Beginner's Luck

:)

2011-12-17T14:52:00.001+05:30

:), a photo by rajeev.choudhary on Flickr.

Maithon

2011-06-14T11:17:00.001+05:30

Maithon, a photo by rajeev.choudhary on Flickr.

"Busy?" "No, sinking."

2011-06-07T10:36:00.003+05:30

So more than a year, huh? The only handful of times I wrote were MBA essays. Uncreative, uncreated essays. And why, you would ask? I will be tempted to say, "Hey, I was busting my ass, preparing for CAT and other animals. There's only so much a man can do!" Busting my ass, really? Tata Steel is such a sweet organisation, it's almost gay. So there was no busting'. None.

Three- the number of books i read in the last 12 months. Shameful. So shameful that I was ashamed to tell the interviewers that my hobby was reading. Orwells and Marquezes were taken advantage of, but shameful it was. So, no reading, no writing. No shit in, no shit out.

34- inches almost my waist kissed. My cheeks were so swelled, one guy during our convocation wondered whether I was bit by some insect on my cheeks. No sport, no work. Degradation. Patan.

Zero- number of good movies watched.

Passions- Books. Movies. Sports. Photography.

Art is no shit in, no shit out. Books, movies, photography- I dumped them all. Words dumped me in return. All art forms are brethren. No shit in, no shit out.

Tips to get popular on facebook

2010-12-12T19:03:00.003+05:30

How to get more 'likes' and 'comments' on facebook?

1. Keep changing your relationship status, even though you have been fucking single your whole worthless lives.

2. Copy a tweet. Paste it on your status. Not have a courtesy to mention the source. Who cars if you are a loser- you still have 37 likes and 23 comments, 11 of which are your own 'thank you's.

3. Put up statuses like "What do you like in me?" or "Write down your views on my sexual orientation here". Don't worry,

such status always get comments from people who will put similar status in future and expect you to comment.

4. Have a birthday. No, seriously. Change it once a year, and have two birthdays. You will find people don't remember shit, and they will copy and paste the previous wall post's wish every month, if you want.

5. Put up a picture which challenges your friends' intellectual prowess by calling upon them to perform the "hilarious" act of forming sentences like "I am a dumbfuck, because I was sexually abused as a child by the man who slept with my father" on the basis of your birthdays and your favorite color. Tag all 897 of your friends in the picture.

6. If you are a guy, change your sex. Then you can do/write/post shit and expect all your desperate guy friends liking and commenting and hoping that in some way it will lead them to your bed.

7. Put smartass posts/ status/ notes where you make fun of facebook users, and pretend to be of higher intellect than them. And it helps if you put a bit of sex in your posts. Works for me.

7 most irritating writing habits on Facebook

2010-09-19T22:20:00.002+05:30

1. LoLing: LOL in itself is not very lovable, adding -ing to it makes it execrable. Plus it is grammatically incorrect. Expand it and it becomes Laughing Out Lauding. Makes sense?

2. Rocx: Rocx (roxx or rokx, for that matter) with a generous helping of the exclamation mark (!) seems to be in vogue since the Orkut days. It does not rock.

3. Didn't + past form of verb: Eg didn't saw. Go back to school, soon.

4. If YoU LikE to wRitE lIke THis, yOu aRE ProBaBLy alREady hiDDen fRoM mY NewS FeEd.

5. "LoLzzzzzz" or "Awesssoooomeeeee" or such like: I expect it from girls, but I judge you if you happen to be a guy and perform this act of sodomy on English.

6. Status updates which have the link 'see more': Dude, if God had ordained you to be a writer, you'd have been much less of a loser. Keep your shit to yourself. Most of us don't care.

7."mah", "f9", "ty": If you were so busy to not have time to write "my", "fine" and "thank you", you wouldn't have been on facebook! And how is "f9" "fine"? Shakespeare turns in his grave, really.

His right to education?

2010-04-06T08:12:00.001+05:30

Wayworn

2010-04-05T21:46:00.001+05:30

My Tweets- Retweeted

2010-03-27T09:42:00.005+05:30

140 characters- less than the length of a text message. Therein lies the power of twitter- to say more with less words. Twitter is a place you are heard, not only by your friends but by complete strangers, even celebrities. One tweet can make YOU a celebrity.

Here I have compiled a list of my favorite tweets (tweeted by me).

Before we get started, you would like to get a hang of a few things:

Jhujhunwala is a twitter celebrity. He is the fake Rakesh Jhunjhunwala (here's the real Jhujhunwala). He purportedly has more money than the total worth of Unobtainium in Pandora and Chuck Norris is his left pinky.

A hashtag (# preceding the word) in twitter is simply a way for people to search for tweets that have a common topic.

Okay, let's go.

1. Sachin in a deal with Apple to sell his catchline "I-La!" after Nayan Mongia had a similar deal for "I-Ga!". #fakingnews

2. Q: Why K11P wanted to pick Headley in place of Brett Lee? A: He swept across India and no-one could catch him.

3. When Kaif saw the mongoose bat, he was like "thank god it's lighter to tip and run with!"

4.The news is that Kaif has not included himself in his own IPL Fantasy League team!!

5. L sivaramakrishnan looks like Samuel Jackson not fed properly for months.

6. If you were born intelligent and education ruined you, your parents probably lied to you. You were born so screwed up that education gave up on you.

7. 70 turned Chuck Norris today. (Some bastard stole this!)

8. I heard Chuck Norris peeing is called Niagara Falls.

9. I am sure if I listen to Penelope Cruz for half an hour I will have orgasm(s).

10. If all is well, what happened to lakes, ponds and other water bodies? #pj

11. When Rome was burning, Berlusconi was fiddling around with 18 year olds. #ModernProverbs

12. An Apple a day keeps Microsoft away. #ModernProverbs

13. Monica Lewinsky- A Clinton's in the hand is worth two of the Bush. #ModernProverbs

14. When you actually think twitter can help get you a girl, you don't need a girl- you need a life!

15. "Center pushing through women's bill." If you look at it closely, there's a lot of sex in the sentence. bill= बिल

16. "din mein yogi, raat mein dogi?" #nithyananda

17. Bhakti by day. Fuck thee by night. #nithyananda

18. Q: Why can't news websites replace news papers? A: You can read news on computer, but you can not masturbate on the screen

19. Dear Mr Karan Johar, the world will be a lot better place to live in without your wisdom and "message".Please stick to mushy love stories. Please.

20. #AwesomeIndianThings ND Tiwari- beats Tiger Woods pants down, err hands down.

21. Know your man by the difference in him before and after ejaculation.

22. If Tiger Wood's sport is putting balls in holes, ND Tiwari's is playing snooker with a rope, if you know what i mean.

23. Q: When will Tiger Woods return? A: When he has enough balls to look at new holes.

24. Q. Why can't Chetan Bhagat buy a home? A: Because people do not give him credit.

25. People are sending me MNIK spoiler SMSes. As if SPK's movies are any less predictable!

26. Can silicon give you bigger 'tweets'?

27. True story: Jesus came to Jhunjhunwala to ask for some awesomeness. Jhunjhunwala gave him his power to walk on water.

28. 140 characters is the maximum Chetan Bhagat should be allowed to write. Anywhere.

29. #4wordsAfterSex Lets tweet about it.

30.Just because English is not your mother language, it does not mean you can fuck it.

31. Will you be my valentine? Wait! wasn't valentine a dude?

32. Q: Why does Jhunjhunwala have all the time in the world? A: Because he invented time.

33. Only Jhunjhunwala can tweet more than 140 characters ('cos he invented twitter). It's only his modesty that he doesn't.

34. #UnlikelyIndiaBooks Art of Living by Savita Bhabhi

Not just another article about Sachin

2009-11-15T08:18:00.003+05:30

According to Indian standards, I was a rather late entrant into the cricket fan club. The earliest I can remember was when I used to wonder why are all players named India, as I was unable to read the complicated names of the players (that was a time when I used to read 'national' as 'natio-nal', so my vernaculars were not that accomplished). I used to sit in front of the TV with excited elders without being able to make anything out of it.

Cut to 1996: I was in my village, still no more interested in cricket than I was a few years ago. World Cup was underway then. That was when people were talking about a certain Jayasuriya. People in our village used to say "he is pissing fire". Then one day, people flocked to the only radio (brand Santosh) in our family, shouting every time the audibly excited commentator raised his voice. Someone said, in delirium, Sachin hit a century. My uncle (he was a student then and i remember him noting down the details of every match in his diary) took the radio with him to the hand pump where he had to wash. Only after filling out one bucket, he started cursing everyone as the commentators raised their voices again. Only this time they were clearly heard, as in the stadium there was a pin-drop silence. Sachin, apparently was out on 136. And that seemed to matter a lot to everyone. From my sixty year old grandfather to the "lower caste" guy who worked on our field discussed his innings, his career in detail. The love story began with that match. When i later saw him on TV, he looked so much like us- with such a cute smile. But boy, didn't he look perfect in his helmet when he took guard!

Till this date, I don't think any batsman looks as beautiful as Sachin when he takes guard. I can't explain it in cricketing terms, but there's something about that look on his face, the way the helmet sits on his head, the way he lifts his bat that makes him all the more endearing. For all my childhood, when like all ignoramuses I too believed that test cricket is boring, Sachin's batting was the only thing i could watch even if he played really slowly.

I was raised in a family where discipline was paramount. There was a fixed time to study, fixed time to play and a fixed time to watch TV (which was really less- the first time i watched cartoon was in my college). During ODIs, you could only watch the first 15 and the last 10 overs of India'a innings. The exception was made only when Sachin crossed 50. It was as if Sachin's century was more important than my studies, dad's office and ma's cooking. Even my bed-ridden grandfather who kept asking about the score from his room, would come to the TV room if Sachin was about to reach his century. We would discuss about his innings all day in school. Surprisingly, he was everybody's favorite. I used to read every word about him and the match in the paper the next day.

Sachin reached the peak of my admiration during the 2003 World Cup. The houses of cricketers were attacked, effigies burnt, ads featuring cricketers taken off air (Sachin's TVS ad was still being aired, though) after they had a disastrous start to the tournament. Sachin addressed the nation through a TV channel. He said something on the line of this:

"...we are very proud of the support that we have got from our people back home. We want to assure them that we are trying to perform to the best of our potential. It is your support that we need the most at this moment. Please be patient and pray for our success..."

In the next match against Zimbabwe, he scored 80 odd imperious runs. And for the rest of the tournament, he carried the team on his shoulders, fulfilling the promise he had made to nation.

There will be many great players to come. Even his record may not be permanent. But no one will care about his record when decides to leave the game. People will always remember the way he has made them happy for moments in their very complicated lives. Sachin is etched in our psyche in a way that he will never fade.

Blue Line Blues (...continued)

2009-08-21T22:12:00.002+05:30

(The first part of the post was written a long time ago. Read it here before proceeding to read further.)

The metro ride, unfortunately is no longer the fun ride you imagined. One problem is the people. I have a theory about the buses in Delhi. "The capacity of a bus in Delhi is infinite." Most people who use metro these days were commuting by buses before the arrival of the metro trains. Add to that the number of people who still use buses as a means of commutation on the same route on which the metros run. That gives us the conclusion that buses can accommodate any number of people. How is a question which fails physics. And the bigger unanswered question is how on earth are people able to move from the back front to the front in the sea of people where even bacteria can not accommodate?

Coming back to the metro, its a sign of huge serpentine queues now- queues for tokens, queues for entry into the train, queues for exiting the station. There are people smashed against the glass doors, people clinging to the last cm sqr of the rod to support themselves. With seats reserved for the ladies and 'the old or physically challenged', metros have gone a step ahead. That's no respite, though even for the delectable ladies, what with all the boobs to handle and save them from getting squished. Poor creatures, they have to put theirs hands on their chests to save them from the kamini duniya. There should be a reservation for them on the floor too so that they have separate standing spaces.

Men are bastards. No, not because of their illicit love for woman's breasts. They can not not come in contact with women on metro even if they wish to. They are bastards because they fart. (This again is a bold assumption that only men do that, but c'mon, women can't do that in public!)

But the journey sure is quiet. I miss the shepherding of conductors.

A black canvas and nature's painting on it

2009-03-24T01:38:00.004+05:30

It's 3 in the morning and it's one of those nights again when my eyes refuse the overtures of sleep. I lie on my bed, naked. My room mate is away, which gives me a chance to be in the state i love the most to be in- nature's state. A scooter rattles by, breaking the silence of the night and a brilliant flash of light passes through my room. I get up, sit down and look out of my window. Yellow, green, white- on one big black canvas- how i wish i had a paintbrush in my hand and i knew how to paint! The white tube light glowing under the green plastic shade of the cycle stand is giving out a magnificent green fluorescence, reminding me of the tube lights wrapped with green and red foils, dotting the streets of my village whenever there used to be a marriage or thread-ceremony (janau or upanayan) and which always fascinated me.

The street bathes in yellow light cascading from the street lamp. The leaves of the tree branch enveloping the street lamp glows with shiny yellow, the tree enjoying the limelight. Some lights flickering on some houses punctured the all encompassing darkness, darkness which fills every void, every space that is visible in the day light. Darkness fuzzes the contours, dissolving everything into a big, continuous object. It smoothens the rough edges, making it easier on the eyes and the mind. And that's why you can think in darkness, you can reminisce things or try to forget about them, you can meditate, you can day-dream. Because, darkness with it brings silence, crassness around don't bother you anymore, your mind is uncluttered. There is coolness, lightness.

A faint light enters my room through the window, the shadow of the window grills falls on the opposite wall, with the shadow of the leaves dancing in the breeze. What a painting!

A guy is roaming at this hour on the street, talking on the phone with his love. And oh, did i tell you- love blossoms in dark?

Just Yapping

2009-03-15T06:18:00.004+05:30

Time has whizzed past by this year, too many events in too short a time. That is the reason for me not writing? Yeah maybe or it may even be sheer laziness. The only place i have been putting my mind to writing has been my Facebook status message. And you guys, don't freak out yet. I won't be turning my blog into an almanac. I won't always be telling you what i did the whole day today, what did i have for lunch and stuffs- you are not my girlfriends, after all. This is just to refresh my blog page. So bear with me and read on.
It's disappointing on my part to have never mentioned BAJA on my blog. It was something very special and deserves a separate post. While the world was partying on New Year's, we were breaking and remaking our car. Much more on this, very soon.
Then Tata Steel came for internship. I scampered from here to there, collecting formal trousers, black shoes, blazer, tie, certificate folder (some guys even scampered for certificates), knowing all this time I don't have a chance in the world. I just scraped past the shortlisting criteria. GD was a cakewalk. Interview was the concern. if it was technical, i was a dead meat- it was clear as daylight. The interviewer started with my hobby. I knew the game was on my home ground. "Blogging and reading, sir." After that he served and i returned with grace. Blog, books, suspension- couldn't have been easier. They beat me like savages, like a mob beats a thief. My butts, my thighs, my balls, my eyes- I am sure they wouldn't have stopped even if i had died. 17 degrees, chicken, alcohol, expensive alcohol- the usual routine.
February started real sweet. You pretend you don't need it, believing you are doing just fine. But only when you get it, you realise it was this touch you had been wanting all this while. The smell somehow lingers for a long time.
I have resumed reading. Just got over with To Kill a Mockingbird, though i had already watched the movie. And i am flirting with non-fictions again, after having failed in my attempts earlier. India After Gandhi and Jesus Lived in India have been added to my book shelf.

ISM Dhanbad or IIT Dhanbad?

2008-11-09T10:19:00.004+05:30

In the raging debate on whether ISM should be renamed IIT Dhanbad, we need to ask the correct question to reach to a proper conclusion. The question can be: ‘Does ISM deserve to be an IIT?’ or ‘Does ISM deserve to be changed into IIT?’

Does ISM deserve to be an IIT?

The answer is a resounding no. ISM is no doubt a world class institute for earth sciences (mining, petroleum, geology etc.) and it has been so since it’s inception in 1926. But ISM falls woefully short on innumerable counts if we talk about the institute as a whole. It has been about 10 years since ISM became a full fledged engineering institute. Still none of the new born departments can claim to hold the candles against the IITs.

Much has already been said and written about the shortcomings in ISM Dhanbad. This enthusiast here has put up a litany of points which can easily fit in this space. This blog has bared the ISM infrastructure to the bone. Though things have been exaggerated at times, still this will give you a clear picture of the point I am driving at.

Does ISM deserve to be changed into IIT?

By this I mean, does ISM deserve to be treated as the IITs are treated, and developed on the same lines as IITs? You see, changing the name can not be the answer to all our woes. I agree that a layman will assume you are a mining engineer once you mention ISM, companies like Microsoft may say “we do not recruit mining engineers” and “an ISMite” does not sound as impressive as “an IITian”. But come to think of it, is it only because of the name? If the Computer Science Department was as good as one of the IITs’ or some of the NITs’, corporate world must surely have heard of it. Don’t they know about petroleum engineering which probably is even better than mining in Indian School of Mines? Let’s be honest and face it- our engineering streams are not half good as IITs. So, time and energy must be invested first in making the institute world class, rather than renaming it.

Now you may ask, shouldn’t then every engineering college in India be fostered like the IITs? The answer is ISM should be given first preference. Practically speaking, it's not possible fot the government to invest such amount of money in every institute. The students coming here have qualified IIT JEE; it is obvious they should get into an IIT level institute. ISM attracts talent from all over the country only because of its affiliation to IIT JEE. Why would someone send their ward from Kerala to Dhanbad to study had it not been for this exam?

Some of us are worried about the opening of new IITs and consequent attrition in ISM’s intellectual capital because only lower ranked JEE qualifiers will opt for ISM. The concern is palpable but the reason again is not the name. People won’t come to ISM because ISM is not as good. Period. Let’s not fool ourselves that IITs are famous because they are named IITs. It’s because they have achieved excellence in their field. They would be as hallowed as they are now even if they were all named ISMs. The argument that people don’t know about other streams because we are named a mining college is flawed. Now that you are in the college and you know everything about it, that there are other branches, would you suggest someone BITS Pilani or ISM? If you’re be honest, it’ll be BITS, right?

I have never said that ISM should not be renamed as IIT as some of our alumni zealously argue. My point is transform ISM into IIT and then rename it rather than just renaming it. It can only be for the better, and if anything it certainly will not hamper ISM’s brand image, as they (the alumni) believe. How can an IIT tag be detrimental to some college’s brand?

The White Tiger: An opportunity missed

2008-10-22T18:09:00.002+05:30

No wonder Aravind Adiga did not get the welcome Indians bestow with alacrity to any “Indian” achiever. We have a habit of thrusting Indianness on persons who have nothing to do with India except the fact that they happened to take birth here. Adiga missed out on a lot of print and prime time hours wasted on him where febrile media-men hail the “son of our soil” once again “beating the world” and immediately proclaim the “coming of age” of Indian cinema, Indian art, Indian writing in English, Indian Diaspora, etc etc. Adiga, on the contrary got a rather cold shoulder and at times, vehement criticisms because he held a mirror to our face, or at least he tried to.

This exactly was the reason why I was looking forward to The White Tiger. All the good stories about India’s emancipation, growth, advancement when you could see abject poverty all around you had started to make me feel nauseous. I had this feeling all this time that there a lay a great work on the poor of India, the kind of poverty which held no hope, gave you no chance to get out of it- “the darkness”. And Adiga’s book for me held promise. I brushed aside all the criticism of the book, believing it was merely a reaction because we can not face the truth.

But, unfortunately Adiga squandered the opportunity. The book starts off wonderfully. The anger, the frustration is palpable when he calls Indian democracy “a fucking joke”. But that was all to it. The novel then becomes an account of everything that is wrong with India, jotted down without any imagination or story. It starts looking more like a work of a journalist than a novelist. He miserably fails to portray the life of poor villagers, which according to me could have been the USP of the novel. The atrocity of the landlords and exploitation of the indigent seems to be taken straight out of a bollywood movie of the yore.

In the second half, the book completely comes apart. What the hell was going on in Delhi? What was your point, Adiga? That drivers need to do all kinds of household work, that ministers take bribe (that won’t sound like news to anyone), that rich people should not fuck whores, that killing your employer was the only way you could make big?

It’s not Adiga’s fault. He wrote about India, but he didn’t write for Indians. Whatever we see around daily may make an interesting read for Americans and British. So, in that way Adiga is even successful. But an Indian will be disappointed after reading this book. If you have to read about the smaller India, I would still recommend English, August. Chatterjee surely knows more about the India of “darkness” than Adiga can even imagine.

Now the big question: did The White Tiger deserve a Booker? First, what does the jury try to look for in a novel? Those of you who have read Life of Pi will agree that if a trash like that can win the prize, any other novel can. I seriously think the credibility of the prizes is questionable. It’s hard to believe that Life of Pi or The Inheritance of Loss were the best books written in the whole of England and CW nations in the years of their winning. And a Booker for The White Tiger? What a fucking joke!

९६९१

2008-09-15T01:24:00.003+05:30

निलांजन बनिक
याँत्रिकी अभियांत्रिकी
९६९१
ताप और भार/g भगा दिया

Banik is terrible when it comes to Hindi. So, when he set off to write HEAT AND MASS TRANSFER in Hindi, he managed this. His logic: Hindi for weight is भार. Thus MASS= भार/g. And poor soul, all he could think for TRANSFER was भगा दिया. Way to go nange!

Come and kill me

2008-09-13T20:09:00.004+05:30

Hey, guess what... you can come and kill me any time, any where, in any way you like. I am an Indian common man and what's the fucking value of my life? Make me your punching bag, rip my legs apart, blow my brains out, kill my brother, sister, mother, father... We are more than a billion here and we won't be running short of human beings. So, who gives a shit? No one. The bunch of morons we select to rule us... why would they care? No one kills them or their loved ones. They are, after all valuable lives. And if some one kidnaps their relatives, it will only take freeing some terrorists. Their lives is more important than hundreds that will be killed later by these terrorists only. Fucking heartless, gutless, sons of bitches!!

And dear ma and papa, you too don't worry. Next time I get out, I may never come back. But you are losing your sons and daughters every day. I'll be just another one... just another Indian..

Yellow

2008-09-10T22:03:00.009+05:30

Warning: This turned out to be grosser than I intended it to be. The material may seem repulsive and sadistic to some. I advise those gentle souls against reading further.

Dear departed lizard, I am very aggrieved by your death. It's not as if I have any special affinity to your clan, other than the occasional thankfulness for eating away the flies and insects of my room. Your sperm-shaped turd as the byproduct of your benevolence, though is awfully disgusting. I have another grudge against your kinfolk for falling on the unsuspecting human beings, completely catching them off guard which is really embarrassing and spine-chilling. I have a very creepy memory of once finding one of your very colorful family members in the pocket of my shorts. I cried to tears after I touched it's rough, repulsive skin and couldn't dare to touch my shorts to take it off. My mom took it off even as I kept howling.

I find your death grievous because of all the types of deaths, I would not wish for me or others the kind that evokes laughter. I am really scared of dying while having sex or while watching a horror movie. What a shameful death would that be? The US media made a mockery of George W. Bush when he nearly choked to death by a bite of pretzel. Had he died, it would have provided fodder to the stand-up comedians for their lifetimes. Here are some of the funniest deaths I found by googling 'funny deaths':

Kenneth Pinyan an Enumclaw, Seattle WA. man, died of acute peritonitis after submitting to anal intercourse with a stallion (an adult male horse).
Sherwood Anderson, writer, swallowed a toothpick at a party and then died of peritonitis.
Aeschylus, Greek playwright, was killed when an eagle dropped a live tortoise , mistaking his bald head for a stone.
Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha, died at his residence in Abuja of a heart attack, rumored to have been caused by the ingestion of large quantities of the drug VIAGRA as a prelude to an orgy.

One such example of a very unusual death is that of a grasshopper. After mating, the female grasshopper slowly eats off the head of the male grasshopper. And to call human licentious!

So, your death is tragic because it is comical. I am still trying to discover what may have been the cause of your death. Were you suffering from acrophobia? Your situation resembles to that of a trekker whose mission went awry and is clinging to the edge of the cliff, blinded by the height. Or were you trying to spy on your wife/ husband and died of a stroke after seeing her/ him in a particularly atrocious, unimaginable sexual position with your best friend? Were you bored to death watching the lives of us morons, being terrible at engineering drawing? Or were you thinking of reaching to some very conspicuous protuberances like we do, but some other lizard did you in and jumped instead? Or, be very frank to me my friend, were you being insanely experimental and trying to go anal in this position and you died in the process?

Whatever be the reason for your fall my friend, I dedicate these lines to you.

And it was all yellow.
Your skin
Oh yeah, your skin and bones,
Turn into something beautiful,
You know, you know I love you so.

P.S. Photograph by a certain sadist, Sheky.

Manifesto

2008-09-04T00:02:00.012+05:30

The air in ISM is quite tense these days owing to the “elections” for the ISS body- sarkar, as it is called in college vernacular. The elections here are not the usual democratic affairs, with campaigning, speeches, manifestos and other hustings. It’s more complicated. Had the election been a normal one, the manifestos of the candidates would have been interesting to read. And had I been one of the candidates, I would have made sure to include the following points in my manifesto:

Courting couples will be barred from entering the library together. The problem does not lie with ‘set’ jodis. It’s when a boy or a girl is in the process of finding their mate and evinces interest in other that it becomes a nuisance. It’s at that stage when the couples forget library etiquettes and can not help themselves from chattering incessantly, inviting the ires of other less fortunate beings busting their asses there.
Deodorants will be made mandatory and awareness campaigns will be run to educate the junta about the importance of personal hygiene and the ill effects of obnoxious body odors. All the students and some of the faculty members will be invited to attend these campaigns. As it is very difficult to make every ISMite wash daily (for some even the brushing of teeth is a luxury which can be put off to after class hours or the next day and I used to think it is as indispensable as getting up itself), they have to be taught that their bodies do not always give off the scent of masculinity or of love. Sometimes, their body odor can make life hell for their neighbors.
No stone will be left unturned to bring KFC to Dhanbad. I don’t understand how that is not an issue here. How do people let themselves be deprived of the KFC’s soft, succulent, crispy chicken, especially after having tasted it once?
Seniors will be banned from getting their assignments and practical notebooks completed by murgas (first yearites). Being once in the first year myself, I know the indignation one felt at having to draw strange figures and write hundreds of pages for seniors.
The Jharkhand government will be requested to reopen the ‘daroo ke thekes’ in Dhanbad as soon as possible. It is extremely unfair to the sex-deprived guys here to be deprived of alcohol too. Besides, it is also a case of the rich and mighty capitalists (read Equator bar) making money at the cost of thekewaalas.
The chhotus of the canteen will be given name tags and it will be made mandatory to call each one of them by their respective names only so that their identity is not lost. Students are indiscreet in calling these guys, almost every worker summoned by the name of chhotu or Anand.
The students will have the right to deny the unsolicited copies of ISM’s newsletter, which unfailingly sucks and adds to the mess of already cluttered cubicles, which are passed off as rooms of the students.
A formal announcement will be made that the widely spread rumor that the nai (barber) who visits the Topaz hostel is gay, is totally unfounded. Sheky confirmed that he showed no such tendencies when he was getting massaged and is, in fact a good masseur.
Not flushing the toilet after using them will be made a crime punishable by law.
Finally, the first criteria for being the badminton captain of the college will be that he/ she must have played badminton at least once in his/ her lifetime.

एक ही धारा में बहने दो...

2008-08-30T01:47:00.004+05:30

I wrote this in class XII. Read the last paragraph...

"छोड़ दो ये भारत, ये सिर्फ़ हमारा देश है।"
ये कहना कितनी विडंबनाओं से लैस है।
अरे मूर्खों! तुम्हारे ही कारण ये देश बिका है
क्या तुम्हे पता नहीं भारत चार स्तंभों पर टिका है?

ये हैं हमारे हिंदू, मुसलमान, सिख और ईसाई भाई।
इनके खिलाफ़ बोलने से पहले कभी सोचा ऐ कसी
की हमारे देश में कितनी गरीबी, अशिक्षा, अराजकता है?
तू अपनी ताकत इन्हे मिटाने में भी लगा सकता है।

क्यों करते हो ये दंगा, फसाद, हिंसा, अत्याचार?
अपने ही भाइयों के खून के प्यासे, सोच लिया होता एक बार
की इससे विश्व में हमारी क्या बनती होगी तस्वीर?
कौन मानेगा यहाँ संग रहते हैं साधू और फ़कीर?

मैं हाथ जोड़ के विनती करता हूँ, हमें संग रहने दो,
हम को अब एक साथ देश की धारा में बहने दो।
हम साथ रह कर ही सुखी रह सकते हैं
और अपने दुःख मिल-बाँट कर सह सकते हैं।

हमरी एकता को भंग कर हमें खुश रखने का ये कैसा बहाना है?
हमें तो एक जुट होकर देश को शिखर तक ले जाना है।
हमें खेद है तुम्हारी आतंकी मंशा पर
अब चलने दो हमें गाँधी की राह अहिंसा पर।

और तुम भी चल चलो हमारे साथ
बढ़ा लो तुम भी दोस्ती का हाथ।
आज चख ही लो प्रेम और सौहार्दय का स्वाद
क्या पता मौका मिले न मिले आज के बाद?

एक असफलता

2008-08-29T19:09:00.004+05:30

I wrote this piece in class X, I guess. I wonder why I left writing hindi poems.

रातें क्यूँ लगने लगी हैं और कालीं ?
क्यूँ धूमिल हैं दिन के उजाले?
पतझड़ क्यूँ लग रहा है सावन में?
गुल क्यूँ मुरझाये हैं गुलशन में?
क्यूँ आशा आज निराशा को रास्ता दे रही है?
सफलता नहीं असफलता आज अपना वास्ता दे रही है?
क्यूँ सपनों का महल टूट रहा है?
उम्मीद का दामन आज क्यूँ छूट रहा है?
क्यूँ एक हार ही सब झकझोड़ गयी?
रास्ते का एक पत्थर क्या धारा को मोड़ गयी?
जिनकी आँखों में उम्मीद थी मेरे लिए
क्यूँ उन्होंने आज आंखे ही फेर लिए?
आज जब ज़रुरत थी सहारे की,
मेरी नैया को तलाश थी किनारे की,
तभी क्यूँ छोड़ दिया उन्होंने मेरा साथ
बढा था आगे मैं थामे जिनका हाथ?
इस घनघोर अँधेरे में जो रास्ता नज़र नहीं आया
ज़ल्द ही मिटटी में मिल जायेगी मेरी काया।
मैं तो क्या मेरी परछाई भी बिखर रही है
फिर क्यूँ नहीं कोई हाथ मेरी और बढ़ रहा है?
फिर क्यूँ...

Dry Ink II

2008-08-22T18:36:00.003+05:30

I guess I gave found the reason for the 'dry ink' in my pen. I am not able to write because of the same reason as i am not able to do anything. It is the immobility that seems to have inexorably crept into my system. It is the reason due to which I can't complete a movie, complete a novel, read the papers or study.

ISM has this effect on you- it tranquilizes your senses, anesthetizes your mind like morphine. The ennui which has clawed my existence has hazed my ability or the will to observe, think and write. Had it caused any frustration or anger or disgust, I'd have something to react to- all it has done is to put me in a state of torpor, from which it seems difficult to wake up. I'm trapped in the sloth-circle of eat-sleep-to class-eat-sleep. Every single day I wake up to the same morning as the last- only the date on the calender changes. The exact kind of life i used to love for the first two years in college. After years of drudgery, the choice of doing nothing was a blessing.

When you have lot of free time, your mind wanders to strange territories. The uneventful days, nights, weeks, months has forced me to imagine quirky situations. What if i get hit by a bike? Or diagnosed with, say brain tumor? What if i pick a fight with that guy i can not stand and smack him in the face and keep smacking him till the blood oozes out? How would my dad react if get my eyebrows pierced and my back tattooed? What if i find out that I am gay?
I have become obsessed with Su-doku and National Geographic magazine. Sometimes I just lie down like a cadaver... my mind then is absolutely blank. No thought runs inside it. Is not this what the yogis pine for and meditate for in the Himalayas- the ability to shut the brain out completely? And from here springs another idea in my mind- what if i go to the Himalayas like the yogis? I sit blank here because I see no purpose in my life; in the Himalayas, attaining blankness would be the purpose of my life. (Varun has asked me to write more about the Himalaya plan; I'll write it in a separate post).

I'm in third year now and I'm supposed to be working hard. And i think about that too- working really hard. And obviously, time is not a problem. But the inertia is too hard to shed. I have been inoculated with doses of indolence, every day since the day I joined college. I seem to be vaccinated against pangs of soul-searching or introspection- I just can not see, outward or inward.

I'm off to eating-sleeping-eating now. It's difficult to ferret more thoughts out of an empty head.

Dry Ink

2008-08-11T22:13:00.001+05:30

I am fucking frustrated for not being able to write. It’s been so long that I have started hating myself for it. And I keep thinking about it all day long. It is like an ulcer on your gum- it’s on your mind every minute; your tongue goes over it every other second, no matter how hard you try it not to. The thing lingers at the back of my mind every single moment. I try to think something to write and it just does not flow.

I don’t know about you ( I know I am addressing an empty audience; thanks to my hiatus, I have lost the handful listeners I used to have) but I love my writing. And that is what pains me the most. When I read my previous essays, I love them as a painter loves his work. I can see the current of words, the seamless shift to the next sentence, the coherence of the paragraphs (does not sound too modest, does it)… this aches the most; I could have written so many wonderful little pieces and marvel at them myself.

Everything is missing- the idea, the wit, the originality- and I seem to have no clue how to get them back. I hate even this piece as I am writing because the absence of my usual ingredients is glaring. The text itself is crying out loud that I am writing just for the sake of it, the effort is evident. It seems the pen has been forced (and the pen has been forced) and it is spluttering, instead of articulating like a smooth orator.

I am tired of thinking about it all the time. I am tired of opening my blog and reading the same stuff everyday, pondering how beautiful I could have made the page. I am not an accomplished writer but I love my work no less and I want to keep writing the way I used to do… writing is what I really began to love because whatever I wrote was the only thing that I could say was my creation.

Just Yapping

2008-08-04T20:05:00.003+05:30

I have not been able to write for a long time now. It’s not that I had lost my source of inspiration (I didn’t have any) or that I was too busy (the fact is that most of the time I am bored of doing nothing)- it’s just that nothing has been coming off… the flow of my pen has been missing. I had been trying to write something, anything all this while- book review, movie review, comment on political situation, attempts at comedy, attempts at satire- but every time the text left me unsatisfied as a reader… they duly found their way to the wastebasket. So here I am putting down some random thoughts, just an attempt to bring the momentum back.

I recently came across the term ‘buyer’s remorse’. According to Oxford ALD it means “the feeling of disappointment sb has after they have bought sth when they think they have made a mistake”. I am having the same remorse since the day I bought a pair of Adidas shoes, shelling out 2500 bucks. The day after I bought the shoes, I realized that a size short. I tried my best to make myself believe that it was all right, trying everything from tying the laces very loose to wearing socks which are made of thin fabric. But the fact is that they hurt. I mean they really hurt. If that doesn’t seem painful enough, almost every second person in the campus has the same pair of shoes. I can’t buy a new pair of shoes right now (my dad will kill me if I do)... let’s see how long do I have to keep limping.

The type of queue is different in case of the lavatory and the bathroom in our hostel, I recently observed. There are 4 lavatories and the same number of bathrooms. There seems to be a tacit rule. In case of the lavatory, you enter the one that opens first out of the four. But in the case of bathroom, you make a separate queue outside each bathroom and you enter only the one in which line you are standing. That means, while in case of lavatory there is only one line, in case of bathrooms there are four.It seems logical too. While one can wait for a little longer to take a bath or one can drop the idea altogether, such options are unthinkable if you have to shit.

On the back of the jeans of a guy (yes, on his ass), I saw this caption written in big font- ‘NATION WIDE’. Now, how wide an ass is that?

One of my friends made his female friend his girlfriend in 3 hours flat. That is not the most interesting fact. He got so bored of her so quickly that he outsourced the ‘job’ of chatting with her to his roommate. His roomy got bored too and then that guy invited anyone who was interested. Now to us sex- deprived ISMites that seemed like a blessing. We (there were 5 to 6 of us) chatted with her for 3 hours… and we talked sex and sex and then some more sex. In the end, we can very confidently say that she was completely satisfied.

Okay, in 21 years of my existence, how many times must i have opened the locks with the keys? But what i fail to understand is how come i still can not open the lock in one go? I mean, how can i turn the key the wrong way (clockwise or anticlockwise- i can't remember even now) every single time?

Where There Is No Learning

2008-07-19T21:38:00.002+05:30

This article was published in The Telegraph some days back. I won't say anything... the article says it all.

A few weeks back, one of my brightest students who, for some reason, resisted going abroad, asked me: "What is the difference between universities in the West and here?" A direct question on a subject like this can be difficult to answer.

There are visible differences determined by the funds at one’s disposal. But are there deeper ones? I tried to recall my experience as a student abroad and compared that to what my students in India go through. I zeroed in on two points.

The first concerns teaching, or rather with how teachers perceive their role and relationship with students. In our colleges and universities the proportion of teachers who prepare seriously for their classes is rather small.

Delivering a lecture is reduced to a routine, to the extent that one doesn’t think about individual classes, let alone individual students. The emphasis is on the number of lectures one delivers per week, not on their quality.

Even in cases where the quality is high because the teacher is an active scholar, interaction with students is minimal and concern for individual students and their progress is rare.

This is in sharp contrast to the treatment of students in the West. In most European and North American universities, each student is made to feel involved in the progress of the course. A lot of first-hand reading and writing is expected from everyone.

The teacher is expected to respond to each student's writing as many times as the course calls for. Comments made on the student's writing are not of a routine nature; rather, they convey the teacher's incremental impression of the student's work, including the reading done. As a student advances to higher levels, the teacher's responsibility and involvement increases.

This is in sharp contrast to our universities where most doctoral students pine in vain for regular guidance. The teacher-student relationship here is a subset of the larger institutional ethos.

In universities, it is negative from day one when the student runs from one window to the next, completing admission chores. Regular teaching begins weeks after the academic session has officially started and remains sporadic.

Research students wait for months to receive their advisor's comment which often turns out to be perfunctory.

Most teachers don't care for their students' intellectual progress or emotional well-being. The absence of kindness and concern in teachers' behaviour is not confined to universities, as the recent spate of reports on severe corporal punishment shows.

The second major difference between universities overseas and ours concerns the condition of libraries. Why our libraries are so bad is a puzzle which cannot be explained by citing the paucity of funds alone.

I knew a librarian who was well-trained and cared for reading, but apparently did little to save his library from rapid decline. He said: "Most of our students study for marks and they can get marks without using the library". What about teachers?

The frustrated man showed me records of books that teachers had borrowed over 10 years ago. Reminders and fines were of no avail.

The joy of browsing in a library remains alien to most of our students. Neither the syllabus nor the pedagogic relationship with teachers impels students to self-exploration.

As philosopher Mrinal Miri has pointed out, one can get through our system and do well, without coming across a single uplifting idea which can be sustained for a while. To get their entrance ticket for the examination hall, students are required to surrender their library tickets and obtain a ‘no objection certificate'.

This procedure shows how little we trust our students. We assume them to be cheats who run away with books. This attitude reflects the colonial character of our universities.

They have done little to overcome this legacy. They exist like relics of a bygone era, serving essentially as expensive babysitters for teenagers. It is a rare youngster who survives our higher education with self-esteem and a dream. Is it a surprise that such students normally want to proceed abroad to realise their dream?

Even while going abroad they face obstacles. American universities do not trust our mark sheets. They ask for a transcript freshly typed out and signed by the head of the relevant department. For this service, departments and colleges charge a bewildering variety of fees, ranging from Rs 25 to Rs 400 per copy.

The money is not all; the student must wait for days and run the stressful risk of losing the chance to go. In a recent case where the student had lost all hope of getting the transcript signed by the head of her alma mater, an authority no less than the vice-chancellor had to intervene. Mercy was finally shown but not without a farewell insult for using a short cut.

An alumnus who now resides in the US was less lucky. Her application for admission to a new course could not meet the
deadline because her old university in India failed to send a fresh transcript of the degree she had earned 15 years ago.

Should we be surprised that India did poorly in a recent ranking of the world's 200 best universities?

Blue line blues

2008-05-16T11:40:00.003+05:30

I was afraid that the advent of Metro rail would rob me of a lot of free entertainment that one gets on a bus ride in Delhi (lest you are unknown to the world of commutation in Delhi, I warn you that a Delhi bus ride is not entertaining by any possible stretch of imagination- I had to find ways to alleviate some of the miseries). I loved witnessing flying tempers of the commuters, the conductors and the drivers, fueled by the searing Delhi heat and the ever-burgeoning population of Delhi. Particularly in the evenings, when commuters and the conductors are tired from the day’s work (plus the regular blasting the commuter gets from their bosses throughout the day), the commuter v/s commuter, the commuter v/s conductor and the conductor v/s conductor fights are a treat to watch from the sidelines.

I thought I would also miss the ‘cross-gender bonhomie’ in the bus. In addition to half the seats reserved for them, the fairer and equal-to-men-in-all-fields sex want the men to offer them their seats as they do not like standing in the bus (who wants to equal men in this field?). It is difficult to ignore their pleading eyes and if she is a bomb, don’t even ask! And then there is the unwilling social service act. When on a bus, beware of old people, women and people carrying children because if they do not get seats you are expected to offer them your seat without them even asking. And if you do not, you’ll invite the glare of everybody standing and in their eyes you are right up there with the likes of Charles Shobhraj and the Nithari killer in the bracket of inhuman assholes. The other sitting persons try to avert eye contact with the pleaders, lest they would become the sitting ducks.

I even enjoyed the traffic stops a lot. Have you seen the posture of girls while riding a pinion to their boyfriends? The half climbing, half humping posture, the girl clinging to the guy in the helmet- it is picture perfect. It becomes more so if the girl is wearing short tops… it provides quite a thoughtful insight for the people who have never treaded that path.

To be continued...

Senseless Debate

2007-09-13T18:09:00.000+05:30

Of late, there has been a lot of talk about relationships in my college. It all started with girls "raising their voices" against the boys for making rude and obscene comments on them (inadvertently, I, myself have contributed to these comments, thanks to my risqué writing style). Then, somehow (and I don’t know how) the discussion shifted to ‘relationships’. A kind of blog-war has ensued between the sexes of ISM, since. Let me make this very clear- this post is not a part of that war, as I find the silly boys v/s girls debate ridiculously puerile.

There have been accusations that ‘relations’ are made just for the heck of it, or the fame that comes with it. Relations, that we are talking about is between opposite sexes, as you must have guessed by now, attracted emotionally or biologically. It’s a pity most of the guys in ISM can only talk about it; getting into one is a privilege of a precious few and I am too damn jealous of them.

My point is, why should we discuss about this so seriously? Why, of all the important things to bang our heads about, should we choose the pain or pleasure in someone else’s ass? The relation (at this point, the use of this word has started getting seriously cheesy) is between the concerned boy and the girl- it is for them to worry about what propels their relationship- “eternal and immaculate love”, breath-taking sex (or the hope of it) or the raised status in the peer group, that it supposedly bestows. Whether they spend nights on their phone, discussing about the quantity of salt in their dinners, or spend hours in the library studying books or each other- who are we to decide that this is nonsensical (though, I personally think the love birds should go easy on mobile phones- it does not make sense to me)?

Accept it, many of us (and that includes both boys and girls) did try or thought of trying to end up the same way- the fact that we could not make it does not make the system of boyfriend-girlfriend questionable or laughable. So, let them roll into the good times and hopefully, into each other (amen!). It’s not that we are completely left behind. We can enjoy the action from the sideline. Ask the “successful” and the “unsuccessful” guys I give a terribly hard time about it, and derive sadistic pleasure from it.

And yes, be in the line. Who knows when the lady luck may smile on you and your target heads for splitsville? You would not want to loose that chance, would you?

Sexy at 60

2007-08-12T12:43:00.000+05:30

60 years of struggles, fights, travelling taxing tortuous paths, ups and downs, victories and setbacks, but India shows no sign of being wayworn. At 60, India never looked younger, never looked sexier. At 60, India found its arrogant adolescence- vibrant, throbbing, die hard, intrepid, legs fresh as ever.

I lack the vision of a socialist or the acumen of an economist. But what i write is what i see from my own eyes- the eyes of a young, exuberant Indian from a very middle class background. And the eyes are twinkling- they are hungry, they are expectant of the good times beckoning.

There was never a time better than now to be an Indian. The opportunities are out there, staring at our faces imploring us to go grab them. I am Indian for whom Rs. 3.6 lakh per annum is a surety, and is a poor remuneration (my dad has worked for a top government undertaking as a class-I officer for 20 years, and his take home is not more than 25 grands). I have my dreams, and i know being an Indian is not a roadblock anymore, rather its a huge plus point. I do not envy any other country, nor do i fantasize about the tag of an NRI- i can beat the world from my own ground. The world stops, gasps and presumes that i am a mathematics wizard or a techno whiz kid or a top doctor when i say i am an Indian.

Making money and being obscenely rich is not unethical anymore. My idols are not Swami Vivekanand or Mahatma Gandhi- i adulate Ambanis, pray Naranmurthy and want to be someone like Vijay Mallya. MNCs are queuing up outside to enter my country, begging us to let them cook and serve our food, to sell me their clothes, to spoil me with their cars and bikes and gadgets. I am the new, confident Indian- a dreamer, for whom even sky is not the limit.

But will this satiate my hunger or quench my thirst? No way, there's a long long way to go. Hundreds of years of impoverishment is not forgotten so easily. There's no scope for stopping or looking back till we reach the summit of supremacy. Till then, let the good times roll and let it whet your appetite for some more.

Starry Expectations

2007-07-08T05:45:00.000+05:30

The boy was looking at the sky, starry eyed.
“Is the sky too far away, mummy?”
“Not for the stars, son. Will you be my star?”
“For that I will have to go away from you, mummy.”
“I will look at you from here. Stars look so beautiful from the earth.”

Dhanbad to Darbhanga

2007-07-07T19:49:00.000+05:30

The title must not be sounding particularly exciting; nor is the text to follow, I am afraid. Not that the journey from my college to my home was a very memorable one or something, I just wanted to write something and I couldn't think of anything. Please excuse me trying to extract humor from a naturally boring journey by spicing it with some references to sex. Inspiration courtesy English, August.

With my mind completely fucked up after two excruciating weeks of end-semester examinations, I was all geared up leave the place for some days. It was not as if I was too excited at the prospect of spending two long months in Darbhanga; I was just happy that it had all passed (the exams). I had Pankaj for a company. To board a train to Darbhanga, we have to go backward to Asansol and wait there for 3 hours and then finally get on the train.

So I got on Black Diamond, with Pankaj and his two cartons full of books and luckily, got seats too. I don’t know whether it was my t-shirt or the color of my skin, a man resembling the TRS chief, Chandrashekhar Rao asked,
“You are from Dhanbad Mining School?”
”No, I am from Indian School of Mines”. Get your G.K. right, you son of a bitch.
“Yes, yes, that is what I meant. How is the placement of your college?” And how does that matter to you, bugger?
“Some of us do get placed sometimes, actually”
“OK. Good college in local area.” Thank you, sir.
Luckily he found a Bengali mate and spared me for the rest of the journey.

And the train chugged along, passing Sitarampur, where some of my friends regularly come to quench their carnal thirst. After all, money can buy sex!

After we reached Asansol, I called one of my school mates, who was in an engineering college there. We hugged each other and I could notice that college had made him smarter too (as it does to almost everyone. Almost). He said that I was looking good now (that ‘now’ never fails to irritate me; it makes me think as if I looked like rat-shit before). He could see some kind of a “glow’ in my skin, which according to him was because I was regularly mounting someone. Ha-ha…what adolescent imaginations. And then he asked the inevitable and the ubiquitous question,”koi maal pataya ki nahin?” and meaning to say “I have a girl and can’t live without talking about her”. And so he started talking about his “only reason for existence”. After listening for some time, I could not help giving a sexual turn to his immaculate love story with the question “kahan tak pahunche?” He retorted with a “NO!!!” as if I had asked him to go to bed with me. And then I tuned into my Swami Rajdev mode and started lecturing on the virtues of sex, on how his girlfriend must be feeling deprived by his not making an advance and finally, my favorite one liner “Sex without lust is the ultimate expression of love”. He left at 8 and the train was on time at 8.40.

We were on train and as usual, there was not a single female of an eye-able age in my bogey. We occupied our places, Pankaj, me and his two cartons. An uncle opposite my berth asked another ubiquitous question, “Where do you study?” ISM, Dhanbad, I said. “So you are also a mining man like me”. “No, my branch is not mining…it’s mechanical (and there are 18 streams other than mining in ISM, I added silently)”. We switched the lights off at 10 and I changed into shorts to sleep comfortably (or did I want to show off my new Jockey underwear?).

It was around 12 or something when I was awoken (and so was the whole compartment) by the shouts and shrieks of some 60 odd people. Initially I thought it was a robbery, but eventually I came to know that it was baraat and they will be with us till Darbhanga. The battalion was led by a man, who looked like a porn star and wore a hair band. He was shuffling and reshuffling his men from one seat to another as if some astrologer had told him to arrange the baraat in some particular order. Amid curses from his fellows for not letting them sleep peacefully, he kept solving the Rubik’s Cube till 2am.

If that was not enough, another man who didn’t have a ticket and who didn’t see anything wrong in getting into the bogey without one, asked to let him sit on my seat. Altruistic that I am, I obliged. After an hour, I woke out of discomfort and I saw him sleeping on half of my berth in a foetus like position and hence forcing me into the same.Another night without sleep, as has been the case for the last 15 days.

We reached Darbhanga on time. Pankaj’s mom and dad were waiting for him and his cartons at the railway station. I wished them hello and goodbye and went for finding a rickshaw for myself. I tried to haggle for the price with one; he tersely said he won’t go. I am thankful he didn’t rock his genitals; the way SP Kumar’s autowallah did in English, August. I finally found one for myself. At reaching my home, I was greeted not with the usual “you have grown so thin” concerns, but with the concerns over the length of my hair. Welcome home.

10 things that college introduced me to

2007-04-21T21:20:00.000+05:30

Not seeing the sunrise. Even if the sun gods defer their arrival by an hour or two, i still wont be able to make it.
Bunking classes, proxy, running out of the classroom when the teacher is teaching... C'est la vie!
Using slang at the frequency of the order of GHz.
New vocabulary- BC, matiyana, PONDY, bhokal, potha...
No effect of crap grades. They occur with such regularity, you can do nothing but ignore them.
One night stands. I wish i could say it means the way it is meant to mean. It is in relation to exams, blokes.
English movies (including the kinds in which language does not matter) and English songs. I still don't get the lyrics, but now i look them up on internet.
ORKUT- my evening circumferences around this creation of a Turkish engineer, who badly wanted to destroy the creativity of other would be engineers.
Deodorants and face wash- i do not want to piss you off by providing the exact data of the interval between my successive baths.
RT- God's most amazing creation after Adam and Eve.

There are many things college could not change for me. But the
one that needs a mention is my absolutely no luck with girls.

My young heart beats

2007-04-20T22:03:00.000+05:30

I was in love once. Wait. Was that love? Can a 14 year old heart understand the complexities of love? Everything i felt was simple, clear, nothing was complex. So, was that love? Lets not waste time giving name to a relation which was special, a feeling which i have never felt again.

Its been 6 years. It amazes me how vividly i remember every moment we spent together. Do you remember the way we fought when we met for the first time on the matter of sitting on the first bench? Do you recall how you tore my report card into two equal parts for no reason at all? I still have that torn report card. I remember the way i was spellbound by the beauty of your naked feet when you were rehearsing your dance steps. I remember the way my heart skip a beat when i saw you emerge out of your room, your hairs wet.

You were beautiful, one of the best in academics, every teacher's favourite and the most popular girl in school. I, on the other hand, was a dumbo, struggling to get respectable scores, ugly and unknown to everyone. But it did not matter for you. You made me feel special.

Sitting at the opposite corners of the classroom, our eyes met at amazing frequency. Whenever i was talking to anyone, my eyeballs rolled around to look for your eyes. I never wanted to miss any class, just to meet you. Whenever you were absent i was disappointed as hell. I foolishly tried to catch up with the school bus on my bicycle to have your last glimpse for the day and wave you goodbye. When alone, i thought just about you.

Days passed. So did the months. I flowed with the current, my world changed forever. Everything looked beautiful. I was not alone when i was alone. I always had a smile on my face. I was happy because i had someone special- someone i loved being with, someone whose sight alone made me forget about the whole world, someone i cared for more than anything on this earth. I had my own world, which was always colourful. I started loving people and people started loving me. I was suddenly out of the shell. Everyone started knowing me. The world did not change, my way of looking at the world did.

Then you left one day, unannounced. No, the world did not crash around me, heavens did not fall upon me. I felt nothing. I was not angry, not sad. You had already made me forget being unhappy. I did not cry. I do not cry even now. Your thoughts never make me feel alone. I sometimes, though very rarely see you in my dreams. And the next day is beautiful. I am in the best spirits the whole day.

Yes. That was love. And i want to fall in love all over again. For love changes the way you see the world, for love makes you feel special. For love teaches you how to love.

The F-word

2007-04-14T23:34:00.001+05:30

We are always thankful to the British for adding two indispensable words to our vocabulary, sorry and thank you. But we forget to thank the Americans for introducing to us a word which can so easily and completely articulate all our emotions. FUCK!. This is the word i am talking about.

The oxford describes fuck as 'to have sex with somebody'. But it is hardly used to mean such a pleasurable act, though the use of this word in your language does give you almost orgasmic pleasures (i concede that is an exaggeration).

There are about 1,500 words in English language starting with F, but have you ever thought why does the 'F-word' refer to this word only? The importance of this word can also be gauged by this. When someone shows you The finger, what does that mean? Fuck you. Why cant the finger be the thumb and mean "good luck'? Or the index finger and mean "just one minute" or even the little finger and mean "i gotta piss"? And mind you, the longest finger of our hand is assigned the meaning "fuck you". Any fucking doubts about the grandeur of fuck?

This seemingly simple, four letter, easy to pronounce word is the single word that can express myriads of emotions- anger, despair, fear, exultation, happiness, surprise, disgust- you name it.
What is the first word that comes out of your mouth when Sachin gets out? "Fuck!"
What did the hot chick say when you asked her out? "Fuck off!"
We fucked around for one whole year in the college and now we are gonna fuck up our exams, get a fucking crap grade, but who gives a fuck?

Fuck this, fuck that...i mean, what the fuck man? This word rocks. Eminem is famous because he uses this word some 258 times in a rap of 320 words. The Catcher in the Rye is still talked because there were 9 instances of using fuck in the book. Once US vice president Dick Cheney, in exasperation told a senator to "go, fuck yourself"( imagine if it could be done!) and he later said he was relieved after saying this.

Add fuck to any sentence and see its effect. Compare 'get out of here' with 'get the fuck out of here'; 'the girl was sexy' with 'the girl was fuckin sexy'; 'you are coming here' with 'you are fuckin well coming here'.

Fuck is here to stay. Long live FUCK.

Do not be too surprised if i rename my blog "Beginners fuck" from "Beginners luck"!

Master scribblers

2007-04-05T22:58:00.000+05:30

I love scribbling things on the desks in the class room. Considering the tamasha that the professors perform in the class (which, incidentally is supposed to be called teaching), scribbling is a very entertaining and soul- satisfying thing to do.

Backbenchers ( i am surprised how proud i feel when i think i am one) are a master of this art. The people who think that all this act of scribbling defiles the classroom certainly lack a taste for art. Even i, in spite of not being a connoisseur of art can see the beauty of ink scribbled against the backdrop of brown desks. Different hand writings, different inks, varying thoughts- how can one miss the sense of artistry.

I, being an avid scribbler, scribble anything and everything on the desks- lyrics of my favourite songs, famous quotes, my favourite movies, heartfelt emotions ("CLASSES SUCK", which i wrote in utter anguish of not being able to cope up with all the crap, is one of my favourites.), etc, etc...

But i consider myself a U-rated scribbler, compared with some of my other fellow scribblers who go a step ahead and unabashedly put down things which i can not write in a public diary in their original form.Some write bone splitting jokes( "Why is a prostitute's vagina bald?"." 'Coz rolling stones do not gather mosses." Another answer to same question contributed by some other scribbler," Because busy roads do not have grasses"); thought provoking quotes("The best minds of the country sit on the last benches of the class"); some of them draw the figures of their "dream girls", with some of their body parts being in inhuman proportions.
Some of them even write polls on the desk. Sample this:
Rate these on a scale of 10

Ms. X
Ms. Y
Ms. Z

I am often curious about the scribbling habits of girls and sometime peep into their desk. I generally find some designs of something unfathomable( girls will never let you know what is on their minds) or names of some of their dream dates( boys use them to scale themselves on their 'dating quotient' by measuring their proximity with these celebrities).

When our civilisation ends, the excavators of the next civilisation can make out various things about us from the indelible writings on these pieces of wood.

Happy scribbling, blokes!

(P.S. Pic: Lyrics of WORDS by Boyzone, which i scribbled on the desk)

The Frog and the Nightingale

2007-04-03T00:22:00.000+05:30

This is my favourite poem. It is written by Vikram Seth.

Once upon a time a frog
Croaked away in Bingle Bog
Every night from dusk to dawn
He croaked awn and awn and awn
Other creatures loathed his voice,
But, alas, they had no choice,
And the crass cacophony
Blared out from the sumac tree
At whose foot the frog each night
Minstrelled on till morning night

Neither stones nor prayers nor sticks.
Insults or complaints or bricks
Stilled the frogs determination
To display his heart's elation.
But one night a nightingale
In the moonlight cold and pale
Perched upon the sumac tree
Casting forth her melody
Dumbstruck sat the gaping frog
And the whole admiring bog
Stared towards the sumac, rapt,

And, when she had ended, clapped,
Ducks had swum and herons waded
To her as she serenaded
And a solitary loon
Wept, beneath the summer moon.
Toads and teals and tiddlers, captured
By her voice, cheered on, enraptured:
“Bravo!” “Too divine!” “Encore!”
So the nightingale once more,
Quite unused to such applause,
Sang till dawn without a pause.

Next night when the Nightingale
Shook her head and twitched her tail,
Closed an eye and fluffed a wing
And had cleared her throat to sing
She was startled by a croak.
“Sorry – was that you who spoke?”
She enquired when the frog
Hopped towards her from the bog.
“Yes,” the frog replied. “You see,
I'm the frog who owns this tree
In this bog I've long been known
For my splendid baritone
And, of course, I wield my pen
For Bog Trumpet now and then”

“Did you… did you like my song?”
“Not too bad – but far too long.
The technique was fine of course,
But it lacked a certain force”.
“Oh!” the nightingale confessed.
Greatly flattered and impressed
That a critic of such note
Had discussed her art and throat:
“I don't think the song's divine.
But – oh, well – at least it's mine”.

“That's not much to boast about”.
Said the heartless frog. “Without
Proper training such as I
- And few others can supply.
You'll remain a mere beginner.
But with me you'll be a winner”
“Dearest frog”, the nightingale
Breathed: “This is a fairy tale –
And you are Mozart in disguise
Come to earth before my eyes”.

“Well I charge a modest fee.”
“Oh!” “But it won't hurt, you'll see”
Now the nightingale inspired,
Flushed with confidence, and fired
With both art and adoration,
Sang – and was a huge sensation.
Animals for miles around
Flocked towards the magic sound,
And the frog with great precision
Counted heads and charged admission.

Though next morning it was raining,
He began her vocal training.
“But I can't sing in this weather”
“Come my dear – we'll sing together.
Just put on your scarf and sash,
Koo-oh-ah! ko-ash! ko-ash!”
So the frog and nightingale
Journeyed up and down the scale
For six hours, till she was shivering
and her voice was hoarse and quivering.

Though subdued and sleep deprived,
In the night her throat revived,
And the sumac tree was bowed,
With a breathless, titled crowd:
Owl of Sandwich, Duck of Kent,
Mallard and Milady Trent,
Martin Cardinal Mephisto,
And the Coot of Monte Cristo,
Ladies with tiaras glittering
In the interval sat twittering –
And the frog observed them glitter
With a joy both sweet and bitter.

Every day the frog who'd sold her
Songs for silver tried to scold her:
“You must practice even longer
Till your voice, like mine grows stronger.
In the second song last night
You got nervous in mid-flight.
And, my dear, lay on more trills:
Audiences enjoy such frills.
You must make your public happier:
Give them something sharper snappier.
We must aim for better billings.
You still owe me sixty shillings.”

Day by day the nightingale
Grew more sorrowful and pale.
Night on night her tired song
Zipped and trilled and bounced along,
Till the birds and beasts grew tired
At a voice so uninspired
And the ticket office gross
Crashed, and she grew more morose -
For her ears were now addicted
To applause quite unrestricted,
And to sing into the night
All alone gave no delight.

Now the frog puffed up with rage.
“Brainless bird – you're on the stage –
Use your wits and follow fashion.
Puff your lungs out with your passion.”
Trembling, terrified to fail,
Blind with tears, the nightingale
Heard him out in silence, tried,
Puffed up, burst a vein, and died.

Said the frog: “I tried to teach her,
But she was a stupid creature –
Far too nervous, far too tense.
Far too prone to influence.
Well, poor bird – she should have known
That your song must be your own.
That's why I sing with panache:
“Koo-oh-ah! ko-ash! ko-ash!”
And the foghorn of the frog
Blared unrivalled through the bog.

Grail quest comes to an abrupt end, its time for introspection

2007-03-25T10:11:00.000+05:30

So its all over. All dreams quashed, all hopes bundled. A billion people finding difficult to come to terms with the unceremonious exit of the Team Blue from the ultimate tournament. Now its the time of dissection, replacements, firing, recruitment and all the talk of re-emerging and preparing for the next World Cup. And all these talks will be forgotten in may be 6 months. But what will be left, as usual is what is the main problem- the problem that starts at the grass root level.

We will never ask why we fail so miserably outside the subcontinent, why have we stopped producing quality spinners, the way we did in the past, seamers better left unsaid. We will never try to find out what happens to young players after performing miraculously well in one or two seasons.

The answers are far too simpler and obvious than we would like to admit. We do not have the courage to look at them. I will give you the answers.

Batsmen pile tonnes of runs on flat Indian tracks and become instant celebrities, treated like gods. They let themselves get carried away and forget about improving their batting techniques.
On more challenging tracks outside the subcontinent, they are exposed, failing inexplicably. Another series in home, another swashbuckling performance and everyone forgets about it, including the batsmen.

Its not the love of the game that attracts people to cricket anymore. It is the money and glamour that does. No one wants to be a bowler, spin bowling bears more brunt than fast bowling. After all, spin bowling is so non glamorous. Being a Dhoni or a Tendulkar is hip.

Despite cricket being a religion, we cannot boast of many cricket schools. The level of our domestic is, well pathetic to say the least. Our selectors seem to be in a hurry for picking players for the national side, teenagers getting the nod even when they may not be prepared for the big league, physically, mentally and technically.

Cricket is a game worth worshipping, there is no problem in conferring our cricketers the tag of Gods. But we have to strive to make our game world class.
We do not expect our team to win every time, we expect them to fight every time.

Kartavya

2007-03-24T19:16:00.001+05:30

I have always been of the thought there is only one reason behind our country's relative backwardness- illiteracy. The lack of able and efficient education system is behind every other evil. Whatever small step we, the common people and the luckier ones take in this direction goes a long way in helping the not so luckier ones.

I am proud to say that i have been given a chance to contribute to our country's literacy. I am a volunteer of Kartavya, a small profitless organisation, run by the students of Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad...the sole purpose of its existence is to educate the kids of the poor around the locality of our institute.

A brainchild of one of our alumni, Kartavya has come a long way. With dedicated students working 24x7, professional organisation, classrooms and libraries of its own, there is going to be no looking back. But we cannot afford to rest on our laurels...looking towards future is the only way. A full fledged computer center is in the planning stages and that is not the end...there is much more to come.

I am a hindi teacher in class I- and due to my inaptness in writing i cannot put down the pleasure i feel when i am with kids. I feel i am back in my childhood days, i recall how my grandpa used to try his best to teach me differentiate between W and M, how i used to get smacked by dad for not being able to remember tables.

I would love to see these kids clear IIT JEE, become doctors, writers, journalists, professionals ... only when these underdogs come out of the slumber, we can come out of the Third World and join the rank of superpowers. Human force is our biggest assets and we have to prepare them for the big war of supremacy.

Teaching them is the first step.