June blues

Things to do by the time I turn 30

2011-10-23T23:32:00.000-07:00

- Visit 10 countries
- Learn Spanish or Italian
- Live aboard for a two years. No more, no less
- Have a collection of 500 books.
- Build a house overlooking the sea [any place].
- Own a bike of at least 350 cc.
- Visit the North East.
- Write a travel book.
- Weigh less than 65 kilograms.
- Visit college [NITK] at least 5 times.
- Climb up a coconut tree, climb down with a coconut, cut it open with a sickle and drink. [All on your own].
- Own 5 musical instruments [Don't have to know how to play them]
- Swim naked in a river.
- Get a golden retriever.
- Do social work.
- Build a cool[?] web application all on your own.
- Learn how to cook South Indian food.
- Travel business class on an international flight.
- Read more books than you have watched movies.
- Live in the Himalayas for at least month.

2010-07-16T10:23:00.000-07:00

I saw this as an essay topic in Barron's GRE. What is the purpose of art?
In our perception, the world exists distinctly from us, meaning I am here there is the world out there. No matter how close we are to someone, if we are deeply in love or even if the bond we share with the other person goes beyond love,as in the case of family ties, there is still the sense of identity which separates us from people, objects and everything that is not "I" in essence. Therein lies the chief role of art. The role of art is to dissolve all boundaries into nothingness, to make you realize that there is common thread that passes through each and every conscious observer and that the differences that you perceive in the world is only a result of stuff that is acquired and that is not a part of us in essence.
When I listen to African music, with its rhythmic beats and chimes there is a feeling of familiarity and connection. It can't be explained but it is there. And who are art critics? People who are paid for having opinions. The don't experience it, they just judge it. Art is beyond judgment,beyond superlatives, beyond duals. It's about the experience.

2010-07-02T10:25:00.000-07:00

Started work last week. Magarpatta is dressed up pretty well. It stands like an oasis amidst squalor trying ever so hard to keep its squeaky clean facade. Towering apartment blocks, gleaming office buildings', ridiculous real estate prices. Broad roads lined with cooling green trees which are used only by pedestrians.
The only place to hang out is the aptly named Destination Center, a mish-mash of eating joints, ATM's , cigarette shops and a restaurant which is too pricey for its own good, considering a bottle of beer is twice the MRP. All roads in Magarpatta lead to DC and thronging it are people just out of office with their ID cards hanging from their trousers and shirts like price tags that haven't been taken off.
Haven't been to Pune proper yet. Hoping it will be less plastic.

2010-06-18T10:05:00.000-07:00

I find routines scary, even the one's that leave you feeling comforted. The longer the period of the routine, the less they are noticed.Once they are however, they leave you wondering what you've been doing all along. A song stuck in your head is a small one that you might enjoy till it gets annoying. The biggest routine of them all begins with life and ends with death. And then what.

2010-06-05T20:22:00.000-07:00

Science is based on doubt, followed by an inquiry and finally by an assertion. Without doubt there is no inquiry. Doubt is the spring from which the whole of science flows like a mighty river, collecting more doubt along the way, unstoppable, in search for the truth. So what is science looking for? Quite simply, the truth.

Religion is solely belief. If you tell a believer there is God in a stone, he will believe. God is everywhere, he will even believe that without the slightest doubt. That for him is the truth. If God is in a stone, I want to test it. But the Truth remains so irrespective of your opinion of it. So what do I do? If I acknowledge that there is God in the stone, I'm accepting something as it is without inquiry, without personal experience. If I try to prove the existence or non existence of God in the stone, I'm delving into the endless doubt-inquiry chain.

A religion of doubters or scientists' who believe are are neither believers nor scientists. So where does that leave me. I know individually both aren't enough but both together will consume each other in an endless chain, a snake swallowing it's own head.

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?"- Zen Koan

2010-06-01T10:19:00.000-07:00

As I sat in IISc chewing the cud of my failed project with Naik, we hit upon the idea of travelling to North Karnataka. Though I'm writing about it now, after a gap of a good six months, in my mind it is as clear as daylight, the people I met, the places, the sights and the sounds.

We left by the 9 o clock Airavat to Bijapur. The bus was speedy,as Airavat's tend to be. We arrived at Bijapur at around nine in the morning. My first impression was that it was a sleepy town, a misconception that would slap me in the face later on in the day. We reached Naik's place, had breakfast and hung around for a bit. We headed towards Gol Gumbaz in what was a rather hot December morning. Made me think what the summer's would be like. What struck me was the sheer number of pigs that seemed to be lounging about everywhere,not the cute, pink nosed ones with curly tails that one might be used to from cartoons. These were hideous(sorry PETA), immersed in shit, smelling shit or just watching contentedly the world rush madly on from their outposts in the gutter.

The Gol Gumbaz confronts you with sheer size. The pictures from History text books don't do justice to this giant mausoleum. The views from the top were brilliant, a panorama of a city where minarets of mosque's or domes compete with the modern(read ugly) structures. We could see for miles out. Around the city is a thick wall, at places brutally broken down to make way for roads. What they say about a whisper being heard across diametrically opposite corners of the tomb is true. This was demonstrated to us by an enthusiastic guide who rendered "After a few pictures and a guided tour, we headed back down.

2010-05-31T00:25:00.000-07:00

There are many layers to Chennai, the outermost of which is the heat, the effluvium of sewage which is permeating and people who seem to a language which sounds like someone spluttering in the shower. As you peal through these layers, either with patience, in the hope of finding beauty under the veil of ugliness or through compulsion, what you find will be a city which gives you the opportunity to explore its countless facets, provided you don't get thrown off by its obvious lack of outward appeal. Indian's, after all , have a talent for ignoring the obvious. As much as all this may sound like something out of a tourist brochure, I'm speaking from experience. I've found in Chennai what I haven't in Bangalore in my twenty years of living there. The folks here are bare to the bone, with none of the sugar coated artificiality that you may see in Bangalore. I live in one of the oldest areas in Chennai, with two temples(Kapaleeshwarar and Madhava Perumal) which date to antiquity, the Marina beach and a Mall which is filled to the brim on most days. It's fun walking around the gullies, with men in baniyan's and women in nighties chatting or having drunken fights after consuming TASMAC liquor. (I hear that the women take pride in drinking here).
When you ignore the sweltering heat, which is quite a task, bundle all your preconceived notions and throw it out of the window, it is quite a cool place to live in. I'm sad that I'll be leaving pretty soon.

2010-05-27T10:22:00.000-07:00

I'd like to talk about three books that I've read in the past few months that interested me. The first book "The Power of Now" was special. It taught me about my mind. It is funny how the previous sentence seems so funny. How can a you learn about your mind? I think therefore I am. Right?
A monk goes to a great sage with the complaint, "Sir, my mind is troubled. Help me" to which the sage replies "Alright, bring me your mind I'll cure it." The monk says "But I'm not able to find it!".
It is like looking for a horse while riding it yourself.
The next book is "The Tao of Physics". I first tried reading this book in second year. When I started out, I was prejudiced. I did not like it. I found an online copy of it a month ago and read it. It was pretty intense. A lot of it made sense. Some of it didn't.
The third book was "Fooled by Randomness". When I asked Nishkarsh about the book, he gave me a lengthy description during which I caught the words "stock market", which put me off. That was in third year. By the end of final year I had read most of the chapters in the book albeit in a discontinuous fashion. Turned out to be very interesting.
During the TedX talk in Kundapur, there was a novelist who gave a speech titled "connect the dots" or something to that effect. It was pretty boring.
I hope I do a better job here trying to connect them.
"Fooled by randomness" in a nutshell can be summed up in the crisp quote "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen". That was by Einstein. The truth is that the world is complex. I know that is a platitude, but it has to be said. In order to make sense of it all, our brain works overtime. Calculating, judging , comparing. In the process, our minds get prejudiced. We tend to look for patterns in our environment and make decisions based on what has been learnt previously. I'm talking in a very general sense, "Fooled by Randomness" is specific to stock markets. The gist of it is that an event is always judged on your experience from a prior event. Both seem to be the same though they may or may not be related. Bull and Bear markets are characterized based on past events. Statisticians and market analysts mainly use these, i.e, knowledge of prior market behavior in certain circumstances, to predict future trends.
"Tao of Physics" aims to bring to light the string parallels between eastern mysticism and modern physics. Specifically, I'd like to talk about the concept of "Maya" because it has so much in common with what was spoken of in the previous paragraph. "Maya" literally is illusion or in more severe terms, delusion. I don't want to get into philosophy, it can get quite tedious because I don't know much and one can argue endlessly and not reach a conclusion. Thats the beauty of it, the more you ponder, the more profoundly you doubt what you know because in the end what you thought you knew sounds like rubbish. Thats a story for another day. Maya is taking something to be what it is not. We tend to see body, mind and world around us as separate, individual entities . Advaita philosophy says that the three are the same. We perceive the world through our senses. Our senses create a self that is the ego which gives us a sense of separation from "the world out there". In order to make sense of events our mind divides time and space. Space into objects and time to understand relationships between events, to understand cause and effect. This division of something that is in essence indivisible is what creates "Maya". What all this mumbo jumbo means is that our mind "see's" "things" in a relative sense. Everything exists in duals. Thin-fat, beauty-ugliness etc. The mind cannot "see" beyond relative comparisons. It just can't. Try and think of something ( by this, I mean an adjective) that does not have an opposite.
The same line of thought runs through Taoism,Buddhism,Sufi's and all the Eastern Mystic schools ,although with some minor modifications. The more I read the book, the more I saw how it has so much in common with "Fooled by Randomness". Two unrelated authors speaking on seemingly diverse topics,one of them a pragmatic, money minded trader and the other a philosopher and physicist.Yet,the similarities are striking.Or am I just reading too much into it?
Lesson learnt, go with the flow, use intuition, rely on your mind when required but not all the time. Everything is not what it seems. It's what the mind makes of it.

2009-06-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

"Save the EARTH"
This statement has been used, reused and recycled in every imaginable context.
"Save Electricity,Save the Earth".
"Save Water,Save the Earth".
Puhlease."Save your own ass!" would be more appropriate. The earth doesn't need saving. If the polar ice caps were to melt submerging all the land masses thereby driving humans to colonize mars or any other convenient planet, the earth would still rotate about its axis with a slight tilt, completing a full revolution around the sun once every 365.25 days. Earth minus humanity. It does not make a huge difference in the overall picture of the universe. What are we after all. A mere spec in cosmic time.
Even in the green house gas infested atmosphere and watery grave that we might leave behind us, a new life forms may evolve for whom o2 is poisonous, which thrive in uv light and suffocate out of water. If these creatures were to fuck up the water and tamper with the precious green house gases, they too would perish.
The cycle goes on. A new Yuga begins. The earth plays host ever graciously, not the earth as we know it but still spherical and slightly bulged at the poles none the less.
In the big picture, we're pretty small indeed.

2008-12-20T13:00:00.001-08:00

An ocean of round, precariously poised rocks in the midst of which flourished one of the greatest medieval metropolises. The waters of the Tunga Badhra cut through the landscape like a silver knife and everywhere you turn there’s something that catches your eye, frozen in time inviting you to go and explore. Beautiful sculptures carved on every inch of every structure, each having its own story to tell. As I watched the sun rise from Matunga hill, lighting the rocky landscape like a yellow electric bulb, I thought of all the places that I had ever been to and ever would in the future. None had left me felling the same and I doubt anything ever would.
Wish I was in Hampi right now.

the seige of jamalabad

2008-10-02T11:52:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a deep yearning to travel for a long time now and after reading “In Xanandu” by Dalrymple I couldn’t help feeling a sense of injustice and irony. Before us we have this incredibly fascinating labyrinth of history beckoning us to explore but we turn a blind eye to it.

Sheki, who is partly responsible for turning me into somewhat of a history aficionado, went on an elaborate fort hunt on Wiki and produced a list of places around Mangalore which would accommodate the criterion of being close to college and light on the wallet. We agreed on jamalabad fort which was described rather beautifully in a blog. Further research told us (or rather Sheki) that the fort was built by Tipu in the late 18^th century which he (Tipu, of course) promptly named after his mother. The next task on hand was to assemble (in Sheki’s words) “an army for the siege of jamalabad”. These being not an altogether difficult task as most of the fella’s were pretty jobless after the mid semester exams, the final line-up looked as follows: Sheki, Heda, Nishkarsh, A.Abi, Vyas, Rushil and I.

Date:27th September,2008

5:30 am: I wake up to the incredibly irritating tune of sheki’s alarm. So this is what 5 30 am feels like!

5:45 am: The two of us knock on ponky’s door.

Sheki: Are you coming?

Ponky: Yea. Wake me up in fifteen minutes.

6:00 am: Sheki (Again, Ponky’s door): You coming?

Ponky: Can’t come. Not feeling well.

7:00 am: We wait at Reddy’s and forgo an express because it seems pretty crowded.

7:15 am: It’s getting late so we board a “local” bus much more crowded than the express. Damn you Murphy. It stops every 100 meters. Mangalore seems at least an hour away.

8:00 am: We have breakfast at the “Taj Mahal”, Hampankatta and parcel fourteen puri’s to be eaten after we’ve “conquered” jamalabad.

8:45 am: With moderately filled stomachs we walk to the SB bus stop. Our destination-Belthangadi. We board a bus which bears a striking resemblance to the one which brought us to Mangalore. We look for an express but there is none. We stick to the “local”.

9:00 am: When the bus is sufficiently full, it labours its way towards Darmasthala. The road is surprisingly smooth and on either side lush, green fields abound with the occasional hillock. Sheki’s camera is put to use at times of monotony. On enquiry, we’re told that Belthangadi is an hour and a half away.

11:00 am: We arrive at Belthangadi and are told to catch another bus to the foot of the hill.

11:15 am: Arrive at “base camp”. The village is laid back and we look at the hill which we are to scale. The sun is blazing away on all cylinders and it seems a pretty steep task. We gather a few bottles of water and head off towards the foot of the hill which is 2 km away. On the way we see a church, a mosque and a temple in close proximity. There’s a stream with crystal clear water inviting us to jump in. Sadly, I hadn’t neither a pair of bathing trunks or a towel with me.

12:00 noon: The guy in charge, presumably from the ASI, asked us to cough up an amount which I’m not able to recollect at present. I think he even took one of our college ID’s. These formalities being completed, we began the ascent. Its funny how things never pan out the way you imagined they would. When we were told that the climb would take us an hour and a half or probably two, I laughed silently thinking it was child’s play. The first two hundred meters or so dispelled any lingering notions that the trek was going to be easy. The path was manmade and carved out the rock. The steps, being quiet high, took a toll on our ill exercised bodies and we were huffing in about 15 minutes. The heat was blistering and we halted every 5 minutes or so taking gulps of water while we rested on the smouldering hot rocks. Sheki and I proved to be the weaklings, if I might use the word. The sedentary lifestyles which we shamefully lead were reflected throughout the trek. Anyway I must add that the view at various points was very pretty indeed. Below us there was a vast expanse of fields, coconut groves and plantations and the Kudremukh hills kissed the clouds in the background.

The first sign of the fort was a wall which fooled us into thinking that we had reached the top. This was especially cruel on Sheki who was exhausted (to the point of crying out “I’m dying”) and was led to believe that the journey was complete. There was a broken cannon which I doubt was made of iron (can iron fracture?). We hadn’t reached the top as yet. There was a flight of steps which was the steepest yet and wet in portions. This, I must admit, was the hardest part of the trek. The steps were carved out of the rocks and the hardships faced by the people who constructed the fort became apparent when we glanced down. We were at a height of about 1500 feet and relying on the rather precarious grip the slippery rocks could afford.

2:00 pm: We’re at the top. Or are we? There is no sign of a high walled, magnificent structure I had conjured in my mind. Nothing but a small observatory of sorts which has been thoroughly defaced by tasteless graffiti. It’s a shame we treat our monuments like they aren’t worth a penny. The view, as I have already commented was breath taking. From the scale of the fort, or whatever is left of it, it becomes apparent that it was a small structure but commanded a bird’s eye view of the surroundings. But why did Tipu select such a remote location as a military outpost?

After doing a bit of exploring, we lunched in a shady nook and snapped a few customary photographs. As we had run out of water, we filled the bottles from a spring at the top. The water was cool and sweet, quiet refreshing in the sapping heat. At around three we headed back. The descent was much easier and we didn’t halt as much we had on the way up, as a result of which we were back downstairs in an hour and a quarter.

4:00 pm: My legs were trembling and my muscles ached. All I wanted was a hot shower and a comfortable bed. The stream which I had mentioned earlier beckoned us with its musical sound as it caressed the rocks. We took off our footwear and dipped our bare feet in the swirling waters. The result was as soothing a massage as I have ever gotten. When we finally decided to leave I was completely rejuvenated as I’m sure were the others.

The return to Mangalore and finally to college was a haze. I was pretty exhausted and did not even have the appetite to gorge at Nishkarsh’s expense.

Mr .Tambourine man

2008-07-04T01:50:00.000-07:00

X cracks a joke. Y erupts into peals of laughter. Z looks dumb struck with an expression of what-the-fuck-is-this writ large on his face. Y explains the joke to Z, who fakes a laugh, still not getting it. One thing about laughter, other than being the best medicine, is that it is spontaneous. I can’t explain why a joke is funny the same way I can’t explain why I like my favourite song. Sure I can say that I like the riff ,the vocals or the solo but there’s something about it and I can’t really put your finger on that “something”.

Our minds are what we make them. As infants and thereabouts we’re fascinated by everything. Something as ordinary as a key chain or an aeroplane. Magic shows and ghosts in closets. A silly looking clown can make a toddler laugh his tiny little head off. But the calculating and analytical mind is swift to debunk the mysteries of closeted ghosts and magicians. That magician is a fraud! The rabbit was already in the hat. The same way the clown is just another guy in a stupid costume and an aeroplane is just like a bus only that it flies. Big deal.

But no matter how much we’ve suppressed our instincts, some things remain unchanged. Artistic appreciation and laughter being two of them. We don't have to "think" to realize that a crack is funny. Its funny because, well.. it just is.

Sometimes it’s better to give the mind a rest and let the soul do the thinking.

2008-07-01T06:45:00.001-07:00

A year ago my neighbours moved to London filled to the brim with excitement. A week ago they returned, not very excited but a little glum. The lure of money aside, they were not very happy with the quality of education England had to offer for their son. I was a bit surprised since he was all of twelve years old. They complained that the books were wafer thin and as beauty is always skin deep they felt thin books and extracurricular activities would be a hindrance to their son slogging for CET/AIEEE/blah blah blah and become a “software engineer”. Having fallen into the same trap myself I feel a brotherly sympathy towards the kid. There seems to be a disease spreading thick and fast. Every teenager in middle class India has it drilled into him to take up PCMB/C/again blah blah in 12th and thereafter become an engineer preferably with the prefix “software”, or a doctor. Commerce and humanities are for dull kids. That’s the message given by nosy aunties and uncle’s who haven’t the vaguest idea about what they’re talking about.

Let me deviate from the point a little bit. Every individual is born with a certain something called intelligence. It’s our ability to make decisions other than “What am I going to eat for dinner?” that makes us superior to pond life and apes. And this “intelligence” when measured follows the law of averages quite neatly. There are those who are exceptionally bright and there are those who are like Paris Hilton. A majority of us humans fall somewhere in between. There is a serious snag in the “measurement” of intelligence. The standard IQ tests (and most of our examinations,/entrance tests) only measure the individuals’ logical and mathematical skills. There are a whole lot of factors which aren’t taken into account in measuring it thus. For example you can have a guy who’s dazzling at math but when you give him a map and let him loose in downtown Mumbai he might come a cropper as the task demands something called spatial intelligence. Then there’s linguistic intelligence, musical intelligence and a whole bunch of other “intelligences” which aren’t tested in the regular IQ tests. Muhammad Ali had an IQ of 75 (tested by the U.S. army) which is as dull as anyone can get without being retarded according to the traditional notion of “intelligence” but he possessed , in abundance, something called body kinaesthetic intelligence which determines how well you can co-ordinate your skeletal system to excel as an athlete.

Now think about the situation in India. From about the time a toddler begins to walk, it is drilled into him that engineering and medicine are the only holy paths to a successful career. I’m talking typical middle class India here. No consideration is given to a fact that an individual and therefore his inteligence, is what the word means in itself. Unique. One of a kind . Individual A might be a great musician but he’s compelled to sit for JEE, an exam that is demanding on one’s logical and mathematical skills, only to be disappointed by not qualifying. Aren’t his parents satisfied with this? No. He sits for CET in every state till he gets ECE or Computer Science. So he does a course, which he has no aptitude for whatsoever, and struggles through college only to be placed as a “software engineer” which is a dream come true for a parent. Music be damned!

If you ask me this neighbour of mine would have been better off in England. An essential catalyst for happiness is an environment in which an individual can assess his capabilities and choose a path which is suited to his mental makeup. Everyone can’t be an engineer or a doctor. When will this seep into heads of our aunties and uncles?

the smell of rain

2008-07-01T01:25:00.000-07:00

Amongst the wilderness of Nandini Layout stands a funnily shaped building which, as of 2004 still awaited its first coat of white wash. I say wilderness because the acres of trees, weed and poisonous plant that cover most of the curvaceous landscape might be mistaken for grassland and the open sewer lines that snake along can be one of the brook’s that Wordsworth raves about. I say funnily shaped because of the absolute lack of architectural and aesthetic sense on the part of the guy who designed it. To the residents of Nandini and to the pupils who graced its suffocating corridors, the depilated structure is goes by the name of Presidency School. The place which shaped my mind , or whatever is left of it. The place where I learnt dirty jokes that transcend boundaries. The only place, other than a traffic constable’s convention, where you would find five hundred guys wearing khaki trousers and white shirts. Where sex education was left to capable hands of the internet. Where the school playground was a public park quarter of a kilometre away. The place where I had my first crush. Most importantly, the place which taught me a-b-c with which I can string together these sentences. I mean the a-b-c of the alphabet and of life.Ah, those memories.

2008-06-20T08:24:00.000-07:00

This particular piece of whatever-you-call-it was written about a year ago and published in a blog which is now non-existent.I had written it about the time of the grueling round of club interviews.Two semesters later,I cannot believe I was so worked up about it!Some people have read it, some haven't.If you belong to the latter,proceed.

I always thought that being in a club would be a great experience, an opportunity to learn things that were never taught and to develop qualities like leadership and to interpersonal skills that are invaluable and which most of have no clue of and most of all, being in an engineering college, to cultivate an interest in the latest advancements in technology. With great enthusiasm I filled out the “resume” forms handed out by the clubs. I answered the questions which ranged from the mundane (“ A selfish person is foolish. Comment”), to the ridiculous (“Mention one personality whom you would take out to dinner and why) to the best of my literary abilities. If you’re wondering why these insightful looking questions are being called mundane and ridiculous, I’d like to add that these are questions that one must answer in order to get into the “tech clubs” which are being funded by the college to “promote technical education and help students hone their skills to become technocrats”. Do any of these “tech” clubs actually know what the word “technical” means? After healthy dose of personality contests (read beauty pageants), mock placement packages for fresher’s, pool parties, ballroom dances and everything else under the sun which even an imbecile would term “non-technical”, we can safely conclude that they don’t.

There are various criteria for getting into these elite societies. First and foremost is the gender of the applicant. Owing to the rarity of the fairer sex, and their reputation for being crowd pullers in most events, the big four are invariably engaged in barbaric dog fights to snap up the “good ones”. Sex sells and here’s the finest example. Another very important criterion is the applicant’s knowledge of photo shop, flash (in the literal sense for female applicants), movie maker or any of the countless software applications one can conjure. The clubs cannot stress enough on how important this is for a potential member. The junta selected under this criterion are usually the “shy types” who are very sociable with computers and would hence enhance the image of the club by designing mind blowing posters which would take attention away from the fact that a certain technical society is having a dance workshop or maybe that another is having a beauty pageant. The creative teams in these clubs have to be given credit for their originality and ability to think out of the box. In no two consecutive years would you find the same dance workshop being held. For example, if its salsa this year, the next year would be jive and so forth. If creativity is your forte, there is ample opportunity in the clubs. Apart from these the other quota available to get into these portals of excellence includes “contacts” with suitable members already part of the club(the higher up, the better), Rs.1250 in your bank account during the month of January, helping move furniture during college fests or just plain sucking up to the interview panel. If an applicant fails to meet the aforementioned he would be deemed unfit and be ragged by the interview panel, who get their kicks by thinking they’re the desi version of Donald trump.

Being in a club has its own perks. Apart from the prestige issue, a member can gain solace from the fact t that no matter how badly an event has bombed, he is assured a “treat” from the club. Add to this the yearly trips to exotic locales, the constant company of female members(which every NITKian so desperately desires), “contacts” which enable one to climb higher in the student association and workshops that promote interaction with (female) members other student chapters; it’s a very attractive package indeed. And all this while the institute foots the bill for “club treat in sad’s” and the suchlike.

While this may seem to be a rant by someone who did not manage to make it into any club, it is a view expressed by many and is in fact the reality. First of all, the clubs must find out what is required of them (or at least get someone else to do it) and stick to it. Secondly clubs are meant to be recreational and in this spirit they must keep membership open to everyone. If this is asking too much of them, the selection process has to be fair and transparent. And lastly the money allocated and spent by each club must be made available to everyone.

2008-06-18T05:51:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago in the time of board exams and entrance exams and what not,I was the kind of chap who wouldn't be caught within arms length of a novel.Anything in the nature of curling up with book on the couch with hot chocolate was a strict no-no.A few Enid Blyton novels was all I had under my belt.Then things took a change,I would say for the better.
Around about the time I came back home for Diwali during the first semester,I found a few books stacked up at home.They seemed pretty new to me.At that time,and to some extent even now,I was guilty of judging books by their covers.I noticed that all the books under scrutiny were written by an guy called P.G Wodehouse.At the back of the book was a brief gist of the story which I must admit was a bit Bollywood-ish and at the bottom was a tribute by Hugh Laurie.For those unaware of him,he plays Dr House in the t.v show going by the same name.With a lot of time to kill and noting that Mr Laurie called P.G.W "the funniest writer to put pen on paper",I began reading it.
I have often heard Agatha Christie's novels being described as "unputdownable".That about sums up the effect the book had on me.By the way the,name of the book was "Right ho,Jeeves".Being accustomed to watching sitcoms where unseen people guffaw away in the background at the slightest provocation,the book I had in hand was refreshingly funny.The idiosyncrasies of the characters involved and the way they they got themselves into and out of the most difficult situations very much in accordance with Murphy's law,was hilarious.I finished reading the book in quick time with a few cramps from laughing and went on to read the rest of them.I think it was a weeks vacation and I had read four books by then.
Having read quite a few books written by P.G.W since then,I just cannot get enough of it.Love is central in almost all the plots.Unexpected engagements,"lovers tiffs" as he calls it and love triangles are the order of the day.My personal favorite being the Jeeves and Wooster series which is about a rich but not-so-bright guy named Bertie and his valet,Jeeves.
Its remarkable how something written about the time of the first world war and the years thereafter can still be funny and relevant.But I' not going to ponder on that.I'm just going to read this genius' work and revel in the world that he created without much giving much thought to deeper things,just as he would have wanted.
So if you find a P.G lying around,give it a read.You might love it.Or might not.There is no in-between.

2008-06-16T05:59:00.000-07:00

Work is the curse of the drinking class.nah!Curse is the drink of the working class.Tch,doesn't sound right.Drink is the curse of the working class.aha!At last I have it.As to the identity of the clever fellow to who said this, I do not have a clue.I'll have to Google it later.But he could not have spoken a truer word.How the drink has ruined many a man!
The clever bloke might have thought otherwise had he been a scholar at NIT K.Even more so if he was studying in the Computer Science department.The misery of those fit in the above mentioned category and the reasons for the suffering might fill into a few volumes in writing.So I'll spare you the sob stories.Sure,we had free hours and about a million half days but if you are as unlucky(yes it comes down to luck) as I am you'd be writing the exact same thing on your blog.What I'm getting at here is that my dreams and aspirations being crushed like a soda can in the past year,I frequented the watering holes around the campus more than what you would consider usual.Since the vacations thus far have echoed my time at college,viz utter idleness,I am hereby making a list of what-I-"downed" in the past year.

Old Monk- If you are eternally broke as I am,this my friend, is what the doctor ordered for you. At Rs.32 50 inclusive of taxes, this stuff is might make you doubt its toxicity,but don't worry.Other than a hellish hangover that ensues in the morning after,no major damage will be done.
Hayward's black-Served best when chilled.My choice when it comes to beer.
Romanov-The cheapest option when it comes to vodka.Might taste like nail polish remover but it is tolerable drunk with orange juice.Interestingly this vodka made in Karnataka!
Royal stag whiskey-Decent stuff.One quarter of this.A packet of peanuts and some soda/coke and you're good to go.
Honorable mentions-
1.The tequila we bought which was ghastly!But at least I tried it. Later I was informed that it has to be drunk after you're feeling a little light in the head.How I wish I had known this before.
2.Fuel Vodka-A tad better than Romanov.Can be reserved for after-exam revelry.
3.Kingfisher,Fosters and Budweiser-Cannot replace Hayward's Black on my list but still,they're good for a change.
4.Absolut Vodka-A splurge by my standards.Kind of thing I would spend money on if i just won the lottery.
So there you go.
The list is merely based personal taste.If you can think of anything cheaper,just let me know.

2008-06-09T06:52:00.000-07:00

Hold it!
Before you proceed, I would very much want you to watch this video.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=JKioNI8huo4

Alright, presuming that you have watched the video and also presuming that you have time to munch on some non-sense I would like to talk about Indians and hair and coconut oil and mustaches. Come to think of it, Russel Peters does have a point. We Indians are more than usually hairy. Being endowed with lot of it myself I see the funny side of it.
While Indian women have long flowing tresses which the dutifully oil everyday Indian males flaunt their gift via tufts of hair under their noses.Oh yeah I'm talking about the great Indian moustache which has faithfully provided canopy for lonely upper lips for generations. Wait for a moment and think of anyone you know who is over the age of forty, your dad or maybe an uncle.Does he have a mooch? I bet he does.
I myself had the misfortune sprouting one at a rather age.Some inventive name calling and a few embarrassing passport photos forced me show it razors edge.While this reduced the name calling to certain extent and I no longer looked like a 80's porn star, it didn't go well with my dad. Coming from a family in which an uncle actually had a special comb to style his moustache and spends half an hour everyday in the process,I stuck out like sore thumb. If I had become a cross dresser they would've been less disappointed.Its easy to see why they would fell that way.The moustache is symbolic of masculinity especially in S.India. All major public figures sport one however out of style it has become elsewhere.Remember the time when Indian cricket was infested with moustache wearing(is that the right word?!) men? Kumble,Srinath,Prabhakar...
Then of course theres the brigade of movie stars.Superrrrrrrr Starrrrrrrrr Rajinikant,Mamooty,Kamal Hassan and not to forget Anil Kapoor,who in spite changing fads has always remained faithful to the nose bug.
The great Indian moustache has of late, been losing its patrons.In an age where the ladies seem to cringe at sight of facial hair,with an exception to the cooler looking goatee's, it seems to have gone out favor. Chest hair shaving metro-sexual's,who are top of the list of today's "role models" aren't helping its cause either.Put a moustache on M.S.D or a C.Ronaldo and you will be assured that the ladies' heart would no longer race at the sight of them. Males in the 40+ age bracket, bald guys and probably a few villains in the movie industry are the ones who are probably prolonging its demise.Not that I'm very disappointed though. Shaving that god awful the thing was the best move I've made yet.
If you've read thus far without a yawn,go ahead and check out this video.Its from the 90's sitcom Seinfeld.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSf2O80brbU

Dear Mr.Dias

2008-06-02T22:54:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr.Dias,
Its June and you're in my thoughts again. There are so many things about this time of the year which make so special for me. The soothing rains, my birthday and of course June signaled the end of our summer vacations. Why would a kid like the end of his summer break you ask? Well to be honest with you sir, I enjoyed the first day of school. It invariably coincided with my birthday and what better way to start a new year at school without having to wear that awful uniform and of course having people singing the birthday song to you.I beg your pardon sir,for I'm drifting off from what I really wanted to say.
Was it not in June that you first came into our class Mr.Dias? Yes, I remember it very vividly. We were a bunch of unruly fourteen year olds who refused to cooperate and you had the patience of a sage. Thats quite a combination I tell you.I always wondered how you managed to go about teaching for an hour without having to raise your voice unlike the teachers. Time has made me wiser, Mr.Dias. I now realize that what you had done was something that had never been managed by the other teachers. You had actually earned our respect. And thats not an easy feat, believe me. We were hot blooded and rebellious but there was something about you that made us "behave" appropriately.
Another thing that struck me Mr.Dias is how you managed to remain so humble.You knew a bunch of languages didn't you? French,Italian,Latin...Your knowledge about Greek and Roman mythology and English literature so vast you could've chosen place to teach in. And yet,you chose our school which was in the middle of nowhere, with little reputation to speak of. What motivated you to keep your feet on the ground amidst all the ignorance around you?
Was it not in June that you fell ill Mr.Dias? When you were on leave,we got a substitute teacher and things began to change. We no longer enjoyed English class.She taught the subject alright but we could tell she didn't have the passion that you had. She spent time trying to get us to listen to what she had to say rather than having the hypnotic effect you had when you spoke. We knew they could never replace you.
Yours Truly
Balaji

It was a rainy morning on the 22nd of June 2003. The whole school was made to assemble in spite of the drizzle outside. There is a commotion but silence prevails when the Principal begins to speak. "Mr.Thomas Dias passed away last evening after....". A lot was said after that but I really don't remember much of it.She didn't know him like we did.

The IPL and more

2008-05-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

I'm back baby!
Well it does sound very cheesy but what the heck I really love saying that! So here I am ten months older and a lot less wiser after two semesters of computer engineering at NITK. This blog is the outcome three dragging months of vacations, a dead end project and just plain boredom.
The end of our even semester coincided with the beginning of a phenomenon which has taken the cricketing world by storm. Unless you've spent the past month and a half locked in a dungeon, you would know what I'm talking about. Yup, the IPL has certainly been a huge hit mainly because it has all the masala that we Indians crave for. Sky rocketing TRP's, packed stadiums for every match and loads of money through sponsors and what not. Looks like Lalit Modi is one happy chappy.If you're nauseated by all the hoopla surrounding the IPL, then relax I'm not going into the cricket or sardar's with itchy palms. Neither am I interested in King Kong getting what he deserved.
As I said before the TRP's for the IPL games have sky rocketed and in the process knocked off the saas-bahu epics from the top spot. When our mom's and aunties give up their daily dose of soap opera's for Dhoni and co. , you know things are changing. But not all change is good though. The vast viewership demograph means that there is a mad scramble for advertising slots. Advertising can be lucrative(for the broadcaster) in cricket and T20 in particular as there is a gap after every over is bowled ad the broadcaster can squeeze in as many advertisements as possible. Compare this to other sport broadcasts where there is a gap during half time or a quarter and voila, cricket broadcasting looks like a goldmine. While the broadcasters lick their lips at the prospect and companies with products to advertise are happy to pay crores for a few minutes of ad's its the viewer who suffers. We're bombarded with countless moronic ad's. How about the ad for a fan where the chick called bijli is prancing around and suddenly passes out. It don't make no sense! The one that really gets me pulling my hair out is the the Insurance company ad where the lady calls out "sanjuuuuuuuuuu" in the most nasal voice possible. I mean hearing it once is bad enough but four times in a minute is asking too much from one's nerve.
Even during telecast of the action we don't get reprieve. As my dear friend Sheki points out,even guys like Greg Chappel and Sunny Gavaskar announce DLF maximums and what not from the commentary box. This just goes to show how much they're willing to sell out for a few bucks.Well alright there are a few good ad's but they're too few and far between. The Hutch ad's are brilliant(yup,all of 'em) and so it the Moto Yuva one. I'm certainly not calling for a ban on ads between telecasts. That would be ridiculous. What I ask for is fewer ad's and even more than that,it is imperative that companies replace the four year olds who are obviously coming up with such mind numbing ideas!