Miracles Happen

There ain't no sunshine

2011-12-24T17:52:00.004+05:30

There ain't no street nor sunshine
no time to think, no time to rhyme
when the sun goes down so does time
no kiddin', it ain't worth a dime.

I'm workin my ass off alone
it do no good, nor is there fun
was jus a mother fuckin mistake done
it do no good, trust you me, son.

They come an turn their backs on me
I screw noone, but they screw me
so i try to let go, let it be
but hey, this was ma territory

They fucked up ma pretty little days
no hard feelings, no real despise
but somebody's gotta pay the price
no pleasure in jus huge big cries.

This is me, son, now you know
she's gone, they've taken your mama now
i miss her, i just wan her love
but i 've become the rogue somehow.

I wanna stay here I swear
but things aren't goin nowhere.
I've gotta leave, i've gotta run
I've gotta run till the bloody sun.

Everybody's on to me now,
I wish to God I could burn somehow
Restart afresh with no mistakes done
To give you the life, I din have son.

There ain't no street nor sunshine
Good lord knows I love you hon
don hate me if you find me gone.
when you wake up one sweet morn.

There ain't no street nor sunshine.

The American (sitcom) dream

2011-12-19T12:03:00.009+05:30

If one has offered a box of scrabble letters to an opponent for them to pick seven, one would be aware of the rampant shaking that precedes it, lest the opponent remembers where each letter is and picks to his convenience. That is how I feel my life has been since the last time I blogged - like a box of scrabble letters ruthlessly shuffled to nobody's advantage in particular.

What is the American dream? It is your imagination of how adult life would be, based on stuff you downloaded from LAN and watched hours on end in college. (I am talking about sitcoms - Friends, How I met your mother, Two and a half men, Seinfeld..)

Here's the dream: You work for a couple of hours a day (making jingles or telling jokes) and you spend the rest of your time with friends and food and sex. Alright, at some (drunk) point in life, when I was more honest than usual, I realized that there was no hope for the third. If the sex people were having world over could be quantified and represented by the space in my 1 TB hard disc, I didn't even have enough bits to make character. So I shrugged it off and fitted the dream to the Indian context. No character, no sex. Food and friends were perfection. I had my hard disc to make up for the rest.

Sometime this year, I started working. I was ready to experience life as rich as Charlie's or as fun-filled as Phoebe's. Food and Friends - boy, was I going to have plenty of them.

The thing about being friends with your colleagues is that it is not possible. Yeah, you've found people who don't earn more than you or less than you. That way, you're neither jealous nor guilty. But you never know what could happen if you say something insensitive or inappropriate or just outright stupid. And knowing me, it's almost certain I will. It's not college where they'd just do you a favour and stop talking to you. Here, you can get fired. Which means switching from cribbing about time and money in my office to cribbing about money and time on the road (where I'd rather be than at home).

I have begun to adore food. Sometimes, I think that's what I live for. After all, it is hard-earned and there are different kinds of exciting food in the world. There's pizzas and pastas, noodles and nachos, sandwiches and salads - my mouth waters just recalling the sensational experience of eating. Aaaah. Aaaaaaah.

And in the middle of this orgasmic experience thinking of the plethora of food possibilities on God's green Earth, I realize that I am in the village of Amalapuram, on the banks of the river Godavari, eating rice and pulkhas everyday since nothing else is vegetarian.

I've begun to appreciate aspects of life outside of the American sitcom dream.

9 words I like

2011-08-12T23:16:00.004+05:30

Serendipity
Give life the opportunity to surprise you - always.

Subtle
Not noticeable, yet very much there.

Boisterous
Is it onomatopoeic if you say it loud enough?

Indignant
Seems like the perfect emotion for all times - especially in a democracy.

Embezzle
It could be the most royal word in the world for petty thievery.

Eccentric
I'd prefer being called this than that*.

Unparalleled
Matching endlessly

Leverage
The feeling of the ball, however small or trivial, being in your court.

Lastly,

Spouse - is the most progressive word I know, reminding me that we're moving to better times.
You can refer to your life partner - sex no bar.

My list ends here because I'm inspired enough to already be working on another post (to make up for the lost year)

*That, by definition, is not this.

Monkeys and morons

2010-05-21T15:16:00.008+05:30

I wrote this for a creative writing contest in my first year at IIT Madras. The topic was:

"Monkeys and IITM guys: Compare and contrast" Or something to that effect. So here goes. **

The monkeys of iitm, smart, capricious and gay, bond greatly with the morons who crack the jeenius exam and invade their privacy. Having evolved from the morons, the monkeys share a lot of similarity (and space) with the morons. Their greatest achievement till date has been opening a sharav room successfully. Only, the morons have never managed it.

The monkeys then go through the wardrobe which gets darker as it gets deeper. So while the monkeys enjoy the smell of the cream, the apple and smoother aspects of life, the morons turn green with envy.

Morons, in a desperate attempt to be like monkeys, copy whatever they do.

They hang around trees, and even dress similarly. [:O]

Recently, the morons have begun to imitate the monkeys' habit of jumping from one branch to another. The morons who have successfully jumped from a lower branch to a higher branch work tirelessly to win the race and reach the top of the tree so that they can sit there, waiting for the apple to fall on their heads. But these are just the smart ones.

Basically, the morons are jealous of the monkeys. The monkeys belong to IITM whereas the morons come through the gates by a high level IQ test in which they are given four circles, all of which they need to darken as creatively as possible. They fill their brains with pride of their brilliance; With no place to sit in the crc, (having no tail to oblige) they cram themselves with other happy and gay people and their heads with monkey crap.

Morons and monkeys share a few similarities too. All of them love sleeping with one and another. The population in IITM just keeps increasing. All in a day’s work.

At the end of the day, the monkeys snooze and the morons booze.

So the monkeys and morons, their differences aside, reside in perfect harmony in the forests of the Himalaya region and the surrounding rivers of Ganga and Jamuna, making life heavenly for their deer children.

When a moron gets up and realizes that a monkey had spent a large part of the night with him, he regrets the heavy booze. It had not occured to him to close the room door and obtain some privacy.

That's why they're morons.

** Offence meant :P

Drain in vain

2010-05-08T09:12:00.004+05:30

A couple of summers ago, I went for a drivers' license test in Kerala. I got my 8 and H right, the road tests were smooth, but then the certifying officer asked each one of us who cleared the test to generally put treat of Rs 500 in cash.

Hey, don't judge anybody, you. The poor chap is obliged to sit all day long, looking at people take their tests. Obviously, the Goverment pays him far too less for his effort.

Anyway, screw all that. I need to talk about something important.

I met a Scientist from Indian Space Research Organization a couple of weeks ago. They have various "grades" of scientists there. He said he was SD. So he gets a pay of Rs 15,200 per month.

The essential qualification for the coveted post of Scientist in ISRO is pHD in Theoretical Physics or Applied Mathematics.

The pay might seem low to some of you, who are undergraduates and who're earning three times as much as your starting salaries. But hey,

He loves what he does.
He is extremely good at what he does.
He wants to live in India and serve the country.

God has made him intelligent. He loves what he does. Why should he get paid for doing what he likes? Let his wife stand in line to get a ration card by paying the right amounts to the right people. Let him take his family to Ooty for a trip while his peers take their families to Canada. Serves him right for being passionate about what he does. He doesn't deserve money.

Save all the money and give it to the RTO guy who adds value to society by selling out licenses as one would sell black tickets and whores in this country; the country whose culture we are so proud of that we desperately want to stay back here, work here and die here.

Strange Encounters

2009-11-19T21:24:00.004+05:30

I'm in Tif right now, typing this thing out. The place is unusually deserted. Not many people around. It is ideal time to pen. I'll narrate a few encounters I've had in recent times.

I was waiting at the GC for a lift. There was this nice red car going past which I was absolutely sure won't stop. So I waved madly wanting to just say Hi! You know one of those times, you like to let go of the sophesticated person you are and just jump around crazily in a stupid attempt to do something whakhy, consoling yourself that your spectators are total strangers? Well, that's waht I did. Yep. And the strange little red car? It screeched and halted. I think it took about 84 nanoseconds for it to stop. My reflexes are reserved for adverseries. So I continued to splash mud around when my PH101 prof waved back from inside the car. Oopsie!

The other day I was in Tif gulping down my food so I won't be late for a certain class scheduled about 8 minutes from then. I was gobbling up my food, when I saw my prof (who was supposed to take class in 8 minutes) peacefully eating. Yay! So I finished my last bite and hurried over to get a coffee. I wanted to finish it off and run; but I saw this prof get up, and get his coffee. He did not seem to be in a hurry at all. I guessed he must have a 2 wheeler while I had to run to class. And I HAD to win the race. So I ran all the way to MSB. As I entered MSB, I saw him park the 2 wheeler. Woo hoo!! I'd won! I took the lift and reached my class with a smirk that spoke of youthful pride only to see the class in session, with half the board filled. Baffled? Completely.

The other day I was sitting at CCD, sipping coffee, when I decided to take a break and have a chit chat upstairs. Tata Book House is a small area of space above CCD. (Nobody really notices it in the huge mess and darkness of birthday parties celebrated on CCD rooftop) There I found a book titled Reflections by IItians. I scanned through those pages to find this very interesting thing said by my fac-ad.

You cannot measure society with a slide-rule, compute culture with a calculator, and you cannot redress grievances by writing reports.

Apart from the alliteration, what I noticed is the rich and wide areas of interests the profs here have. They are not the nerds we label them for our convinience nor do they lead the boring lives we imagine they do. They bring with them, a vast range of experiences and expertise, from which we can only gain by interacting with these men-of-the-mind. They are all mostly nice, friendly and desperate to see some fraction of their enthusiasm in us. It is sad that we don't interact with profs as much as we should. That probably comes from the fact that we are mostly intimidated by their genius. But this should change. And it will.

Ok I'm heading back to room. Thanks for hopping by.

Oh. Wait. Hey!

I forgot the best encounter of all.

So I was talking to a prof the other day and he presented with me with an astonishing fact: The Insti admin keeps track of student blogs! They sort of want to know what the students feel.

Creepy? Very.

PS: When in doubt, praise the lord who gives food, appetite and grades.

Madam Tussauds

2009-06-18T17:29:00.011+05:30

Having been i nformed that Wordsworth, in his worthy description of the worldly pleasures one enjoys among the butterflies and the bees in the stimulating season of Spring, would not have been able to do justice to the kind of beautiful weather they were having in his country, and having believed it, I set out on a fortnight long trip to England.
Here's a little story that is my tribute to London.

As I entered Madam Tussauds, I read the board that said :

ALL THAT STANDS STILL IS NOT A STATUE

A shiver ran down my spine. The moment I stepped inside, I knew that I had made a mistake.

I saw the wax models all around, and not in a manner I had expected (or wanted) them displayed. The public had access to everything! I thought longingly of the museums I had seen everywhere else, with anything on display inside glass boxes with a Don't touch! sign put inside the glass.

I looked around with the awe and attitude of a child yet to discover the significance of the greatness that it had the privilege to witness. I watched, in silence, as girls my age hurried to take pictures of themselves with Brad Pitt, without Angelina Jolie who happened to stand on his other side a few nanometres away. Their faces seemed to be filled with happiness that I could not understand and pride that I could not bow to; but I admired, nevertheless, the precision of their photography and the brilliance of their smiles which conveyed genuine delight.

I smiled.

Shrek returned my smile. I gazed at the green figure, surprised that I hadn't noticed him in spite of the fact that he had been looking at me for quite sometime now. I think if anyone had cared to look at me then, they would have noticed my cheeks turning pink. I tried to push my way through the crowd, remembering never to lose sight of him. A kid, who had no business to be six months old, came in my way and I almost tripped. As I regained my footing, I looked up to see -

Holy..! I could not move a muscle. People were taking pictures with him as though he was one of those ugly models, lifeless, cold and extremely boring :X. As though he was one of those spineless creatures that they worshiped! Couldn't they see him wink at me? Couldn't they see the love that transcends through the - well, stinking swarming crowd? Were they blind that they did not see it? I hurried in his direction.

I took my place next to him, unable to hide the pride in my glance at all those people begging to be photographed with him. But as I stood next to Shrek, I could feel the warmth of his gaze - on the girl who was standing in the place I had been a few minutes ago! He was winking at her as I stared in horror and indignation.

And there were girls my age, taking pictures with him, leaving me carefully out of the frame as I stood nanometers away from him. I hurried away in anger and proceeded towards the exit, where I stopped still, stood staring. I might have stopped breathing, for all I know.

"Hey! I want a pic with her" some fool yelled. I couldn't believe that this was actually happening. He wanted to hug me and take pictures with me as he had with all those lifeless models. Yuck! This person - whom I didn't even grant the happiness of looking at him - came close to me, put his freaking fat hands on my shoulders and stood posing to his mom, who faithfully clicked. Can you believe that? I wanted to run, I wanted to remove his filthy hands. I wanted to yell.

But my legs wouldn't budge. I couldn't move. In fact I couldn't move any muscle. My waxy eyes stared up lifelessly at the board near the exit that said:

WAX-WORKS WALK!!

Everyday from 8:30 - 9:00 pm, watch one wax model come alive.

Today we present : LADY FIONA

Caution: Never take a pic when they are moving.

The last thing I heard was the clock striking 9.

The Blogging spirit

2009-05-11T09:57:00.002+05:30

Blogs come in different shapes and sizes. And what you realize at the end of the day is that you dont need a reason to blog. There are carefully edited humorously written witty pieces of shit, Wisely phrased careful words of wisdom just when you absolutely don't need it and absolute brilliance wasted away in blogs.
So here's the deal. You have a witty creative pen. (It's a usage :| ) You have ideas. You have time. Infinite. Unemployed creative is the worst kind of creative. You start blogging. It's like drugs. Feels so good everytime you never realize how addicted to it you are. It gives you a feeling of high for no good reason. You begin to see sense in writing about ants and blackadders (thats a reptile) which, in real life were unworthy of mention or touch. Er.

And every iitian has at least one post pertaining to how life at iit is. This, knowing that in nine cases out of ten his blog's viewers are only other jobless iitians who helped him with his typing.

Bloggers, going the Anne Frank way, get senti all the time. There is always this pain and this agony and all that sort of feeling that finds way into blogs instead of journals or diaries. I won't go so far as to calling it pathetic but gimme a break! I know life is sad and it is devastating to be in love. But you don't need to take to poetry so soon. Those blissfully romantic poems in search of a beautiful noble intelligent rich girl (who for some reason falls for you) is pure phart.

And then there are entries who are just filling space. They are there.

Thats when you realize that a blog is a bog. It is a place where you wrap up the scraps of your crap and where wit becomes shit. Verses become curses and every story gets gory. And having stabbed your heart with wretched phart, blogs leave you to bleed and weed.

That is exactly how blogs fill space. Nothing to write whatsoever about. Where's the journalism or the creativity? Where the hell is all the grammar we learnt in high school? Don't content, coherence and delivery mean anything to us anymore? What on Earth are we (s)hitting on? I think if you stop blogging, you'd just be helping me.

Funny Bone

2009-01-25T02:54:00.003+05:30

I could yell my lungs out. The event is over and so I can screw it. Perfect.

Now, let me narrate to you something that happened about four years ago..

I had qualified for La Persona (conducted by Loyola School Trivandrum) finals. Unaware of the event requirements, I landed up on this stage in a navy-blue white (Kendriya Vidyalaya school uniform) salwar kameez, with my hair tightly tied in two plaits with (red) ribbons dangling from them.

The other contestents were well.. more prepared. I was asked to ramp walk. I simply had no idea how that was to be done. So I just walked on the ramp and smiled and waved at an audience I knew wanted to boo me down. Multiple rounds of pain followed.

At the end of it, I felt just as good as I had before. (Only) One thing hasn't changed in four years. My I-dont-give-a-damn-what-you-think attitude. But still :P :D

The organizer of that entire fest was a certain guy who was the then head boy of Loyola School.

And Today he was one of my six finalists in Funny Bone.
Aaah revenge!! ;)

Ther's bliss in knowing that I dont have to feel shit in my pants anymore inviting judges who are well.. funny.

The breath of engineering

2008-10-04T00:18:00.001+05:30

Shaastra comes once a year and takes your breath away. (There's hardly time to breathe) It brings purpose to life and a sense of fullfillness to the spirit of innovation left in you. It leaves your heart brimming with engineering pride.

To call it the annual technical festival of IIT Madras would be a simple way of putting it. Only, there's much more to it. I, a completely non-technical person actually spent an entire day going from Chemical X to The Ultimate Engineer to The Master Challenge to Shock (it was funnest of all) to math modelling, finally drawing a close with a lecture on why time can't go backwards. That did not surprise me. I do all sorts of weird stuff.

What surprised me was how much I enjoyed it. How much (though I didn't qualify) I "put fight" to solve the problems in math modelling. Trust me, two hours of doing nothing but concentrating on problems you are motivated to solve as though your life depends on it. Two hours of ecsatacy. It is so much fun to solve problems, pushing yourself every second to do it faster, work harder and tax your brains. Yep. My idea of bliss. If you think I'm a nerd, stop reading. You lack the spirit.
For those of you who know Saarang, (IIT's cultural festival) I thought I was capable of enjoying only that. Generally fool around and have fun. ;) But shaastra is fun in a completely different way. Somehow, it brings a wholesomeness to my existence. It brings out that part of me which I never knew existed. Basically, I always knew that engineering had a soul; that's why I'm here, at IIT trying to get a degree in it. What I didn't know and I realised this Shaastra was that my soul has engineering in it.

PS. Aah I feel good now. :)

The end of Honeymoon

2008-07-19T13:52:00.002+05:30

When images of Sharav and the associated oat, library,tiff, ccd and gc started invading my dreams, I decided that it is time to blog.

The long vacation that seemed like eternity just a three months ago is drawing to a known abrupt end. Suddenly, I get scraps asking "Hey. When are you returning to insti?". Out of nowhere my mom reminds me of the suitcase in the loft and the dirty clothes pile. I get sweet calls from friends in town saying they'll miss me.

Getting back to insti not only means end of absolute laziness, but also means I can't blog too much. Well, you can't keep the cake as well as eat it. (sigh) I guess I'll conclude declaring this to be the last post of the summer :) so long take care and thanx for all the fish(y comments) ok bad joke but i'm touchy about the transition.

IIT first hand

2008-06-20T10:08:00.003+05:30

Scene 1
At MSB 256. A process calculation course in session. Prof. Basak is distributing quiz 1 papers to the chemical engineering batch of 2007.

Prof : The performance is good. Students have done well. The highest is....
(pause)
Prof : Well, can you guess??
(The paper was out of 15 comprising of a 7 mark question and an 8 mark question)
Prof : The highest is 13. Ok. You know the lowest?
(A deafening silence )
Prof : 3 . 3 is the lowest mark.
(Silence gets louder)
Prof : When I call out your number, you shall come forward. Tell me the mark you estimate to get. Then you shall collect your paper.

The atmosphere is so tense you couldn't breathe without feeling noisy. As for me, I knew I had done miserably and the prospect of "predicting my marks" was choking me.

Suddenly,
Prof : CH 04!! (That's me)

I walk up to face the prof.

Me : Sir.. Sir.. (Sweating) .. I ..I did badly. I..
Prof : 3.
It came to me like a sentence. I had actually come The LAST in a class. As I turned to face the class now, I couldn't see anyone. My eyes were teary. I stumbled as I reached for my desk. I couldn't wait to sit down and just bury my face.

Scene 2
At CRC 205. A thermodynamics course in session. Prof. Srinivasan is distributing quiz 1 papers.
Prof : CH 04!!
I walk up to the front, feeling highly tensed, take my paper. I glance at my marks. 25 on 40!! I hide my marks in flushed embarrassment. I had done decently. I should have gotten more.

After a while, everyone has received their papers.

Someone : Sir, what's the class average?
Prof : I think around 11 or 12.
I sit up!!! Wow.
Someone : What's the highest?
Prof : 25.
My head jerks up for the first time in the whole hour.
Prof : I think Akila got 25. (He looks at me)
I stare back at him and show my teeth.
I didn't know what to think. But you know what really made my day?? When my friends actually clapped. God, I could have sat there and cried. I was so moved.

Now as I look back, both incidents are just memories to remember my first year by. I learnt a lot from both of them
From the former, I learnt how it is possible that your worst nightmares come true. I had always thought that if you come last, it would be horrible. But God was too good to me and put me in a class that didn't care. Hard luck strikes the best of us sometimes. We just have to survive.

The latter was a special moment for me. It was the first quiz in the institute. The big, great institute to which I, a girl from a small town had come, with a notion that everyone is smarter than me. That small incident in a classroom there might sound trivial to one who reads it. But to me, it was significant. It ignited a spark of confidence in me that is to come a long way in my life..

Tagged

2008-06-10T23:40:00.004+05:30

Job description : Open the 123rd page of any book and type out 5 lines starting from the 6th.

I've taken a liberty to repeat an entire exchange of telegrams which cover the 123rd page.

Aunt : Come at once. Travers.

Wooster: Perplexed. Explain. Bertie.

Aunt : What on Earth is there to be perplexed about, ass? Come at once. Travers.

Wooster : How do you mean come at once? Regards. Bertie.

Aunt : I mean come at once, you maddening half wit. What did you think I meant? Come at once or expect an aunt's curse first post tomorrow. Love. Travers.

Wooster : When you say 'Come' do you mean 'Come to Brinkley Court'? And when you say 'At once' do you mean 'at once'? Fogged. At a loss. All the best. Bertie.

Aunt : Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. It doesn't matter whether you understand or not. You just come at once, as I tell you, and for heaven's sake stop this back-chat. Stop being a fathead and come immediately. Love. Travers.

Wooster calls his butler Jeeves.

Wooster : Jeeves, What do you make of these telegrams.
Jeeves : I think your aunt wants you to go at once, sir.
Wooster : Do you get that feeling too?

I'm at a loss as to whom to tag coz i think noone will be as vetti as I am :P
But cheers to Lee , my inspiration to come up with arbit crap :)

The only Law that sustains

2008-06-06T20:37:00.004+05:30

Murphy's one liner

Smile; tomorrow will be worse.

Murphy's poem

I never had a slice of bread
clearly large and wide
that did not fall down spread
on the buttered side.

Murphy's proportions

Grades get worse in direct proportion to the number of credits of the course.

Murphy in relationships

The best ones are taken. You are single.

Check this out for hazar such laws :)

(I'm trying to keep my posts short because ppl crib they are too long. Er.. i'm out of ideas :P )

JAMMED

2008-05-24T23:04:00.005+05:30

You think; you blink. You stink; you sink. (Read 'you' as I)

I think a more apt title to Just a minute, (also called JAM since your jaws get jammed making you sound like a cacophony of croaking crows in most part of the 'game') would be (do) I exist?! You need to concentrate on making sure you are visible. Shady sounds, filthy faces and arbit actions are all in the game.
I "played" it. Once. Game.
If you are a beginner, here are a few rules that might help you. (They didn't do much good to me though)
1. No matter what anyone utters, push the buzzer. They are out of context and irrelevant. Not to mention stupid. (Except when the moderator speaks. You might be too busy swearing at him to press the buzzer)
2. This one is dangerous: But you might want to try impressing the moderator. Mostly he's just an ass who doesn't laugh. (Ours actually said he'll give 10 points to anyone who makes him laugh and spent rest of the 'game' making weird noises trying to suppress a laugh)
3. You suck at the game. Accept the fact. And laugh your head off. Just to irritate the one sitting next to you by not letting him listen or think. (rg :P )

I think I should mention now what the topic of "discussion" was. "My grandfather smokes grass. My parents smoke grass. I smoke grass. We are a joint family".
No clue what that meant? Join the club! I mean. I'm sitting there, 'playing' JAM for the first time and the topic is this. I understood every word of it. I got smoke. I got grass. I just didn't get the connection. I spent all my time from the mention of the topic thinking of good starters.
"My grandfather fed me on grass.."
"I chew gum, churn grass, but smoke cigar"
"Smoke in the lawn implies grass burning .." (What the hell ?? )
It never really actually matters what you are saying as long as they are words. Any will do. You just need to say something and cross your fingers, praying that someone would press the damn buzzer and release you of what can only be described as pain. The topic, (thanks to rule 1) is obviously least important and it doesn't matter whether you understand or not).

Something, I don't remember exactly what, made me think my buzzer wasn't looking right sometime midway and I thought of testing it out. I pressed it with all my macho (read as Milo) might. I heaved a sigh of relief. Yaiii!! My buzzer was working! Apparently, when I was fooling around with the buzzer, a chap had just raised an objection and switched on the mike to speak.

"Speaker No 4!!"(that is me, by the way), the moderator's voice boomed, "What's your objection?" I smiled at him. (Rule 2 in action) Then I patiently took the mike. Shit! Rule 1 ruled out; that guy hadn't uttered a word. Left with rule 3, I said, "Late start, sir". Yes, my conscience pricked me as I said it. But the moderator bought my objection (I think it was the sir he bought more or maybe the smile ;) ) anyway he said, "Ok, Speaker No 4. You are on!"

My mind : Say something. Remember the starters you came up with. Shoot one of them.
Me : Er...
My mind :Ok. Topic is irrelevant. Tell the moderator your name.
Me : Er...
My mind : Open your (censored words) mouth...

I open my mouth. Words don't come out. I'll rephrase that. Words don't come out. The speaker gives me a dirty expression and continues with the next speaker.
After what seemed like hours, the guy next to me stammered. I screamed "AA haa!!" and yanked for the buzzer. By the time it was my turn to speak, I gathered that the topic had been changed (I had no idea what it was) . "You are on!" That idiot boo(m)ed at me again. I cleared my throat and yelled "I wanna hit you!"
At that moment, the minute had ended. (Just a "minute" remember?? )

Now the best part of JAM rules. An additional 20 points is given to the person who completes the minute irrespective of how much he has spoken. Just to commend his not being interrupted by objections.

All's well that ends well. What say? :P

YELP FOR HELP

2008-05-16T18:17:00.004+05:30

Last night I was in ooty, taking its refuge from the scorching heat of Madras. It is really cool up there..Some place to relax your mind and breathe freely. No quizes to mug for, no profs to screw your system, no mess(y) food and no subtle classroom slumber. There was a gigantic bed, with a warm cosy mattress upon which yours truly curled around a soft cushion with my little head on a pillow that I snuggled into and clean cosy blankets made the icing on the cake.. (quite literally) :P

I was in a resonance tube. (It has water btw).. I was drowning in it.. I had to solve some problem and find out theeta. You would think my dreams would be more romantic, to say the least. I mean, given the circumstances described above you would rather be dreaming about something else. I mean the last thing you would want is to dream about resonance tube. Well, actually you'd want even less to be drowning. And trigonometry was never my cup of tea. Of all the... -frown- frown-frown-ponder-scratch head-think-dirty face-scratch head again- (I'm trying to get theeta)-complimentary angles?-The demon starts talking-SSS congruence-was it sss similarity? - hisssss-was that a snake??? -snakes hiss -snake??? SNAKE??? I get up with a jolt.

Something is wrong.. rub eyes.. look around... THE DOOR IS AJAR!!! Ok I'm not exactly a coward but I'm sure you'll understand this is not exactly good for my heart. The only noise I could hear was of my heart pounding.. I wished (too soon) that it wouldn't be so silent.. The deafening silence made my limbs crack but the sudden movement made it even worse. I would give anything to go back to theeta.. I grasped for the light by my bed .. (I'm not as stupid as I seem).. I scream. There is a limit to how much you can torture a poor kid before she starts screaming.

"SHUT UP!!!!!" he says. I shut up. I blink. I am actually taking instructions from a lizard!!!! Wait.. do lizards hiss? Apparently yes. Now I was getting angry.
"Did you open the door?" (Yes, I was takling to a lizard in the middle of the night, on my bed) It climbed on to me YUCK!!! "Wat the bloody.. What do u mean yuck?????" it screamed at me.. well, to be fair to it, noone likes to hear "Yuck" wen they touch someone.. fair enough.. "Sorry", I murmered.. "Wat do you want?"

"I want peace" it says to me. It takes all the effort from my side to keep myself from swearing. I was sleeping not so blissfully. But sleeping all the same. Cosily. This creature comes, wakes me up, and says it wants peace. Of all the...! I swallow and ask (politely) "What should I do?"
"Well", he says, " You were screaming in your sleep. And I couldn't sleep. Well the answer is 30."

"30??? " I ask, "What is 30?" It gives an exasperated nod and says "Theeta of course." I stare at him and then pluck him and throw him against the wall. He staggers to the ground. "Shut the door behind you" I yell after him.

I go back to sleep. I'm no longer in the resonance tube. I'm in the ocean and this time it's all the way from alpha to theeta that I have to solve. Everytime I manage to come up to the surface I'm gasping, looking for a particular lizard. Let me know if you find him, will you? I need to be grateful.

Celebrating life

2008-03-14T11:24:00.005+05:30

This poem is dedicated to friendship (in general) and my friends (in particular). If you read this poem, you would just know if I meant it for you. And if it is, trust me... I mean every word of it. A toast! Cheers! :)

The waves of my life are sweeping past

And the tempest echoes through my heart

The terror, the despair, the lonliness

were all wiped out with your mere presence.

Your worldly words I wisely weighed

I'm sure this does sound cliched

I faltered, I stumbled, I slip, I fell

You lived through me; experienced my hell.

And much later, when spring brought light

Life was bright with joy and delight

You were a prism for the light from heaven

splitting white into a colorful seven

You lifted me to the azure sky

Hence, though it rained, I was dry

Then I snuggled into a feathery cloud

In a state of bliss, I whistled aloud.

The birds flew, the wind blew

I was on top of the world

With the mist of joy, my head swirled.

For this heaven, I thank you

My friend, this poem is for you

who stood by me when I was pained

From you, there's a lot I've gained

Life is magical with a miracle like you.

Adding color to life

2008-03-05T18:07:00.006+05:30

I believe that I'm a disgrace to the blogging community (a black sheep more like). I neither blog regularly nor sincerely. Its been ages since I last blogged (The author aims to gather some pity here by self-insult. Its the oldest of her filthy tricks. Do not fall for it)

Firstly, there is practically nothing to blog about. So if you are looking for something exciting and happening, keep looking (elsewhere, dumbo!) coz I'm not here to please. (Ouch! That attitude does hurt especially when you have put you butt down to actually go through her crap)My life doesn't seem to be very happening and the self-centred goose that I am, I shall blog about nothing else. Somehow I feel I need to talk about the finer aspects of (my) life today. I shall narrate an incident (that inevitably makes the author look nice but I hope you can go a little beyond that and see that there are different kinds of happiness in the world and this is the greatest of them all and she sought greedily for it)

We had a course called ID 110 "Introduction to Design". Some arbitrary course in which we had "projects" to do. Projects in quote because they were neither illuminating nor entertaining. Mostly, they were just painful. (The author is set out to insult everyone under the sun today. Do not mind) Ramya, Kannu and I set out to mount road to get "stuff" for out project. We were stranded at a bus-stop, with no idea where to head. It was beginning to get dark (and frightening? The chicken...tch tch.. )

I was hungry (Yawn ! No surprises there) and so Ramya went to get pastries from a nearby bakery. Each costed just 12. (Just 12?? She put it into the project budget.) And as we hungrily ate them away to glory, I noticed this small girl about 3 years old, clinging on to whom I assume was her dad's arms. She was in rags. Her hair was brown and dirty. Her clothes were torn in places and her long skinny legs had bruises. But her eyes had all the beauty and love of the world. They were, at the moment, gazing longingly at us as we (greedily hungrily, selfishly) bit into our pastries. Guiltily, we gulped it down and with no further eye contact, we someow understood what we wanted to do.

I ran to the bakery, and got the same pastry. (All the time worrying about missing the bus! Gimme a break! ) I got back and told her dad that it was my birthday and asked him if he would let me buy her a pastry. The poor old man looked up and God! that moment was worth it all!

I never learnt her name. She was still licking out the last crumbs when we left the place waving at her madly. Its wierd how small things bring so much of delight to your life. Somehow we miss out on the subtle and yet beautiful colors of life in the constant effort to make it brighter. I look back to that day and the feeling of happiness always comes back to me. (Talk about selfishness. Its her happiness that matters to the author, not the little girl's)

In short proportions we just beauties see
And in short meausers life may perfect be

How I became Supandi

2008-01-04T09:25:00.001+05:30

The best in man reveals itself in his despair...

History:
Went to bed the previous night at around 3 am having convinced myself that I had done nothing that could, in any way, be described as "useful" ..

THE day:

8.30 am
I hear distinct screaming. Hmmm.. Definitely not my dream.. Exert myself to pull my eyelids open.. I see amma (mom).. "Why (the hell) did you throw all the vegetables into the dustbin?" I blink. Then I reason. If I did throw all of them into the bin, her anger was budgeted for. But did I? I scratch my head, blinking more. I yawned, snuggled deeper into the blanket and said something that sounded like, "gum-na-shi-tu-zum" and went back to sleep. Peace.

Brief History: The previous day conversation with amma
Amma:
(sentence 1)Hey, two of the brinjals have insects in them.
(sentence 2)The vegetables are kept in the fridge.
(sentence 3)Throw them into the dustbin.
Me (in what I hoped was my most dutiful voice) : Yes, ma.
She had connected sentences 1 and 3. I connected 2 and 3. Result : I'm known as Supandi now.

10:30 am
Appa (dad) calls. "You have to leave home at 2.30 (to take a flight). I didn't wake you up because I know you were packing till 3 last night." I get up with a jerk. I blink (again?) at him and then at the clock. Cursing the world for not waking me up earlier, I go brush my teeth.. et.. (er.. all formalities..)..

Me (in a small voice) : Appa, I have some fees to pay.. if you could take a dd... I'll go online and get you the details from a friend.
Appa (no hint of sarcasm honestly) : Aah, what did you do online yesterday till 3 then?"
Me(putting on a very sad, innocent expression) : I was too sleepy. Dont' remember what I did.

11am - 12 noon
Cold refreshing, peaceful shower. (Packing not finished)

12 noon -
I go into the room. I hop across from one place to another. The room is full (read overflowing) of stuff. My packing is done! (yipeeee) must hav stuffed everything I needed into the suitcase last night. Appreciating myself for my responsibility at having finished everything the previous night, I begin to wonder why the suitcase seems so light. ..
...
...
Realisation dawns
There is a whole pile of unwashed clothes that HAVE to be taken to chennai. Oooops! Collected them, tiptoed across to the bathroom, flung them down the washing-machine. Switched it on, hoping my parents won't realise.. Aaagh.. Did it always make this much of noise? (For the record, it never occured to me that I could take the unwashed clothes and wash them in chennai)

1.00 pm
Appa: How do you plan to go to college from airport?
Me: (Blink)
Appa: Fine, I'll arrange. Her's your dd. Packing done? What's that noise? Your clothes in the washing machine?
Me: (gulp) hmm.. yes.

Confirmed Supandi.

By 2, my packing is still not completed. I have been on phone for about 20 minutes now. (Using "I-wont-be-here-for-4-months" as an (intelligent) retort.

2.30
Everything stuffed into 2 bags, ticket taken (id card lost), happily eaten (no compromise on food) I leave.

I guess the jonah day has the worst to come yet.. The evening was even more vague and obscure. But that I would describe some other time. I left home, tagged (forever) as Supandi.

At the deception point

2007-12-26T00:49:00.001+05:30

The author had stopped blogging for a couple of weeks and regrets to inform you that she is back (without a bang) inspired wholly by this particular post. Whether the "enthu" sustains, only further books that she reads can determine. In the meanwhile, raise your glass (or cap will suffice) to Dan Brown, the reason the author is back.

Though my choice of words, at present, might seem shockingly negative, I am inclined to present to you my astonishment over what can only be described as a (failed) attempt on Dan Brown's part to recreate the magic of Da Vinci Code. If you have already read the book and didn't like it, I'm sure you would agree with atleast certain aspects of this review. On the contrary, if you God-worship him (the way I did before reading Deception Point) there is all the more reason why you should be reading this review. (Superstition is not good for health) If you haven't read the book at all, then Brown must be thanking me; for controversy is his
cup of tea.

Clubbing science with fiction has always played toward increasing the selling count because it appeals to the intellect of the reader and on any day, I would rather read a (juicy) murder mystery and go to bed feeling very intelligent for having understood the plot rather than take a Stephen Hawking book and actually try to understand something. There, my friends, is the difference betwwen science in fiction and pure science.

Having read (and worshipped) "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Angels and Demons", I set out on the (tedious) task of reading a book that could have easily been written in about three fourths of its current size. As one would expect typically, it involves a series of murders by an annonymous killer, whose shocking (yawn) identity is revealed in the last few pages of the book. Quiet used to his style of writing, I could make out, in the first half of the book, as to who the murderer is. It would be the most honest (trustworthy) and in a nutshell, the person you would least expect it to be. Talk about novelty.

The only hitch, however, is that the killer would have come as a shock to people more fortunate than yours truly had they not read Brown's earlier books and got accustomed to his writing. But the shock is soon overcome by a strong sense of mortification at finding themselves at- The Deception point. In a vague attempt to avoid the reader from guessing he killer, the character of the killer is protected all along and so are his motives. During the unveiling, unfortunately, the "motive" of murder (read desperate, planned, cold blooded killing) is not only unconvincing and vague; it is also contradictory to some of the
emotions that the character has displayed earlier in the book (again, in the blind attempt to prevent the reader from guessing).

So, ultimately, to the reader who has struggled through about 600 pages of science that he can't fathom, he has been presented with a murderer, who kills people for a cause that does not benefit him. The only reason that I, with my limited intelligence, can think of, is that in the desperate hope that people should have thier suspense maintained till the end, the writer has obviously forgotten that murder is only his forte and normal people (read fictious characters) do not murder just to make a book interesting (?)

Had I not had great expectation, had I not found the killer earlier, had the killer had any motive, had the book not been this long, or this ocean-descriptive (my fear of the ocean leaves me obviously prejudiced) I would have probably given the book an 8.5 on 10. (Somehow 8.5 is a number that I can't get out of my head, atleast for a while ;) )

With all due respect to the amount of (scientific) information that the book has presented to me and gratitude for having eaten about fifteen hours of my life, the book left me entertained, exhausted and mostly deceived. I, to my great disappointment, found it
neither intellectually inspiring nor emotionally stimulating.

If you haven't read it yet, try skipping conversation-less pages. Trust me, it won't make a difference.