Dec 21- 27

I must confess, I have made my most stupid decision in the past two years by taking up a ‘spiritual’ subject. OK, OK maybe not the most stupid, but I was definitely acting like a retard when I made this choice. And no, it is not about to significantly change my life. So while it may sound like an interesting class from the outside to many (Well, with the professor talking about Old Monks and Hangovers!!) but in essence, the class is about as profound as Bozo, the clown. Sample this masterpiece- "Before enlightenment, Rivers are rivers and , mountains are mountains. During enlightenment, rivers are not rivers and mountains are not mountains. After enlightenment, rivers are once again rivers and mountains are once again mountains." So you see, we are supposed to absorb, not think an awful lot to truly enjoy our meaningless lives. But then again, toilet paper absorbs.

On Christmas day, our mess decided we need something special. I thought something was up when I saw what I later realized was a Santa puppet on our mess doors welcoming us. Now you may think why i didn’t realize that immediately, but you see this is Bengal. You see a man with a beard, you see red and your first thought is,’Oh! Karl Marx.’ And well that puppet and some artificial undecorated Christmas trees were the only sign of Christmas in the mess. The food wasn’t special, it was regular, by which I mean horrid as the mess is still not serving chicken.

While consuming a Sizzling Brownie, if you have finished all the ice cream, never attempt to have a go at the chocolate sauce. It’s flaming hot and burns your tongue. (Yes, yes it happened again. But not to me and not this week. Though this happens with me every week in winter. I am dense enough not to ever learn.)

It is so cold here, that I could see fog lift off from a lake. And yet, when you tell people who are not here they say, ”Oh, You have fog there because the humidity is high.” They conveniently forget that it has to be biting cold for all that humidity to condense. With my toes turning an unpleasant shade of blue, I cannot afford to make that mistake.

Watched Slumdog Millionaire this week. Good movie. But I seem to have a grudge against Mr Anil Kapoor( IS that how he spells it still?) So I shall proceed to say, that though he makes an effort in an attempt to not sound like a ‘dehati’,( rolls his r’s and all), his “Who wants to be a millionaire” sounds more like a “Who wants to be a milliner”.

~catchingupwitholdfriendsmakesforagreat week

Apologies

Well it’s been a long break indeed. I would like to say that great earth shaking changes have taken place all because of the effort I have put into my work with such diligence and blah blah…. But I cannot. Some things have changed, though I am not sure what, I say this only because I have been told ‘Change is Constant.’

Anyway, let me bring you up to speed. You remember the exams I was talking about in January? With such a pathetic attempt at preparation, I barely passed most of them. End terms were like the proverbial salt on the wound. But at least they brought the year to a much awaited end and I headed home for holidays.

After this I was off to Mumbai for my summer internship. Time flew fast and again I did absolutely nothing productive as I spent 2 months in the lap of luxury. I made it a point to religiously follow all the IPL matches. Which team did I support? Why, whichever one was winning of course! After all the point of watching the matches was not as much to revel in the excitement and entertainment (by either the cricketers or the cheer leaders, how does it matter?) as it was to kill time in office. Mumbai , inspite of its traffic, I love. It’s safe, the people are nice and (hallelujah) it’s a foodie paradise.

Come June and I was back on campus. Changed my room, but it has not made any difference in the number of bugs that annually visit me. The two mosquitoes from my previous room have also followed me here. And I have finally given them names. The one that hums near my ear to keep me from sleeping is Lup and the one who bites is Dup.

On the academic front, I resolved to undo past sins and somehow study. That lasted about 5 minutes, after that I was back to what I do best, procrastinating, which has been the root cause of such a long break. But fear not. I am back now and you can expect me to spew venom here regularly.

And now for overcoming my inherent laziness, I shall pat my self on the back( no help needed) and treat my self to this ( help needed but only during procurement)-

Of bajjis and kozhukattais

At long last… A blog to take one’s mind off the general miseries of the world and especially that perl code back at office (it has got everybody talking excitedly in hushed tones. Too bad they wont let me know what it is) while I sit here nursing a runny nose and an equally fluid mind.

I learnt a lesson today. Never bunk office unless and until u have someone to take of your lunch and dinner. I write this as I watch that cold rasam left out in the hall. (Another lesson – never add ginger garlic paste toa rasam even if u have a blocked nose. It does absolutely nothing to the cold and it permeates the mucous block.) A couple of updates from last week.

• Had a swell last week in TN. Honored a couple of weddings with my presence and got lots of athirasam to eat too. Also had this ear-piercing ceremony for my little cousin, during which the entire set of my female ancestry condemned me as not religious enough. And had a good look at the saravana stores building that had fired up the previous Monday. (For the uninitiated, it is the Harrods of Chennai)
• Got this fancy water bottle that I have seen sports guys use. It has this lift to open type of cap. Since then I ve realized that the design of the burette was inspired by this bottle. But then they removed the sucking sound (what with all this silence in the lab and girls-boys-separate-groups things). Got too enthu with it and downed some 5 liters from it in spite of the fact that I had to make some 8-10 adjourns to the restrooms. And repeat of the latter at night. Since then it has been found to be a good compliment to my mobile holder which stood alone.
• We had to shift our house the week I left. So while the roomies sweated it out, yours truly was eating kozhukattai while lounging on the sofa with the TV tuned in to travel and living and rd classics collection in hand. They make u feel good. (Not classics, the kozhukattais) It was quite a culture shock with the new house, when i came back sunday morn. Can you believe ppl live without heaters in hyd in September? The other extreme is getting lost in the Sahara with diarrhea (You have an alternate choice in both the cases - stove heating and, let's call it recycling, respectively, but u wouldn't wanna take that)
• On the technical front, by which I do NOT mean office work, had this invite on orkut from a body builder guy which I turned down. You might think – yet another snobbish FCP. But alas, dear reader, it is not so. I have once accepted a request from a guy who was looking to get placed in my company. The thing that made me refuse was that the guy was looking for someone who could develop his English skills. (No laughing, wait till I complete) Which set me thinking that this was so because he thought that I could do with some body development myself. So ended what could have been Armageddon.
• My brother’s got this funny name on Orkut. Roughly translated it means Gom Bull. Don’t ask me what Gom means. But I am more concerned with the bull part. And he has some scraps from girls too. He’s definitely growing up.
• On the work front, things have been pretty bad lately. Not much work to do. “But patience brave heart. The world will be yours one day.” And readers, yours too. Then we ll ask Shiv Khera how to divide it up cos if 6 billion (if they supposedly read his book) can own the world, can’t two nitwits and their readers (which is also two, if u count us) do so?
• Been watching this video again and again. Enjoy!!!
  

And our man went to Andaman...

Right... So now I know that when you start working, you stop blogging. Or atleast for the first few months when the pin up board in your cubicle is bare and devoid of push pins forming hearts. Now Jetsam knows it's easier to say you are too lazy to write a blog than to actually dare to sit on your ass, with the head cocked to hear the mildest drop of anything from a pin to your manager's head, and start feeding crap into the system.

Now its crap to me cos i hate reading my own blogs, but i do it just so that i can say, "Hmmm... You talking about Zenit? I love that team.. Very talented players.. I have a pic of that team on my blog. You didn't know I had a blog. Gawwwp... Phissshhhh... Of course I do... Everyone has a blog now no? You don't? That's awful... Blah Blah Blah..." . So you see blogging is good for ur ego. And that is why am blogging on my friend's lapper while she's away. :-) Before you think am a sneaky lowdown whatsoever and chase me for the mail that went missing last week from your inbox (The one that was signed - Ur Love, Dolly, Smooch!), I d like to say that research shows that 76% of all people who hit this page suffer from the phobia of being useful.

Now that the introductions are done, (Splendid chappie eh? What?) I embark on an entry for the vacation that spanned from 3rd day of May to 12th day of May. (long sentence but lyrical)

Got on a flight to Port Blair from Chennai on Saturday. Nothing much to report except that my brother observed that the standard of air stewardesses was falling nowadays and that the man in the front row likes the lavatories on planes.

I have to admit that the islands looked awesome from above. All the shades of aquamarine blue and hilly green and sandy yellow swim lazily before your eyes that one cant help but think why the hell cant they wipe the blurs off the windows. What i was looking forward to was 5 days of escape from Perl and coffee machines. We got onto this taxi we had arranged and the driver thankfully spoke tamil (Ahem, Flotsam cannot form one complete sentence in hindi - it is jaata hai and aata hai all the way, again lyrical!) or rather, what would be left once Udit Narayan is done and over with it.

Now the astute reader would remember what the author was trying to avoid. While the first part was satisfied, the second stuck like the extremely annoying lamb one Miss Mary owned. Attribute it to the lack of bovine elements on the islands or anything, but the entire island drinks from coffee machines. So its like you have this guy who welcomes you into a tea shop and asks what you want. Once you have voiced your pick and dropped a 5 rupee coin, you hear this familiar buzz and turn around to find the bean gorging, steam spewing Medusa grinning at you.

You have to praise the beaches there. For one, they are very clean and two, they are devoid of the usual beach crowd that gapes at women and chases anything on four legs. (Both possibly Tsunami after effects) And they have some excellent coral reefs too. Went snorkelling and found this smooth coral remarkably similar to the pav they serve at my office. There was this other thing, the guy who accompanied said it was a clam, but i doubt clams blow kisses through blue mouths.

Hold on! I forgot about this 4 hour trip to and from an island called Havelock. Agreed its a splendid place and if it had enough bare bodies, would have been called the Riviera on the Bengal Bay, but 8 hours on a ship that is named Ramanujam and is as confused about the directions as his calculations were, are enough to remove the spark from one's eyes. To give you an idea of what it was, at the end of it, we were walking N 58deg E and then N 23 deg W apart from swaying like we bore the legendary albatross of the Ancient Mariner.

So after being toasted crisp and just enough to stay warm and gooey inside, we finally caught a plane back to the mainland where cows graze and clams are dead, both in peace, Amen.

PS : A word of advice - When bathing in the sea, have your priorities right. Remember, your eyes have eyelids but your nose doesn't. So you are better off holding your nose closed than closing your eyes with your palms.
And this shit blogger doesn't allow me to write in black. If you face the same problem with Fonts, don't even bother clicking where they ask you to.

January 20 - 26 - Exam Week

Time table (no names, lets stick to the thoroughly irrelevant details)
Monday- Subject 1 – morning 10
Subject 2 – afternoon 2
Tuesday- Subject 3- morning 10
Wednesday- Holiday (yey!)
Thursday-Subject 4- Morning 10
Subject 5 Afternoon 4
Friday- Subject 6- Morning 11:30
Now the events of the week.
On Sunday I actually found it(don’t ask me what ‘it’ is, if I’d known I would have used the proper name) within myself, to pick up a text book. Subject 2 was pretty heavy. So I thought I’d finish off subject 1 first. High hopes. Here is what ensued.
4 pm- Hmmmm … what have we here. Lets see.
4.05- yaaaawwnnnn
Some time after that.-zzzz… Dreamland (censored).
6.23- (looking around in frenzied disarray) huh huh what happened? (Spotting the book. Enlightenment) Ohhh...
6.27- Stopped cursing. Threw the book where it belongs. Picked up Subject 2.
7.15- (On finishing the introduction chapters.) hmmm not bad.
7.26- (First numerical). Is this… no this is… or may be this.
7.30- Look up solution. Resume cursing. (This circle of numerical,confusion,solution,cursing continues)
8.15- (after a friend asks- dinner?)Stop pulling my hair. Get up and proceed towards the mess. Curse food, bird flu, birds in general, so on…(not the cooks though. I don’t want to find out if the food can be worse.)
8.30- Everyone around starts cursing me.(finish your food fast you (censored)….)
8.45- Finally done with dinner. Pray that this should be the last time I see my dinner tonight.
8.47- Resume pulling my hair.

Monday
4. 00 am- Look at the clock. Decide i’ve put in too much effort. Hit the sack.
7.00- Wake up and take up subject 1.
(fall into a doze every 5 minutes)
10 - Exam begins.
11 – Back to subject 2. How did subject one go? How would I know?
12.20 – Feel drowsy. Decide that a five minute nap is justified. Give in.
12 29- Wake up in shock. Realize, that I forgot to set the alarm.Thank the crow outside my window for waking me up.
2 – Exam time. Browse through question paper. Clueless. I could have confused myself. But the professor wanted to have a part in it too.

4.30- Start on Subject 3.
5.41- (On encountering first graph.) Ahhh… so this increases, and this decreases.. fair enough. (Understood)Rest of the day goes on pretty much same lines.

Tuesday
4 am- Hit the sack again.
7 - Wake up. Lets have a look at those graphs again.
10 – (Exam time.) Ahh graph, this I know. (Start work.) Now, if only I could remember what was on these axes. Hey was this the graph or.. ? (Rub Rub Rub. Start drawing some other graph.) . No not this. **** the one I drew first was right. (Rub Rub again.)
And so on.
12- ah no exam today….
Proceed to waste the rest of the day.

Wednesday
Wish people on their birthday, anniversary. Remind people not to forget these important days.*
Study for part of the day.
Wonder, why am I studying this for the rest of the day.

Thursday
10- Subject 4
Not bad at all. Except for usual screwups. But I’m used to them.
4- Subject 5
This paper should have been named ‘Use your imagination’. And since I have none, such a warning would have been enough for me to bunk this paper.
5.30- Back to the numerical, confusion, solution, cursing, and hair pulling routine.This time it lasts 12 hours.

Friday
5.30- Call it night. Rain. Seasonal Mixup. Feels nice to know I am not the only mixup.
6.27- Woken up by a dozen mosquitoes.
7- Give up trying to sleep. Pick up book again.
7.05- Don’t know what to study. Think up pet names for the mosquitoes.
11.30- Exam. Read minimization as maximization. Proceed to blunder my way through the rest of the paper.
3.30- Good Long night. Woke up 18 hours later.

*Happy B’day Pravee, Ma, Sindy and Anita aunty. Happy anniversary Aunty. And Congratulations Changu. Commiseration to your fiancé and sorry I could not be there.

January 13 - 19, 2008

On Tuesday I crossed all previous levels of stupidity set by myself when I proceeded to open a door on my own face…
Apart from a 2 inch long scratch on the side of my face it gave me a splitting head ache and might have caused sum changes in the configuration of my brain. This I suspect is the cause for my new found affection for rock music and (stupidly enough)escape room games. Needless to say I m not studying for my mid terms which start coming Monday

In other news one of my friends was in a small accident during which her head hit the windshield, bringing it crashing down. The vehicle spent 10 days in the workshop while she got a week off from internship. And she claims nothing happened to her. I doubt it. I feel she sounds a lot saner. So I here s to hoping something falls on each of my friends heads.

Then one of these days my orkut fortune read –‘the luck that is ordained for you will be coveted by others’ that was the day I caught a cold. I have asked everyone around but no one wants my cold. So in case any one of you do, please confirm. Though I am not sure on how the transfer will be made, I am hoping to come up with something (Yeah Yeah, Dubious Science).

Now, because of this cold I have been drinking only hot water and stuff. As u may have guessed my tongue is burnt. So now along with the side of my face and the top of my head now my tongue hurts too. If someone were to slap me on the other cheek and smash my nose, it would round things up for me. I shall put out a news paper ad to that effect, watch out in tomorrow s Hindu.

My brother’s landlord’s maid has a crush on him.

And oh yeah. Some market here caught fire on Saturday. It took the fire brigade 2 days to respond. 500 shops gutted. And 100 hrs after the fire started it was stamped out. Also there was a blast somewhere in the city on Thursday. On Saturday police say it could have been a terrorist attack. Or a gas cylinder burst or a methane gas pipeline burst or transformer burst. Which is to say that a day and a half into the investigation they hav found out absolutely Zilch. Zero. Nothing. So as u can see I live in the action capital of the world. If my pants catch fire (which, given my inherent carelessness seems more and more probable each day) I may have to go all the way home to get help in dousing the fire.