B@Dshah Banter

The Attack of the Kolaveri Getting Boys

2011-11-20T15:16:00.008+03:00

We wear cool shades
We wear shiny pants
We’re the Kolaveri getting Boys
Oh yeah di
We’re the Kolaveri getting Boys
We’re simmering hot, we’re smart
We’re very very kaalaku
We’re the Kolaveri getting Boys
Oh yeah
We’re the Kolaveri getting Boys
We do Rajni moves
and we do soup songs
We do kadalai putting
We do all that can move
Oooo, ooo, ooo, hoooo
Cos We’re the Kolaveri getting Boys
Oh yeah
We’re the Kolaveri getting Boys
Na na na
We’re the Kolaveri getting Boys
Oh yeah
We’re the Kolaveri getting Boys

For those wondering what kolaveri means : it boils down to "murderous look" . The "Why this kolavari di" viral got me reminded of the set of boys who used to head down to our college for the cultural festivals and try to get noticed. They did succeed in getting noticed, but probably not in the manner they expected and especially not the "kolaveri" look they got.

The original :

Kolaveri di remix

KITES- When Threads intertwine

2010-05-27T16:33:00.004+03:00

People have been writing off Hritik Roshan and Barbara Mori starrer Kites as a kati patang (metaphorically means the ‘fallen one’, literally means kite that got cut) . They don’t realize the vision of Mr. Anurag Basu who under the veil of a clichéd boy girl love story has portrayed a stronger tale of gay love that fears a societal rebuke and hence remains forbidden.

If you haven’t seen the movie, well heres the spoiler – the summary on a superficial level:

Jai (Hritik) teaches dance and also marries women for money to get them green cards. He tries marrying Kangana (Gina) for her money and falls in love with Linda (Barbara) who is marrying Gina’s brother Tony for money too and then true love happens and they run away with half the world after them including evil man Tony and his cronies. True love outlives its lovers. The End

Years from now, when future generations see this movie, they will understand its true deeper portrayal and thank Mr. Basu for such vision in a society that says its open but still has a million taboo topics.

He uses metaphors and chance encounters to let the sparks fly and lot of read between the lines to convey his true story.

You would probably better appreciate this if you have seen the movie as I say throw up examples and little seen details that can change the complete flavor of this movie. The reason why the movie seems pretty common place is because the detail was paid for the undercurrent story and the rest were just gimmicks. Cutting through the chase, I present my case.

So Hritik marries women only for money and shows no other such interest towards them in LV. Even when Kangana happens, he pushes her away till he realizes she is Bob’s daughter (Bob is the kingpin of LV and more importantly Tony’s father) and then he does a volte face and uses her to get into the household. Once he does, he shares more screen time with Tony than Kangana; never ever showing any interest in her. Hmm… So he used Kangana to get to Tony but alas, Linda has cast her evil charm on Tony and hence Hritik has to now seduce her to get her out of the way. Another quick pointer before we move on that Tony hugs only one person in the movie in a loving manner; yup, u guessed right, it’s Jai. Such a small gesture but it means so much. Soon Tony and Jai are hanging around more often than Gina and Jai., heading out together to Plaza Hotel and Casino (Bob and Tony’s fiefdom).

Jai orchestrates an escapade without telling Tony which obviously infuriates Tony who is the possessive kind and feels Barbara has plotted it and hence goes after the kingpin (politically correct word would be queenpin but my dictionary refuses to accept that). Deep down, it was a master stroke ploy by Jai. He understands Tony needs to get the message so he calls Tony to a secluded parking to tell him they are even (their love is mutual) and should call the chase quits (he needs time to fix things and he will). He also doesn’t skip the chance to get physical with him in the interim. Meanwhile having won over Linda’s confidence, he tells his best friend Robin to take Linda far away while he would nonchalantly go back and turn himself in to Tony.

Fast forward: In the final encounter, Hritik in the final encounter shoots every one point blank except Tony and neither does Tony deem it necessary for retaliation. It has always been people around who took the honor. In Linda’s room, Jai had Tony at gunpoint but Linda knocks Tony out. Tony looks like he’s going to kill Jai but man Friday Jamal intercepts that stand off.

Oh! How could I have forgotten the sizzling chemistry of true love? Tony has his bloodhounds scan every road, hotel, backstreet, nook and corner of Las Vegas coz he has a strong feeling that his Jai is back in Las Vegas. Also if Tony was all so into Barbara, why does he relentlessly search for Jai even after Barbara died in front of his eyes (oh, he forgot to show remorse after that scene. Would have been out of character for the undercurrent story) ? Though like all couples, there is always a possessive streak tending to jealousy and Tony was always worried about Jai losing focus. No wonder he warns him: “She’ll go away from you and you’ll never find her.” (Don’t be a fool, you are not meant to be. You won’t find her but I always am there for you. Otherwise he could have just said you’ll never find us if Tony had plans of getting Barbara back and staying with her)

Yes, the above storyline has as many loopholes as the actual story but no one said it was easy to direct two stories in one frame and full credit to Mr. Basu for attempting such a bold venture. True love outlives its lovers indeed :P :P

PS: If you have heard of sarcasm, well, I was dumped into a cauldron of it as a kid. So grab this review with a pinch of salt and don't read too deep into it coz seriously, the movie is not worth it :)

The Final Destination (Aakhri Manzil)

2009-11-20T19:21:00.000+03:00

Basheer wiped out the beads of sweat over his forehead as he waited for the bus to leave the stand. The supporting nuts had come off from backrest of the seat in front of him so every time he moved his legs, he'd get a dirty glare from the woman in front. This seat hadn't been worth the pushing and shoving but then this was the only bus headed out at this unearthly hour. He soon dozed off against the grills on the window but not for long as he was woken up by the conductor,"Aakhri manzil wale bhaiya, 35 rupees." Basheer searched around for 5 coins and pushed the soiled notes along with the coins. He looked out to see the familiar void outside just like in his life. Quite a moniker he had earned himself at the bus stand. He wasnt surprised. Ever since he had moved into the city for a job, the concrete world of dreams had come crashing on him. While he did land up a job with Tejpreet, his village neighbour's second cousin, the pay was too meagre to get him a decent place and have savings to send home. Even sleeping on the street was an expensive affair with local goons extracting rent from the homeless. Once while travelling to a nearby town for goods delivery, he came across the biggest plus of overnight travel. Forgiving the few odd bumps and lurches, his sleep was pretty much undisturbed. That day onwards, he would catch whichever bus was standing at the station, and ask a ticket for the last stop. The weekday bus to Solarpur around ten in the night was his favourite as very few people got on and he was allowed to stretch his legs. Also the conductor Ram Singh was a delight despite his old age and the unearthly hour. His tales of the freedom struggle made Basheer wish he had been born half a century ago. The irony pinched him - Indians were more united against all differences before 1947 than after 60 years of freedom where trivial issues under the mask of politics had been exaggerated. He had always wanted to join the army and bring back the pride of the Khan family which lay misplaced after they were displaced post independent India. The bus lurched to a halt as people got off to take a leak , stretch their legs and catch a cup of tea. Basheer stretched his legs across the seat for the few minutes that he could.

Jaffrey came back to the house with one box of barfis (sweets) in his hand. "Who did you leave out?", asked Tejpreet, owner of Lucky stores, a 8 foot by 7 foot shop specialising in ladies churidars in central market area. "Bunty's. You'll have to give it when he comes to the shop next Monday. Noone knows where he stays." No one indeed knew where Tejpreet's seniormost salesman lived in the city. He was always the first one to the shop; way before the cleaners had swept by the streets and closed the shop when the homeless dozed off on their cardboard beds on the spacious pavements. Bunty had never taken a leave in the entire 2 years he had worked at Mr. Tejpreets place nor had he ever talked about his family, let alone crib about them. "Oh well! I ll give it to him when we open up after Diwali." Suddenly, a few shrieks later, Tejpreet and his family were in front of the TV as the headlines screamed "Terror Strikes! Bomb on Bus kills Ten"

Lingo Aint For the Dingo

2009-09-25T21:20:00.002+03:00

Just dug this article up from archives. This is my article for the first Writers' Circle Publication "Pentagram" in 2005.

Now back to the point

LINGO AINT FOR THE DINGO
Decoding the Language of Youth

How many times have you gone back home and seen flustered faces as you unconsciously go on about “chaat” in speech, and “funda” in life? English and French may fight it out to unite the world under one language with most speakers, while the Chinese try not to do that by going early to sleep. The most defining factor in differentiating and integrating the youth of today is LINGO! Just as it may make you feel at home in Antarctica, it can make you feel alien in your home country. Enriched by the spices and nuances of parochial groups, Lingo has been always been the coolest thing around for ages. Every generation comes on with something that defines it. If the Hippies were in the 70’s and the GenX in the naughties, lingo has been a defining factor of a person’s lifestyle. Lingo has always been the easiest way to incorporate that. It is testimonial to where we are and with whom we are. Often the definition of coolness, has hung on the precinct of how lingo friendly one is.

Wassup may lead to heads staring up at the void space, imported “maal” doesn’t need to be bought from duty free, “chaat” is not necessarily the spicy scrumptious stuff your sweaty roadside vendor serves with flies intact, bad can mean good, “it” can be a human and so on till a point where irony doesn’t have anything ironic. For a marooned army, getting “supplies” is the next best thing to going to Heaven, while for students “supplies” are the next best thing to getting marooned. One may blame it on the intricacies of English, but it isn’t so, for all languages have had their share. Lingo is the driving force among youth for the very reason it gives them an opportunity to identify themselves among peers and stamp with authority their presence.

2days peeps hav wndrful sense of getin da msg a’x’. Wat da jerries blew k’s on, 2days peepz do it 4 free. Cryptic msgs undecipherable 2 othrs. 143 wudnt make sense 2 u, but on vday, every1 knws it. Where is eng goin 2?

Afraid, not being an exponent of this craze to banish the vowels to Netherland, nor let Shakespeare scream ‘Murder’, I haven’t done full justice to slang. Lingo has also been influenced by current affairs. A dull person can be a muggle, and taking the blue pill is cool (no, it isn’t a doctor’s prescription).

Critics cry as they write out epitaphs for vowels, grammar, apostrophes, colons and other soon becoming redundant grammar usage. But the opposite side says, it’s the way of the world, if a language cannot change with society, it will die out. Latin turns in its grave on this point. What surprises linguists is the faster rate at which this change is coming about, also affected by globalization as local words fit into the English dictionary. The war remains until sides change as a new jump in generations take place.

Though a consensus is always required, should it be that slang be left out of written word or let it be a part of history

Over A Cup Of Tea ...

2009-07-25T15:02:00.002+03:00

It seemed ages since this corner had seen life. Years back, this very spot epitomized the city's social fibre. Karim Chacha's tea stall or how that plywood board read out in colored chalk "Karim Tea Stoll". No big bucks would give you the same ambience as this stall set at the most dramatic location, on an old bridge that served its purpose as a crossing over a dry riverbed littered with sea of garbage. Karim chacha was a great man in his small way. With his navel showing vests, that seldom covered his potbelly, he was the most amiable personality in the business. People would just walk to him and pour out their woes. He remained a patient listener to the harshest of speakers. His stall was a neutral zone, where the rich in their Austins would sip his "Masala" tea sitting next to the truck drivers driving by from Punjab on their way to deliver goods to the industrial guzzlers at the other end. No other place enjoys this intermixing of social classes except for the city jails for some godforsaken reason. I still remember the brown leather covered transistor, whose crackles would have hordes listen to the cricket commentary over cups of tea and crisp "samosas" as Kapil's devils would take on the world. Not to forget, the wisecracks his baritone voice would echo bringing Mona Lisa to bare her teeth.

In this colored environment, I would come after my journalism classes, to hear the city speak out with total frankness, with no fear of suppression and also watch the variety of Ambassadors that crawled through the bridge for no other make had won over the Indian man like Ambassador- the car of the common man. I knew I had become a regular, when Karim chacha would beckon me to come and drink tea as I walked past everyday. A businessman, no doubt, but the love he put into it, made you feel so much at home, especially for a young man like me who had come into this strange city with big hopes and no one to call family. Karim Chacha did remove the quandary over the last case, so did the other regulars who all felt we were a huge family bound by tea – Karim Chacha's tea. It was in cold dreary monsoons that his pipping hot "Masala" tea revitalized you beating green tea hands down. Inflation hit the city, and prices just soared, but Karim Chacha still sold his tea at one rupee. The tea stall was a social club in itself. It was here, uplifters of democracy sat deciding when to hold the next strike, to help the common man, ensuring no pay that day. Irony and politics seem to complement each other. It was here, Religion and caste knew no barrier as people celebrated Diwali, Eid and Christmas with the same revelry. It was here, the first crackers were burst when we lifted the World Cup and it was here, that the heaviest collection box for the Bhopal victims was sent from, though there is a rumor that I would love to believe that Karim chacha filled all his earnings that week into the box. He was that sort of a man. To help even in utmost adversity. To do so with a dowry ridden daughter at home, it is not an easy job to be giving away money for charity. Charity often has been considered a luxury by middle classes, but it is people like Karim Chacha who make us realize that there still is a human element to it. Karim Chacha's father had left this small tea stall to him, since everything else was lost when the country divided into 2 bits. His father never reached the border, and secretly, I am happy about that fact.

Soon, I was shifted to a leading daily's office in the city centre and my meetings with Karim chacha became a page in my diary. Years later, I heard of a freak accident as a motorcyclist skidded over the tarmac ending up in two casualties. Needless to say why I feel a void as my air conditioned chauffeur driven Mercedes crawls over the bridge.

New York Nagaram VI

2009-06-26T23:55:00.001+03:00

1st August 2008

Having missed a Bon Jovi concert, I wasn’t going to miss the next one and while Miley Cyrus might not be my cuppa tea , Sheryl Crow sure was. The plan was all set. We’d get up by 5:30 AM (#$#$%) to catch Sheryl Crow and then head over for CTW. Having rolled up our sleeves to hide the company insignia :P , we reached Rockefeller Plaza at cracking dawn to find we weren’t the only ones. We were easily a block away from the stage blocked by a semi stand in between the crowds. While we all joke about how we Indians love our ISTs, fashionable late seems to be in vogue everywhere. With the NBC centre being right there, we got cameras stuffed at our faces a couple of times but the wait was getting tiresome and the other two would have slept off there if they had a chance . Passing time reading the hundreds of posters folks brought, Sowmya and Shravani finally decided to give up since it was already 8 and there was no sight of Sheryl Crow. We had one false alarm when an NBC reporter turned up and the crowds went ballistic. On grabbing some breakfast, bagels and orange juice, we heard the crowds roar and Ms. Sheryl Crow finally made an entry right where we had been standing! So close yet so far. The crowds too had doubled by the time we came back and Cops blocked entry to prevent overcrowding. Catching faint throes of Sheryl’s voice, we moved on hoping we weren’t late to get to our CTW at Highbridge Park.

After having been on the smooth 4,5,6 line, we soon found ourselves transported into one of the older routes of the metro with the train actually visibly vibrating as it picked up pace especially once It came out into the open air. Legions of white t shirts landed at this out of sorts station and soon huddled around at the park as we got divided into three major groups which were further sub divided into 4 groups and started our weeding campaign. The weeds looked so healthy; it was tough to figure which was the weed and which wasn’t. After ruthlessly murdering few (understatement) innocent bystanders, my gang consisting of (Dr.) Swati (now why do we call you doc??), Sue, Sowmya got a hang of it and did manage to kill the evil weeds and avoiding its henchmen: the poison ivy. A lucky few like Rubaina, Sahil did manage to brush their clothes with poison ivy and then get infected whilst washing their clothes. The rashes must have been torture for them, but equally gruesome to look at for the rest of us. Back to happy stories. The ball barrow was lot more fun as we pushed it up and down the lane picking up weeds and dumping them into the compost heap racing against one another. Suddenly the place had turned really hot and humid and everyone’s enthusiasm started dying with every passing hour. Lunch seemed a distant future and well… America still needs to learn about packed vegan lunches. Not doing a good job at it. Soon we were back to leveling the road and the grass lawns at the edges though the way we were at it, it was one of those moments that would have inspired Elvis to sing “A lil less conversation, a lil more action”.

While people started heading out, a few of us stayed back to go trekking on the hill on the opposite side of the park. A motley crew consisting of Rubaina, Karthik, Manu, Raagini, Patil, Shravani, Arun, Sowmya and I started randomly climbing up the hillside egged on by a physically challenged young man on his Stephen Hawking’s type motorized wheel chair. What started off as a random trek soon turned into a scavenger hunt for baseballs. As it turns out the top of the hill is home to a ball park and all lost baseballs end up in the wilderness that we were scouting around. A la “A mad mad mad mad world”, we scrambled around clinging to edges, brushing past thickets to catch as many balls as we could. Maybe more of Crystal Maze without the time limit J and the balding Richard O’Brien. With a majestic haul of 14 baseballs and 1 softball (Ruby doo’s prized scalp) , the buccaneers split up as a few of us headed back to prepare for next day’s early morning trip to Pocanos in Pennsylvania for a cycle trekking weekend.

New York Nagaram V

2009-06-26T21:52:00.002+03:00

This one goes out to the NAPAs of 2009 to inspire me to relive the moments and get down to continuing on my trip blog. Who’d have thought documenting two months of the best time of your life takes more than a year to write down. So Back from Washington, the New York NAPAs are already in awe of the Bangalore ones who seem to be catching the sights and sounds of New York and around as if there is no tomorrow. We finally get around getting our CHASE debit cards which made life so much easier especially since America has this fetish for .69 and .87s and numerous other decimals on their items and they actually give back all the change. Soon you understand why Americans love their plastic, it just easier to use than calculating change and figuring all those nickels and dimes and quarters. With the amount of walking that we had started doing, I figured I didn’t have to get up early to use the gym. Mornings were soon becoming routine. After having literally been the ants of an optimization program having tried all the routes possible to reach Grand Central, everyone had got used to choosing the shortest path and you could be sure to bump into someone on your way to work. There is this whole new kick to life when you are suited and booted walking down Wall Street with a FT / WSJ in your hand and people wondering is this some super brilliant brown guy earning millions of dollars. Wishful thinking because none of the Americans thought aloud about it. With money in my bank account, I could finally get down to wonders of online shopping and started visiting the International Spy Shop, The Tech Geek and numerous other places to find some weird boy toy to satisfy my craving for those oddball spy gadgets. Watches that could record conversations from a distance, sunglasses that allowed you to see behind you, and all those Inspector Gadget, Q contraptions you were brought up on.

Another routine we had set upon ourselves was to find out new cuisines to try out. The falafel dudes outside office removed any traces of home sickness I could have though they never managed to replace the awesome falafels we get back in the Gulf. One day we decided to try out Taz’s pizza and having checked them on the site, we went on our search for real cheap pizzas. We walked by Taz twice before realizing that they looked nothing like the pictures on their site but the pizzas were still good enough and cheap. I soon learnt to bookmark another great site www.menupages.com for NYC dining. While Subway and Chipotle were regular fall backs, we’d get adventurous and try out cuisines that spared a thought to vegetarians including Chinese (yes!!) , Thai, Mexican, Ethopian etc. Though the best lunch sessions were when we introduced the non Indians to Indian cuisine and saw how they struggled with our daily staples. A note to general public: Dosas don’t come under the fork and knife category.

With project work, assignments and stuff, emphasis started shifting towards weekend trips while random roaming around marked the week especially since we had covered most of the landmarks that NYC guidebook would provide. This is certified by the fact that we peered through to a souvenir book to confirm we weren’t missing out on anything. I was soon becoming the in house Google search expert on NYC events, deals , and places to check out but NYC - a city that never sleeps turns into a city that never rests in the summer as the NYC calendar is brimming with activity.While we did manage to lose out on the Jon Bon Jovi concert a day before we landed, I was already on the lookout for the next one. Miley Cyrus and Paula Abdul didnt seem to have the star attraction to have me wake up at 6 in the morning. Nor did we get out early enough to catch the open air movie screenings at Bryant Park though there also was the other reason that none of the movies were appealing enough.

Kanye West phenomenon was hitting the city. There were actual ads of pills that would give you a Kanye West complexion and a surgical treatment to look like him / Sound like him and god knows do what else like him. The other addiction we all had caught onto meanwhile had to be bubble tea (Bubble tea, also called Boba tea or simply Boba, is a tea beverage with tapioca balls. source: Wikipedia) Mango, Lychee and numerous other mix and match flavours are available and it had become a daily ritual to sip it during the after lunch session of training.

Addictions are fast forming and the most fruitful one was the urge to head out on trips on weekends and the same we would do this weekend.

New York Nagaram : IV

2009-05-11T17:58:00.001+03:00

The new season of NYN begins. Last season we saw, NAPAs reaching NYC and settling in (dramatic effect and tone) , getting used to the fact that you can drink from the tap, and u cant wash your back. Lot more excitement awaits our young and innocent wanderers as they come of age in the city that never sleeps. Sounds like a recap of Desperate Housewives or one of those dramebaaz serials but then its been a while since I got down chronicling our quest in the west. With the weekend in, it was time to set our grand plan into motion- to stay out of NYC on

weekends. While a majority wanted to visit Atlantic City in the first shot, a few other pious souls decided that the political centre of the world was of greater interest. Hence the plan for Washington DC was hatched. Having collected all our gyaan about Chinese travel buses (cheapest way to DC and back , only $35) , we thought we were all set to go.

Shravani collected the details and tickets from Chinatown along with a bit of splurging with Ipsita on the high end Chinese stores, while I was busy at Central Park with our NAPA socio meet which did see a handful of people turn up. While Mayank and Antoine decided to let their photography skills go wild, a few of us ended up playing kickball.

Kickball- shouldnt that be the American name for football? considering we have throwball and handball. Turns out to be baseball with all the baseball rules in place except that the pitcher rolls the ball and the hitter kicks the ball. After ruffling a few picnic baskets, waking up a few tanners, our MVP was no doubt Kate Fidler from London who managed to score the most number of home runs that day. After gossiping around, bunch of us decided to head back with Krypton proving to us that the Japanese stereotype with a camera slung around their neck and clicking away wasnt necessarily false. Back at the hotel, we had a few additions and deletions into our Washington party and we ended up with one less ticket. Ipsita was our last moment add on and she wasnt too sure if shed get a ticket at the last moment. But the Chinese have always been optimists and this year was specifically the year of one of those optimistic animals, so we decided to hedge her risk. Two parties would head out for Chinatown, one other the leadership of Shravani who had seen the place before. The other under the leadership of Ipsita who would turn back incase the first party couldnt arrange a ticket.

The race across the maze called China Town wasnt exactly a pleasant nasal experience but you learn to make do. Garbage bags had been neatly arranged along the deserted roads and you were barely disturbed except for the odd rat scurrying around for dinner. Turns out our bus was a free for all. The ticket was valid for one year and you got into any bus you wanted, no reservations. While we caught onto the seats for the others, the Chinese lady with a vocab of probably 5 english words kept on urging us to let go of the other seats since it was getting close to the departure time. The second entourage was lost in the streets of Chinatown and was making their way when our bus driver decided to be a little earlier than time and revved his

engine. The moment we spotted the gang, he took off. On several repeated requests to stop for them, he just grinned and moved the vehicle at 10 -15 miles per hour- teasingly slow for the gang to run for it but not slow enough for them to catch up. Everyone in the bus was trying to get the message across to the driver but he just grinned. After making the second group run around the block, he stopped back at the original spot! Sheer evil I say but am sure thatd teach all of us a lesson to be punctual. The rest of the journey was relatively calm as we stopped at Baltimore for a few minutes and headed on to Washington DC. Here's where game plan went for a six.

The site had said the ride was approx 5 hours which is why I had wanted to take the last bus at 11 so we'd reach at around 4 and the dawn would crack by 5. Unfortunately, the driver worshipped Schumacher and 2:30 in the morning, we were in Washington DC! Bunch of 8 girls and 2 boys, many of whom had never been out on a trip on their own in an alien land and that too deep in the middle of night. To make it even more exciting, it was Saturday night, close to end of party time and the roads were filled with skidding cars, wayward walking party animals who were too sloshed to realise if their clothes were on them or not. Inching away from nocturnal animals, we were totally lost at what to do. I figured if we inched towards National Mall, itd have

to be a safer place but with no map in hand, it could be a ploy gone bad. On seeing a five star hotel on our road, I asked the doorkeeper for a map which he obliged and my confidence levels were soaring again. Meanwhile Sowmya decided to ask him if she could freshen up. He said he would if she agreed to marry him. She gave him a non committal yes and all of us were in the lobby while the girls freshened up and I made sense of the map. Soon a copper came by to freshen herself up and was shocked at the huge queue to use the loo and started chatting up with the guard. Soon party animals staying at the hotel were turning in and the guard wasnt too sure if he could have us around. So we moved on looking for greener pastures. Bumped into a cop who was thinking aloud that we were too early to be tourists but was pleased when we told him were from NY. His previous posting had been there and he missed the life of NYC. As we trudged on and contemplated sleeping on the nice roads and the wide avenues of Washington DC, for once we saw a welcome sign - McDonalds. Though closed, their tables and chairs were stacked up outside and couple of homeless people had already made it their home for the night. Making space for ourselves, we decided to stick around till 4 AM letting people catch up with their forty winks and allow daylight to catch up with us. Gauri took out her stash of goodies from India and all fear was forgotten.

After trying real hard to wake everyone up at 4 AM with ample help from Annie, we all set along towards National Mall. A city by night always has a whole new character to it compared to its mornings and that is what we were experiencing in Washington Dc at that moment. First stop was Newseum - as the name states a museum of facts and news with a wide noticeboard take had front pages of a lot of papers on the East Coast. Not sure if it was exhaustive but one of them did mention good old Goldman Sachs on a pretty irrelevant news article. As we headed towards Capitol Hill, the dawn was cracking and with no locals around, we felt like we owned the place except probably the secret service agents who hid from our sight and were recording our every move. Eagle One: Spotted ten brown people, should be Indians- big bags check, water bottles check, taking pics of drinking at the water fountain check, posing still for a video shot check etc etc. After posing and disposing of various pics around the Capitol Hill, we decided to stretch our limbs on the lawns as green as green could be. A few rolling competitions later, we were on our way to the other end of National Mall were numerous other monuments awaited us. It didnt take me long to realise Washington DC felt so picture perfect as if it had been made for the camera, untouched by man. We were walking around too early for breakfast but the Washington Memorial already had a huge queue of tourists awaiting a chance to look at the WDC skyline. Deciding to skip that, we walked on to catch the White House with its heightened security measures, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Memorial, Korean War Memorial, WWII Memorial, and a lot more. Lunch was from the Chinese carts with spring rolls (read: Kerala samosas) and pizza slices.

I loved the Korean War Memorial with a number of soldier statues that were littered through the greens and a simple phrase near it "Freedom is not free." We did spot the Indian flag during a ceremony commemorating WWII victims and you soon realise the importance of the phrase: "You value something more when you dont have it" and the same people who considered Republic day as another holiday suddenly were brimming with national pride. More on that later in the months to come. Though continuing on our desi spirit, we did hide the last two letters of INDIANA for a photo op much to the curiosity of fellow tourists at the WWII memorial. While we went on to catch some lemon ice lollies, Sowmya, Shra and I lost the rest of the group for a few moments before catching up with them at the Lincoln's footsteps. The summer heat had caught some of the group offguard so we decided to sit by River Potomac (Potomac.. Potomac.. Potomac.. Sounds fun to say that) and then the weathergod rolled his dice and a jolt of lightning and thunder had us scurrying towards shade. In such times you actually appreciate the beauty of the place as you realise that for large amount of paces, only open greens welcomed you. After rushing through the shortest path to the Smithsonian territory packed with numerous museums, we were caught in the middle of nowhere with heavy showers and just the jutting roof of a small cafeteria protecting us and twenty other people.

Deciding the safest option was a museum, we landed up at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum which no doubt was filled with the history of space travel and aeroplanes. A wonderful sight no doubt to the starry eyed boys of the group i.e. Patil and I. I touched a rock from the moon! Ya! I touched a rock from the moon (pause. moonwalk step. oooooowwwww. pause) The place is filled with gadgets of the skies above and its not textbooks but places like these that have the potential to inspire kids to dream big in such domains. If I become a minister in my life, don't be surprised if some of those social welfare funds are taken towards upkeep of the museums and free entry for kids. As we trudged back to Chinatown, we took a short detour at the train station L'enfant. Trains didnt seem to be running that day so I did take liberty of sleeping on the tracks for the camera, something Id never ever try in India for the simple fact- you dont know whats been on it. Meanwhile the femme fatale brigade had called it a day, so we had to skip the place I wanted to visit the most: The International Spy Museum. Its a lovely place to go to and if you have a couple of friends along, do play the role playing game they have in there. I shall brush aside this topic for the imminent disappointment it gives of having missed out on the singlemost reason why I wanted to go to Washington.

The Washington Wizards were in town and for once, I was looking up to people stretching my neck like never before. While our return journey also required us to get on a free for fall bus, there was a long queue plus wait for the bus. So while everyone else waited, I decided to continue on my sightseeing tour of Washington DC especially Chinatown. Having passed hooters, an Indian guy spotted me and gave me the menu of Mahek hotel. Figuring how starved everyone would be, decided to catch some desi food there. A Far Eastern girl was there on her first date with some white guy and forgive me for eavesdropping, she was teaching him Indian food and how nen was a type of bread and eloo gubi was potatoes and cauliflower . Having taken their order, the waiter was pleased to see a desi customer and even more happier when I decided to respond in hindi. Grabbing couple of snack items, I made it just in time for the bus and we were headed back to New York City, with what would become one of the many adventures we would take in the coming weekends. Oh! Before I forget, this trip also led to my introduction to Raagini's aunt (who owns a Dunkin Donuts- brilliant donuts aunty, thanks a lot) as the guy who researched on public toilets in Washington DC so that the girls didnt have an issue. A precursor to this event is Mr. Nishant Gupta explaining to us how we could see WDC on the internet and neednt go all the way there. His persistence didnt rub on us thankfully. The saga continues...

The Iron Horse

2009-02-28T22:09:00.001+03:00

The sound of pitter-patter of rain
Lessened by the thunder of the rushing train.
As it plunged into a lovely scenery
Full of hills and lot’s of greenery.
Then it slowed down
Stopping at a station with a frown.
Another sweep of people rushed out.
Other people tried to get in
Like seawater going back into the river mouth.
The Iron Horse galloped through hills and plains
Trying to outrun the torrential rains.
Hoot! That was the engine’s call
Each time it reached a station big or small.
Finally, it’s destination it reached,
Into the station with a screech.

-- Wrote this when I was 13 years old. Mrs. Ishita Khanna had asked us to write poems after class on the Vocation by Rabindranath Tagore.

La Beauté De Paris

2008-12-14T17:30:00.003+03:00

Mon voyage à Paris était beau
Le temps n'était pas aussi froid que la glace ni aussi chaud que le feu.
La vue de la Tour Eiffel était vraiment panoramique
Le pont d’Alexandre 3, l'Obélisque, Notre Dame et Le Louvre l'a rendu historique.
La croisière sur Seine m'a pris à travers le coeur de la ville
Et autour de l'île,
Aussi l'Hôtel-Dieu, le Musée d'Orsay et Statue de la Liberté.
C'était comme les fêtes de l'été.
Mon voyage de rêve à Euro Disney
Et de voir mon personnage favori - Mickey.
J'ai bien aimé mon voyage
Et d’écrire au sujet de la beauté de Paris prendrait des pages.

Year Of Publication: 2003
Background: Once upon a time, yes! I tried my hand at whipping up French poetry.

The Last Laugh

2008-12-14T17:11:00.002+03:00

It was at a local fundraising banquet
The challenge to prove our manhood was set.
To capture the majesty of the jungle, our goal
In a hostile world with people as dark as coal.
We reached our destination in a sea-faring trip
Along with our dreams, each one carried a grip
With a guide we were forced to hire
We sat for dinner around the jumping bonfire.
Around those sparkling flames
We played those childish games
Singing and dancing merrily
Without a care for the tomorrow, that we would see.
The menagerie that this jungle held
Kept our aspirations to return home quelled.
Soon the sandman, who we had so long defied,
Entered as the last glowing ember died.
The slithering of snakes, ruckus of the jungle and the tropical sun
Heralded our start for some gamely fun.
With magazines, cartridges and guns on our shoulders
We crept silently from bogs to plains and around boulders.
Then we heard that majestic earth shattering roar
As our target preyed on an unsuspecting boar.
The sweat on us sizzled under the hot copper sun
Soon we realized, hunting no longer was simple fun.
Each step taken was a big accomplishment now
As our kill thought for more prey to catch and how.
I stuck out my saliva dripping finger
To find where the wind would linger,
Soon heavy tropical clouds hid our ultimate source of light
And wished all our halcyon thoughts “Good Night”.
Our hunting cur fled on hearing a sly hiss.
I still ponder if he survived death’s kiss.
The jungle soon treated us as its enemy
As if we were here to change here destiny.
The jungle slandered us with a bouquet of hisses, howls, squeaks and a growl
But this ain’t a game that I could cry ‘foul’
Soon the gloomy and solemn night prevailed
And the thunderous wind galled.
I sat keeping a solitary watch
Gazing at the scores of eyes that reflected the rays of my torch.
The bitter cold and unwelcome guests bit me everywhere,
I let them at their work without care.
These were minute matters for me
For long ‘fore, I had struck by thorns and an old bee.
Next day, we started with a reputation at stake
And an aim to prove, hunting here wasn’t a piece of cake.
We spent a minute in remembrance
Of a friend who fought till he lost his last sense.
Those pythons had been at work
Killing him might have presented them nature’s perk.
We soon set up with guns and determination
Food and water though it was in ration.
Wolves and rats played games in me
Nothing satisfied them, even two sips of tea.
We trekked, trekked and trekked on and on
And the only relief was a poor little fawn.
We roamed round and round
Until our original start point we found.
Tropical disease struck the cashier whose mouth was full of puss
We couldn’t help him for our own energy was ebbing away from us.
Realizing our diminishing luck, we decided to pack
But nature hadn’t finished, it kept us back.
A tribal saved that petite cashier
But not before filling us with nature’s fear
We held our noses high with pride
Even higher, than a man show-offing his newly wed bride.
Deciding to proceed with the hunt
This time we put our best foot front.
Filled with humongous portions of delicacies at the village
We continued for our prey with full rage.
The jungle had become a bit kinder than before
But she still held contempt in her heart’s core.
We had started with a merry party of five
Now only four survive.
Knowing our purpose, the villagers showered us with praises
For his majesty had killed all but that solitary cow that grazes.
The cowardish villagers had shunned the outside world
The only sign of bravery was the leopard skin that lay furled.
They were excited and scared on seeing humans in alien clothes
As if landmarks, they visited us in hordes.
We followed the South wind for a day
And soon were on the trails of our prey.
While in search of clues, I had wounded my knee
But we went on, with carcasses being our success’s key.
Our parched throats taxed the nature’s pond by drinking away litres
But were soon stopped by a roar, away by about few metres.
We were wonderstruck by the charm of our misery’s cause
But took cover, before it marked us with its paws.
The cashier aimed and shot
While the rest ran to the booty we had caught.
The King tried to give a fight
After all, even in his death, he was packed with might.
We had returned from the land of sun kissed faces
And back in our normal paces.
Our victory was talk of town
Oh! It was wonderful to see those cowards frown.
This is the history of that lion rug
Which still gives my heartstrings a tug.
The frightful lion trophy stares at me
“Nature will have the last laugh,” says he.

Background: Dug this outta the archive. Wrote this a day before my Science exam during boards in 10th Standard (March 2002). Now you know what I was doing ;) Just got the flow and then decided to stop at 100 lines and hence my first centopoem (cent-o-pom)

Vickypedia quote: "Exams bring the best out of you - out of the hall that is."

New York Nagaram : Part III

2008-11-09T20:33:00.001+03:00

Week 1: 21ST July 2008 – 25th July 2008

There weren’t any Monday Morning blues but there was an air of excitement apart from the fact that we had to fix up our timings of using the bathroom so as to maximize sleep time while the other roommate dressed up. Also the nagging fact that Indians are stereotyped into being inconsiderate about time and don’t have an idea about punctuality which we had to prove wrong. Another rat race began as a huge group headed off from the lobby together to reach 1 Liberty Plaza. Once again, we found so many other new joinees with the company’s trademark logo spotted on their bags that we didn’t have to worry about directions. Our guide this time was Sharanya from the New York office and she suddenly stopped at the entrance and removed her shoes making us wonder what happened. Welcome to the world of women whims and fancies, as it is a daily routine for most of them to change into sexier and less comfortable footwear in office. By afternoon, we were given our classrooms and schedules for the coming weeks and I would be in 180 ML on the 31st floor! The first thing our instructor points out is “The most unique thing about this class is that you can see the Statue of Liberty from your seats.” Our instructor is also a certified pilot who owns a plane and flies down for his classes! The repertoire of instructors we had, were brilliant and eccentric. End of training session, rushed to give the packet of Indian sweets I had brought for my New York counterparts but little did I realize how calorie conscious a country this is as polite small bits were taken by the team and I thought I could actually serve the entire floor and still have a piece or two left. Then we headed out to Battery Park for the welcome party organized by the company. Free for alcohol seemed to be the flavour of the season as people downed red wine, white wine and numerous other varieties while the guy gave up on the group of Bangalore NAPAs who got the table next to the kitchen door and ended up finishing all the vegetarian platters as and when they arrived. Khaboos , hammouz were the centrestage in the snacks menu followed by varieties of cheese. Then we went wild with the Bangalore NAPAs photo shoot with Statue of Liberty in the background. A unique thing in the park were these set of music making tiles on the floor which we tried to set into action, which if seen from far seemed like a bunch of formally clad youngsters jumping around mad probably post some loss in the financial markets. Done with our shenanigans, we finally headed back catching the subway at Bowling Green having had dinner on the snacks that had been provided. Major movie plans we made to watch over the night and after 2 changes, stuck to "Jaane tu ya Jaane na" and ended up sleeping through half of it.

Next day morning, routine had fit in and we made it just in the nick of time and we also got introduced to the concept of prime time traffic on the subway. The routine also included me grabbing the Financial Times and reading it on our way to office- the NY way of saving time.
You come in ten minutes earlier or later and its empty, but prime time, thank god for closed doors else people would have been hanging like those on our Mumbai local trains. Rajesh Dasari got a blast for not getting there on time when his instructor rudely told him that you can get Rolex watches for $1 at some roadside shop and would probably be a good investment.
Come evening and some of us decided to go to Brooklyn Bridge and see NY skyline sparkling in the night. To our utter surprise, in small groups of 10-12 people, the entire... I mean the entire Bangalore group was there on Brooklyn Bridge. “The more the merrier” indeed as song and dance routine started from movie songs to TV ads- if its got a chord or two, it’s a song. Meanwhile Jagnoor aka Juggy G and Kalyan decided to try out racing with Ambre including slow walking ;) Hilarious watching them do the paces. A streak of red lights moved in an anti parallel direction to a streak of yellow lights on the Manhattan Bridge forming a nice pattern. The stars hibernate in New York City as they are outshone by the millions of lights that dot the city skyline. It finally got pretty cold and the entire group decided to head back to hotel and get enough sleep to keep us awake in class, which in the near future we realised is a lost cause.

Today evening, Arun and Sowmya being the devout Tamilians they are, pulled us along to Hotel Saravanaa so it was round two for Shravani and me. Patil also joined in on the plan and the five of us headed to the place. It is an odd sight to see people downing Dosa with beer but then, New York is a city of oddities. The Rain Gods decided to make their debut performance on this particular day and we got stuck near some apartment and had one of the ladies staying there let us in while the rain gods partied. We quickened our steps as it slowed down to a drizzle bypassing speeding cars and the splashes they caused as we reached the hotel drenched and enjoyed the wonders of a hot bath in the middle of the night having been soaked to the bone.

Thursday and plans were being made to watch Dark Knight someplace. We finally zeroed in on a theatre close to the hotel – Kips Bay. After class, decided to check out the Fulton market. It looks like one of those markets you watch on TV with no vehicular movement, wide pavements, roadside cafes and general cheer around apart from the fact it overlooked the water. Coming back to the late night show of Dark Knight, probably it was a combination of us being tired or the ultra hype about the movie, apart from brilliant performance by Heath Ledger, we all found the movie to be just another cat and mouse game. I know lot of people disagree with me on this, probably Ill need to watch the movie again being wide awake but then we were more into experiencing the theatre and popcorn culture of the Americas. Late night show meant a lot of couples hovering around us minding their own business. If you have been to an INOX in India, you haven’t missed much but an IMAX experience is a completely different level of its own. While we walked back at two in the morning, a couple of police cars were parked beside a diner. Hoping to see some action, it just turned out to be late supper/ midnight snack time for the coppers. Though a few fire engines did breeze by to the rescue of some poor soul.

Close to office, the whole street had been decked up with Indian flags, tricolor balloons, recent hindi songs blaring especially a lot of Singh is King and Indian food lined down the streets. It was an Indian fair where music CDs, desi khana, desi clothes and a lot more was being sold. Made a lot of my fellow friends homesick and amused many more of us with the innocent questions that our non Indian friends had. Richa Gupta and Namrata Singh struck lucky when a random lady walked by and offered them two tickets to the Bacchan’s Unforgettable Tour at Long Island since she didn’t want to go for it! Meanwhile the few of us who heard about the fair late struck lucky because by the time we went in, they were closing up and selling all the food at 20% the original price. A few of us decided to head out to Penn Station to buy tickets for Washington DC over the weekend to be stopped by Nishant who seemed against us going there. “Yaar! Washington bekaar hai. Photos me dekh lena. America aur kuch bhi hai dekhne ko” We never did get an objective answer to what “aur kuch” (what else) meant but it seemed an interesting reason nonetheless. “Lol! Come all the way to America and see it online with photos. Indeed”

Now I introduce the concept of DUMB BLONDE! On reaching Penn Station which also houses Madison Square Garden or vice versa, we looked around for the office of the Chinese operator who’d get us to Washington in just $35 round trip. Since I was the planner for this trip, had done painstaking research on it covering all angles including the availability of public toilets in the middle of the night especially since our group consisted of some 9 girls and 2 guys. We found a video store run by an Indian who told us the small counter in the front was the bus ticket counter. A really hot blonde sat there and being a boy, decided I should strike conversation. Unfortunately the attractive factor disappeared the moment she started talking and I realised dumb blonde is a true phenomenon. (This is to ascertain that not all blondes are dumb and the author does not suggest anything against this in any means or manner ) We asked her about her branch in Chinatown that had a bus which left later than the 8:45 PM bus that left from Penn Station. She had no idea and directed me to a Chinese guy who looked like those druglords you see in Hollywood movies with those arm length tattoos and ponytail included. He told me that the Chinatown one was another franchise so I’d have to go there and book tickets but would get them on the spot so needn’t hurry for it. Having settled the matter, I parted ways with Annie, Sowmya and Shravani who headed back while I went on to meet Divya Ashok (who was interning with Lehman Brothers then) and her friend (oops. dont remember name ) at some chaat place. The place had fully desi decor, those plastic chairs, jugs and glasses and the Indian owner trying an American accent and getting his grammar all mixed up. We grabbed a plate of bhel, and then decided to show me around while we caught up on good old times. CONWAY, right opposite Macy’s is the place to be if you want to buy chocolates for cheap in Manhattan and also other items too. Something similar to Big Bazaar in India or Lulu stores in the Gulf, though CONWAY has no branch. It was real nice meeting up but then I was too tired to follow up on their offer to head over to their place or go to Pachas with the gang so ended up coming to the hotel and bumped into Kalyan and gang and we all decided to play MAFIA.

Amit Ambre and Nupur were the only ones who knew about this game and while they tried to teach the disinterested few and also debate the finer points of their versions. But once we started, there was no stop. For some reason, Kalyan and me would be bumped off in the first round and if we were not, it was most probably because we were mafia. Blame it on Yasha’s intuition “I know yaar, seriously. Its Shah or Kalyan, intuition hai.” Or plain old hard luck. Nupur came to my rescue once when she played God coaxing the Mafia to spare me once, and hence I survived till the end in one of those rare moments. But what started off as a kiddie name no one would be interested in turned out to be an all night venture and next thing we know it was 6 in the morning! Kalyan, Nupur, Aparna, Yasha, Kurella, Ambre, Senthil, Ajay George and I can’t remember who else was there but we were loads of us. We are now ambassadors of the game and if we spot about 8 plus jobless people, this game is the only thing that comes to our mind. We did have minor interruptions as "slightly tipsy but having had a blast" Ankur, Vaibhav, Nikhil turned up after a night at Pachas which in their words was “American Pie is a true story” They seemed amused at how we seemed more high on the game than they were on alcohol. Early Saturday Morning and I had decided no point sleeping as i had to pick up Kate and the other London NAPAs on our way to the Central Park outing for NAPAs.

New York Nagaram - Part II

2008-10-28T19:55:00.002+03:00

18th - 20th July 2008

We are getting used to waking up at 5 and 6 AM to find a vibrant city doing its paces. Our first day at our New Jersey office, everyone was dressed in their best or the best they could gather. We started off as an army of some 50 odd desis dressed in our best walking down the roads of New York obviously making our presence felt as we discussed ways to reach New Jersey with everyone having collected a bit of info of how to get to office from various sources. As luck should have it, we had another army of local NAPAs headed the same way so there were no issues reaching home base. The rest of the day was an orientation to the company and I shalnt go too much into detail about that except we had four Shahs in a row by sheer coincidence. Poonam and Daniel from the London office, while me and Mayank were from the Bangalore office. The day went off really quick because I had fun company in the form of Raagini as we blabbered on and on about lot of stuff that I fail to recollect now. We did miss out on the funny dude that everyone was pretty impressed with. Post the orientation was a cocktail party that adventurous Patil, Shravani, Radha and me in quest to get beautiful pictures of the New York skyline missed out on as we pushed our luck and reached the highest floor in the building. The question still dogs me, with a view like this, how do people manage to work ? Having satisfied the photographer in us, we headed down for a session of group pictures with the entire batch. Once again confusion reigned as Radha and me were the only ones who made it to the ferry that would take us across to New York from New Jersey. The journey was short and breezy, and then we were officially lost as we searched for the closest subway that would take us home. One thing of prime importance, carry those free subway maps you get in most hotels, it has been a major lifeline for us. With the confidence that we can’t get lost, we finally found a green line subway having bypassed many building of federal importance. Today would be my turn at being tourist guide as Ruby, Patil, Raagini, Shravani, Sowmya and I (Selective Six) headed off to visit Times Square. Being in our backyard, Times Square is going to feature a number of times in this trip and its worth it every single time even if you don’t do anything but aimlessly loiter around there. NASDAQ, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers where the buildings we spotted this time and spent time in Hard Rock Cafe just chilling out to good music and testing their out rightly weird and different collection of sofas and armchairs. This was followed by a visit to the Virgin Megastore and its foray of mentionable and unmentionable items for sale. It was about 2 AM when we decided to head back and our decision gained more weight as we noticed a potential gang war right in front of our eyes as police swarmed in to stop an untowardly incident. The rest of the night was a scene out of “That 70s show” without the pot and the smoke as we shared stories of college and earlier. Also marked my first of the many night outs I would make in New York. The mantra was plain and simple: We didn’t have time to waste in NYC over sleep. Its 4 in the morning and we decided to head out for a morning walk along the riverside near First Avenue. Following this up was my first and last visit to the gym, which I realised, was a waste of time as we walked enough as a tourist to burn the unnecessary calories. On reaching back to the hotel, Ruby doo had planned a cycling trip in Central Park while Shravani was feeling ill and had decided to chuck the day. Highly disappointed that someone should go against the mantra, I decided to head out to a less strenuous sight seeing trip and headed out to United Nations which is just a block away from our hotel. The home of the organisation that I have always dreamt of working for right there, a stone throw away and a building I could see everyday morning when I got up. A wonderful experience indeed to be in it and though we couldn’t head into the General Assembly, I had checked off another bullet on my bucket list. We then decided to have dinner at Hotel Saravanaa, the branch of the famous Hotel Saravana Bhavan (HSB) – a brand name in Tamil Nadu. Exorbitant prices like its parent in India but the food is equally good. Located on Lexington 28^th, it is surrounded by lot of Indian shops and restaurants and is the Little India of Midtown Manhattan. Meanwhile Ruby doo had managed to crash her cycle onto a tree at Central park and this would mark the start of her love affair with cycles and crashing. A pretty long day earning me the moniker of 24x7 enthu cutlet (PSG branded). Rise and shine on Sunday morning and as a major group we headed out to Fifth avenue en route to Central Park. Fifth Avenue has the whos who of brands lined up neat and bright with price tags that blow us off our feet. The famous Tiffanys & Co. , Prada, Gucci, Swarovski, Rolex, NBA, World of Disney, Benetton, Bulce Vuigi, and numerous other stores that I haven’t even heard of. Princess Jasmine had come down for a visit to Disney following Hannah Montana’s visit the weekend before that. Much to my chagrin, Jon Bon Jovi had been down to NYC for a free concert the day before I left for New York. Towards the lower end of this stretch close to Central Park is a glass cube with the trademark bitten apple. This marks the entrance to the famous Fifth Avenue store based in the basement filled with gadgets to play with to your satisfaction. The best part about this store is that its open 24 x7 so I’d suggest heading there late night or early morning where you can pretty much have the whole place to yourself rather than having to crowd over with other apple eyed customers. Also on this end is the hotel made famous by Macaulay Culkins in Home Alone 2, along with the pond near Central Park where he meets the bird lady. Our next stop was MoMA- Museum of Modern Art, which I enjoyed but would have probably appreciated more if I had a fine understanding of what those random strokes signified in most of the exhibits. Still standing strong with our adrenaline running, we decided to head over to Brooklyn bridge and walk over it and probably perform a “Kal Ho Na Ho” on the way. This is where we met an Afghani water seller who was really friendly with us and we started discussing the state of affairs in Afghanistan. He asked where Jagnoor was from. His answer Punjab was quickly interrupted with a “India wala ya Pakistan wala?” The same question popped up when i said Gujarat and then it struck us the commonalities in the states. Only if Kalyan had been with us, we’d have included Hyderabad in the loop. We refused his offer of free water and carried on our walk along Brookyln bridge. The bridge has a history behind it too. It was thought impossible to build this bridge but it was the sheer willpower of the architect and his son that the plan went through. The project was almost shelved when the father was bed ridden, but his son carried out his fathers commands and the bridge was finally completed. From Brooklyn bridge, you can also see the younger Manhattan bridge. Spiderman fans will be able to associate with this place along with Shah Rukh Khan fans. Probably Godzilla fans too but the point from where Godzilla enters New York City is down south, closer to my office near South Sea Port. On returning home, we finally decided that weekends would be for outside New York City while weekdays after training would be dedicated to New York City.

New York Nagaram - Once upon a time...

2008-10-19T17:35:00.006+03:00

16th July 2008 - 17th July 2008
Part I of New York Trip series

It’s pretty ironic that I finally start writing about this trip to New York on my flight back from New York. But then again this is the first time that I have managed to get some free time to myself in the past two months of whirlwind activity. Probably this will serve me as a trip down memory lane as one of the greatest trips 60 students fresh out of college could have ever had in their life. Throughout the trip, there have been lot of things that were hyped up and acted as a dampener, but the hype about this trip that has been created ever since I got my offer, well; it was worth it and probably more.
The Chennai trip to get our US visa would serve as the appetiser to this trip as we were pampered by corporate perks. But that was just the beginning and 16th July would serve as the actual launch pad for two months of a helluva ride. Time zone difference math works out real sweet when you are going across the globe towards west but equally insane when it’s towards the east as I spend my entire weekend in air!!!
The view from the flight provided a contrast of sceneries- the deserts of Oman to the lathered whites of the Alps, the lush vineyards of Italy to the massive void in the Atlantic Ocean. As we approached JFK airport, the Manhattan skyline trumpeted its presence from a distance and we were already in love with the Big Apple.
No movie can be perfect, so we had to have a bumpy ride at some point. Flight to Dubai had been delayed by one hour but then we got to see Winona Ryder though we still have our doubts since she was without make up. Similarly, on landing at JFK, a group of 30 freshers waited in the arrivals lounge with no one around to pick us up. There had been some miscommunication and there we were stuck figuring our way out. Coin phones obviously accept only coins and none of us had any. The guys being chivalrous went on a mission to exchange but were blatantly refused. The girls struck lucky faster. Shabana had it lucky finding a Bohri family and worked out well for all of us. After figuring out how to use a coin phone and whom to call, we had another hour of melo drama as we tried contacting our program coordinators here and in India while people figured alternative means of transportation. Long story short, we were finally on our way to our hotel – the Eastgate Towers.
Our driver, some chachera bhai of Schumacher zoomed through the sights and sounds of NYC that fell on our way throwing pointers at us on how to survive in New York city- the boroughs, the metro, Shea stadium, United Nations, Brookyln Bridge and many more.
We all were looking forward to the 25 storey skyscraper that we would call home for the next two months and boy were we in for a shock. Tall is a relative term for a forty storey building shared the street with us and boy, we looked like dwarves.
I knew NYC was a pretty liberal place with everyone being pretty fine and open with everything but we (Sahil and me) hadn’t expected to be asked to share a flat with Nupur and Aparna. Lol! The look on their faces beat our puzzled expressions when we first heard about it. The hotel had a complimentary gym and we made major plans to start our fitness regimen in a place where obesity is a topic of national importance and soon realised how futile our efforts would be.
Around eight pm was when Sahil and I had finally settled into our room. Each one of us had double beds and I think they were bought from the same place that makes jumping castles for kindergarten kids. After jumping on them to our hearts glee, the next thing I know is its 4 am and we had already skipped our first meal of the trip thanks to jet lag. Around 5 am, having bored ourselves of the limited options on television, we decided to make use of the fact that we were up early only to find out New York gets up earlier than us, or more like the city never sleeps. The midtown Manhattan is a city planner’s utopia so is it of a tourist. It’s easy to get confused but it’s tough to get lost. The rectangular grid system consisting of avenues and streets is so easy to follow especially since every street and avenue is clearly marked at every intersection, we had no issues finding our way around though we did end up taking wrong turns in the starting till we got our bearings right.
Back at around six am, we bump into Senthil who moves on to legendary status throughout the trip rivalled only by Chuck Norris who maintains his position over God but refuses to acknowledge it saying he’s out of the rat race. Senthil had already begun his long innings with firangi paani and it’s now I realise that I was supposed to take a picture of the entire collection of cans and bottles he would have had in two months.
The first thing anyone who is staying in New York for a day, a week or a month should do is go to the nearest metro station and buy those unlimited travel cards for the above mentioned time durations. We found our way to Grand Central – a motley group consisting of Ambre, Kalyan, Senthil, Nikhil, Sahil and me. The grandeur of the place adds weight to the name. Having bought our monthly passes, we decided to start off on our adventure and got onto the 4, 5, 6 lines also known as the green line. The station that caught our attention is the Mecca of the financial world- the one and only Wall Street. “Stand clear of the closing doors please” was the first automated P.A. s we heard and counts as one of the top five favourite lines of our New York trip. As we entered into Wall Street, numerous movies flashed by and we felt a part of the same tinsel town that we have awed about all these years. The New York Stock Exchange (Nay-see), Trinity Church, suited and booted men with that air of confidence and awesome and swanky cars (In Pursuit of Happyness). Here we are the place that has probably the largest concentration of money making aficionados. Probably this wasn’t the right time but it surely was the right place. As we walked down and saw the Wall Street bull glistening in the summer sun, I noticed bankers walking down and glancing at it, probably wondering when he would take charge of their markets and save the industry from one of its biggest lows since the great depression of 1929. As we continued our way to the Battery Park, we were finally introduced to the culture of street performers as couple of Afro American performers performed street dancing to a diverse audience and managed to keep us all entertained with their humour. “Never mess with a black guy, coz we can run faster than you, and ya, we got Nike shoes too”, “We are professional dancers and great at our job. Is that why we are still performing on the streets?” and other quotes that I faintly remember but managed to crack the audience up catching our pulse at the right moment.

“Behold her , single in the sea,
Yon solitary downtown lass
Standing firm by herself
Stop here or gently pass.”

This rehashed version of Solitary reaper (Sorry Wordsworth, I hope it is you) for that but the Statue of Liberty stared at us from a distance and our bucket list seemed to have managed to get the biggest catch on day 1 itself. We also caught a glimpse of New Jersey’s tallest building which also turns out to be Goldman Sachs property  and the sun was playing wonders with it. While headed back, we overheard someone asking directions for Ground Zero which became our next destination. On reaching there, how do I take a picture and say I was there? A picture of a void in the New York skyline? A vast emptiness in the middle of downtown New York? Life seemed to have returned to normal around the place but our minds raced back to 2001 when we saw people rushing down these narrow lanes amongst clouds of dust and rubble, chocked by the fear of the unknown and the devastating losses of the known.
Another thing you soon realise about New York is the ease at which you can walk great distances without mentally feeling tired for the amount of energy around you acts as a positive influence. As we headed back, the third batch of Bangalore NAPAs had landed at hotel and they had enjoyed the same experience of having no one pick them up at the airport on arrival and we shared our déjà vu moment for the day.
Amongst all this adventure, there is something called appetite which the NYC cuisine easily satisfied for the non vegetarian palate. But the vegan struggle continued. Not risking adventure in this domain, I think I stuck to subway footlongs which are way tastier than what you get in India under the same franchise. The vegetables are delectable and the options of breads and sauces too go a long way.
Come nightfall and its time to make the first of our umpteenth visits to Times Square – the razzle and the dazzle. This trip also introduced us to the fact of how easy it is lose people in a crowd and we ended up as four groups by the time we got back to the hotel. Times Square is a photogenic place and the milling crowds mainly consist of tourists like you and me. The neon signs compete with the photo flashes and the stars up there have just given up. Random vickypedia fact: There was some ordinance that every building on Times Square should have a flashy display board. Planet Hollywood, Virgin Megastore, Toys R Us, M&Ms and numerous other stores make a bold presence along this stretch followed by Broadway theatres a few blocks away and the (in)famous gentlemen clubs. The Toys R Us has a 20 feet tall Ferris wheel within the store and yes, it works and can seat adults and children alike.

Different Strokes

2008-05-23T17:42:00.001+03:00

Anvek pushed a few sketches away as he placed his coffee mug on the littered rickety table. Something flew past him and landed right behind him. Visibly shaken, he turned round to see a small boy with a sheepish grin pick up a Frisbee and utter something that sounded like a sorry before he disappeared into the crowd. It was carnival time in the small town of Simarita Kalance and colourful tents marked the skyline of this town. This annual attraction saw life seep into this town which lay sleepy for the rest of the year. Most of the men folk worked in the nearby industries and barely came home while the womenfolk had given up on the soil to reap any fruit. They had moved on to selling their homemade wares in the nearby towns. But a carnival was a time of joy and merriment as children ran around with cotton candies, huggable bears and numerous other soft toys while their parents bought smiles for cheap in the games and food section. The carnival was a welcome break for Anvek. It added some cheers to his otherwise sombre life as an undertaker of Simarita Kalance. The place was too dead to have dead people around and he spent his days in utter boredom. The carnival provided him with an opportunity to polish his sketching skills and earn him customers who walked away with a smile, a rarity in his usual profession.

Anvek soon spotted his first customer as a mother pulled her stubborn and plump daughter towards the isolated shack. He pulled out the pencil from his ear, pushed the point between his nails as he cleaned the dirt stuck in them and waited till his customers reached. He pulled out a toffee for the girl and his charm did wonders for the girl stopped huffing and puffing and quietly sat down on the seat. He eyed down on her double chin as the most prominent characteristic and started off pushing down quick strokes that would soon turn into something similar to the girl in front of him. She smiled on seeing the likeness to her, snatched the sketch and ran off. That’s when Anvek realized he had not seen the cute little ponytail that had sat on her. He crumpled the tenner he got and pushed it down his boot. He sipped his coffee as he waited for his next customer. In the next couple of hours he found himself busy only once as he sketched a Chinese immigrant You Lozh who worked at the quarries. You Lozh seemed tensed as he kept on glancing behind him towards the entrance as if he was waiting for someone. Anvek was in no mood to ask him to stay still, so he decided he would do a side profile. Lozh pushed in a tenner and hurried off to the limousine that had just entered the carnival grounds. The carnival lights glowed brighter as the sun descended for its siesta. A couple of boys dragged the retired colonel Krevitoz who seemed intoxicated by the fine wines flowing down Ms. Bordeauzes fountain and wanted to catch grab a sketch of his derriere so they could play “pin the donkey” on the sketch. Anvek grinned at their sadistic humour but a tenner was a tenner and the snobby colonel did deserve a good flogging. The colonel was too intoxicated to be sitting so they placed him on his stomach so Anvek could sketch the right things in right proportions. The dimming sunlight didn’t do Anvek any good for he had a terrible vision as night fell. He decided to stop at the neck and finish the rest the next day. The boys didn’t mind the missing head for they had what they wanted.

As they dragged the colonel away, a scream pierced through the entire fair and everything grinded to a halt. Little Bo had her ponytail stuck in the greased chained gears of the Ferris wheel and was crying at the top of her voice. Samuel the butcher came by and chopped off her ponytail to set her free from the agony and the pain. With a freaky accident like that, everyone decided to call it the day. Next day morning, the carnival was being packed up and Sheriff Baynes oversaw the entire operation. A carnival did lead to a lot of rubbish and Baynes had to make sure it all was cleaned up. He spotted someone far off lying in the mud near the well and figured it was one of the drunkards who were still under a hangover from last night. As he walked towards the well, his walkie talkie crackled alive. “Captain Germaine reporting… Blast at quarry. I repeat. Blast at quarry. One casualty... Immigrant... Lost his right ear… Wanted ambulance... I repeat. Urgently required ambulance… Out…” Baynes tripped over a dusty coffee mug as he turned around to rush down to the quarry.

Perspective - Seeing things differently

2008-05-22T15:05:00.003+03:00

Come May and the blog sees day!

Rather routine-like isn't it? Past four years of college life and since the inception of this blog, that’s how the dice been rolling. Did I just say - Past" four years of college life?! The rollercoaster ride has moved from to the next stage as I bid au revoir to another phase of my life - with ups and downs but I am still tethered to the ride screaming "Bring it on". Fun filled, Friends I made, the decisions I took, the challenges I faced, the triumphs and the defeats all now pages of some book at the back of my head. No doubt, years down the line, every time I glance down memory lane, am sure it will fill with youthful exuberance yackety yak yak. No time to be philosophical now. This might be my last care free vacation in life except when I finally retire. It all falls into perspective and how differently you see everything. An optimist's perspective, a pessimist's perspective, a kid's perspective, an adult's perspective, all different viewpoints to the same thing. [Note to myself: Check out Vantage Point- its all about perspectives]

Perspective is so dependent on time, space and numerous other factors for the same thing. As my train pulled away from Tiruchirappalli junction, it felt different. I have done this ride umpteenth number of times but this time was different. Somewhere in there, I knew, this might be the last time I would be doing it. Obviously, every time one does it, it can be the last time yet this time perspective changed. It’s all in the head. The special LAST TIMES at Octagon, Raju Anna, Meridien, Sangeethas, Room, Hostel, Sports centre, Bus No. 128 ride, and numerous other things. College life in itself. Banana Leaf Restaurant was also a last time in second year itself. But that’s a different last time, thanks to perspective.

Our view/perspective of people too can change thanks to the situation. Ever noticed how glad you feel when you see a sub continental (whether Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian or Sri Lankan) when you walk down the streets of Turkey or Belgium, but you don't care to give them a second glance if you were in the subcontinent itself. We are so proud when Kalpana Chawla goes to space, Mahendra Singh Dhoni carries aloft the Twenty 20 World Cup or Vijay Mallya brings back to India the sword of Tipu Sultan. Yet, when hundreds die in a riot, or a bridge collapses or those numerous other mishaps that litter the front pages of our daily newspaper, they are the UNKNOWNS. Hundreds of people die everyday and we skip the page, thousands die on a single day and we launch relief efforts. Why does humanity need a jolt or a shock to proceed into action? Why this inertia towards doing good? We all are busy with our lives and there is too much red tape. I guess that is an answer that most of us will pop up, even me. Every time there is a massive tragedy, billions are collected, even you and me give our bit to help the unfortunate by writing a cheque, money transfer or something similar yet we brush aside the poor kid that nags us all the way till our car to give a bit to keep himself alive. Giving away your hard earned cash is not easy, and it is brave of each one of us to even give away a cheque to these relief efforts. But is it money well spent? Does this money reach those who deserve it? Does our act of charity end with that signed cheque or should we do more? I bring out this question for only one reason. Till today, there is not one place where the scars of a tragedy have not been wiped out. Just because media doesn’t show it doesn’t mean alls well. Bhuj has seen cosmetic shake ups but when you hear that tents for people were being used by government babus as covers for their cars, I have serious doubts about the cash that you and I gave. Is there no way we can ascertain that our money has reached the rightful beneficiaries of our goodwill? Perspective?

Every once in a blue moon, one hears of geniuses, men who thought differently, had a different perspective to offer, saw things differently and made this world a better place. In these fast times, showers are what most of us get while we dream of tub baths where we can switch off and relax. Archimedes had other ideas in his bath tub and Eureka! A hungry Newton could have just picked up, polished and eaten the apple but he had other ideas. James Watt could have just drunk the steaming hot tea being prepared in the kettle to Robert Bruce just ignoring the spider that built and re built its web. They all could have seen it otherwise but fortunately they didn’t. Perspective again! Socrates and his lot were troubled, many others burnt at the stake because they thought otherwise. The Earth is not the centre of the Universe said some, the Indo-Arabic numerals with its zero were a better alternative to Roman numerals said others. Those who think differently have been branded weird, mad and crazy to heretics in human society. Even today, we may be more open to change yet somewhere in there; we still keep those who think differently away from us. Corporates spend millions on workshops titled “Creativity” and “Think Out of the Box” yet in our educational systems, students who are forced to be uniform in terms of their thinking and their answers. You cannot have 5 subjects where answers different from the textbook or notes are punished and then push in one subject where you extol students on the values of being imaginative and coming up with creative answers.

Its all perspective and how you see it – optical illusions in the real life?

I end with a bird's eye (make that a paraglider's) perspective of my home J - thanks to wikimapia which sure is a great tool to use – whether its Aditya coaxing all of us to use it and mark our places on the world map to showing my friends where I studied to where I stayed in my childhood days. For the uninitiated- Adil Centre is The building

Ps: Sprite- Dikhave par mat jao apni akal lagao J

Freakonomics @ NIT Trichy

2008-03-28T22:01:00.004+03:00

Freakonomics
Don't let the title freak you out. I am sure lot of folks who have this subject have panned it as too mathematical and boring. Here is an award winning economist (Steven Levitt) who says the same, but shows us how economics can be made fun especially when applied on our day to day lives. The way he adds two plus two for issues brings out this whole new angle to life and everything we live for. He proves that the reason for the drop in crime rates in USA were because of a woman who fought for legalized abortion 20 years earlier, or how the Klu Klux Klan was brought down by a cartoon character, or what is safer- a gun in the house or the swimming pool. Numerous such weird yet trivial issues are explained in layman's terms and the way he uses data to his advantage is worth noting. Even if you aren't a big fan of data interpretation, this book makes for light reading and throws in a new perspective to looking at things. The book's only weak point is its small, leaving you thirsty for more.

More reviews here, here and here . The bottomline is they all say its a nice read :)

Freakonomics @ NITT

The best part about Freakonomics is that it is relevant to common man- that's you and me. So I decided to undertake an experiment into using Freakonomics tools to answer random questions regarding NITT.

There are two types of humans - those who eat to live and those who live to eat. Thanks to our messes, most of us have ended up in the former category. A major respite to this has been our gate culture thanks to the handful of dhabas.

As girls grow smarter (solely measured in terms of AIEEE numbers), these dhabas are dipping into red. The average intake of "girls" has increased in the past couple of years. These days, the fairer sex has grown bolder as they eat out at Dhaba on a regular basis, once thought to be solely a masculine domain. No doubt, this wind of change has dragged along a larger population of the male species and improved sales margins for our roadside annas (which is why the new price hike has been halted for the moment). But here lies the catch.

Dhaba clientele can be broken up into the usual male crowd that comes in no matter what and keeps the dhaba running. The profit percentages come from the new type of clientele i.e influenced by girls. Groups of girls are a commonplace at gate these days, so are couples and guys who have to stick along till 9 PM thanks to their commitments with girls in various aspects and hence are forced to eat at gate. As the skewed ratio reduces and coupling percentages (Fig. 1) go higher, there are more incidents that are waking up the moral guardians of this campus and in their hand; they have the most potent weapon of them all :- roll call. Hence if the roll call is shifted to eight or earlier, girls are totally ruled out at the gate, so are the couples. With roll call being at eight, all extra curricular activities would have a unanimous break at eight PM, allowing number of guys to make it to the mess at an appropriate time and not be left over with leftovers.

Figure 1

What's NITT without its cows? Did you know increase in number of cancelled classes is helping accelerate global warming? 10:10 break, midnight coffee breaks, late breakfasts - are various reasons why people can be found hounding BRU, Nescafe and similar outlets. But along with these come the unscheduled cancelled classes that leave students in a hitch of how to pass time till the next class. In 7 out of 10 situations, people found BRU to be the closest and cheapest place to be (data collected before BRU had contractual problems). We all thank the cows for being lovely garbage collectors as they eat every bit of paper, Styrofoam cups and what not in hope of grabbing something edible. But most of this is junk and when junk goes, it has to come out. With more junk getting in, more number of times junk has to get out forming minefields for humans but innocuously hiding a far greater danger. Due to anaerobic organisms such as Escherichia coli and methanogenic archaea, an average cow emits 600 litres of Methane per day! Thanks to the junk we give them, our NITT cows donate a few more litres each. As a greenhouse gas, the amount of heat methane can retain is 72 times that of same mass of Carbon Dioxide. Hence assuming 7 departments in CLC with 3 batches and each one has just one class cancelled in a week (on a lower side), and just 5 people grab something, and assuming each piece of junk to be of just 25g, you are generating 11 kilos of junk gobbled up by the cows each month. No doubt a small percentage when one considers the amount of junk we create due to other mentioned reasons but a staggering amount indeed.

If the above concepts seemed too abstract, let's take a simpler one where the facts just stare out at us. A trend you all must have noticed - the consistency of power cuts during cycle tests and semesters. The peak load estimated for the college is accounting for all fans and lights switched on plus 20 odd computers per hostel. Thanks to the proliferation of gadgets like coolers and refrigerators, we already are taxing these limits. Based on our sample data, 99% of the junta stayed back in hostels during exam time since extra curricular activities become zilch and the Chennai junta known to run home every weekend decides otherwise. Hence the entire hostel turned into a Las Vegas is just the tip. Leave alone the students who leave their computers on 24x7 throughout the year, based on studies conducted in Garnet hostel and normalizing this data for other hostels, an interesting pattern was noticed. There was a 100% increase in the activity of the non regular user who downloaded more and stayed live longer pushing our computer count by another 35 odd people (in final year hostels). The situation worsens with extremities of weather with coolers coming into play in summer and a larger number of "vetti" people who finally have the time to take a bath - a hot one.

Thats Freakonomics @ NITT for you and hats off to Mr. Steven Levitt for his creativity and out of the box thinking.

This piece will be published shortly as my guest contribution to Entrepeneurship Cell of NIT Trichy's magazine called Paisa Inc.

The Tenth Emotion

2008-03-04T19:28:00.004+03:00

Continuing with my series of published articles, this was published in JAM Mag - India's youth magazine in their February 2008 edition.

"UNMAAD is about happiness - more passionate than anger, more life changing than serenity, more potent than courage, more wonder than magic. UNMAAD is the tenth emotion" - www.unmaad.com

My fest hopping craze this semester sent me to Bangalore during the first week of February to catch up on the tenth emotion as defined by IIM Bangalore- UNMAAD. Seven lakh prize money and a budget overheard to be around one crore, we had a lot of expectations from this fest.

A very gothic look unraveled this watering hole for managerial wonders of India as we landed at the campus in the wee hours of 1st February. An exam hall had been turned into a refugee camp for the early birds while the rest ended up in shamianas on the grass lawns, though the fairer sex given the obvious choice of hostels. With the accommodation matter completed, it was time to feel the vibe of the fest. The mess would serve as the first stop and for a change; we had no complaints with that. IIM or not, we soon realized we were still in India as the dramatics event began a couple of hours late due to technical snags.

NIT Trichy started off on a serious note with couple of monologues dealing with riots but it was SVCE Chennai that caught people's attention with their loose script that paid tribute to Scar face as the cast uttered the four letter expletive over forty times in the play along with other unprintable material. But it was a spectacular performance by Lady Shriram College from Delhi doing "Tara" a Mahesh Dattani play that not only won the coveted prize but also won a number of admirers from the audience including the role of the bugging female whose job was to get on everyone's nerves in a cute way.

By the end of the dramatics event, it was mid day and one would expect UNMAAD to be bustling with life but it wasn't so. Day One pretty much seemed like it was day zero in other fests as tents were being put up, stalls were still getting set up and they was barely enough crowd which even the PETA guys would agree too though the INOX female seemed to be attracting a bit of a crowd with her heavy accent and goodies. This was when I could grab a moment with the guy at the JAM stall and hence the picture to show you that JAM was there.

Meanwhile prelims for Mr. and Ms. UNMAAD were on and the questionnaire did set people thinking. Here are a few for you (hopefully am not infringing any copyright violations) :

1) Who would rather kiss - a crocodile or a bear and why?
2) You could take three things with you to a deserted island. They would be?
3) What would you do if you were invisible for a day?
4) What is the one crime you would commit if you wouldn't be caught for it?

Got any whacky answers for these? We'd sure love to hear them. The highlight of the day would no doubt be the "B School of Rock" concert with our "chethas" from Motherjane and the renowned Zero performing to an audience that understood that the truest form of respect to such artistes is to head bang to them. I wouldn't say the atmosphere was electric, but the crowds loved every bit of it and both bands lived upto their reputations especially when they played a few regular covers that every novice rock fan could also join in. The sun may have set but that's when you realize life at IIM begins at night as people gathered around for AMROCK- the upstart band showdown and the enthusiasm from the rock show spilt over especially with people high on spirits.

Low profile compared to the undergraduate festivals I have seen but the money pulled in by corporate sources had been well spent and the whole festival had a larger than life image around it.

Day 2 and Day 3

Rise and shine and all the literary event prelims had begun along with numerous other events. I was woken up by couple of damsels dressed in the Ms. Unmaad T-shirt wondering if I could help them with their scavenger hunt. I so wish I could have but as luck could have it, I travel light on trips. Turns out they had numerous odd tasks like finding a Pizza Corner menu, Bacardi Breezer bottle to selling their own paintings for over INR 100. While the guys and girls in white ran around the campus looking for odds and ends, the street play had begun in one of the central lawns. Here again, it was the Delhi colleges that stole the thunder though there were a couple of good performances by local colleges including JNC, Bangalore.

Along the lines of street play was the movie spoof and this was one of the biggest crowd pulling event after the pro shows. IIM B had their fundae right as they won second place with a very witty script that got the audience thinking before they got the jokes. The winning college from Pune, BBUCOE won the coveted first place with their take on "Kabhi Goli Kabhi Bum" which was hilariously in your face funny and evoked the most laughter amongst the audience. Though the critic of the day award should go to the cute kid next to me who on seeing a banner on stage "Bakwaas Productions presents" quipped "Bakwaas hai to dikha kyu rahe hai?" had even the judges sniggering on that one.

Intermittent with the two dramatics events were the corporate events including mad ads that had working professionals forget their work for a day and get into the college mode and kudos to them for showing more enthusiasm than the students around them as they joked and made merry throughout the event especially during the twenty minute wait before the results were announced where the teams pulled each others legs in a jovial manner till the scorers returned.

The Western Acoustics/ A capella competition is a novelty as very few festivals around India seem to have this event where you do get to hear lot of interesting music. While WASABI stood apart with their performance and uniform, it was Christ College's own composition 'All I got' with its fusion touch that really bowled me over and am guessing the same with the judges who handed them the first place.

The dance workshop was another crowd puller as individual entries were allowed and Cupid wanted some action. Girls were asked to remove one shoe into a pile so the guys could pick them up and get automatically paired. The rush to get the fairest ladies' shoes would have put our politicians fighting for seats to shame. A comic relief for the audience as pairs of left feet landed on the dance floor, the end of the dance workshop saw couples strutting around with confidence and a glow of a job well done.

Soon the sun descended implying the start of a new day at IIM as the campus had people pouring in for the Unity concert featuring Pakistani band Strings and Indian band Mrigya. Strings lived up to its reputation and added some entertainment when they batted away a few autographed balls into the audience. Unfortunately for me, they aren't too good with slogging towards deep mid wicket. But it just wasn't Mrigya's day as most people started heading off since their music was floating throughout the campus and their onstage presence didn't seem to capture the audience unlike Strings. Karaoke night was the midnight warm up as random people could go up and sing from the list of songs available along with their lyrics. The real party started soon with the War of the DJs which turned the courtyard into an instant dance floor as crowds poured in to dance the night away. Few folks in highly debilitated state provided comic relief with their dance steps but took it a step forward with their mouth to mouth contact raising a lot of "yewwss" around them. Time flew by and it was early morning when the organizers decided to call it a night. The Final day was packed with the grandiose events like choreo, freestyle and the fashion show. A wonderful display of synchronization and color along with beauty saw charming ladies and handsome hunks steal the thunder along with foot tapping music keeping the audience on its toes.

UNMAAD wasn't as big as the hype surrounding it, but it was one huge blast where you seemed to see familiar faces within a day or two and felt pretty homely amongst the bold, the brainy and the beautiful. A thumbs up to this event though I'd expect to see more than the 700 plus competitors who turned up this time.

The White Hats are coming...

2008-03-04T19:07:00.003+03:00

While I slog away for the next edition of Vortex as Chairman, I found my contribution to the souvenir in Vortex 2006. The theme that year was Information Security. The best part about this poem is I wrote it during my lab commented between my code

In a world of ones and zeroes,
There always exist a set of anti-heroes.
Hacking, cracking, spoofing and other heinous crimes
Information security is worth spending all your dimes.

The Digital world ain't about good and bad,
Its being smart enough to realise security isnt a fad.
The Black Hats are swarming the networks
Every node and packet, danger lurks.

Masters of Deception, Cult of the dead cow and Legion of Doom,
Names like that don't leave much to assume.
Considered as elite hacking forces,
No one said, "e-life is a bed of roses".

Viruses, Trojans, back doors seemingly disappeared
IDS is something script kiddies have always feared.
Quantum Cryptography keeps you securely wired,
Cryptanalysis experts are hands down tired.

Hexes and crux wont win you over time
Just so I can go about with my humble rhyme
"CIA" forms the basis of Information Security-
Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability.

Information Security may come at a cost
Crime may get sophisticated, but all isnt lost.
Shibboleth, Kerberos, TRANSEC emphasize security
The search is on to prevent computers' infidelity.

Like yin and yang, there remains a balance
The call of the White Hats is open to display your talents.

*A white hat hacker is, in the realm of information technology, a person who is ethically opposed to the abuse of computer systems.

Planet of the Bovines

2008-03-04T18:37:00.002+03:00

This I guess would be my last article for the college fest newsletter PIRATE RADIO. After a couple of reviews from people, a warning to all readers - read it twice because there is a deeper and lighter meaning to all thats written down here

Star Date -315160.06
Starship Welltr

Continuing on our quest to go where no Klingonian has gone before, we have reached a planetary system around this huge blob of glowing fire like substance. Lt. Comman-Deer Sawh Wrong, a product of Institute of Intergalactic Travel, believes his scanners have sensed the possibility of life on the sixth major rock in this system, just two away from the glowing blob. Sensing adventure, we have sent Kaapitan Kuhl Kahl along with a team down to this rock.

Star Date -315132.45
Tai-Chi

Kaapitan Kuhl Kahl has reklingonised his galaxy as the Milky Way (continuing with his fetish for white). Following is the report the Synthesizer beamed up from its landing spot.

------ Compact Extra-Terrestrial Extractor and Space Archive Translator ----

Place of origin: Tai - Chi
Types of Life Forms: 2500 and counting

Based on what we have seen, there are basically two types of life forms civilized and uncivilized. We have decided to focus our observations on the civilized life forms.

They have a rigid hierarchy and no one steps out of the line, yet they seem to thrive in unity and collective responsibility. Agriculture seems to be the main occupation and they have forms of mechanization and domesticated animals. The high society seems to be loitering around, keeping an eye on things and tasting the produce, while the domesticated livestock is used for digging holes, operating mechanized thrashers and numerous other devices we cannot relate to. But they have a set pattern are herded into watering holes three times a day, kept locked up in this humongous shed like structures as night falls and pushed back to work next day morning. We have also noticed a system of taxation as these livestock give a part of their daily produce to their four legged masters and otherwise tend to stay away from their sight. A sense of fear can be felt amongst the livestock as they always keep the right of passage to their masters whenever such a situation arises. This reminds us of the era of the great Jupiter Scissors and his empire that had the citizens living life of gay abandon and the workers treated like animals.
------------------------------------- ----------------------------- --------------------------------

"Beam me up Scottie, Beam me up Scottie .. noooooo"

Star Date -313132.45
Starship Arbitra

Majora Semma has barely recovered from the shock after the patrol under KKK was brutally attacked by the soldiers of the regime. These trained warriors have been genetically modified to have the ability to grow sharp weapons that can penetrate through Klingon skin. We unfortunately lost all other documentation as the brutal dictatorship disallows freedom of press and had their team from censor board remove all trace of any documentation our synthesizer printed, and a similar case with the synthesizer itself.

Maybe this dictatorial brutality arises from the need to keep the two legged livestock in check. Note to HQ: The Brutal Bovines will be a force to reckon with soon on the intergalactic highway.

[Background score: Rhythm Bovine]

- NITTWIT

* This article is a very NITT-centric article

A rush of blood to the head

2007-12-13T14:15:00.000+03:00

Decided to Check out the hype with the blog readibility test.

According to the site, the title reads this

THE BLOG READABILITY (They spelt it as readibility) TEST
What level of education is required to understand your blog?

Type in your url and blam! the results are out. The mechanism hasnt been explained at all. So decided to do some fishing around and find out if anyone else had come across a suitable method for its working.

Most people think its got to do with the content that they have. I doubt it, its highly improbable that someone has developed an artificial intelligence system on this and remained so low key. It is a lot of work and deserves due recognition if he/ she has done that. Plus Stephen Hawking site has got an ELEMENTARY GRADE.

Then? Maybe its MS Word style using Flesch- Kincaid Readibility grade level based on the following equation :-

Then it totally makes sense that I get genius level :) Considering how my writing just goes on and on and on against all grammatical limitations.

Considering the speed at which the output is computed and we know for sure its not just random generated because the same content always got the same response, it has to be using some of the above factors since they can be easily computed.

It would also gel with the FOG index and the SMOG index that use pretty much the same factors but with different weight schemes .

Anyways, its a bit of fun :) and if u understand my blog, guess what ! You are a genius to make sense out of it all.

[For people planning to test their sites and put the pic up, my suggestion, copy paste the pic, dont use the link they have given, has one of those spam forward links]

[Thanks to Poornima for spotting this one out]
The Site

Ten Past Ten

2007-12-10T16:46:00.000+03:00

Deja Vu! Months gone by and I finally get myself to look at the blank white screen waiting for me to jot down my thoughts. I could write my daily diary here but that’s not what blogging is for. Blogging is about expressing your feelings, your thought process to the outside world, a glimpse of the cogs that work in your brain. More than the outside world, I find blogging a chance for me to understand myself. I have been humbled to know there are people who actually spend time on my blog and look forward for me to wield my pen again and in a way that’s a driving force :) But I still cannot go against my principle never writing for the sake of writing. As my roommate Subbu's poster reads "I can, but I won't" - pretty much underlines my stance here.

One of the major factors contributing to my dismal record of updates on this page can be attributed to time. A very peculiar one it is, this thing called time and all the notions surrounding it. We have scenarios of countries fighting over land, and now oil and soon water and cycle back to high lands in a few years time, but can we have a scenario of a battle for time?!! Maybe physicists do break through, mathematicians learn to move the coordinates in the fourth dimension [refer TESSERACT], notions of the world will be changed. From kids nagging their parents for a "dinosaur" ride to history of art students doing their summer internship with Leonardo Da Vinci. America taking on the terror being unleashed by Genghis Khan and numerous more what-ifs and what-if-nots are possible left to the readers’ imagination.

Obviously, with human rat-like nature, this scenario is just a dream, if we do end up with time travel, am sure it’d have been abused ample of times before the common man even gets to hear about it. Maybe a top secret organization would reverse time every time a fugitive got away or bad political moves would whitewashed from human memory. I remember this forward I got years ago defining the value of time:-

(Just trying to recollect what it was, so cooked up some on my own)

"The importance of a milli second, ask a silver medallist"

"The importance of a second, ask a crash survivor"

"The importance of a minute, ask someone who just missed their bus"

"The importance of an hour, ask an examinee"

"The importance of a day, ask a dying man"

"The importance of a month, ask the mother of a premature baby"

"The importance of a year, ask someone who flunked school"

and then I’d finish it off with my line

"The importance of eternity, ask me for waiting for a friend like you”

Men have dreamt of fame, fortune for years but rarely have they valued time till they ran short of it. We often throw away our present for the uncertainty of the future and yet crib in the end that maybe actions in the past would have guaranteed an even better future. Eternalists might disagree with me, stating that time is stateless and we humans are the ones who place these boundaries of the past, present and future but since we have placed it, I’ll conform to those limitations in this piece.

We have heard of companies splashing money on time management modules, folks getting personal secretaries to keep their life in order [in lot of ways], and yet when it comes to the individual you and individual me, we don’t seem to value it. Meetings called for at eighteen hundred hours never seem to have enough people till eighteen hundred and thirty. Being fashionably late is the “in” thing at least on page 3 of my newspaper and it has become so commonplace; organizers get shocked when people turn up on time. The government sector has always been known for its tardiness and its in house joke of punctuality being arriving 5 minutes before your boss. Don’t people realize the gravity of such callousness? Assume a counter clerk were to come in 15 minutes late. Ten people waiting for him, adds up to 150 minutes being wasted! And who knows if these 10 people have 10 other appointments that get delayed. We are talking about a major crunch up in time resources. The worst part is this hypothetical situation is a more optimal realistic scenario and things can get even worse.

Talking about time, well, its just manifestation of time itself, goes on and on.

Once upon a time,

Not usually the way you start a rhyme.

But that’s what poetic licenses are for

To have Wren and Martin in furor

Ever spent time looking at your watch?

Ever spent thought on every tick you hear?

Listen up close to what it has to say,

You are a step closer to your future.

Truly said that time and tide went for none

To lose against the clock is hope’s demise

But remember O men of the wise homo erectus

Even a broken clock shows the right time twice.

Men waste away their youth for gold and glory

Fighting it out with nail and tooth.

Then peacefully they crib in old age

Throwing away gold to regain their youth.

Like a river from its source

Speeding on rapids, meandering on plains

Time has traveled for miles and miles

Healing the human body and its pains.

Look up into the twinkling night sky

Millions of stars shining bright

Most of them have lost their will to survive

Yet in their death, they shower us with light.

Time has been running from the dawn of mankind

Shall remain running after our twilight and beyond

Her mysteries keep alluring us yet keep eluding us

Hidden by the swerve of her lyrical wand.

ps: Ten past ten was the chosen time for watches in ads not coz Lincoln died at that time but purely for aesthetic appeal as the logo of the maker can be showcased properly and it looks like a smiley :)

The Supreme Being Teaches Spider-Man How To Be In Love and Raimi How To Make Hindi Movies

2007-05-15T12:20:00.000+03:00

Beyond doubt, the largest movie industry in the world is Bollywood.. in terms of quantity. For quality, i'd say look elsewhere. The largest English speaking audience that lies untapped is no doubt

in the Indian subcontinent. So what is the best way to get your trumps right the third time? Outsource your comic book hero to India. No, this isn't about Pavitr Prabhakar in his dhotis and his

lady love Meera Jain in the suburbs of Mumbai but it is our very own international star Peter Parker dancing to the tunes of an Indian ghost director [My "sixth sense" KKKKolloborates with

anonymous sources] in Spider Man III. Before I recklessly criticise, the humour department has done a lovely job in subtle shades of comic relief, so no complaints there. Now where was I ?

What defines a Hindi movie? You need melodrama, tears, songs, action sequences, illogical reasoning, sterotyped anticlimax and voila you have a hindi movie? Would SMIII get certified

Bollywood? Lets find out. I still can't get over the fact that it costs BD 3 for a movie ticket (I mentally convert it to Rs 300 approx!!! ouch!!!!) Its so much cheaper when u convert stuff over

there to dinars and feel assured you are not wasting cash :)

The movie starts off with how Spiderman lives in UTOPIA of his own, everything going for him. NYC loves him, Mary Jane is on Broadway and he is ready to marry her. While he and Harry still

dont seem to be on talking terms, Peter has spun his web of intriguing romance around Mary. Usual JAB LOVE HUA material.

Kurkure time and its kahaani mein twist.

Since Koi Mil Gaya is our only sci fi movie, its the one that gets the tribute with alive version of Hershey s Chocolate sauce [yuuuuummmmmm] falls out from a meteorite [coincidentally Peter

thinks its from Mars (which btw is a certified non vegetarian chocolate as announced recently by its bosses)] and decides Peter aka Krish is the chosen one and follows him through. Then again

maybe Chandramukhi ['93 Salman Sridevi starrer] could have been an inspiration though with negative shades.

Then we have our best friends turned foes pick up a fight and the good ol rope trip does the trick :) for Spider Man to win though the Hindi sentiments rush in when he finds Harry lying outcold

on the street and rushes him to hospital. [Thank God Raimi is just learning and missed out on the bawling music usually played when a near and dear one is rushed to the hospital] All that hard

hitting action, and apna Harry is suffering from short term memory loss leading to him becoming buddies with Peter again and the movie climax is given away with the dialogue- "I would give my

life for them [Peter and MJ]."

Villain One: Marko Flint makes an entry and the emotional good guy stuck with bad luck melodrama pops up as we find out he doing all this just for his terminally ill daughter and his desperation

leading to crime [Innumerable hindi movies have used this theme] and potential murder of Uncle Ben. Yup, it wasnt that freaky hairstyle dude Spidey banged up before in an abandoned building

up this new character who killed Uncle Ben. NYPD shows its CBI style efficiency in finding this out within 2 years. How he became sandman by ending up into a silicon chamber in a physics

institute is jus a random afterthought in the movie.

Whats a Hindi movie without songs and tears? Reminiscent of DCH and "woh ladki hai kahaan" , you have MJ well trying at the opera and her love PP watching and singing along. Obviously the

reviews of her performance are horrendous and shes all broken to find Peter gets more self centred as he tries to help her. Right from the hero to the villain, everyone sheds a tear thanks to

Sam Raimi providing a cheer for the glycerine industry who can now challenge Ekta Kapoor with bigger clientele offers.

Another instance of comic fluency as a wild crane wreaks havoc but Spidey rescues Gwen, Eddie s gal (Eddie is this freelance photographer fighting for Parkers job at Daily Bugle). Gwen also

turns out to be Parker's lab partner [Yes, he still is a geek and all you engineers out there, there is a MJ for all of us ;) if not Gwen] How is the World always a small place in movies?

Another creepy little doubt, [no Murphy, the limelights not on you] when "X" number of things are required to give you hope, why do all X things go bad at the same synchronised moment?

Gwen also turns out to be police commissioner s daughter[World = NYC is a small place] so our hero is going to get the key to the city for saving her life. The "pati, patni and woh" angle pops in

as he gives Gwen the special upside down kiss reserved for MJ. Rifts in love have begun. MJ's dilemma - Highly successful partner who doesnt understand her while she undergoes career crisis.

Meanwhile KYUNKI AUNT BHI KABHI LOVER THI, Peter Parker gets advice and the sentimental "ghar ki amaanat" ring to make MJ feel special when he asked her out. But being a Bollywood

movie, how can love blossom so easily? You need a vamp, Gwen takes care of that by situation, not by character. So MJ has to find Harry aka Emraan Hashmi arms [who suddenly remembered he

had to avenge his father's death] and our next dance sequence fitted in just for the sake of it.

EMOTION OVERDOSE: Hit a superhero hard at his soft spot. Kasautii Zindagi kay? Idea?!! MJ, if you love Parker so much and want him to live, break up with him!! Richter Scale hits
9.5 as Peter Parker breaks down making the dark side and the gooey stuff take him over with a sleek black costume and he becomes cooler in his own eyes and Johnny Lever in ours.

He goes berserk with his agression leading to two subplots. Eddie had his whole life dependent on one thing and Parker spoilt that. Villain No. 2 has a motive :) His attitude leads MJ ask the

zillion dollar question, " Who are you? [Tumhe kya hogaya. Main tumhe nahi jaanti]" and his transition is met at Church with BELLS tolling [The Almighty! No hindi movie can have good beat the

evil against all odds without him brought into the perspective- every director's answer to all things impossible] where he becomes the friendly neighbourhood spiderman and VENOM makes his

entry.

Illogical coincidences and everything is a coincidence always:-
Millions and millions of taxis in NYC but Mary Jane would obviously choose the one Eddie was driving so the plot could continue. And we reach our anticlimax :) 2 villains, one heroine. Hero tries

standing up to the occasion but he is mercilessly clobbered. Again, if things have to go wrong, all of them go wrong at the same time. But do I hear Sholay? Yes, Junior Goblin decides to save the

day for his best friends and in the end comes in the way when Venom tries to kill Spiderman. How Venom is finished off is a very very dry way to finish such an important Spiderman character,
Under the Bollywod scriptwriters rulebook, climaxes should follow certain guidelines:
1) Hero in tight spot as his love is in threatened position [MJ hangs on for her life literally while Sandman pounds Spidey]
2) Destiny takes a turn and plot has a twist dependent on overall storyline [Friendship- Osbourne Jnr makes an entry]
3) A near and dear one of the hero should get fatally wounded in trying to save hero [Harry in the name of friendship sacrifices his life]
4) Hero beats all and overpowers villain [Obvious!!!!]
5) Alls well that ends well and they live happily ever after. [Need I say more]

All said and done, Sam has done a decent job at his first foray into Bollywood and Karan has competition!!

Rise Phoenix Rise

2007-05-12T19:04:00.000+03:00

Yup! It’s the same old white virtual blank sheet greeting me like always except this time ALT+F4 is fighting a losing battle. The previous posted blog was centuries ago, that’s mainly because talks with me and God about a 36 hour day fell apart and other priorities caught up. Now that I am home sweet home just in the nick of 12^th May J , I finally decided to do what I should have been doing regularly. Let bygones be bygones. Doesn’t mean I am going to fill you in with did I brush my teeth, or the fact that the newspaper is still 72 pages or that opera singer still practices in the opposite building. Nor are blogs just a place to dump the forwards you get. Why call it a blog if you are just going through a compilation of forwarded forwards that have been roaming the cyber galaxies long before you surfed on it. The previous warranted outburst was at the top rankers at the ibibo contest. When I went through few of the top entries- it made me cry at how farcical blogging had been made by them. It wasn’t about quality blogs, it was …. [Non printable words only seem to fill that place up] Though I rather blame the framing of the criterion by those guys since I can’t blame the top rankers- they are just playing the game within the rules.

Blogging as I always thought was a way to express your thoughts on whatever you felt like expressing, not what others would think you want to express. That pretty much doesn’t give anyone including me any right to criticize anyone if even their blog is just an arbit collection of voyeuristic photographs. After all, the person is just expressing his thoughts. But the surprising fact remains that these are fast growing “blogs” and the massive male audience keeps on “coming” faster and faster for such “blogs”. [Still can’t get myself to certify them as blogs, hence the double quotes]

Though the definition of blogging has been so abstract, anyone and everyone who puts up a page on the internet with a morsel of information can say he/she blogs. So I rest my case. Moving on to more mundane things like ones birthday and I am done with that too pretty much. I know I would sound like the oddest person on planet Earth to have celebrated my birthday having done nothing except lazing around, but being in my shoes, you’d understand that it in itself is a great thing. But before I close this chapter of becoming 21, I have to thank each one of you for messaging me, scrapping me, texting me, chatting up and calling up to wish me. Means a lot to me when you take that effort even it isn’t much. Back to moving on to 21, once upon this number meant significance, guess 18 has taken over that domain and from 18 onwards it’s the same phase till you get done with your undergrad or so I think. Shall find out in a years time!!

Not a crisp blog at all, I know. But my rustiness needed to be flushed out of the system and what better day to choose than your birthday to have a brand new start. So, let us term this post as a wake up call for me to get back to do the write thing :) once I remember my password i.e.

Ps: sorry about the delay in getting back to all those who had dropped in your comments.

Sweet Child o' mine

2006-06-14T16:48:00.000+03:00

"Blog my baaaaby on your desktop
wheeen the work grows, the writing will stop
Down will come baby, updates and all..."

[music fades out]

Used to have a similar worded poem in nursery, I guess, though don't remember the wordings :). I know this place has been real silent, and nope, it ain't the silence before the storm, its plain silence. That very "pin drop" silence every teacher aims to attain in her class, but that theory may be possible in theory, real life, like every other science, there is nothing ideal in this real world. "Why" I am busy is one of those mundane things which I fear will make Isaac Asimov's dream come true with a corollary- yup, robots will take over the world, but in the corollary- these robots would be human. And frankly, that’s what is happening. Blame it on the Indian education system, blame it on our own laziness to try things differently, if not do different things, but this world is heading to BOREDOM, the biggest evil since Terrorism. That's why I detest from writing what’s up with me in my blog. You know those types, I got up at 12 today, breakfast was the usual cereal bowl as I caught the news before the school bus came and I had to run for it... Blah blah... Routine!! A flowchart, a static algorithm that works day in and day out.

Humans! from Gods' [ the apostrophe is VERY controversial, I know!!! ] own factory, mass produced with equation based on time so no batch is similar, unless of course once in a while , battery runs out and by the time "Almighty" changes, twins are born.

Back in school, had some African laureate write a poem - a father teaching his son the ways of the grown ups. The many faces you have to carry along- happy face, party face, office face etc. How a smile could actually look like a snake baring its fangs, or how good bye meant hope to not see u again. How life was as simple as computers where "what you see is what you get" or "WYSIWYG" for the technically inclined.

I was 18, I thought, “is this how you feel grown up?” having broken past the legal limit of adolescence. Then again, I had just got out of school and looking bewildered. School life was competitive but in the real world, it was nothing. All the so called politics in school was mere Childs play. That was when I entered college, and realized school was no example of the real world. 2 years down the line in college, and as I enter the corporate world, suddenly college seems like such a secure zone. Morale of the story: - The seriousness of your present worries is inversely proportional to the time frame from it. You'll just laugh at them in a few years time while you contemplate new so called worries. Again, mechanical cycle of life. It is a fixed routine.

What actually sparked this all was watching “Fanaa” last night :). Boring love story some may call, but I have stopped watching movies from a spectator's point of view. It gets more interesting when you try to be a part of the scene or sit from a director's point of view. Then you'd realize the true worth of the movie or maybe that’s what is called critic's point of view. There was this particular scene when this kid coerces Aamir to drink the "Haldi" milk and tells him drinking it is the only option, since other escape routes have been tried and tested. Throughout the movie, the director uses this kid to show the stark reality, frankness which none of the senior actors in their roles were allowed to do.

An easier example can be Emperor's new clothes - a small story we had as kids. It was on how two goons fool the king into believing that the cloth they have can be seen only by smart people or something, and no one wanting to act dumb said they could see it. It was a small kid who opened his mouth to tell the truth. What is it that they have that we don't???

Innocence – That is one thing that money can’t buy. Love- yes! Well, love for money itself is a type of love. But innocence in the sense I am talking about, cannot be bought. The day you know the meaning of innocence- you have lost it. That is why, we love kids, and they have this quality none of us have, though we all cherish it. This is the true fountain of youth, not mere physical grace that man is in search of.

We cherish our friendships from when we were kids with guys and girls alike. Again because it was innocent friendship. It is seemingly so tough for that these days, because every time you meet someone, the thought on everyone’s mind is “Is this the one?”, if it sours a bit, then they become friends but the first thing is will she/ he? Or if a friendship progresses well, the same question pops up, is this the one! Expectations increase and stark critical eye comes into focus and the friendship also sours in the process.

I used to laugh at the concepts I used to hear on TV, only to realize these things happen in real life. Fact is truly stranger than fiction. When people talk of the beauty within, not the exterior, they aren’t talking about your physical and mental beauty, they want to see the real you with the red tape of society that has bounded you.

My birthday gift? I ask – “GIVE ME BACK MY INNOCENCE!!!” World was much more colourful in black and white than in grey.

Another Brick in the Wall

2006-05-17T00:28:00.000+03:00

“So, Shah, what plans after BTech?” well... I am planning to write CAT, but now have reservations about it [pun intended]… Thanks to a man known as Arjun Singh, out to win his party another term in power, thanks to so called minority of OBCs. I doubt they are minority, otherwise vote bank politics wouldn’t be such a big issue. The census of India says they are 200,000,000 of that category approximately. On the same note is the medical college scenario!!! These are those men and women, on whom our lives will depend! How can someone who isn’t cut out to be a doctor be made one. Unless of course, this all is a scheme of bigger things. A free mason society in India itself!!! It makes sense. You have poster boy politicians who take the two bit fame and couple of thousand of votes. 50% seats go to people just because they are of a particular caste. God knows how many years he gets to complete the course, out of pity, teachers send him out to become Munnabhai MBBS in real life. Hundreds of such official quarks will help reduce India’s overpopulation problem! The Free Mason society strikes again : ) A meticulous plan to make India a superpower. Thank God, no one thought of doing a Genghis Khan repeat. Seems that guy slept with enough women to make most of us blood relatives. What’s that for Arjun Singh and his cronies? They’d just land up in foreign hospitals where doctors are made of true academic prowess.

Ridiculous! All the freedom rights we speak of equate everyone equal status. If reservation was for the majority open quota people- it would have been racism against OBCs etc, but the present scenario is supposed to be righteous to undo the wrong of centuries. Life truly is taking the form of a sine wave then. If sympathy runs out heavy on us, the opposition will take our cause, if we translate to votes. By the way, youth of today represents approx. 35% [statistics from Census India again], counts a lot for your vote bank, then again we can’t vote till we become 18. So it falls to deaf ears, doesn’t it?

OBCs where shunted out of the limelight 50 years ago, so the rest should be shunted for the next 50? Eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind. [Note: No wonder China isn’t worried about competition from us, we have something called democracy as defined in hindi would be “apne pairo par khulhadi maarna” which they are happy without]

Medical students treated like dogs in Mumbai, Doctors threatened with their jobs? The goons that run our political circus are on a roll. This event has finally put them into natural light, all the political jargon has got them off guard. I have a suggestion! Why give concessions at each step, relaying back to the same point that they suffered. I say, why not give them doctorates directing in their chosen fields. They get the degrees, you get their votes, those who want to study can do so, and we all live happily in our utopia. What say Arjun Singh?

I remember NRI quota was stopped because they couldn’t cope with the course, I say why don’t you give them concessions too! They too due to external factors are not able to get the type of education youth of India get to prepare for graduate and undergraduate programs. Even they have cash like the OBCs who are going to benefit from this actually.

Lok Paritran has the perfect opportunity to take lead in this case and please clean up our politics from such STUPIDITY where logic loses to VOTES!!! And aren’t we to blame, because a true democracy, we voted for these people!!!!

PS. Does Jainism- a minority get a slice of this reservation cake, then I’d have 2^nd thoughts ;-)

Que Sera Sera, Whatever ‘ll be will be

What will the future bring onto me?

A OBC you are, my son

Relax, just have fun.

We are very important political tool

Politika from both sides need us to rule

Our ancestors had suffered a lot

So with sympathy, wealth is what we got.

Munnabhai MBBS, you can be now

Playing carom, you needn’t know how

Education and wealth is taken care

Next step: politics- sounds very fair.

We are our very own lottery ticket

Next stop- reservation in cricket!!!

The British left us ages ago

Their divide & rule policy, we are yet to forego

Politics may cut the country down

May the youth of India paint red the town!!

Stand united, heed fellow friends

Its time to stamp our own trends

Yuva or Rang De Basanti your inspiration

Towards success, Combine thy blood and perspiration!!!

20,000 Leagues above the sea

2006-05-15T13:22:00.000+03:00

Sorry Jules Verne, and no song with that name, incase you were looking for a link. 12^th May? Whats so special apart from the fact Steve Palframan was born- that south African wicket keeper in WC ’96. Rest, just check wikipedia for the day that was…

I remember those Toastmaster speeches were we had this formal intro, body, conclusion part which everyone followed Hitler Style. The fad was start off like a horror story- 31^st February, 1985- it was a dark moonless night…. N through the silence, a cry shattered it all. A baby girl/ boy was born and that was me… By the time my turn came in to speak, everyone had used this funda till it was as ragged as Ali Haider’s purani jeans. Keeping up with my “expect the unexpected “ reputation, I started off the same way, and watched people waiting to yawn. They had taken the bait, mind going into switch off mode. And then, “… a girl was born.” Eyes popped open, yawns stifled… Did shah have a sex change? Unfortunately, tabloids never give you full satisfaction, that intro was for my sister. N brought the speech back on track. The thrill you get outta surprising people keeps you speaking.

Anyways, so 12^th may 2006, celebrating a score of my life, and not THE score. I am still a part of the infamous V gang. My birthday present- a trip back home after a year!!! Good enough. With a gang waiting at the doorsteps of hostel waiting to kickstart my trip back home, with small luxurious breaks to my rear each time the mobile rang. I was off for home. Then again, who gets to celebrate their birthdays in 4 countries, get 2.5 hours extra thanks to time zone difference and at 35,000 feet in the air? [Note: I wasn’t collecting kurkure packets for this. .]

If I was born a day earlier, I’d have ended up as an eccentric genius, following the footsteps of Richard Feynman and Salvador Dali.. India celebrating Pokhran tests or Apache Indian rocking away in the baby crib.

For company, I had the life story of Opal Mehta has Kaavya V. tries to get her to Harvard with success. Home sweet home, pizza from Pizza Hut awaits me J plus a yummy black forest cake.. My day has been made!!! I had forgotten that cakes can have such rich icing, and can actually melt in your mouth.

But I had got my best birthday present – A trip back home J

PS: Last time’s present was my last ever chemistry exam in my life. My chemistry with that subject is another long story shared by millions.

It comes once in a year

Atleast it works out your rear

One a, two a , blow after blow

Sets it red as if aglow.

A year more mature am I

A year less for me to die

Whichever way the glass is full

Having fun is the basic rule.

So enjoy the day while you can

Cakes and pastries don’t earn a ban

It doesn’t happen on every birthday of mine

That I am literarily upon cloud no. 9

The 2 and half hours were extra bonus

Sadly, the immigrations didn’t take the onus.

Made me a ping pong ball in the queue

Ended up doing rounds, quite a few.

Finally I set foot in Bahraini Soil

The coolness of ac making my blood boil.

To be back home on such a day

Grateful to the lord for 12^th May!!!

When Love and Hate Collide

2006-05-06T17:41:00.000+03:00

The third semester marked a new beginning for many. It was the adrenaline rush of entering department after having common classes for first year. Lot of us decided to get our socks pulled up now that we had entered department and a sense of belonging would develop, as we had seen the final year senti. But, being the first proper AIEEE batch meant the department had different things in mind for us. Behold readers! The skeleton outlines of Zero Point Everyone (What not to do at CSE, NIT Trichy). Zooming back to the past, the department lived up to its reputation of being cool. 3 half days in a week!!! This was party time, and over that so many cancelled classes. Dream comes true. Then came the academics, bad acoustics was the reason given for not being able to hear our teachers, we took it in stride. Having done a basic programming in c course in first year with the most complicated program being finding inverse of matrix, we suddenly end up making 3 games using graphics in C for the first week! Our seniors look wonderstruck at the level of our programs; teachers say it’s the same thing she has been giving for the past few years. Seniors say otherwise. After all, these are the people with experience, and we are mere students, we remain mum and continue. How tough is it for someone to forget to switch off their mobile? Not very; and isolated events should be forgotten. Nope, it just turned out to prove we have descended from apes (Heard that before, was it Darwin??) or right from the horse’s mouth: “Your parents sent you here as humans, what has changed you to animals. What will I tell your parents? Even the jungles are more orderly.” {NOTE: During this specific class, there was a crow orchestra outside while a dog snoozed off in the back row of class] He is the experienced revered soul, so we sit mum and continue. Then someone hears a roll number wrong, we are accused of giving proxies! [BTW, The number @ the centre of the controversy was 420] We sit mum and continue. It’s like Murphy was watching us and having his laughs. I guess all those who think Murphy is God are lapping this up. Some blame this on one person’s idiosyncrasies (Onki, am borrowing your description of him). But Murphy was watching us sitting mum and continuing. Then, how would you feel if you go for a class and your sir has a written script from a textbook and even better, he states the fact that “Don’t ask me any doubts, refer the textbook, its clearly mentioned.” Later on, he goes on record to say, “Write all the steps for the sum, but no step marks, and if you don’t write all the steps, no marks.” It sounds like George Bush has competition for the ‘Foot in the mouth’ award. Then again, fuzzy logic is this dude’s specialty. While we have funky programs that have other college compsceez ask us if we are in the same year as them, to binary state marks, it was rock and roll for us. I scored 2.5 in ECD, 1^st ct. I was the 5^th highest in class!! Class average was 0.65. 2^nd ct, class average was 2. Then again, we were beyond his expectations, “we drew Shakeela while he wanted Aishwarya Rai”. He promised 50% supplies, he kept his promise along with pure Tamil expletives that I am better off not uttering.

And so did many more of the faculty to give unprecedented 100 supplies to one class in one Sem, just because we were AIEEE batch, knew too much and were acting as we knew that we knew too much. Sounds one sided. Don’t students get to voice their opinions in this place? Oh yes, our college has a forum for that. It’s called class committee meeting, where faculty and student reps meet up and have a positive discussion on how to improve under the able mediatorship of the chair. We had such a meeting, the mediator was absent. The student representatives were handpicked by the faculty and these 9 sacrificial lambs faced the music while they sat mum and continued. Yes, we had some people who threw tantrums; they apologized but why generalize the punishment on everyone. Why refuse to give us a chance when we had forced ourselves to realize our mistakes that no one was ready to pinpoint. Everyone said we were the worst, but how, why? No one knew the path to redemption. One professor felt 20 names of miscreants were enough to sail everyone else true. But under hardships is unity best upheld, and no compsceez would get their brethren into the deep for no fault of theirs. We kept mum and continued, while different departments lambasted our non-existent egos. The winter of 2005 has ended leaving us out cold with 100 supplies and this summer, while we watch our hostels empty out, we compsceez sit back clearing our backs knowing that the world aint fair but at least through hardships, we seal the bonds of friendship. Here is to the class of 2008, NIT Trichy. Come what evil, I’ll be there for you… (Except becoming class rep for another SEM)

Having entered the dept. outta the blue,

What the future held, we had no clue.

Here we were sitting in the coolest dept of them all

Didn’t know others pride led to our fall.

Text editors, window swappers, games and a lot more

Someone up there wanted us screwed hardcore.

Exam papers with arbid marking schemes

Landed you with binary digits even after writing reams.

Being the first proper AIEEE batch now seemed a taboo

We were this close to expulsion too.

Mass failure, transfer into another institute was on the plate,

Year backs or to companies, about us they would berate.

Only we straightened up, would life go well

But what went wrong, none would tell.

Off the record, we hadn’t misbehaved said each

But we must be rotten coz of the thoughts of others who teach.

What was the reason for the dormant volcanoes to erupt?

Out of the blue, all so abrupt?

Is it the high flying placements students enjoy?

Or the fact students these days are no longer coy?

Answers that will remain unanswered

Coz we know it all, AIEEE inferred.

The answer to what went wrong this BLACK Sem,

All I can say, is no one knows, not even them…

Bittersweet Symphony

2006-05-06T16:21:00.000+03:00

Vivek, Immm-possible, you never had a girlfriend? Aren’t you the guy everyone calls Casanova?

Yes, déjà vu… Been there heard that. Get that stuff loads of time. Yes! I am celebrating 20 years of freedom! That’s one thing my experience as a cupid for friends has taught me. Then again every astrologer or saintly person I end up seeing on my India visits have this thing about me being successful and the next sentence saying, beware of girls!!!! God knows if that’s the else clause of an ‘if’ statement, but lets leave out the technicalities. Yes, so why doesn’t Shah have a girl? He is tall, he is dark, he is …. Nah, still have to work on the handsome partJ, but satisfy 2/3^rd of the required qualities of the knight in shining armour. Good enough!

Rule 1 in my textbook: I am too nice to break a girl’s heart.

That doesn’t mean I am going to say yes to you girls for not wanting to break your hearts, but there is something called lesser evil, better give lil hurt now than a bigger one later on. If I can’t give back as much as you can, why risk our friendship. I am ready to give in everything you would want out of that relationship, a shoulder and lot more, except that formal tag. So, a guy who loves befriending girls, flirts with them, hears a couple of ILUs, but doesn’t go out. Hmmm… Don’t they call those types a Casanova? But unlike that categorization, I have a heart. I know how difficult it is to stand up and tell someone you like them, I applaud that courage, and it means a lot to me, but cut out the formal tag, it causes more heartburn than vice versa.

My bonding with girls? This goes a long way back to the prep (aka upper kindergarten). Having struggled with Sharjah govt’s rigid educational policies which indirectly led to May borns like me ending up one year late in CBSE schools, ended up in a O’ level school. Life seemed okay, though guys wouldn’t talk to me but call me names. They had this hierarchical order where the leader was the boss and I had been given his sitting place in class and so the enmity began. Sounds childish but then we were kids back then. I am then shifted to 1^st grade skipping prep, to be with people my age. Doesn’t work out, Arabic being my woe because this was midway through the year and people had moved on to words while I didn’t even know the alphabets, lands me back to prep. Boycotted by the boys, the only people who talked to me apart from my senior friends were the girls in class. Must be sympathy vote but it counted. Heard that “no man is an island” years later. That leader dude left next year and the guys suddenly started talking to me, and in a few years time we were the best of friends. Though they still don’t know what got into them for not talking to me except the brainwash their cool leader had given them. That mystery won’t get solved, but I know I had an entire gender to thank for giving company to a lonely newcomer to school. That’s past memory lane.

So hormones kick in and I am straight, but why no girlfriend? I have one answer, I believe in girl friends rather than girlfriends. Or in other words, have to meet someone who can blow me away : ) Till then, I’ll be your best friend and everything else as long as you don’t give it a formal tag. Ain’t no robot but I ain’t into Hallmark plastic love stories.

Rule 2: Let her make the first move.

They speak of equality, I am cool with that, but equality everywhere, from making first move, to keeping buffet tables open to all, because the ladies always finish the salad before the guys can make it. I am a guy who thinks a lot, so unless you make an obvious first moves, I am going to act blank because I have a wild imagination, and can’t let it make assumptions in the real world : ) So I keep them all stuffed up, until the other person makes the first moves, so then I can think about it. Makes life so much more simpler rather than destroying flowers with the “She loves me, loves me not” syndrome.

And yes, I haven’t closed the door on anyone, coz like SRK in DTPH or any of those candyfloss Hindi movies, I know the cupid would come knocking in any shape and size, though it would be great if it was 6 feet, Russian and played tennis or/and a supermodel.

Oh, and arranged marriages isn’t an archaic idea is it? Coz I heard gujju girls rock J though my tryst with bharatmatrimony started off too early. Some Vivek Shah out there decided to fill in my yahoo id and voila, a couple of girls are already interested in nuptials!!! I still want to see their faces when I replied back I was in 10^th grade!!

The cupid strikes his arrows like a machine gun

Waiting for me to take the bait and watch the fun.

Heartless notch earning Casanova I aint,

Nor am I a mala japofying Godly saint.

The right one will come knocking at my doors

Wouldn’t mind if she was from the Corrs

Wanna timepass with me,

Will do so with glee

But tell me beforehand

Or watch our friendship buried in sand

Want a shoulder to support you

With great camaderie, that I shall do

And yeah, live with the fact

That I follow a frank & diplomatic tact

So take it on the face value what I say

Though sarcasm is also my usual way

So the thumb rule to follow around me

I wouldn’t even hurt my enemy,

Don’t give me not so obvious signs

They are worse than hidden landmines.

But it aint all cotton candy in there

Devil too has his share J

So good and naughty like yin and yang

Let our relationship rock on with a BIG BANG!

Enter Sandman

2006-05-06T15:37:00.000+03:00

A speeding car screeches to a halt. The dust settles and the door opens. Focus on a long pair of legs wearing patent shoes. The music tempo picks up. That Is a movie style entry. But then this is just a blog, so cutting the melodrama, B@Dshah is here. After loads of requests and queries, I finally decided to jump onto the bandwagon of people who believe their thoughts should be heard by the outside world. I don’t know if I care for the outside world reads what I read, writing is a brilliant alternative for me for the lack of a best friend. Its like seeing myself from a 2^nd person view and hence find flaws I wouldn’t see as a first person.

Half of you who know me are reading this and having read the title would love to pull my leg to get back at me, because the queue to kill me is too long for you to bear, but let me take your joke away from you. Yes, I know sandman reminds you of that mythical dude who supposedly puts you to bed, so be it, who asked you to read this in the first place? Anyways, my blog titles are gonna be song lyrics atleast at my present fancy.

What to expect in The Shah’s blog ? A frank and diplomatic approach that pretty much characterises me, a trade off between both keeping controversy to the minimal unless ofcourse its harmless. Then again, I seriously wouldn’t plan this out, its best left abstract, that defines me better. The urge to be unique and the pulse of creativity that beats in me, change is the only thing constant. Though, there are numerous questions people ask about Vivek Shah, they might get answered here to my best knowledge. Because I myself am still learning about him, his unpredictability gets to me. Maybe that’s why he remains an interesting character for me.

Why am I finally warped into writing a blog? A long break between exams and the ECD paper, beautiful weather with rainstorms that ruined net lab equipment, and a calm and empty hostel. This seemed idealistic enough for me to start, or in other words, nothing better to do.

Expect a bit of everything, coz spice is the essence of life and a part and parcel of any Indian. Guess the fact that am a Gujarati, born in Kolkata, and brought up in Sharjah and Bahrain, studying in Trichy and home in Bangalore, gives me this opportunity of seeing things in varied shades allowing a spicier version of life. The Global Indian as friends would like to call me having visited atleast 0.05% of the 200 odd UN states.

I’ll cut down on the GRE words too, on public request but seriously, I rarely use them, but guess that rarity also acts as a turn off but can’t help it at times when I get absorbed into unconsciously typing away whatever my brain vomits out. As for those who been expecting my rhyming blogs from the days of spider (our LAN chaat zone) which reeks of unbearable chaat now, well expect an essence of it here too.

B@Dshah

03 May 2006