone which makes you certain that you just spoke in some Aborginal language. Yeah. BITS, Pilani. Pilani?(same tone of voice). By now you are certain that something is dreadfully wrong with your vocal cords and you make a mental note to visit the ENT specialist ASAP. Yeah..its in Rajasthan. Ohh...Rajasthan they say, in a really sorry and sad voice, all the time shaking their heads as if you had just told them that you had stage three cancer. Didn't get through UPSEE? tch tch tch...happens..who can foresee the ways of God..

You're going to be in a fix. Two possibilities arise: 1. You're schizophrenic and made up all that stuff about the place OR 2. The people sitting in front of your are absolutely dumb.

As you will get along with your life in this place, you'll come across such situations on a regular basis. I've been associated with this college for a year now and trust me, I still have no idea about the exact causes of this inexplicable occurrence. In fact, this dentist fellow(one would suppose he would be educated enough to know) said this: "Why are you studying in Rajasthan? There are so many good colleges in Delhi itself. Xyz college is really nice. My niece(or some random relation, I don't really remember) studied there. AC classrooms. *self-satisfactory grunt*.

Post this dialog, I was at a loss for words(and that is a very, very rare thing).

What more do I say? The world is indeed a crazy place.