The NITK Numbskulls page

We've moved!

2006-06-07T18:31:00.000+05:30

We're bored of blogger. On a lark, we've shifted to Wordpress. We've messed up our display names there [Priya is called Wanderlust, and Tuhina is called dunnoany, no specific reason whatsoever with regard to the choice of names and there's no way to change it!], and I guess it'll be a bit before we get totally used to the place.
We've imported all our posts and comments there. We'll keep updating this post with the wonders of wordpress. The most obvious one here seems to be that we are able to categorize our posts on wordpress. Hope we discover the goodies that wordpress has to offer.
See ya there readers!!!
http://thenitknumbskulls.wordpress.com

A morning gone awry

2006-06-06T10:49:00.000+05:30

I surprised everyone at home this morning by waking up early. No, it wasn't because the mosquitoes refused to let me sleep, or 'coz my sister pulled my sheet away leaving me cold. Well, anyway, I was up before the newspapers arrived, and I didn't want to stick around shivering in the cold till then, so I gave my mum a heart-attack by going for a morning walk.
I'd first thought of just walking around the colony, but the surface resembles the moon's, very unkind on the feet. Hmm... miniforest wasn't very far away, I'd probably go there.
But when I got there, I decided the area's too familiar to me, so I'd just walk and walk till I felt like coming back.
I won't bore you with details of how good the walk felt, how amazed I was that my hay-fever had vanished, how beautiful things looked in the morning light, how vicious the street dogs were [mom maintains that they chase me due to the way I wear my jacket], and how far you can get carried away by your thoughts.
I don't still know what possessed me, but an hour later, I found myself four km away from home. There I was, demented with fatigue and hunger, too sleepy to walk all the way back. To my luck, I'd forgotten my mobile at home, and so had to get back before my mum started worrying. Luckily, I had a little money [and I mean little], enough to get back home by BMTC bus.
As I walked to the bus stop, I watched the direct bus home rush past me, the conductor smirking at me as I waved frantically for the bus to stop. Ten minutes later at the bus stop, I was amazed by how many destinations there were in South Bangalore, and how mine was but an insignificant one, that there's just one bus every ten-fifteen minutes to it.
The next bus did turn up finally, and my destination suddenly seemed to be very popular, everyone and his brother wanted to go to JP Nagar 3rd Phase just then. The bus was bursting at the seams, as aunties and tiny schoolchildren jostled for space, nay, entry into the bus. The conductor smugly asked some of the bigger aunties to get off, there was a rule against overloading a bus, and come to think of it, there isn't enough space. Finally, everyone did get in, me on the footboard [a more nimble schoolgirl pushed me there, squeezing her way deep into the bus], only prevented from being pushed off the bus by the two huge aunties behind me... I discovered they really had more inertia.
I was relieved it was just the morning, and that it wasn't all that warm, people sweated less, and used deo. I didn't have to worry anyway, I was asphyxiated and the breath was knocked out of me by the pushing and shoving from all directions. As I gripped the bar, closed my eyes and waited for the next stop, [the bus was moving very slowly due to the load] flashes of my past flickered past my eyes. The asphyxia reminded me of another time when I'd gotten into an equally crowded bus [not on the footboard, though] just 'coz this friend of mine who I used to travel home with wanted to beat the clock to get to speak to a certain someone. And the other time when I bumped into a long-lost friend on a bus....
Next stop. I had to get off and then get on. Now, this was tricky, coz once before, the bus had left without me. The aunties made sure I had no hassle. QED.
The conductor came around asking for tickets. Should I say "pass" like the girl in front of me and save myself the hassle of having to dig through my pockets for change? I unfortunately didn't. The ticket costed five rupees, which was daylight robbery [I wouldn't say robbery without violence, the way people rush to get into a bus is pretty violent] for four kilometres! No wonder BMTC is the only public transport corporation that makes a profit. Well, I'd been used to travelling by bus two years before, when fuel prices weren't as high as they are now. Didn't feel all that Rip van Winkle-y though. Well, I got back two rupees change, and no ticket! Why, the cheating scum, how petty can you get?
"Ticket kodtheera?" I bravely ventured. "Illa ma," the conductor said. Look, your stop is just a few minutes away, why don't you do us both a favour and stop asking for a ticket? "Checking-avaru bandare?" Main hoon na, he said.
I was too weak to argue, and wasn't ready for the consequences. Once before, when I'd asked for a ticket instead of half the fare, this conductor had the audacity to snap at me, and pull my leg the rest of the journey, and when I started raising my voice, had the guts to push this huge lady so that she fell on me.
Well, I finally reached home, tired and hungry. Sis was waiting at the door, ready to pounce on me, coz I'd worn her slippers for the walk. Thanks to all the pushing and shoving on the bus, I'd gotten bitten by the shoe [it can tell when it's in a hostile environment] and it was fully ruined.
She was done shouting at me, and then amicably suggested, "Well, you seem to like my slippers a lot, so you keep it, and I'll go get some new ones".
So I'm stuck with a pair of biting slippers, and I don't think I'll ever go out on a ramble again. Walking doesnt seem so good for my health anymore. I'll lie in bed and watch action movies for exercise.

Infidel

2006-05-28T13:11:00.000+05:30

Here is yet another typically Shobhaa De piece. Where she boldly and bravely speaks out against the fairytale of happily married. And applauds Karan Johar for having the guts to come out with such a bold film [Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, and it's about *yawn* adultery], which can potentially damage his credo at the Box Office.
She also says that India needs a Bollywood film made by someone of Karan's sensibility and mass appeal for the Sati-Savitri stereotypes to crumble. Hell's Bells, the Indian moviegoer is upto his neck with themes similar to this one. And ha, will one movie, or for that matter, a dozen or more movies of this type do anything to the psyche of the moviegoer from the Cowbelt, or even the multiplex audience?
Well, maybe, just maybe, if the women had any semblance to what women are like in real life. I agree with Ms. De to the point where she feels that women in real life aren't the self-sacrificing types shown in the movies and people should stop expecting them to be so. But isn't it preposterous to suggest that Karan Johar portrays women faithfully? Just look at Anjali, or Tina, or Naina Catherine Kapoor, or Pooja... Aren't they just caricatures of Tomboy, Heroine, Stressed-Out Breadwinner, and an over-the-top, exaggeratedly comic version of Femme Fatale?
And just how is adultery a solution to anything? How does having an incompatible spouse justify your finding pleasure outside of the relationship? Divorce, maybe, is justified by the above reason, but certainly not adultery, which is, anyway just another word for unfaithfulness.
Ms. De foresees that the treatment given to the plot and the theme will be such that the audience empathizes with the philandering woman. But why should they? Why should we accept adultery as just another thing in life, and take it in our stride when it happens? Doesn't that go totally against our concept of marriage, as we know it? As far as we know, Ms. De isn't one of those who don't believe in marriage, or are cynical about it, that her having such a point of view is justified.
As for those who don't believe in marriage, and are applauding Karan Johar for Breaking the Rules [with adultery], ha, why at all get married, if you're not going to give all to the relationship?
As for Breaking the Rules, maybe we should be doing so, but not in favour of heartbreak and anarchy, which are not on the path to a more stable social structure.
Talking of a which, the only solutions I can think of, off the top of my mind are Galaxia, which is a global organism, as portrayed by Asimov in Foundation and Earth, or a society of hermaphrodites, like Solaria, from the same novel. What I'm trying to say is that there are no easy solutions to keep a marriage intact, unless the very existence of the parties involved in the relationship depended on the stability of the relationship, as in Galaxia, or the non-existence of such an unstable bond, as in Solaria.
And for this potentially epoch-making film... I don't think this is going to herald the coming of a great social revolution. Just like Salaam Namaste didn't make an iota of difference to people's perception of live-in relationships. It takes a lot more than films to reverse our dogmas and hypocrisies, or even bring them to light. And filmmakers make such films not 'coz they feel like on the cusp of a dramatic social change, or 'coz they rightly estimate the sensibilities of the audience. A hatke theme is a big draw, as far as curiosity is concerned, and this includes the Indian media, which promptly laps it all up, blows it all out of proportion and delights in declaring again and again that Indian audiences are growing more open minded. Add to that a dozen-or-so hit song-and-dance sequences, and heartstring-tugging dialogues and a director like Karan Johar who revels in three hours of swinging the audiences' emotions from crest to abyss to crest, and there you have a runaway success.
As for Ms. De, who so delights in declaring her hi-fi contacts so often in her columns...Pah! Advertising knows no limits.

Once 'round the sun

2006-05-10T12:39:00.000+05:30

A year, now. A YEAR! It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long since we came out with our test post. Forty posts up, this is the forty-first [roughly a post every nine days]. Are we proud, or are we proud.
It was a boring Sunday evening near the fag end of our second semester when Tu and me were reading The Hindu’s supplement, which had an article on blogging. Just like that [like most other decisions I make], we decided to start scribbling online.
And here we are, with The NITK Numbskulls Page [couldn’t think of a more open-ended title] still scribbling away, never having stopped to think.
We aren’t doing anything new, or path breaking, or epoch-making. We don’t write ‘coz it is going to help us down the line in CAT or GRE. We don’t blog ‘coz it’s cool to do so, or ‘coz everyone else is doing it. We don’t write here just ‘coz we want to know what the world thinks of us. No, this blog isn’t a stairway to anything else; it exists just for our love of writing.
Now comes the big question asked on birthdays… have we improved, generally? I should think not, as far as I am concerned, for reasons elaborated in my previous post. But then, putting thoughts into writing has generally helped: I am more confident of being able to write, and think better of my thoughts now. I also objectively analyze others’ writing better now, and don’t just take them at face value anymore.
Otherwise… well, I’ve finally come to the conclusion that verbosity while just getting your ideas across isn’t necessarily bad, but verbosity that obscures what you’re trying to say, is. Broadly, I can say that it all depends on what you want the effect of your writing to be.
And I’ve also discovered that the best writing comes from deep within, and comes only when you are actually strongly feeling what you’re writing. Maybe that is coz it adds believability and hence, life to your words.
I haven’t made any rules for myself as yet [should I have?], but write guided by what I would like to read.
I don’t yet know about good and bad writing, other than that while reading good writing, you’re able to feel what the writer feels, or wants you to feel, whereas with bad writing, you get thoroughly irritated with everything about it and you actually pay less attention to what the writer is trying to say than to how he’s saying it.
And there've been some posts which never came off, stuff which I tried to write, unsuccessfully: There was one on Woodstock, and whether we could have another edition in this age of rampant consumerism, which I tried thrice to finish, but it always ended up as another version of the Woodstock entry in Wiki.
Then there was one about how Rang De Basanti was such a farce, and how Ayutha Ezhuthu deserves to be the one hogging all the plaudits, and be telecast on August 15.
Of all of those which I have published, my favourite has been this one. It wasn't much-read, being written in the initial days of the blog.
As much as we’ve enjoyed writing here, we’ve also enjoyed reading other blogs and hopefully others have enjoyed reading this page. Thanks to our blogger brothers and sisters who read us and care to leave a comment… that’d be a whole bunch of people:
Starting with our batch mates Deepika and Nitin [or Speed and Finance Freak], dear friend Deepti Bhat who’s clear thoughts are a dee-light to read [don’t believe her when she calls herself Xtremely Insane], Anant Jain, who is among the first to read my posts [he's got RSS feeds, ;-)], venerable seniors Dhaval Giani and Gautham Shenoy, fellow NIT-ians Shashi, Jayanth, Tony, The Monk, and Karthik aka CB, Aravind and Abhilash, as also Karthik Ramakrishnan.
And how could I forget Mr./Ms. Anonymous? Of the twelve months we’ve been blogging, this person’s been reading us for eight [assuming, of course, that (s)he’s been the only anonymous person who’s stubbornly refused to use an alias]. We wonder who you are that you’re jobless enough to be trashing us for so long.
And, finally, to the guy who inspired me to start blogging- longtime friend and fellow Beatle-maniac Nakul Krishna, who’s Twelve-Bar Original was such a delight to read…Nakul, I thank you for having taught me new things, and new ways of thinking, and above all, being there as a constant source of inspiration, and a lasting influence in my life.

Over a cuppa

2006-05-10T12:35:00.000+05:30

To my agony aunt, who learnt the hard way that all nice guys are either gay or taken.

I hate to say ‘I told you so’
Don’t despair, just let it go
There are bigger fish in the sea
Just waiting up for you and me

But care two hoots, who gives a shit
They matter not, and just don’t fit
Into the scheme of our lives
Cheer up, gal, high five?
Nothing’s changed with me and you
We’re still the same ol’ two
Crazy gals cutting chai
Hakuna Matata, plain yenjaai.

A cuppa, anytime, on me;
You’ve always been there for me
Let’s stick around this coffee shop
Till the waiters blow their top
And throw us out, like they always do
Who cares!
Our spirit’s never quashed, our laughter too.

Sickness

2006-04-14T00:41:00.000+05:30

Listening to: Love you to by The Beatles.

Was going through my previous posts. The ones I wrote when I started blogging. And the ones I’ve written recently. The degradation is obvious. My writing has lost the passion and the angst that made it what it was. I don’t anymore feel what I write. And re-reading the later posts is almost impossible.
No, I don’t say I’ve taken to writing to just keep the boredom away, or to fill space. It is just the stagnation I’m undergoing that shows in my writing.
I have no one to blame but me. I’ve stopped having a perspective on things that go on around me. I blindly look up to editorials and columns for perspective. In short, I don’t have anything much to say about the world around me.
I don’t anymore write what I feel, either. Staying in this place has hardened my exterior to such an extent that I barely know what I feel. My sense of humor has taken second place to my sense of rumor. All I come up with are clichés and borrowed thoughts.
All I want to do now is to regain my sense of self, get in touch with my real thoughts and feelings and at the same time, not block out the rest of the world, but to take it all in and make sense of it.

I’M GOING HOME!!!

Epilogue: I haven’t been home for months. And I don’t think I can go home till May 10th the very least. It isn’t pleasant anymore here, being in the thick of intellectual stagnation.
All I need is a place to dust the cobwebs in my head, where I have unrestricted access to the idiot box, can read the newspaper for as long as I wish, debate on newspaper reports for hours on end, and have food so good that its warmth floods me, coaxing me gently to take yet another helping.

Limerix

2006-03-30T13:25:00.000+05:30

Wrote these for Inci. One of the topics was a limerick that had to end with '...and that was the chicken that killed you' and another was 'That bird from Timbuktu'. Timepass writing by me and a long-lost buddy who turned up for Inci...

Bird Flu'
Into the coop flew
A chick from where, I have no clue
If only the butcher'd seen
The Jap DNA in its meat lean
It wouldnta been the chicken that killed you

This one's mainly by my long-lost buddy Rajdeep who I met after a real long time during Inci.

The Bird from Timbuktu
There was this chick called Eustreche
From Timbuktu, not Ulrich
Her neck was long, her legs were longer
I'd've dated her, she wasn't much younger
If it wasn't for that she was an ostrich

Colours of life

2006-03-14T12:59:00.000+05:30

Odd day of the week. Only reason why you wake up is your stomach. The clock is near the right angle. I drag myself out of the bed. I grab a rubbery sort of thing and butter all my fingers. I crawl the long way back to my room and push myself under the bedsheet. There is a pillar in the middle. I stare into it. There is a breeze and the top pages of the pillar flutter. A finger comes brandishing with the wind. The binary numbers are dancing around it. The fingers, the numbers and the pillar are surrounded by a ring. The ring is made up of the letters ‘e’,’n’,’g’,’i’,’n’,’e’,’e’,’r’. There is a huge glass beaker filled with crabs. One is trying with all its might to climb out. Another is pulling it down. There is fox in the well. A goat jumps in. The fox climbs on it and gets out. A snake slithers from behind and strikes with a vicious hiss. There is pyramid. I’m standing somewhere midway. The people at the top look below and laugh their heads off. There is a great thunder in the background. I push myself out of the cosyness and pull the latch. There is a downpour on me. Someone’s thrusting coloured powder into my hand. I’m startled and I throw it around. Everyone scream with joy and cry ‘Happy holi’.

Arachnomania, Ailurophobia

2006-02-25T22:06:00.001+05:30

Wrote this when I was miserably bored studying Principles of Data Communication... The title has little to do with the rest of the post; Arachnomania isn't a theme, and ailurophobia doesnt figure until the very end.
Time: 1:45 am
Was listening to: Some arbit hard rock.
Roommate was faast asleep; she’s one of those who don’t need to be dog-tired to go into a state of alpha sleep. Which is a positively great thing as far as I am concerned, she isn’t disturbed by any amount of music I play however late in the night.
That day, I wasn’t particularly taking pains to keep the volume low; it was quite close to the beginning of the semester.
I was shocked out of my wits by a sudden /*you’d better watch your step now ho-neay, gonna fall on your faayce*/ creeping on my shoulder. Oh, dang, the window was open, there’s no telling what it could be…
Oh, thank god, it was only next-door neighbor, here to tell me to keep the sound on low /*catch yerself all ye need now/ state of graayce*/or I could borrow her headphones.
“It’s the goddamn beginning of the semester!” I wanted to yell. /*I need the money, need to hear you cry/ oh, just look at that, how I need to fly*/ But all I did was sullenly put mine on and apologize.

Well then, there’s no ‘mute’ button on me! /*sssomebody ssstop mee*/
Sound echoes all the way through a corridor, /*Heyy…ja ja jaaay-dead*/ and there were people lining up outside my door to tell me to stop, and one of them, /*you gotcho mamma’s style, but you’re yes-ta-day’s chaiile to-o-o meee*/ to get my attention, kicked the half-shut door open, /*my, my, baay-beh bluuuu*/ so that it slammed the wall and rocked me out of my reverie. /*Yeah you’re so jaaay-ded*/ Yeah right, like that helped. It didn't even wake my roommate!
In the end, I was forced to restrict myself to a low hum. /*Bay-beh I’m afraid o’you*/ Well, those gals had louder music systems and made me aware that they knew I didn’t like Avril Lavigne and Britney playing during exams.
I contented myself watching a spider weave its web on my open window. Would that be good enough to keep the mosquitoes out? /*Ah need a saaign/ just let me know you’re heer, mah tv set just keeps it all from bein’ clear*/ How effortlessly it wove its way across the bars, made perfect geometric patterns… and how well-matched it looked there, with its black-and-white patterns on that web glistening in the tube light… /*Ah need to know when things r gonna look up*/
I couldn’t handle that perfection; I just snapped one thread, with the tip of my pencil. /*There is no safe place, no safe place to put my he-ead*/ I knew the spider would eat its web up now, almost like saying “Look, if you want to ruin, let me do it, I can do it neater than you.”
No trace of the web in just seconds. I looked around for the spider. It must be gathering its wits now; they never give up or something like that, right?
Oh no! It wasn’t on the window! Hope it’s not on my table…
I stood up for a better look.
My feet touched something soft. No, I don’t possess anything even remotely of that texture…
Ick! It was a tiny kitten. Or rather, THE tiny kitten that has been tormenting my life since day 1 of this semester. [Aside: some kind souls decided that kitty needed some care, and so gave it a bath, and hung it out to dry. Kitty was alive after that ordeal…. Nine lives, seriously!]. The dames with the better music systems obviously knew no manners, and had left the door open.

This kitten has a mind like a blank page: she doesn’t know fear. She’ll walk in anywhere, go to anyone. Take a big cat and say “shoo”, it’ll KNOW it isn’t wanted, and it’ll walk away. Not this one. She’d just gaze back at you; give you that beseeching look, the resilience strong on her face. After her Bath, she sheds a lot, which is a good enough reason to not like having her around in your room, especially if you are a candidate for hay fever.
She scratches too, if you don’t know how to hold her.
So I ran for the resident felixpert, who got kitty out of my room in a trice. And in good time too, she was trying to climb into my bucket of (un) washing.
It was a cold night, which explains why kitty wanted to get to someplace warm.
As I tucked myself in, the hay fever set in.
One sneeze, then another, then another… and another from the other side of the room! /*There is no safe place, no safe place to put my he-ead*/
I HATE FELINES!

/*And I’m… callin all you angels*/

V-Day

2006-02-11T11:34:00.000+05:30

Currently Humming: The Look by Roxette.

Tried to write a post for V-Day, but the idea fell flat on its face. So here's some blatant plagiarism. No, uh, well, ok, I'll acknowledge the source... This is by Ogden Nash, who's style of writing and talent of altering words for putting things into rhyme I sincerely admire. This one's called 'To My Valentine' and am amazed it doesn't score over Pablo Neruda's poems as far as dedications and serenades are concerned [Uh, ok, that's an exaggeration]. Loved it the moment I read it, maybe 'coz it sounds so different from all the usual serenading lyrics.

To My Valentine:

More than a catbird hates a cat,
Or a criminal hates a clue,
Or the Axis hates the United States,
That’s how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,
And more than a grapefruit squirts,
I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,
And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,
Or a juggler hates a shove,
As a hostess detests unexpected guests,
That’s how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,
And more than the subway jerks,
I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,
And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,
And below, if such there be,
As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,
That’s how you’re loved by me.

The Book, The Flick

2006-01-26T14:03:00.000+05:30

Recently read Asimov's Bicentennial Man. It reminded me of the movie
version I'd watched a long while ago. But only just. It amazed me how
much of change the story had undergone during the transition from novella
novella to movie script.
The movie by itself isn't bad; the first half is quite sensitively
portrayed, sensitive enough to tug at your heartstrings. It meanders
in the second half, finally going where you never expected it to go,
and ending at an equally unpredictable stage. Andrew, the robot with
extra-wide positronic pathways can think and produce works of art,
ends up fascinated with humans and looks for family and togetherness,
falls in love with Little Miss's granddaughter, opts for replacement of
his metallic parts with organic ones [he wants to know what
intercourse feels like], which finally results in his, well, end.
Uh-huh, I said and wished that an innocent Andrew hadn't
metamorphosized into a very irritating Robin Williams. The movie tells
of an individual robot's quest to make himself human, for purposes
very different from those mentioned in the book. The book spoke for
robotkind; the movie is more of a slice-of-life sort. The book deals
more with the aspect of endless life and an unprecedented incident
while the movie with the personal aspect of such an incident.

Which brings me to think: why on earth do filmmakers make movie
versions of books if they aren't going to remain faithful to the
original? Doesn't their version cease to be a version of the original
with the major changes they bring about in the storyline and script?
Like why at all say 'Based on the novel by JK Rowling' if you don't
bother to stick to her entire story and simplify the whole thing to
something beyond recognition, add crazy-sounding spells for better
effect, fiddle with the way the characters are supposed to be
portrayed? Wouldn't it be better to say "Inspired by" or "characters
and central storyline from"?
I very well understand the difficulty of fitting a 636-page tome into
two hours [westerners have shorter attention spans or what?], but why
at all make a movie of it? Why not a fixed-episode animated series on
prime time TV?
Hmm… I'm tempted to think that might help, but hey, it is always the
book that is preferred over the other versions. Like, show me one
person who preferred Deepa Mehta's 1947-Earth to Bapsi Sidhwa's
Ice-Candy Man. Or the Will Smith-starrer I, Robot over Asimov's book
of the same name [At least the film says 'based on characters created
by Isaac Asimov'.] Or anyone who says Orlando Bloom was just like
they'd imagined Legolas to be. You'll find more people who say that
the Arwen-Strider romance was overdone in the movie.
Is the book preferred just 'coz it is the original, and any subsequent
version seems like a cheap copy that leaves out some or the other
detail, or in most cases, a chunk of the story due to constraints
imposed by the other medium? The fact that we never are able to
appreciate remakes when we've seen the original corroborates this
fact.
But then, maybe not. I read the novelization [a novelisation, mind
you, the movie came first] of Manoj Night Shyamalan's Sixth Sense and
found it more enjoyable than the film.
Maybe it is that while reading a book, we are able to skip the boring
parts and come back to the better parts while that is not really
possible in a movie.
The movie screen in your head shows the characters in terms of what
you already understand [heh, I always visualized Hagrid as a junglee
version of Putty Thing and Snape as a long-haired version of Fish Guy
from The Mask].
And lengthy monologues are less boring while we are reading them,
than while watching them. Ha, They're planning to make a movie of The Da
Vinci Code. I wish them all the best. I really wonder how they are
going to get all the fact-explanation sessions in without boring the
pants off the audience. Will they show clips from The Passion of
Christ?
But what takes the cake is the attempted movie version of Life of Pi.
The book is about how the lone survivor of a shipwreck drifts ashore
after more than two hundred days on a lifeboat in the Pacific. In the
company of a 450-pound Bengal tiger, a Grant's zebra [with a broken
leg!], a hyena and a female orangutan, no less. The amount of blood
and gore they'd have to show… the hyena eats the zebra alive [the
process spreads over three days], kills the orangutan, feasts on the
carcass until it gets eaten by the tiger.
What's more, dialogues are limited, and the text is filled more with
explanations for the protagonist's deeds and animal behaviour.

"If you take the city of Tokyo, turn it upside down and shake it, you'd
be surprised as to how many animals you would get. Komodo dragons,
tigers, lions, leopards, and even an elephant or two. And they
thought… in the middle of a jungle… ha, simply laughable! What were
they thinking?"
Exactly. What were they thinking?

[PS: the extract from Life Of Pi isnt the proper one, I don't have my copy with me now. More authentic versions will be appreciated.
Neways, it feels so good to be back online, blogging.]

Paper Puli

2005-12-23T20:27:00.000+05:30

Listened to the eponymous song? Do so at www.thermalandaquarter.com , the homepage of TAAQ, the quintessential Bangalore band. Not all that aahsome, but very very Bangalorean. Laid back rebellion sorts. Just like Bangalore Culture, just like Ramesh Ramanathan's Janaagraha[the peoples' movement, which seems to have lost steam a couple of years after all that hype by RadioCity and Bangalore Times].
Coming back to Paper Puli [puli=tiger in tamil, malayalam], now That is what I think of Mr. Dharam Singh's initiative to bring back our 'culture'.
Less than a year from now, as everyone knows, Bangalore =Bengaluru.
And, according to ToI, that is not the end of it.
Mangalore=Mangalooru, Mysore=Mysooru, Belgaum=Belagaavi, Bijapur=Vijapura, Gulbarga=Kalaburgi...
And that is with the intention of going back to our culture, our roots.
The re-renaming of the first three cities are on the grounds that their current names are relics of the Raj. The next two cities are being re-renamed 'coz their names are corrupted versions of their original names, corrupted by the Bahmani kings.
Inference: The Bahmani empire was not a part of our ''culture'' and their remnants need to be obliterated.
Ditto with the Raj, though they gave us cricket and Macaulay's education system, which show no signs of going away.
Hypocrisy.
If these culture guys want to really go back to our ''roots'', they've got to understand that merely calling our city ''Bengalooru'' is nothing new, it is pronounced that way by most of the population. If renaming is supposed to bring about an awareness of our origins, the city, in my opinion, has to be renamed ''Benda Kalooru''; the new name is just a corrupted version of this culturally rich name.
And we shouldn't stop at this. Chamarajpet? Chickpet? Call 'em Chamarajarapete and Chikkapete. And similarly, rename all areas ending in 'pet' to 'pete', and 'nagar' to 'nagara'. Let's have no more of MG Road, or any Road, call it 'Mahatma Gandhi-ya Raste' from now on.
It is not a widely known fact that Fraser Town was renamed Pulakeshinagara a couple of years ago.
What about Lavelle Road, Langford Town, Cox Town? And Cubbon Park? I can't think of suitable alternatives.
All I hope for is that Thermal and a Quarter is not asked to change their name to something more culturally sound.
Coz, their lyrics [for songs titled Paper Puli, Motorbyckle Intermission, Chainese Item, I Live Here] and other Bangalore-band names [heard of this one called DocumentDone? Formed by techies who jammed everytime a document was done.] seem to resonate more of our culture than some obscure KD Raya who, six hundred years ago, built some ruins in an obscure township.

Nightmarish Writing

2005-12-17T11:57:00.000+05:30

Music, such music is a sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness; why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music - not too much, or the soul could not sustain it- from time to time.

Fell into a disturbed sleep some nights before wondering what this meant.
These are the last lines of Vikram Seth's An Equal Music, which I just HAD to finish before I slept [imagine having only a hundred pages to go and you leave it for the next morning...].
No point getting to the last line; I didn't digest what it meant. What, he resumes playing, or is content with his ad jingles? I tried desperately to put it out of my mind. And slept.
Then the nightmare began. I couldn't understand what I read. No, not even the middle chapters of An Equal Music, that were so simply written. Not Upamanyu Chatterjee, RK Narayan... not even Enid Blyton! Not the usual stuff my nightmares are made of but just as scary.
2 am, I bolted out of bed looking for my inhaler; a sudden attack there, due to the shock of the nightmare and the cold weather.
I couldn't find it Anywhere, not on the bedside table or under my pillow, not the floor, nowhere!
Oh, thank god, I'd just snoozed off and that was just another nightmare; here is my inhaler, right in my pocket. *Whiff* *whiff* *cough*
I woke in the morning, and reached for The Bangalore Times [Excellent Sudoku, but little else to look forward to; maybe the never-wrong TV listings...].
"Today is Plain English Day" the cover page said.
Ah, thank god atleast someone recognizes my needs.

Epilogue:I read Vikram Seth again, and understood it perfectly. Just to make sure, I went through Upamanyu Chatterjee, RK Narayan and Enid Blyton and found no difficulties understanding what they said.
I believe verbosity is not a sin, as long as it conveys to your readers what you want to say. "Simplify and Unify" need not necessarily be the backbone of good writing 'coz reading isn't for timepass alone.
Currently reading Milton's Paradise Lost.

Dispi Diary

2005-12-06T12:55:00.000+05:30

Phew! I'm finally done with the last of my anti-rabies shots. I got a bite off a seemingly rabid dog a month ago, and so have to visit the NITK dispensary once a week. I'm pretty amazed at the rate at which it has been improved. The dispensary, I mean.
I remember my other emergency visit to the dispensary around a semester ago, which left me pretty wary of the place.
It was a Friday morning in my second sem, which meant I had sheet metal workshop, easily the bestest course I've done so far [followed by fitting workshop, man, Alex seriously rocks!]. I'm one accident-prone person, and can't handle even a pair of scissors without blood spurting out of somewhere. So it was no big surprise when I snipped off a bit of my left palm with a pair of rusty snips.
The workshop authorities wasted no time in giving first aid - Cotton wool from the workshop cupboard, kept among the rusty tools, some liquid that smelt of alcohol used to disinfect the cut, and gauze cut with something normally used on sheets of metal .3mm thick[I forget the name of the tool].
That stemmed the bleeding, but not my fears of tetanus and lockjaw. The workshop guys weren't doctors, they'd've been the first to admit.
So I found myself at the NITK dispensary, waiting outside the Chief Medical Officer's door. We [me and a friend] were shown in by the nurse [or some arbit lady in white].
What we saw was not some smart-looking white-coated doc [guess those types are found only at KMC], but a fiftyish, greying tired-looking man bent over a huge book. He had his back to us when we entered, and so, didn't notice us.
"Er.....Doctor?"
No response.
I knocked on the door.
No response again.
Okay, maybe this guy wasn't the doctor.
"Umm, Uncle?"
Still no response. He was still immersed in his book, and was now muttering some medical-sounding terms.
Okay, so this guy IS the doc.
Maybe we should wait, he just might be busy, suggested my friend, who, since her parents are both doctors, is assumed to have superior info on the inner workings of medics.
It was now more than ten minutes since I'd come in, and I was beginning to lose my patience, and besides, the cut was showing signs of healing.
I stood there for a couple of minutes more...
Then.
The pharmacist entered, gave us an amused look.
Went straight to Doc and talked to him animatedly, all the time facing him, mouthing his words clearly.
It was then that Doc noticed that there were two girls in his office, and gestured for us to be seated.
After a few more words with the pharmacist, the doc turned to me.
"Ah, what seems to be the problem?"
I told him, taking care to mouth my words clearly.
"This isn't very deep, you probably won't require a Tet-vac" he said, all the while preparing the injection.
He asked me inane details of my studies and where I was from, as is usual when you meet a stranger in a campus. I muttered replies, which, I realize now, didn't in the least register with him.
Soon after, he went back to his book, and didn't hear me say my thanks as I left.
"Did he get in here thro' the Physically Handicapped category?" asked my friend as we went back.
I didn't even attempt to shush her though we were barely outside his door; it wasn't at all necessary.

Goodbye to Sense and Sensiblity

2005-10-29T09:27:00.000+05:30

I can't believe it has been three weeks since I actually wrote anything. The one-hour time restriction in the GB net centre must go. Or better still, net in the rooms. Rumoured to be coming soon. The way things are going, 'Soon' can be any day between today and the day Darth Vader meets Jesus Christ.
I then fell back on the old standby-reviews. The only flick I've watched in recent times is Salaam Namaste, [with a bunch of friends, the room echoing with shouts of 'wot a' , 'How the heck!'and 'Godot'] but then I found that a review was an impossible task!
Top Reasons Why I couldnt review Salaam Namaste:
1. I watched it on pirated CD, so I missed watching quite a few chunks... like the ending. Sound quality was bad, too. Others tell me it was fine that way, I didn't hear many dialogues that would've had me cringing.
2. The utter lack of a storyline: boy meets girl, they live together, fight, have babies. So what's new? Anything I can possibly review?
3. I didn't and don't ever will get what the director was trying to say: was it just a comedy-of-errors posing as a serious theme?
4. Most other reviews hailed it as 'pathbreaking' and 'epoch-making'. I thought I had the wrong picture in mind. Live-in has been 'in' since the '80s. All you reviewers, ever heard of Anant Nag?
5. It was a more serious contender for the Medical Conditions as depicted in flicks post I'm">http://thenitknumbskulls.blogspot.com/2005/06/medical-conditions-as-depicted-in.html">post I'm yet to see another film that so faithfully depicts morning sickness and fetishes. Yeah, there's a scene where Saif shows Preity how to go through labour, sound effects and all. Metrosexual, huh? We'd rather have Arnold flexing his muscles.
6. I first thought it was a paegent for worst-dressed evver. Designers, please note: Low-rise DON'T look good on Saif; he ain't got abs like John has.
7. I am passionate about radio [and hope the field grows in India], and can't stand to watch anything that shows it in a derogatory light. Like, which radiostation you know lets its RJs get away with slander? And which content-manager would allow such sad lines masquerading as PJs [ Nikhil Arora ko unke restaurant ke naam 'Nick of Time' nahin, 'Never on Time' rakhna chahiye tha] get on air? Darius Sunawalla, Rohit Barker, Anjaan, you Gods of Gab, what say?
8. And most of all, Tuhina refused to help me. She's the more positive of the two of us, and I was hoping to get something that justified the existence of the film other than Arshad Warsi [he carries off his ill-written role with panache, though his exits [all after calls from wifey, which all end with 'love you too'] get cliched after a while.] and Javed Jaafrey [ditto, though his 'Sowie? Eggjacktly' does get boring.].
But nope, Tu too was echoing cries of 'whaaat ya?' throughout the three excruciating hours, and after that, refused to have anything to do with anything even remotely connected with the film.
And yeah, after reading what I've just written, I don't blame her.

Writings about reading...

2005-10-11T23:38:00.000+05:30

I’ve seen scores of pieces on what makes good writing. Haven’t yet come across any piece on how to read. Guess it is assumed that you either know how to, or don’t. If you don’t, you are assumed to be the philistine sort to whom reading doesn’t really hold any excitement.
Reading is more of a trial-and-error hobby, it is thought. You devise the best method you’d like to read by. No guidelines as such, as there are for numismatists and philatelists. You read what you like. Nothing like a ‘must have’ on your bookshelf. And if there is, it is more or less dictated by populist literature [Dan Brown, JKR, love ‘em or hate ‘em, you’ve gotta have read them]. There are always those classics everyone swears by [Robinson Crusoe, Marcus Aurelius], but they aren’t really necessary to establish your credentials as a reading enthusiast.
What I’m focusing on here is the most effective method to read a given work. No, I don’t claim to be an expert. Nor have I tried and tested all the methods I am listing here.
How I generally read is, what I feel a philistine method. The first reading is always a haphazard one, finishing the book at one go. I just Have to get to the bottom of the mystery as soon as I can, no matter how shallow it is. The details are not given any attention. But then, I read a book not less than six times, enough to get the whole picture. Why, it took me three readings of The Chamber of Secrets to internalise what Dobby actually looked like. Nuances in writing come to my attention much later. On my [what seemed like] eighteenth reading of The Moor’s Last Sigh, I got the joke about the ‘Cathjew Nut’. [Never paid any attention to it… was too busy trying to figure out what happens next.]
Marginalia comes much later, and only when I own the book.
This way, I always find something new when I read any novel. But then, I discover that I’m not really able to hold fluent discussions about any book I’ve read recently, coz, well, I haven’t internalised the spirit of the book enough to be passionate over it. Leads me to serious doubts about whether my method of reading can sustain me through the mountain of unread books I hope to get through in my lifetime. [Not an improbable dream… Shashi Tharoor challenged himself when he was ten, to finish 365 books before the next New Year… and he reached the deadline well before Christmas!]
So should I slow down? Begin my marginalia on first reading? Dwell on each scene? Appreciate the build-up to the climax on first read? In other words, control my Neanderthal instincts in the hobby I’m most passionate about?
I did try this with Midnight’s Children, coz I had limited time in my hands when I was reading it. It did work, to a certain extent. But then, I have a nagging suspicion that a first read of Rushdie’s work barely scratches the surface, it is so very obvious that Salim’s life mirrors India’s, and Aadam’s, that of post-emergency India. Yeah, I did skip the numerous citations of news headlines, but in effect, I felt I had missed little. Rushdie’s wordplay isn’t all that deep [or so it seems to me, I haven’t read it more than twice] and is pretty obvious to the discerning reader.
But then, I still haven’t figured out Parvati’s and Shiva’s part in the scheme of things, or what Picture Singh alludes to. Maybe it’ll just take me time…
Someone I know goes back and forth over the same few pages, absorbing the essence of the book she’s reading. And it takes her quite a while to read a book like Nancy Drew and The Mystery of the 99 steps. But no second reads.
Someone else spends an hour a day, or so [very disciplined guy] reading the novel. And it takes him not less than a week reading something like The Da Vinci Code.
There are others who read, but rarely. And take each book as a mini-project and research all about it: trivia, expert reviews, guides, author interviews… you get the picture. Found quite a few such enthusiasts of the HP series and Dan Brown’s pseudo-controversy fiction.
Now I’ve already crossed five hundred words, and I know I wouldn’t like to read a blog that’s longer… so, winding up, all I’d say is, for all the hullabaloo I made about guidelines to good reading… I discover their utter unnecessity, for reading isn’t philately… no specific rules. Reading is like the wanderlust journeys I sometimes undertake, no destination in mind, so it doesn’t matter which path you take. I don’t consider reading as a vehicle to a ‘higher goal’, it is the long drive I enjoy more than the joy of reaching the Promised Land.

No Free Nothing

2005-09-24T22:52:00.000+05:30

Double Negative there, but that don't make it no more positive
It's monsoon again, as is obvious from my drowsy-sleepy-lethargic state of mind, which in turn, is obvious in this post. Also by the sea of black umbrellas that dot the picturescape of NITK.
I lost my black umbrella. I didn't find it mainly coz I couldn't describe it [I was so very attached to it, I was afraid my description would be biased in favour of the smooth silky black octagon, with not one rib missing, not one pin out of place... you get the picture].
And the lethargy that spreads along with other epidemics during the rains got to me, and made me too lazy to get a new one. And getting over the old one was bad enough, without having to worry about a new one. I remained umbrella-less. Until recently.
'Recently' was a week back, when I noticed a silver-black umbrella outside my room. It'd been there for more than a week then, and I had been eyeing it since the day someone carelessly plonked it on the corridor.
So mine it became. Who'd want to abandon a big, comfy umbrella like this one, I wondered. I even considered putting up a notice, but then I'd started to like this one. For once, something was going right, sans strings attached.
Monday morning. Downpour yet again. On other days, I'd be huddling with someone else under their anti-rain gear, but this time, it was Different. Yes it was.
I took My Umbrella and started off to class. Reached the Main building all dry.
I had to fold the parasol before entering through the narrow door. Which I tried to. And, with some difficulty, did.
Suddenly, I realized I'd forgotten my notes and stepped back to open the umbrella. Open, it did, but its components flew in three different directions: the octagonal cloth going forwards before crashing on the wall, the narrow rod narrowly missing the girl next to me, and the handle which, following N3L, rebounded in my palm, causing me some agony.
Some loser couldn't handle an umbrella and abandoned it on a corridor, causing someone else a morning of embarassment and agony.
Long ago, I'd read 'You Can Win' by Shiv Khera, where I found this among his many idiotic 'illustrative' stories:
'Once there was a king. He called all the scholars of his kingdom, and asked them to compile all the wisdom gathered through the ages. They worked for days on end, and came up with a large sheaf of scrolls.
The king found this too long to comfortably read, and asked them to contract it. It came to a thick book.
The king found this still too long to read, coz he'd given up reading in favor of more kingly pursuits, and asked them to compress it further. It came down to a thin book.
At this point, it transpires that the king was dyslexic, and the pundits were asked to compress the contents further.
It came down to a page, which was, as you guessed, asked to be compressed further, and they came up with a single sentence.
Which was "THERE IS NO FREE LUNCH".No free anti-rain gear either.

The story is on the borders of idiocy, but I felt the same agony while the umbrella split into three as I did when reading the story. I picked the pieces up, reassembled them, and carried the contraption to another corridor and left it there.
When I came back that way an hour later, the umbrella wasn't there any more. Finders Weepers? You betcha!
Aside: Karthik Narayan sends me his analysis of why umbrellas are octagonal. Kudos to this guy for being inquisitive enough to actually derive all this stuff.

"We are going to determine the polygon which suites the position of an umbrella the best(including the cost factor)..the last part is a bit vague and common sensical..anyways..

Consider that we are talking about a fixed circle say with a radius of 1m..inside which a general polygon of n sides is inscibed..firstly,we remove the odd sided polygons due to lack of symmetry.(to look good..!!).
so then we have n=2,4,6,8,10....the area of the polygon is clearly
A = n/2 * sin(2*pi/n)
Now the cost factor..notice that the area of the circle is pi..and for most of the polygons, the cost due to the cloth ain't an issue..(the cost for clothing a 45 sided and 90 sided would almost be same..).but the cost mainly lies in the rods(or spikes) which require to be put to hold the cloth..now, this causes a significant difference..assume that the cost of a rod is Rs 20 per metre.so the cost for a n sided polygon is..
C = 20*n
..(cost difference between a 45 sided and 90 sided will get to 900 bucks..!!).
Now, I evaluated the the above two for n=4,6,8,10...and I've put the area of the polygon as a percentage of the circle's area(A/pi *100)..And i give you a choice to buy any one..tell me..which on will you choose..?

4 sided : Area : 63 % Cost : Rs 80
6 sided: Area : 82 % Cost : Rs 120
8 sided: Area: 90 % Cost : Rs 160
10 sided: Area: 93 % Cost : Rs 200
12 sided: Area: 95 % Cost : Rs 240.
..........so on...
20 sided: Area: 98% Cost: Rs 400..!

If I was asked to choose, I would take the 8 sided one..obvious,it seems the most advantageous taking the cost and area..hmmm..what say..?

Rockin' remnisces I

2005-09-07T17:00:00.000+05:30

The recent rains have been anything but uplifting. My very mood for the past few days has been ranging from drowsy to sleepy [as is obvious from this bo-o-ring post]. So when I discovered that I have three tests this week, I tried hard to keep awake [iced tea, cold water baths...] and would've almost failed, if it hadn't been for my collection of tapes and that miserable excuse for a walkman I possess.
It was then that I came across one of my oldest tapes: [V] Jammin!. It brought back memories of a long time back, when subcontinental rock[a term coined to describe the desi 'rock' bands]was my religion and reality shows hadn't yet gotten big.
This collection is a unique concept indeed[haven't heard of any like this so far]. Channel [V] brought together 20 of the Subcontinent biggest pop artistes to jam together and create 10 absolutely great-sounding songs. The whole thing was telecast on [V] on the show [V] Jammin!; the whole process of making music, right from the concept stage to the songwriting to the recording.
It was telecast once a week, Monday 10 pm, and didn't enjoy a mass viewership as such, for that slot was primarily dominated by Kyunki... The artistes in themselves weren't all that well known, save a few like Euphoria, Strings, Shankar Mahadevan or Usha Uthup. The show, in the end, was not a phenomenon as such, but it did inspire a whole new inclination to indipop.
The tracks are in both English and Hindi, and are mostly upbeat ones, the likes of which haven't really been heard before.
'Rhythm 'n' Blues' by Usha Uthup and Parikrama fuses reggae and rock. The keyboard and mouth-organ[Sonam Sherpa presumably at his best] combined with the powerful voices of Nitin Malik and Usha Uthup give the song a whole new feel, which has the listener up 'n' rockin' in no time [I guess Tu will vouch for that]. 'Todenge Phodenge' by Abbey and Vedic Chant is a rebellious-sounding track sung mainly by the strong-voiced Abbey[aka Jayanto Pathak, who we haven't seen since the neck-twisting Aye Sanam]. The lyrics leave a lot to be desired here, though the beat is good and the instrumentals give it a dancy feel.
Undoubtedly, the most popular track in the collection is 'Hum' by Euphoria and Mehnaz. It was one of the theme tracks for India's Cricket World Cup campaign. It has Euphoria's signature all over it, be it the lyrics or the tune, which is racy and reminds you vaguely of 'Keep on movin' by Five.
But my personal fave's got to be 'Tide' sung by Vasundhara Das and composed by Smoke [the same guys who composed 'tumse hi pyaar' for Aasma]. The video for this, shot on a rocky beach, matches the song perfectly, and for once, is a music video that has some semblence to the lyrics of the song.
Alms for Shanti and Taufiq Qureshi give percussions a whole new interpretation with 'Superbol'. It has you headbanging to the tabla and the bols... something new to me.
The show wasn't badly shot, but it kinda shocks you when you see how your favorite singers look sans makeup and nice clothes. The VJs were kind of retreated to the background and the technicians took over[notably the sound engineer Vijay Benegal, who worked the sessions to a slick mix]. Except in one episode with Jassi [of Dil lagi kudi gujrat di fame, this was long before the eponymous soapstar] and Ehsaan-Loy where Ranvir Shorey had to act as moderator and stop the trio from swearing and coming to blows. That song never got recorded, and the episode is the only one that went awry.
It was refreshing to see Usha Uthup just chillin' with the boys of Parikrama. The band themselves amaze you with their always-full reservoir of energy [more on this later... they performed at NITK not so long ago] and bad-boy jokes, which is a far cry from the PJs-only humor of Silk Route or Euphoria.
All said and done, it was a great concept. Pity there was no follow-up-of-sorts to it. The only thing that went on to happen was that reality tv went big with Popstars I and II and umpteen other contests. If only it had been publicized on a much bigger scale, it maybe would have been the start of a new era in indipop [but then, one swallow does not a summer make.]. Maybe it would have checked the remix-brigade's domination of the music scene, which happened a couple of years later. It didn't give the momentum to indipop it should have, maybe due to the relative anonymity of the musicians.
Yeah, maybe [V] Jammin! doesnt deserve to be the phenomenon I make it out to be... but it also deserves better than to be an unknown show recalled faintly by only indipop aficionados.

The Unreasonable Man

2005-08-31T22:36:00.000+05:30

"A reasonable man tries to adapt himself to the world, but an unreasonable man makes the world adapt to him and all progress depends on the unreasonable man"

Imagine how everything would be if life went like this... the sun rises...the cock crows...You get up...Do your daily chores...etc.etc...Take a nap...wakeup again...etc.etc...sleep for another eight hours and the wheel moves on. Boring isn't it? Don't you think there is a need for a change? For something, out of the ordinary, past the mundane, off the beaten track?
It is only when someone thinks that things ought not to be the way they are that there is progress.

History tells us the same thing. Imagine how the world would be if some unreasonable man hadn't decided to rebel againt the roman empire?...We would still be seeing half-naked men draped in shawls with olive reeds on their heads,olympics would always be held in Athens.And Gaul would still be defending itself? True, Rome wasn't built in a day. But still, I like the present day world better.
Think of how the world would be if Jesus Christ hadn't spread "the good word of god"?Majority of the world wouldn't have a man on a cross, dangling on a chain, around their necks.
Or if Christopher Columbus hadn't decided to go against the Turks and take the sea route to India?...We still wouldn't know that the American continents existed.
Think of how the world would be if Gandhi hadn't decided to use the yet-unheard-of methods of Sathyagraha and Non-violence to fight against the colonisers?...The sun still wouldn't set on the British empire.
Think of what would've happened if Hitler hadn't decided to overrule the Versailles Treaty? Germany would've burnt its boots. And most of all Democracy wouldn't have as strong a hold in Eurasia as it has now.
So, I think that its only change which brings progress to the world and hence would want to make it the motto of my life ( Until, ofcourse, some "unreasonable" man decides that it should change)

Those 'ickle 'uns!

2005-08-08T16:55:00.000+05:30

The new semester began a week ago and I needn't even ask 'what's new?' like I usually do, coz they share the corridor with me in the hostel. Yea readers, I am referring to that bunch of people called FRESHERS.
Being one no longer, I derive immense pleasure in looking at their expressions of shock and awe at anything new, which is presumably everything.
Like this budding electrical engineer who was taken by my IIMB T-shirt:
"Hi, are you from IIMB?"
"Nope, NITK."
"Then how'd you get the T-shirt?"
"Someone I know did a short-term course there."
"Ohh.... so are you doing your MBA?"
"Actually, I graduated last year."
"Uh-huh.....Hey! how can you be doing your post-graduation when your graduation is still in progress?"
"Beats me, but remember, YOU started the jokes."
But the naivete ends there.
You next have this madame with her acquired fake accent who disturbs us by blasting away modern rock on her imported deck [she could lend it to George Lucas for his next film, what with its flashing lights and metallic sheen].
Samples:
8:00 pm: "hi, didn't get your name...?"
Well, don't you KNOW that questions are outlawed for you guys outside of the classroom?
8:30 pm: "hi, didn't still get your name, but my roommate's on the phone and I am feeling SO BORED, could I pass time here?"
9:00 pm: "Hi, i invited all my friends to chat on Yahoo!, could you please vacate this comp for me?"
11:49 pm: "Hi, I still am bored. Do you have a novel to read?"
9:00 am: "Hey, how come you have power in your room? We are stuck with low voltage.. so could I use my hairdryer in here?"
Yea dahling, this is your commonroom-cum-lounge. Coffee with milk or cream?
And just as I write this, I am playing 'But it Rained' by Parikrama as loud as my laptop allows in order to reassert my position as a senior. Ms Very Un-Naive is at my door, gushing about how much she likes this song which she heard 'sooo looong ago' on TV, and would I please play it for her and ruffle her memory.
And she is a far cry from that other gang of freshers who fear us, but talk to us anyway [haan didi, the rooms are fine, mess food is okay, classes are cool] coz they think they'll be ragged otherwise.
People, if there's one thing a senior hates, it is to be misunderstood. No, we won't pull your legs here; we know how stranded you feel in this brand-new place. And we'd like it that you don't pull ours, we oldfaces wouldn't like to 'assert' ourselves here,[nor would you, if we did], we don't like to be pushed off the calling-the-shots pedestal this early.
Gotta go now, coz I can't keep Madame waiting.
{shuts this window, presses the replay button on Windows Media Player}

I've been Tagged!

2005-08-04T16:30:00.000+05:30

I wouldn't be writing this if i had anything else to write. Still, can't complain....thnx to Maverick..
Neways...here goes!

Three names i go by:
Priya - that's the official one
Puri - that was what my friends called me at school
and the rest are, well, unprintable, they are what my sis calls me when I wake her up.

Three screen names :
I would like...hmmm... Arundati Ray. A combi of the geniuses Arundati Roy and Satyajit Ray.
Maybe when I cut my first music album, I can call myself Beatless...[That's The Beatles with an xtra s]
And most definitely....NITK Numbskull.

Three things that i like about myself:
I can type really fast
My voice echoes really well in the bathroom.
I can spread gossip really fast!

Three things that scare me the most:
No internet!
The quality of teachers in IT dept. of NITK Surathkal.
That I need yahoo chat to get communicating with the gal next to me.

Three things that I want in a relationship:
1.Its practical non-existence...hey, i wanna be single and ready to mingle.
2. 1 above
3 1 and 2 above.

Three physical things about the opposite sex that appeal to me:
1. hmmm.....
2. hmmmmmm.........
3. hmmmmmmmmmmm........cash?

Three things that i want to do badly now:
Get a Worldspace Satellite Receiver in my hostel
Rag the first year showoffs Real Bad! [more on this l8er]
Go swimming.

Three places i want to go on a vacation:
Colombo
The Hebridian Isles
sumatra

Three things to do before i die:
Complete my 16 failed novels
Take a year off life and do adventure sports and lotsa bigtime eating.
Learn to write well.

Three of my every day essentials:
my comb
toothbrush
and FOOD!

Three things i'm wearing right now:
clothes
spectacles [tuhina's]
nailpolish

Three people im gonne tag :
Finance Freak and Speed.thepundeets.blogspot.com
aravind

Harry Potter- Present, Future

2005-07-28T15:24:00.000+05:30

After reading the latest installment of the Harry Potter series, I’m thinking if “The Prisoner of Azkaban” still remains my favorite Potter book.
Thickly plotted, the book is very gripping. Each line has been carefully written and nothing has been overdone. Even though we stumble on whatever has already told here and there, the repetition enhances the overall effect.
When I read the “Order of the Phoenix”, I felt that my cousin’s hunch that JKR was losing her touch was true. But “The Half-Blood Prince” proves otherwise. Unlike the 5th book this one is not hazy. It has a definite direction. Everyone seem to have more control over themselves. Harry’s love life has been made more subtle. It seems that the main role of the book in the series is to connect old threads and draw new ones.
There is one part in the main plot that intrigues me- the behavior of Snape. Why did Dumbledore trust Snape so much? Is there a more valid reason for Snape to kill Dumbledore other than the Unbreakable vow?
So, what might happen in the next book? Since JKR is indicating that Hogwarts might not open next year, there is a lot of adventure expected in the next book. We might be seeing more of Snape. We will, obviously be seeing Harry trying to protect himself when Lily’s protection lifts and after Dumbledore’s death Voldemort will be very active. “R.A.B” might be a new character who might aid him in finding the remaining Horcruxes.
And we Potter fans might have to wait for a long time to find out what the last book will be called, Harry Potter and “the 4/5/6 Horcruxes” or “the final struggle” or some other name that we cannot figure out, and longer time to read it.

Dude, Chillax Hard!

2005-07-21T20:41:00.000+05:30

Dude, Chillax Hard!

Watched The [with a capital T] ‘youth-oriented’ ‘yuppie’ chickflick. It was on Hungama TV on a Saturday evening. [and I thought kiddie channels only showed Harry Potter or Madeline or Mowgli…but this channel shows even Jhankaar Beats!]
As for the plot of this film, you have Cooldude Smartasscomments and his buddies Casanovaman Comicreliefman and Deepinprofoundthoughts Mysteriousartist. Cooldude bumps into Badhairday Chirpychick in a disco and tries to act fresh and promptly gets told off by her piece of Arm-Candy.
It turns out that Cooldude doesn’t believe in love and all that comes with it. After capers in [where else but] Goa, where Deepinprofoundthoughts gets his defining moment [he gets to talk about Friendship Forever, and also gets to tell this pushy gal how not to woo Cooldude using the sand on the beach as a metaphor.], Cooldude’s parents decide he’s had enough of a holiday and want to pack him off to work in [Omigod!] Australia.
Next, Deepinprofoundthoughts falls for Drunkendivorcee Olderwoman, dreams of them in some weird Elysium and even invites her to his Art exhibition. Ahh, all we need to spoil true friendship is a woman, right? So there we have Cooldude making smart-ass comments on Drunkendivorcee which leads to the customary slap on his cheek from his look-at-me-I’ve-got-a-pure-mature-mind-not-like-these-losers buddy. Paldom ceases and Cooldude and Deepinprofoundthoughts jet away, the former to Australia, latter heads for the hills where there’s an art school.
Meanwhile, Comicreliefman meets Hepchick Nothingmuchtodo. They fall in love in a cinema hall and have visions of [when was the last time you saw two people have the same dream?] dancing in styles of three different movie eras, which all have a common flappy dance step. Inspiration from the birds and the bees, huh?
Wait, there’s more.
Cooldude bumps into [as fate has it] Chirpychick on the flight to Sydney. And hangs around, not with folders and tenders, but with Chirpychick and her Uncle [Rajat Kapoor who as usual looks wowow, and is pretty understated]. Flexi time Overtime. Opposites gotta attract, so it turns out that Chirpy is in love with love and [inevitably] locks horns with Cooldude over Love in a song, in all her sleeveless splendor. But Cooldude holds his ground. So Chirpy takes him to an opera where the theme is [what else but] Love. [Director seems to be in a desperate attempt to bring back couples to cinema halls.] She swiftly translates the incomprehensible lyrics to Hindi, and explains all about love.
And he discovers that it is Chirpychick who fills his dreams, who is the apple of his eye, the flower in his heart, the light of his life.
But wait. There’s also a thorn in his side in the form of Arm Candy. And boo-hoo, he’s marrying Chirpy. Boo hoo again, she’s going along with it. Both Chirpy and Cooldude can’t hide their feelings too well [maybe they should take lessons from Rachel Green on this].
On the eve of the wedding, Cooldude can’t take it anymore, and proposes to her [on advice from Daddy Dearest and Comicreliefman and…Uncle] before a thousand-strong audience. Arm Candy’s parents Understand and Let Love Be.
Cut to Deepinprofoundthoughts having a dialogue with his mom pestering him to, yawn, get married. And he tells her about Olderwoman. Mom’s just admonishing him for that, when, [coincidentally!] Olderwoman enters and is pissed off that ‘all men, more importantly, of This Generation, are like that only’.
She hits the bottle after that, and since all bad women who drink are supposed to suffer, she’s got to die [and go to hell?]. Friendship flew out of the window as she came in, so she puts things right by going far faraway. Deepinprofoundthoughts and Cooldude are bestfriends again, and Comicreliefman rejoices.
Cut to six months later. Drunkendivorcee’s last words instructed the trio to have fun, so they’re in the middle of the Savannah on a picnic. Deepinprofoundthoughts is one of the heroes and deserves a girl, and so, one magically pops up in that Neverland. Everyone smiles.
THE END.
Why was this flick a megahit? Why is it the defining standard for yuppie films? Is it just the clothes and hairdos? Is it the very unfunny dialogues?
Why is Akshaye Khanna’s character so poorly etched? Like, why should ‘mature’ guys be silent all the time? Why does he get all the seemingly profound, but empty dialogues? Why is the music wasted on the not-so-deserving scenes? Why did Farah Khan get an award for the choreography? Is it just for that flappy catchy step?
And WHY on earth did I actually watch it for three hours?
All I have to say to Farhan Akhtar after watching this and the lackluster Lakshya [Chirpychick again, with Deepinprofoundthoughts’ determination and ideas about love] is:
DUDE, CHILLAX HARD!!!

Thanks, Jo!

2005-07-16T18:08:00.000+05:30

All that which is too dumb to be said, is sung for a dime. All that that is too dumb to be written in prose, is put in rhyme.
A cluster of Not-So-Terse Verse.

I walked into the bookstore nearby
To Advance-book that book held so dear by
Us Pottermaniacs.
Then my eyes fell on other tomes
Jeeves, Blandings, Swami, Sherlock Holmes
My nose betwixt the pages
My mind glimpsing images
Of a fictional world that seemed so distant
But only for that precise instant.
It was the world I knew not so long ago
To where I escaped in joyful moment and woe.
Ah! To thumb through Tharoor's tome.
Ah! To saunter through Caesar's Rome.
This was the end of my long vacation
Away from fiction for alien vocation.

No snooty proprietor looked over my shoulder
She didn't, with her gaze, leave me smoldered.
Coz, she understood, and did so jolly well
"This ain't no library, miss!" she didn't yell.

As I took in the Cornucopia.
The minutes ticked away, oh deah!
Soon, 'twas time to go back home.
So I chose the best of those tomes.
The total cost but made me wince
I'd spent twice more'n on the Half-Blood Prince!
I then passed my Card to swipe.
Blame it on the goddamn hype
That HBP costs way more than
Three of some other also-rans!
With armloads of books I made my way
To, beside my bookcase, spend the day.

Since then,
There've been sleepless nights and headache-d days
But they're no hindrance to devouring Satyajit Rays
Or Wodehouse or Narayan or Ogden Nash.
Well, goodbye now, I need to dash.
Just stopped by to say a bit of thanks.
To her who made me break the ranks
And come back to reading
A hobby that's receding.
She did the same to Playstation kids
But, with me, in an other way than she famously did.
Must just say this before I go,
Merci beaucoup, Thanks, Jo!

My beautiful Mysore

2005-07-11T13:10:00.000+05:30

This is an essay, I wrote in 6th standard for a competition conducted by the local newspaper, The star of Mysore. I won the second place and it was published in the newspaper.

Born on 22nd of September 1986 in Mysore, I have spent most of the time here. Whenever I get a chance to go out of Mysore, I do not miss it. But my mind will always be thinking of Mysore- My beautiful Mysore.
Why? I ask myself. I find that it is not easy to answer this. God has been very kind and generous in giving my city a nice hill- Chamundi hill-which I am told is older than the Himalayas!! Mysore has beautiful tanks like Karanji tank and the Kukkerahalli tank.
From our history books I have learnt that my city has a grand past. The contribution of the Wodeyars, who ruled over Mysore for a long period, made it their capitol, did so many nice things to my city. They have built palaces, nice wide roads, gardens, temples etc. I also learnt that Sir. Mirza Ismail worked very hard to beautify our city.
When I read the history books, hear things about old Mysore from my grandmother and compare with the city I see now, I often get puzzled. Why does it look so dirty, shabby and sound so noisy now? Then I realize it’s the dirt we throw around, the motor vehicles we ride or drive around, not stopping to think whether we really need it.
Then I start dreaming, dreaming of a beautiful Mysore, may be the Mysore of the days when my grandmother was a young girl like me. In that draem the roads are very clean and tidy, without potholes!! green grass on the pavements on either sides. Shady trees everywhere, lots of birds and no bikes and cars. Only bicycles and Mysore tongas everywhere may be as in China (my mother has told me that in China most of the people use bicycles to go to their workplaces, schools etc.,) The vacant plots with grass and shrubs with lot of flowers and no dust at all. Also no pollution.
Alas! I soon realized it’s a dream, after all a dream.
But then, why can’t we, you and I work to make my dreams- may be also your dreams come true?

The Half-Blood Prince : My speculations.

2005-07-02T20:42:00.000+05:30

D-Day is just around a week away! I am, of course, talking about the sixth instalment of suspense, thrill, amazement, no-holds-barred imagination presented in amazingly good writing by Joanne Rowling.
The gap has been incredibly long between The Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince [more than a year and a half!] causing fan sites and popular childrens' magazines to working overtime over speculations and conspiracy theories.
For me, it is just counting the days until I can grab my copy from the friendly neighborhood bookstore owner. Here are some of my speculations. And all those reading this, add some more!

As for the title, it is as cryptic for me as is figuring out the truth behind the Holy Grail [Forgive the expression, I am not a fan of Dan Brown]. All I feel is, the Prince will be a totally new character [and not Harry or Voldie as was popularly felt before JK quelled the rumours]. Or maybe, it will be the new Minister for Magic, as the title talks of Prince. Or maybe Godric Gryffindor's descendant. [leads me to think... wasn't Harry's parents' home called Godric's Hollow?] Following is an excerpt from HBP describing the titular character:
(He) looked rather like an old lion. There were streaks of grey in his mane of tawny hair and his bushy eyebrows; he had keen yellowish eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles and a certain rangy, loping grace even though he walked with a slight limp.
Hmm... Gryffindor is represented by a lion... so will it be Godric Gryffindor's true heir? Or something to do with the British Royal Family [a bit too farfetched]?
Will Fudge still be Minister? If not, we'll probably get an insight into the wizards' election process.
We'll learn a lot more about Snape, his boggart and his Patronus, too. Methinks Dumbledore used him as a spy as he's well-versed in Legilimency and Occlumency, and hence could lie straight to Voldie's face.
Maybe this book will be one set in troubled times with more Muggle disappearances. Who knows, Dudley might vanish [seems a hard bit of magic to perform] and return[!] all slimmed down.
We might see a lot more of Narcissa Malfoy, now that Lucius is going under. Maybe there'll be a scene on Sirius's Memorial Service.
Or maybe, Sirius isn't dead as yet, and just disappeared behind the veil, for a reason, which Dumbledore knows best.
Now that his family is on the "right" side once more, Percy Weasley might want to patch up with them.
Fleur Delacour might make a reappearance. Maybe she'll marry Bill Weasley.
Who's the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher? The Ministry'll want someone strong who'll be able to teach students to defend themselves against all sorts of creatures [including Dementors, now]. So will Moody make a reappearance?
Or will it be Nymphadora Tonks? And will she show her cousin Draco good and proper? Maybe it'll be Bill or Charlie Weasley. They were good students in their time, right?
Chances of Lupin coming are still up, as the new Minister might want to break stereotypes. But he dealt with Dark creatures when he taught. We'll need someone who'll teach dueling.
For that matter, why not Snape? He's shown he really Wants the job. Wouldn't it be easier for Dumbledore to appoint him and get a new Potions teacher? Or is the DADA teacher job really jinxed? Maybe that was Dumbledore's defence mechanism. [maybe that's why Dumbledore hasn't done the 'easy' thing yet.]
As for who'll die, maybe McGonagall. She is already in poor health, what with stunners at her heart. What about Trelawney? Voldie might kill her in quest for the entire prediction. Maybe that's the reason Dumbledore is keeping her at Hogwarts. Some say Hagrid. Will he try to rip the Dementors limb-for-limb? I don't think so, as there's still Grawp to take care of. Madame Maxime? Maybe. And then, Fleur will probably teach at Beauxbatons [or Hogwarts]. Karkaroff? He was supposed to be killed by Voldie. Krum? And then Hermione can do a Cho and cry all over Ron....
I sincerely hope it won't be Ron or Hermione. It probably won't.... coz isn't there one more book left?
Talking of Quidditch, Harry will probably be captain and so will Draco [who's going to be highly subdued]. And Cho. And maybe there'll be a murder attempt in the Gryffindor-Slytherin match. [Now, I'm going overboard]
There must be some reason Peeves is allowed at Hogwarts. Maybe he knows Voldie from his boyhood days.
Maybe the house-elves form one component of the Order. Gives Hermione something to do.
Kreacher might finally croak, maybe clawed to death by Buckbeak.
Maybe Aberforth Dumbledore is the 'familiar looking bartender' at the Hog's Head. Note that the pub smelt strongly of goats... and Aberforth was prosecuted for practicing illegal charms on a goat. [Not that there is that much of a very obvious link there]
We'll probably see more of Kingsley Shacklebolt .
Divination....will classes be split between Trelawney and Firenze? Firenze has got to remain at Hogwarts, his clan won't accept him in the forest anymore. Or maybe he will be the Centaur representative at the Ministry of Magic.
And for the romances..... Harry and Ginny? Or Harry and Luna? Ron and Luna? Dudley and Hermione? Neville and Ginny? Neville and Hermione? The last one's highly unlikely, though.
Ron and Hermione? It seems kind of filmi, their constant fights.... and varied interests and backgrounds. This one's the most talked about pair. Then what happens to Krum? Killed by Karkaroff? Dies in a well-orchestrated broom-broom collision? Or just plain dumped by Hermione?
What about Crookshanks and Mrs. Norris? [in that case, Crookshanks might be her second husband, she's Mrs., right?] Crookshanks is half Kneazle. Kneazles are highly receptive and intelligent creatures.
What if they have kittens? They'd be nursed by Filch, and they'd be quarter-Kneazle. Which can mean one thing....deep trouble for mischief-makers at Hogwarts!

Medical Conditions as depicted in films

2005-06-30T20:18:00.000+05:30

1. In case of Multiple Personality Disorder, the transformation from one personality to another is characterized by facial acrobatics that can give Cartoon Network and Jim Carrey [or Animorphs] a run for their money, and special effects that wouldn’t seem out of place in Star Wars.
2. The aforementioned patients speak in tongues and accents hitherto unknown to them.
3. Psychological ailments are always diagnosed in less than a session. If it is spread over many sessions, it always leads to a doctor-patient relationship.
4. Bullet-wounds lead to instantaneous death for the villain [but not before he repeats his catchphrase atleast once, or has conceded defeat]. If much work needs to be done by the hero, no amount of ammunition is enough to stop him from keeping that promise to his bestfriend/fatherinlaw/maa.
5. No loss of blood is too much for the hero who can lose as much blood as a vampire’s 10-course dinner and still manage to dishum-dishum the villain’s cronies [one of whom will be big-bodied and bird-brained], rescue the heroine from the jaws of death [or villain] and kill the villain/hand him over to the authorities.
6. Heart patients can run for miles on end without rest and end up with only a cough or wheeze. Death is never a side-effect.
7. Victims of Cancer always cough out blood, irrespective of the type of cancer or stage at which the disease is.
8. When equipment is unavailable, the hero performs mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the heroine which happens to be a case of Kiss mein kitna hai dum.
9. And this is mostly required in cases of drowning, usually preceded by another exercise to pump out water swallowed in the course of the swim.
10. A knock on the head results in memory loss, loss of mental balance and in extreme cases, amnesia.
11. Other known causes of amnesia and loss of mental balance are near-fatal accidents, near-fatal brushes with the villain, electric shocks, shocking news.
12. The cure is normally a second knock on the head or any of the aforementioned causes. It can also be the sight of an ex-lover, sibling/other family members or the rendition of the family/love song.
13. Hospital stays are never completed for there is always Work [read dishum-dishum] To Be Done outside. And the bandages around the head [with a spot of blood on] or around the wrist pose no problems ever.

Just a general observation: beds have unique L-shaped blankets that cover the woman upto her underarms, but the man next to her only till his waist.
Well, I guess bending medical science to suit the plot only goes on to show that story and script rule in tinseldom after all.

DD-Dear

2005-06-23T11:47:00.000+05:30

Recently we suffered a bout of “parents-overconcerned-over-lowscoring-children” at home. Result – cable TV was removed.
Since this happened just before I came home for vacation, I was a little concerned as to how I would spend a really long vacation without cable TV. When I came home, the situation wasn’t very bad. There were two channels – DD news & DD national (with a time slot for DD kannada).
Starved for news, which I hadn’t got since two weeks (because of the exams), I switched on to the news channel first. But I wasn’t very lucky. It got on my nerves in less than five minutes. The grammar is so bad that I felt the readers should attend Subbu’s PC class (Mr Subramanium teaches ‘Professional Communication’ for first year students at NITK). The pronunciation is horrible. They even stray away from their put-on English accent to their desi-English accent once in a while. Disgusted, I ventured into the other channel, which was airing a soap. I was horrified to find that it was a poor imitation of Ekta Kapoor soaps (Imagine!!!). Again, bad pronunciation came to the forefront. The telecast was bad. Unable to take any more, I switched the TV off.
For a fortnight I couldn’t bring myself near the TV. In the mean time, I had done lots of things. I had actually woven a basket from cardboard, read lots of books and the newspaper, cover to cover. I started browsing the net for longer hours (not to forget the time taken to go to the net center, two kilometers away and coming back.). I lost count of the number of times I went out. I even started cleaning home everyday!!! Considering that I couldn’t have done so much if there was cable TV, I think it has been rightly called “The black hole of time”.
After a few days, boredom set in .So, it was back to DD again.. Dear me! I could see DD in a new light. There were lesser dots on the screen. I observed that, even though the soaps were very EK-ish there weren’t so many to make the only-DD-viewers realize its ridiculousness. The NCERT children’s show seemed quite enjoyable (of course it can’t beat my all-time-favorite Cartoon Network). Unlike the latest diet fads of other channels, ‘The health show’ provides useful health tips. The wardrobe of the cast in every show is quite elegant.
Even the news channel has a variety. The consecutive news airs of the same language are not facsimile of each other. There is separate news reporting all kinds of activities. There is a weekly show on the various cultural activities going on in India. Over all even though the presentation is drab, the news is not very biased.
With the entry of cable TV in the 90s, most of us have forgotten DD. DD itself hasn’t been able to keep up with the other channels either with respect to content or with respect to technological advancements. Nevertheless we should not forget it was with DD that television was introduced to the masses. Shows like Osheen, Surabhi, etc., had proved eye-openers to many of us. I feel with a dash of creativity, DD could perform better than it ever has.
Looking into mirror, I can observe the faint traces of something inexplicable that I see on the faces of the only DD viewers, on mine.

Colonized in my living room!

2005-06-18T16:46:00.000+05:30

We are, according to a very eminent author I read recently, living in an era of Coca-Colonization. So it came as no big surprise to me when I realized that our favourite , sorry, favorite soaps are not the desi saas-bahu sob stories, but Uncle Sam’s tattle tales. Not Kkusum, but Caroline, not Saans, but Sex and the City. No, I didn’t take a TN-Sofres mode survey, but just a random one on a friendship portal called Orkut [yet another Yankee one].
Which brings me to think: why does the US of A so dominate our entertainment?
The only answer that comes to my mind is that the Indian entertainment industry doesn’t really cater to the Multiplex Audience [a term coined by the Indian English media to describe the Angrezi speaking crowd]. Which it should, considering that we are not just a niche audience anymore, what with our growing numbers as more and more youngsters come under the call-center umbrella with phirang accents that don’t seem so phirang anymore.
Let's face it, English IS our national language. If not, why don't Bollywood films roll titles in Hindi, or even Urdu as they used to[or any of the 746 languages and dialects spoken in various parts of the country, some beyond the reach of Bollywood]?
Or, why is The Times of India the largest selling daily not just in India, but [according to ads published regularly] the largest selling English daily in the world?
It's about time we moved away from so-called Hinglish [or Tanglish or Manglish or Kan-hin-glish....if you don't believe me on the last one, sample this from an Uppi-starrer: "goli maaro ee society-ge/goli maaro rowdyism-ige/goli maaro duniya-ge"(!)] spoken in today's phillums to more realistic language which gets spoken in our metros. And no, I don't mean the fake accents of Shahid Kapur["luvv storry? Hah, diz iz gonna be a heit storry" in Fida] or Koel Purie ["Oi lloike theiss kut" in Everybody says I'm Fine].
It's about time the English speakers of India standardize Indian English [and we needn't use the Queen's version as reference] and thus get the Indian English entertainment industry [which includes literature, music and films] organized and help us English types get some decent entertainment in a language we speak and understand.
Or, we can surrender to the Foreign Hand. In that case, not much remains to be done. We just need to continue watching Friends, lifting themes from Hollywood, watching the Oscars awestruck........and most of all, keeping our fingers crossed hoping that an Indian wins an Oscar. Colombus is probably grinning in his grave, he did get the Indians somehow.

IST - we are like this only

2005-06-03T14:22:00.000+05:30

It was a few days ago when I was rudely awakened from my mid-morning catnap [one of many, which include mid afternoon, mid evening, mid mid morning all culminating in 40 wink long hibernation.] by an incessant banging on my gate.
Looking outside, I saw a man in khakis, smelling strongly of gaur-mint [the complete antithesis of sweat, blood and tears]. "What do you want?" I cautiously asked.
"You had called, hadn't you?" On seeing my puzzled expression, he gestured to the truck behind him with BWSSB written on it in big bold letters [That is the Bangalore Water and Sewerage Supply Board for the uninitiated.].
"What? Oh!" I suddenly remembered the emergency call I had placed to the BWSSB a few days back. Well, I WAS justified in not remembering the call, today couldnt have been more different from that day, with the sun shining hard and bone-dry roads,poetry-weather and all that.
On That day, my street was flooded knee-deep with rain water mixed with all unsavoury stuff, due to blocked drains by friendly neighbors due to 'the smell'.
Since we Janaagraha citizens Help Ourselves, we decided to open the stormwater drains. We succeeded on SWD 1 and 2 but instead of water flowing back into 3, there was water and a plethora of solutes, suspended particles and floating objects being spewed out!
Go To The Government, suggested someone wisely.
Hence the call.
"We'll send someone soon...." was the last we had heard of them. We had then Helped Ourselves, with a little from God's side with sunny days that left the road bone-dry.
And here was Our Saviour from the Sewage, our Drain God, waiting to show his expertise on blocked drains.
The shock of waking up still remained and I practised all the sarcastic lines I knew on the gaurmint man, who went away, truck and all, visibly embarassed.
THE END.

Is this Vintage Bangalore, and is this story going to become one of those reserved to start conversations with [it has both the Elements, the weather and government, ideal kickstarter] , or to render at family gatherings or to guests who seem to think that you have it all?
What were the officials playing at? Don't they KNOW that these problems can be sorted out only while they last, which is not very long?
Aren't we ever going to be ashamed of our pace? Will this be shrugged off with a 'we are like this only'?[probably will, what else we can do, ya?]
When is it going to be fashionable to be on time, to not jump lanes, to not jaywalk, to pay taxes on time?
Miniskirts may come and go on Middle East streets, but this is one fad that will take a long time to come.
Only hope it takes a long long long time to go.

What's in a name?

2005-06-02T18:36:00.000+05:30

I’ve always wondered when I hear someone’s name as Tom, Dick and Harry or Ram or Shyam or Vinay or Shwetha or Shilpa (pardon me if its yours), how tough it is for them to deal with someone of their own name. But they often tell me its not that tough considering that the other person might not have the slightest correspondence to themselves. Even then its hard for me to believe.
Having a name really rare, I was in for a shock when I first came across someone of my own name, “tuhina”. I felt weird when I imagined myself calling the other “tu-hi-na”.
Since then, I’ve seen the name in many places (thanks to the internet). Now I would want to tell you that “tuhina” means ‘snow’ in Sanskrit.
Considering the way it sounds, I shouldn’t be surprised that people think I’m of ‘that religion popular in the middle east’. If I make a list of all the not-so-evident comments, it’ll uphold the diversity of India. Imagine my plight when I (very often) run into certificates or lists with my name misspelt (some without a ‘t’ or an ‘e’, its place any where in the name).I always make it a point say ‘t-u-h-i-n-a, tuhina’ when someone’s writing down my name. My troubles don’t end here. Some pronounce irrecognisably. Some others change my gender.
You might be horrified. But coming from a family with “weird” names its not that hard for me. In fact I consider it a boon. (much to my mother’s relief). I’ve always been able to carve out a niche for myself in the minds of the most forgetful people .It has actually given me a sense of uniqueness. At times its even fun to see the others struggle (if I may take the liberty to say so) , something to relieve me of the mundaneness of life.
I remember a lesson in middle school, about two boys, Krishnamurthy and John, one of them complaining that their punishment (writing their names a hundred times), unfair, as his name is too long… So, Is it right to say “whats in a name?” or is the converse too evident?

Blind Man's B(l)uff

2005-05-26T13:19:00.000+05:30

Went and saw Black at last, at SAC [where else will an nitkian go these days..?] after hearing the rave reviews from everyone ranging from my roommate to my nosy next door neighbors. Maybe it was my high expectations or maybe just that I am plain insensitive, but hey, I find it is not such a great movie as it was hyped out to be.
First you have Michelle McNally [played by youknowwhobynow with huge dark glasses, for the audience to know she is differently abled] who is writing, sorry, typing away her life's stories on a Braille typewriter, and says that all she wants to do is to find her Teacher. And well, good people always get their prayers answered, and so we find Teacher [no reference to the da Vinci code] outside her house.Teacher is afflicted with Alzheimers and has lost most memory, and now it is upto Michelle to Remind him, or re-Teach him. A long series of flashbacks, with drier-than-Sahara humored dialogues[were they funny, or is it just the tendency of the audience to laugh when li'l gals no bigger than your thumb splat food on a six-footer star?] follow. Essentially, Michelle learns her first word [whaa-..-ter, a la Helen Keller], and table manners and a host of other things from [who else but] Teacher.
Then she sets her sights higher, and goes to University [looks like a cross between an Ivy League one and a local missionary one] to get a degree [so what if it is just a BA, the Indian obsession for degrees never spares no one.] and fails. Due to lack of speed, but not of dedication. Persistence follows, and she gets her degree, but she ain't happy, coz Teacher's not there to see her in Black robes,and so doesn't wear them to the valedictory ceremony. Next thing you know, she's giving an impassioned speech about, well, Teacher. [even dumb people (I dunno the politically correct term) looove to deliver long speeches! Man,what is this world coming to..]
Cut back to the present. Michelle meets Teacher and there is a Reversal of Roles, and Student Teaches the Teacher the same way, the same words he taught her [Whaaa...-..ter yet again] . Audience sobs, end of film.
Black was an eye opener. For instance, I didn't know that Alzheimer's makes your skin sag and change tone that it looks like someone splatted caramel icing all over your face.
Or that asylums are perfectly white.
Wonder what the set designer and Amitabh Bacchan's make up man were doing? Maybe trying unsuccessfully to wake the dialogue writer who, I feel, slept through the whole thing. Yes, I agree that we have come a long way from 'kitne aadmi the?' or 'mere paas maa hai' , but the dialogues lack passion, and the humor conspicuous by its absence.
And that makes me wonder what the audience was laughing at. But thankfully, there was no parallel comedy track [maybe we'd've had Johnny Lever who would have been studying the same course for a period of ten [we love exaggeration don't we] years and helps Michelle at college..]
Black is a simple slice-of-life story, with no exaggerations whatsoever, with good acting by all the characters, nice costumes and lovely locales. But it still pinches that Amitabh is still Amitabh and not really Teacher as we would like to believe. But Rani as Michelle is very convincing, big black glasses, no-makeup and all. And Nandana Sen... One wonders why she isn't pushing Lara Dutta or Ash off the charts. Her good looks deserve far more attention than she's getting.
But one thing that puzzles me is what the director was trying to say. Does he choose to say that Teacher's persistence paid off so much that his student is so adept as to teach the Teacher, or is he just presenting one girl's struggle against her disability? Is it just a story about bonding? Or is it, as i said before, just a slice of an extraordinary life, and that's why it was totally no-frills? Black didn't move me to tears or renew the spark in my life. Now I feel it wasn't meant to.
Ahh, finally I can say that Indian cinema has come of age: at least the director didn't put in things just to garner audience. He's just telling his tale, with no shades at all, and it is left to us to interpret or misinterpret it. In other words, it makes us THINK, which, till now, movies weren't meant for. All in all, a DIFFERENT movie, and the director Knew it would work precisely for that reason. And it did . Only have to hope it wont spark off a series of spinoffs . I don't want to have to watch a Mozart-inspired tale of a deaf girl winning the Grammies. And that's given me an idea.....Watch this space for the script. Ideas invited.

A Slice of Life?

2005-05-19T18:39:00.000+05:30

I just finished reading The God of Small Things and Ice-Candy Man. It's not like I am behind the times or anything, but it is a trait of mine to shun all things popular in the crest of their popularity wave, and maybe appreciate them after they've been washed ashore.
Two perfectly brilliant books. Told through the eyes of children, coz an unbiased and unblemished as-it-is viewpoint is always best, no?
Award winning books, both. Well written, definitely. How else do you actually feel what the protagonists feel....shock, when lame Lenny finds out that it is her mother who is burning Lahore, or guilt, when Estha gradually stops talking...
They are sort of autobiographical, as the authors say, characters taken from their own childhood, and their childhood selves made the protagonists.
And that makes me wonder if the best stories written are 'inspired' from real life. And not just anyone's, but the seemingly perfect ones are those from the author's flashbacks. So what makes these tick? Is it just that since the writer has gone through that experience once, that she is able to depict it better and give it that spark of life and believablity that a novel so desperately needs to engross the audience and make them empathise with the characters? Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe I don't know.
RK Narayan's best work [according to me], The English Teacher, mesmerizes me more and more on subsequent reading with its glaring reality as no other book of his does. In his autobiography My Days, he says "I have described this part of my experience [death of his wife] in The English Teacher so fully that I do not, and perhaps cannot, go over it again. "
So is it just that writers want to share their experiences, like all others, but proceed to do so on a scale larger than most other people's, just by nature of their job, other than ,maybe, filmmakers?
Or is it, as I would cynically say after reading a me-centric book, an utter lack of imagination that forces the writer to delve into his past for tales to make money from?
It's easy, isn't it, to just colour up your past and call it a novel? Or write it as it is, with no discrimination as to what the audience would like to read, and call it a simple, down-to-earth story? Or to glorify the non-existent 'turning points'of your life and write a book on success?
But then, it's just human to put ourselves at the centre of everything. Bane of theologians and zoologists.......
And that is a quote from yet another novel, Life of Pi by Yann Martel.
Which can never be an account of the author's or anyone else's past, coz, well, not many can boast of spending nearly a year out in the Pacific on a lifeboat with only the fish and a 450 pound Bengal tiger for company.
Plus, the author is Latin American [or European, I forget which], and could hardly have had the Indian childhood he describes.
Ah, well, imagination is not dead after all.

Molar Madness

2005-05-19T09:18:00.000+05:30

It all started that fateful day when i crushed my brand new molar on a guava seed [yea, you heard right, guava seed, all thanks to that old advice about worm eggs masquerading as guava seeds, and hence how important it was to crush them all between the teeth]. End result was that the molar was partially destroyed.
I wouldn't have bothered about that had it not been that the induced cavity impeded further crushings of guava seeds [I'm one of those who never ever learn, my mom can vouch for that]. So prodded on by an insistent mother and tempting stocks of guava, I made a reluctant trip to the family dentist, who, for some reason gives me the creeps. Maybe it is his cool, calm demeanor in breaking the worst of news, like a root canal treatment, or that he's pulled the wrong tooth......
"Hmmm.." he said, examining the errant molar with that itsy-bitsy magnifying mirror, "That maybe a dead tooth," Life to my purse, he didn't say. "You'll need a cap on that."
After a half hour of drilling and local anasthaesia, he proclaimed the tooth fit to be on its own for a month or so.
"Don't forget to come back after two weeks, I still need to finish the job." Yes, Finish is right.
Two weeks later, I did go back, out of curiosity, if not anything else. I really wanted to know what a tooth cap looked like. And just maybe, it might be gold and I could maybe give those devilish grins of Bond bad-men...
Surprisingly, Doc declared the molar fit for another two weeks.
"I'll see you after two weeks, so.." coz That's when my end of the month money crunch is to occur.
That was three years ago, when I was a wee 'ickle high school girl.
Now, I am a student of engineering, back home for my end-sem vacations.
Lots of guavas have slipped down my alimentary canal since then. And temporary filling? It's still there, maybe a bit eroded here and there. But there all the same, my partner in cracking nuts, be they pistachios or almonds.
And today was that fateful day when I thoughtlessly accompanied my mother to The Dentist.
Maybe it was my fear for my dental health or something, but I found myself saying "Doctor, the filling you put in three years back is still there, I just want to know if there is any problem...." In a trice, the errant molar was under the magnifying mirror again, and after a series of surprised and knowing "Hmm"s from Doc, [who very artfully concealed his surprise.... don't give me such a raw deal, Doc, I too want my name down in medical history..?] he sentenced the errant molar to a re-filling and capping, Tomorrow.Because, he forgot to add, I have an Appointment with the director of a medical college about my daughter's admission.
So there.
I have an Appointment tomorrow. I wonder how many more trials I'll have to undergo. How many more shots of local anasthaesia. How many more drilling sessions. How many more amalgamations.
More than once, I'd say, considering the way it has been playing and replaying in my head.
"It ain't all that bad, think of the ice-cream you'll get!" is all the consolation I give myself.
But that cool, sweet promise isn't enough to keep my nightmares at bay. All I hope is that it gets over quickly, and before I realize it, and that Doc has no more Appointments to keep outside of his clinic, coz one operation is bad enough, I don't want those that keep playing and replaying inside my head.

test post

2005-05-10T16:29:00.000+05:30

hi, to whoever is reading this.
this is our maiden post, and hope many many more follow.
watch this space.