Lancelot's Take

The Edge

2008-09-26T01:04:00.004+05:30

Of a very very high cliff, with huge waves crashing against the jagged edges of rocks that constitute the base of the cliff.

"The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake."

I realize I have been here for a while, mesmerized by the rhythm, the incessant pounding against an unyielding mass of rock, that offers no hope of getting through or making any headway whatsoever. The kind of hopelessness that leads man to look for alternatives, yet the stubbornness held me captive. Perhaps it was just the lethargic inertia, a refusal to consider alternatives purely out of an unwillingness borne out of a lifetime of believing. Or perhaps it was just the detached, dispassionate state of being where you didn't care whether the next step came out of an inference engine trained over every move ever made or out of a random generator.

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"Nature loves symmetry"- attributed to de Broglie, and perhaps used more as a cliche now than anything else, has been one of those statements that keep popping into my head because I see the truth of it everywhere around me. As much in real things as in those perceived- symmetries in situations, in events, in circumstance. Much as we credit chance, there would appear to be remarkable patterns in chance itself. And while the complexities in parameters for their modeling are entirely beyond what my mind can comprehend, I would still argue for the intuition.

In keeping with above theory, I always believed that dreams- the simple concept, the ones we see at night; not the more elevated ideas of what we want to accomplish- were merely the product of events in our daily lives, a combination of what was running through the mind in direct activity, or occasionally in the subconscious. And then, just when you have them all worked out, fitting a nice linear regression model, along comes the outlier that you would like to believe is the exception to the rule that you just formulated, but deep inside, you know that it will blow your theory apart, if not today, then tomorrow.

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"She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate,
Blaze up"

The embers were covered by a mass of charred cross-striated multi-nucleii tissue, and for the fresh air to penetrate was well nigh impossible. And for every gust that drew a flame, there was an aeon of stifling cardiomyocite production that forced hibernation. A solitary trip down to the vaults- a re-opening of case files, a few sympathetic clucks, some friendly "Elementary!" reproaches, the smell of warm coffee and the rising wisps of smoke blotting out the distressing bleakness of the winter chill, if only for a fleeting moment.

A fleeting moment that was at the same time, an orchestra in full flow, the solitude of the wildest wilderness, the "sanguinity" that destroyed nations, the phlegm of the stoic.

"That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good"

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It was while the mind struggled to decide between believing in the predictability of luck and the supremacy of chance that she walked in. No, out. Walked out. Glided out, in fact, the fleeting hint of a sway in the hips, the sashay oblivious to the eyes that followed every step, leaving in her wake a mind befuddled enough to keep watching her after she had gone. A mind that would talk to her while it watched the rising tide wreck itself against the cliff, rage against the immovable.

For want of a nail

2008-07-22T03:22:00.002+05:30

I never knew what titles to use for posts, and probably never will. I haven't put down any rants in a long time. Not when there was nothing to rant about. Not when there was a lot to rant about. (What now seems like) many years ago, during the rains, there would be these worms that curled up when you touched them. I don't see them anymore, but I feel often like I am curling up. And growing a good, hard shell besides.

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Strange how much comfort there is to be had in old, pleasant memories. Strange how they mean so much, when really, they should mean nothing at all. CCD, sometime in October, 2003; CCD again, sometime in August, 2004- the moments that still to me represent everything I know of happiness, the best moments- and its funny how every person important to me is somehow intertwined in that moment, in the days, hours and minutes leading up to that moment. Enough to make you curl up with or without a blanket in an apartment insufficiently heated, and smile.

**********************************************************
I started this blog sometime in the summer of 2005, I think. That's about 3 years. It's survived long spells of desolation, furiously thrashed out posts, taken the brunt of my emotions softened by the blows that the keys took. Over the years, I realize why it was I started off by blogging anonymously- so that I could be myself, not judged by the smile or the tear; not by the action nor the reaction. Somewhere, the "man is not an island" symptom overpowered the need for anonymity. And, hence, the need to present the emotions and the issues with some degree of care meant that not even the blog knew me as well as I would have hoped.

When I think about it now, it seems the number of people I could hope would react the way I wish people would would be easily counted on a hand with a non-zero number of amputated fingers. And the rest are slowly drifting away. What would I change if I had my way? Nothing. Everything.

**********************************************************
It's alright, it's alright, alright
She moves in mysterious ways
It's alright, it's alright, alright
She moves in mysterious ways
Ah...ah...ah...

Johnny take a dive with your sister in the rain
Let her talk about the things you can't explain
To touch is to heal
To hurt is to steal
If you wanna kiss the sky
Better learn how to kneel
On your knees boy!

:-)
Sanam, teri kasam!
;-)

liberty mutual

2008-02-19T01:05:00.003+05:30

I have never felt alone. Nor troubled. Being away from home has never been hard. Nor has missing those "occasions", those marriages in the family, those births, those birthdays, those moments of laughter. A trip across the oceans was not hard.

******************6/27/07**************************
F1: wen r u leaving?

me: in 3 hours from home

and in 6 hours from kolkata

F1: ah ok

flight plan?

me: :) philadelphia by flight

pittsburgh is final stop

F1: wokay

u happy?

must be...

************************************************
I was. At any rate, then. I wasn't much for emotions or emotional farewells. Matter-of-fact wasn't hard to pull off. I had strong barriers around every emotion, and none of them were free to do what they chose. I don't know where they had come from, I don't know how they had come to be so strongly mine, but I knew while they were there, I was safe.

I don't where I lost them. I don't know where they dissolved, just melted away. I don't know why I believed that people had it in them to be sincere. I don't know why I thought the mountain had a peak I could reach. I don't know why I decided I could be someone I had stopped being many many years back on a cold December evening.

******************6/27/2007****************************
me: for now, yes

thr r some things it means i ll never have

but its too late now

i had to make decisions based on the options then

and i think its the right one

********************************************************

"Where do we go nobody knows...
... Your guess is as good as mine."

I miss knowing I could hop over to the next room and have an hour of meaningless chatter. I miss having bondhu to pop a few bottles at a minute's notice in the middle of the night, and getting drunk. I miss sitting and staring (well, not really, I have done a lot of it recently). I miss... I don't know... everything.

Above all, I miss knowing how it was to feel like I did. Never tired, never doubting. An acceptance of a destiny so sure that it was unshakeable.

Cold

2007-09-19T05:59:00.000+05:30

The temperatures dipped sharply over the weekend, though the Met department said they would go up again. The weather seemed to indicate that they were on the right path. Still, the numbness didn't seem to be decreasing. Perhaps, it was because it wasn't due in entirety to the weather alone.

Over 24 hours after he received the news, the shock seemed to be sinking in. The reaction to the news would have shocked the giver. A few milleniums ago, the forerunner of such news would have had his chopped off. Yet, as unprotected as a glass house in the middle of an avalanche, OB didn't feel any need for protection from the explosion that he expected but which never came. He felt, instead, pangs of concern. Had his old friend not fully comprehended what he had said? Had he expected it all along? He couldn't make any sense of the remarkable stoicism that he saw in front of him and which didn't seem any more affected than it would be by the defeat of Chile to Morocco at a cricket World Cup qualifier. He left, nonplussed.

OF had, indeed, not realized the full import. There are some things in one's life without which existence is merely an illusion. This was such a thing. It was like the saying that hope springs eternal. He found someone claiming that he could no longer keep that faith in front of him. That the last strings of his basic creed had been cut remorselessly off. He laughed. It couldn't be. They didn't know. They couldn't.

He slept well. No bad dreams. Some weird ones, though. An old school friend who abstained as hard as the worst of the drunkers might have gulped down barrels of pressed grapes. He saw him chain smoking... That was a funny dream. Why such a dream? Because it showed the world would no longer be how he knew it? For the first time, he found himself wondering whether it might be true. Surely, surely not.

It was true. A half hour under a cold shower convinced him. He was freezing by then. Maybe the real truths of life are to be found at sub zero temperatures. He still wasn't crying. He didn't know why. Perhaps because he had nothing left to lose anymore. You can't be lost if you aren't looking for anything, can you? He found himself unable to move. To turn on the warm water tap. To move away from under the cold blast. Every ounce of energy seemed to have been drained away.

The strange world scared him now. There was no one to go back to. No one to worship. It was a world strangely devoid of gods, of paradigms, of inspiration, of hope. He laughed. He knew there was only one path to follow. Because he had only one destination and none of the other roads would reach. Maybe they would meet at the checkout counter.

He laughed again.
Hilarious.
As it had always been.
Bang.
It sounded like a thunderclap.
All was well with the world again.

Because death, like love, changes everything.

********************************************************

H walked away from the grave that had no tombstone, no epitaph, which no one would ever come to visit. He didn't know why he had done it. He would never know now. Perhaps, for the good, there is no place. And J was good. Yet, it is the evil that lives after him, the good is interred with his bones.

But every blade of grass knew. Every flower that swayed in the wind knew. Every leaf murmured in sympathy. Every animal mourned in a minute of silence.

It was Autumn, the time to shed, and wait for spring, the time to start anew.

VW mode

2007-08-24T05:19:00.000+05:30

What do you do when you cant think of an appropriate title?
What do you do when you look at someone, like someone, and find that you just dont have it in you anymore?
What do you do when you can take the worst of the mental assaults without batting an eyelid, and yet you are only too aware of a few things, a few things that could tear down those invincible barriers in a few seconds?
What do you do when you stare into the face of something that is your poison and your panacea?
What do you do when all that separates you from everything is infinity?

The ghosts, my friends, lie not in our stars, but in ourselves.
A date.
A name.
A buzz.
A word.
Silence.

Faith does not only move mountains, it creates a few. Immovable. Insurmountable.

As Queen sings, "I've gotta be cool. Relax." Yet the title of the song sums it all up so appropriately. Beyond comprehension. So simply.

It does not help when you have an imagination that is such that nothing is beyond it. One that can conceive every impossibility. One that finds hope in despair, mirth in tragedy, motion in stillness, fluidity in awkwardness. One that can remember thousands of unnecessary details, and not remember to turn on the heater at sub-zero temperatures. And not feel the chill, except from within.

Just when everything was nice and simple, I had to go and see that!

Theres hope yet. Why not, if even the Pirates can hit a hot streak!

Pirate in Pittsburgh

2007-08-10T00:53:00.000+05:30

Have named self after the Pittsburgh baseball team, which, as it turns out, is quite terrible! But they got me hooked to baseball nonetheless. After a match in PNC park against the Astros which the Pirates, as is their wont, lost. But somehow, I just love rooting for the underdog, and they dont come much more un derdog than the Pirates.

Spent an incredible 15 minutes in the walkway connecting Wean and Newell Simon Hall. It was raining tigers and lions out there. All I had was my cell camera, which was not nearly good enough to capture the moment. Sheets of rain blew past, acting as a sort of automatic wiper for the glass i was looking out through. It was 3:15 in the afternoon, which is about when the sun is at its worst. It was pitch dark outside, lighted only by street lamps, and the array of windows that the departments of CMU constitute. The most romantic moment in Pittsburgh so far, which is not saying very much for my social life :) But then it never does!

Had an interesting experience at Subway. I find the stuff too un-spicy. Hence, asked the guy to fix me a footlong that had extra extra hot peppers and hot mustard sauce. Chap stared round-eyed, then gave me one hot pepper with some hot mustard to taste. I said that it was good. He stared some more, then offered a deal: if I could eat a bowl of hot peppers with hot mustard sauce, he would give me the footlong free. That was how I had my free dinner that day :-)

Work's coming along nicely so far. It can be fun, something I never realized while in Kharagpur. Its great to be on your own, and responsible totally for yourself. Classes start in a couple of weeks, but before that is a continental breakfast. Actually, a few of them. I think I shall like this place!

I love my room. Its the awesomest. I think I shall sign off every post with this line!

Amreeka

2007-08-09T07:47:00.000+05:30

"... such a weird place,
such a weird place, such a weird place...."

I don't know whether it's because of the expectations I had of this place, whether it's because I had heard so much about it that I expected it to outdo Helsinki by a few US miles, but the truth is that I am rather disappointed.

Not only does it not come close to matching what I saw of Europe through the microcosm that is Finland, it reminds me rather of India. In fact, if you leave out the fact that its cleaner, and that technology is more in use here, there is little or no difference. Of course, streets and buses aren't as crowded, but America doesn't have to deal with the population density of India. Nonetheless, I'll stick my neck out and make the following comments:

Attractiveness: India comes close! Very close! Surprisingly, Americans are far less conscious about their appearance than I expected. Maybe, its time we learned from the situation that is prevalent here, and ban MacD!!! Kolkata, you were much the wiser in not having embraced MacD as early as some of the other metros did. I don't like it anyway!

*Subway rocks though! A number of non-veg stuff costs less than the veggie patty!

Shopping: India is better! Easier to shop, more accessible locations, more of a buzz... India doesnt force us to own cars in order to be able to shop happily at the best rates, at the best places, so on and so forth! There's something mechanical about the place, something very cultivated which borders on the bizarre!

People: Same comment as above applies. Give rather the strong impression of being of a certain kind that is acceptable to society. When the veneer cracks, the contrast is all the more stark. You wouldn't want to be in this place if you were the straight talking, believing kind. The amount of fine print boggles the mind. Insurance agencies, for instance, are killers. If you haven't seen it, see Sicko and thank your lucky stars that you dont have to fend for yourself in these God-forsaken Bushes that make a jungle.

Fun: For all the above, a lot of this is to be had. There are great facilities and while the going is good, the rosy side is great. Buildings, mostly, are built very well, and one appreciates the finer details. Excellent transport systems make travelling very comfortable.

Weather: Its been bright and sunny, not too hot, and thankfully, not humid. Rains arrive immediately when it gets too hot

Now, then off the shopping list and onto updates. Life's good, I have shifted into my new apartment. Its been done up recently. Had nothing when I moved in, and I have spent hours shopping for stuff. Its slowly starting to seem like home, and I love the way my room is blooming. The first thing I bought was a bookcase, the second a broken chair that I am using as a nightstand, the third a bed, and the last so far- a sort of shelf unit. I love it. I love shopping. As a friend put it, the oestrogen streaks! I am inclined to agree :)

Will post pics when its done! Yo!

A new beginning...

2007-07-22T06:50:00.000+05:30

... after a turbulent end! For the people in Kgp, its the start of another semester, and to be here, so far away, after 8 suc semesters had dominated my life over the last 4 years feels strange. People are shifting rooms, creating wings, welcoming freshers, deciding whether to apply or not- people I know, people who are close to me.

I wrote this before I left for CMU. Its not close to satisfactory, which is why I didn't post it then. I am now because I don't think I could revise it. When you have been so close to something(s), its hard to capture them in words. So...

*********************************
start-title End of an Era end-title

So, back after a long time... and with much to say. I imagine it will be too long for just one post, so I will write as much as I feel like.

Its the end of this road. Almost, anyways. And the beginning of a new one.

However, this post is more about the last few months than the next few, which, as far as I am concerned, can take care of themselves. In keeping with the delusions of grandeur that we indulgently allow ourselves from time to time, the temptation of naming the post what I have was too much to overcome. It hardly is anything more than an end of a phase of my life.

Its almost overwhelming to think that one day I had around me all those people I have spent the major part of the last 4 years with, and the next day they would be in a different city in a different country, miles away. Same too for the people closer home, who have been an integral part of 22 years of existence. A few have already left, farewells have been bid. Its never easy to describe them. Nor am I someone who can describe my own emotions very easily. The journey through Kharagpur has been a roller coaster, and few turns have been as hair-raising as the last few months. The last semester memories, esp the months from April to June are a blur.

It seems just yesterday that I entered the awe-inspiring main building for the counseling session. As a gawky teenager entering IIT, I had a more perfect first year than I could have imagined. Academically, and personally. As was the beginning to my second year. The luck turned for the worse, end of my 3rd semester. The 4th semester seemed like looking up, but both sems 4 n 5 were, in the end, rather below expectations. Sem 6 was when it turned round again, and was followed by the best summer of my life! Helsinki, the early part of sem 7 transformed my life completely. A few crests, fewer troughs, but all enjoyed. Sem 8 and the two months to follow would put everything else in shade totally.

March 2007. The CMU admit had come through, I was on the verge of sending Stonybrook and Adobe the negative, and all attention in Kgp was focussed on the delicate state of the GCs. Soc-cult seemed well beyond Nehru, Sports seemed to be one we would make a mess of once again, and Tech was still too close to call.

The soc-cult challenge was duly mounted with the kind of passion that comes from knowing the chances are slimmer than ever, and it would take every possible stroke of luck to make it count. Tennis started for me, and started well. Unfortunately, it was to end with my first singles defeat in Kgp in inter halls in 2 years (I only played one singles last year :D) and that meant we were out, after having promised so much. Ad design went well, but RP stayed close. End March however, saw the Tech teams race away to the GC and, on the same day, we clinched a coveted Sports GC that Nehru had yearned for for over 2 decades. And, some powerful performances including a "national level" (so the judges said) choreo turned a fading Soc-Cult GC dream into the kind of intoxicating reality we hadn't dared dream of. Suddenly, we had become the first ever hall to complete a GC treble!

Then began the worst phase of my life! A victory procession gone awry meant a DC appearance! The day after the DC appearance was the crazy viva and it was duly followed by two months of, what I can only describe as, trauma. In between though, were far nicer moments- receiving 2 Order of Merit awards: 1 each in Literary and Technology, Best Outgoing Soc-Cult, though I am a little awed when I think of its past recipients, and received a mail confirming financial assistance for my first year at CMU. End-semester exams and the final project presentations were dealt with duly, and the DC returned the expected "not guilty" (:P) verdict. The rest of May passed in a blur. Writing DVDs, trying to meet everyone before they(or I ) left, evenings playing football, treating people, taking treats, it was essentially 4 years of Kgp life in fast forward! And a great time its been to. Cant think of a single regret except a couple of events that happened in February this year, a few more that happened in April; though probably the only ones I'll remember a few years down are the ones that happened in Nov-Dec 2004 (Sem 3) and shouldnt have.

So then. Less than 7 days before I leave for CMU. Would have been happier if the time had passed slower, so that I had managed to absorb the moments better. Was discussing with a friend today about what the strongest memories of Kgp would be, if I ever came back. Too many, really. Of the tennis courts, and the practice sessions with Vishal, the WTGW, DumbC, JAM practices, hong kong bar trips arranged at a moments notice, of walking down schols ave at midnight after doing algo assignments and sms-ing to faraway places, of ice-cream at Veggies after dinner, of Alankar meetings, of CEL, of being scared of deadlines, of the TnP corridors, Illumination, Rangoli, the illumination, treats, inter-halls, an amazing list that will never end. Days whose memories will, in the days to come, fill me with warmth. Those were some of the best days of my life.

It really is a horrible post. Mostly disconnected, essentially unintelligible to people outside fairly close friends. But, such, I guess, is life. Its a lot tougher to talk about things closer to the heart than others. I intended to add stuff about Cal also, but lets not make this worse!

Here's to the batch of 007 ;-) People I shall always remember, moments I shall always cherish, memories that shall never be erased. Thanks a lot guys, for an amazing time.

**********************************************

Well, the USofA is nice. I cant give it a stronger adjective. Frankly, after Helsinki, I am much disappointed. But it has it bright spots, and if the mood seizes me soon, I shall post about it!

The end...

2007-04-26T19:39:00.000+05:30

... is unfortunately not as near as I would have liked. However, I have given my last semester exam in IIT Kharagpur. Just two things remain, one on the 7th and another on an as-yet unspecified date. Yet, they loom large, and for once, I am scared; and yet, when I look around me, there are plenty of people who have more reason to be scared and are not. Thats what scarring does!

Major decisions in my life are about to be made. So here's hoping that, in the long run, they turn out to be the right one, 'coz I must say they will surprise a few people-which is the part I like. The part that I don't like is too elaborate to be described here.

However, to get back to the few good things that are a part of my life, as of today, I spent a very good afternoon writing the Intelligent Systems paper. Sir is easily one of the best professors I have come across, if only because he was able to hold my attention, the span of which is notoriously small. In fact, add French to this course, and you have two in one semester that really held my interest. Thats a rarity, for this place does about everything to kill the few metric ounces of interest you might have in anything.

It rained today. Correction: it poured. While we were taking the IS paper, comfortably ensconced in the air-conditioned Software Lab. With a sprite to boot, courtesy Sir! And through all those walls, the growl of thunder came through. It broke a couple of those large glasses near the roof of the CS dep, helped trees to a lower potential energy position, where they blocked most of the roads, and flung a few cycles around. I could smell the coffee one of the invigilators was having while the storm lashed the building. Made for an amazing environ. Oh, for some slow retro Hindi music, and I could have been in paradise even in this place for a few minutes!

*****************************

Things keep coming round in circles. More stuff I thought were safely locked into cupboards with keys thrown away turned up again. I didn't mind, though. At this moment, the past seems a much nicer place to be.

I can't help wondering though, just how close to the brink I was pushed in the last few weeks, and just how far away from it I am now. I suspect the answer to both is "not far", but I need a crisper definition to this fuzzy set.

Celebrations

2007-04-19T00:27:00.000+05:30

And before I realized it, another year has gone by. Another year, at the end of which I wish more than ever before that you were here with me. But all that is for another time. For the time being, its time to wish you a VERY VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

Well, I am one day late, but such have been the circumstances of late...

**********************************************

You are my fire
The one desire
Believe when I say
I want it that way

But we are two worlds apart
Can't reach to your heart
When you say
That I want it that way

**********************************************

There are moments when words fail us completely. Had a few of those over the last few weeks when so stupefying were the statements that I suddenly found myself without the strength to protest. Reminded me of one such time years back when I had found myself in a similar situation and when you had been there- there to defend me, to back me up. I have missed everyone of those moments over the last couple of years, and time has done little to diminish the intensity of your absence.

Here's hoping you are having a blast wherever you are!

The bold print

2007-02-14T19:02:00.000+05:30

There was a point of time when I used to have a fantastic memory. Over the years, it grew choosier. It now retains exactly what I don't want it to retain, and discards the rest. And it does seem incorrigible. Somehow, those steps on sand that I took have become etched in granite. Steps that draw my eyes towards them. Inexorably. I can't look away, try as I may.

There's something about occasions. Things seem to happen with me. Lightning strikes the same place twice if I am there, and chooses the most ironical moments (perhaps not always by chance) to disclose the twists. There have been points when all I wanted to do was cry. Tears failed me. I cried plenty as a kid, cried when I was not given chocolates, cried when India lost a match, cried when I couldn't solve a problem. Its been a long time since I cried now. And in between have been any number of moments when I have really, really wanted to.

Strong, strong lights guided my steps. Yet, as every step took me further forward, the lights dimmed, to be replaced by new ones that I had no option but to trust. They showed me new directions, newer territories. I could have been a poet. Only I would have added nothing to anything had I been one. Yet I should have been. For, it might have been the only way I could have hoped to express all of this. But then I would have been a Robert Browning seeking his Elizabeth or Yeats who watched as Maud went farther away than he could hope to go.

I am not strong. Not as strong as I would have liked to think. In certain respects. Not so in others. Whether those respects were more important, I shall never know. There have been things I have done- achieved. I can think of at least two moments for which I would trade them all. But then, nobody gave me the option. I would have traded in anything to have been "completely ordinary". Absolutely anything.

But then, as I have discovered, there's always a 'but'. I can't help but subconsciously find myself hoping for it. That might yet change the world.

********************

I have not forgotten it's V-day though! Just some stuff I had to get out. Not felt this way for 2 years and 2 months. For all you folks considerably better off- have a gr888 Valentine's day!

my visual dna

2007-02-13T20:27:00.000+05:30

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

The wasteland...

2006-12-20T07:54:00.000+05:30

"I feel it in my fingers,
I feel it in my toes,
Love is all around me,
And so the feeling grows..."

- Love, Actually

Its almost Christmas, I still keep shuttling between Kgp and Cal, the winters beautiful, my health's almost right again now and work a lot more peaceful. The lines keep humming in my ears. Liberating. Enslaving. Stuck in a moment. Enraptured. Scarred. For life.

"Let's start a brand new story..."

I did. Agatha Christie's "Murder on the Links". Bought at Wheeler at Howrah while waiting for Sri Jagannath Express to take me to Kharagpur. Dont know why. Just felt like those trips we used to take with a couple of books bought at the station. Just felt like it again. Chap didnt have a couple of books I wanted. So stuck with this. Maybe I am too old to read Poirot still. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it. Maybe, I am a kid. [:(] [:(] [:(] [:(]

If....

2006-10-19T13:15:00.000+05:30

...I ever create some kind of opener(e.g. bottle opener, tin opener), I know exactly what I shall name it- Bangkok.

However, in case of copyright etc, I have another option in mind.

Bubbles

2006-10-10T16:25:00.000+05:30

The sky was pitch dark. Not a star to be seen. Etched against that darkness, the moon glowed brighter. A perfect full moon, glowing the perfect hue of amber, like a fire that had burnt out. And the smoldering remains were nothing, if not even more attractive.

He stood watching, mesmerized. A small-ish settlement hove into view. It had, however, one rather large building that naturally attracted his attention. Seemed like a factory of some kind, with quite a few turrets, each of those illuminated by neon lights which bore an uncanny resemblance to the moon's colour. Perhaps, in his ideal land, this is what the place would be like. It would make you stare not because of the extraordinariness of the surroundings, but by a simplicity that transcended the elaborate. He smiled as he turned away, a serene smile, and one that you couldn't quite have made out.

He was thinking of her. What was the one thing he would always associate with her? Her smile? Seeing her from across the street and being mesmerized? The anger that seemed to rest so lightly at the tip of her nose? He reckoned it would probably be none of those, rather it would be her voice. Well, maybe not. Maybe just that one word, "Hello." A word which made him associate a hundred emotions, that seemed to celebrate every moment when the flowers danced and all nature sang. A word which was, at the same time, joyful and apprehensive, concerned and carefree. A word that he would never forget. Or perhaps because there wasnt much else to forget. He would forget none of it, he was sure. It wasnt often that he would feel hit by a tonne of bricks, but this had been one of those days.

It didnt hurt anyway. Those were his last glimpses of a life he had had wanted. Everything was perfect. Except that he hadnt managed to say anything he wanted to. He was gone too far past the line. Not far enough to not come back, but far enough to not risk a failed comeback. He would carry them for ever, and in them seek his inspiration when he needed it. And hope that
he would one day hear the "hello" again, and say more than just "Sorry, wrong number." Walk down that street again. Dream the impossible and convince her. Walk away together. Into a land where nothing mattered, not time, not age.

"Hey, did I tell you I got a haircut?"
"No. You did?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"So you would allow me to serenade you and not worry about whether someone saw you with a hippie or not."
"Shut up. You are just getting carried away."
"Perhaps..."

One day he would have all of the million imagined conversations he had had in real life. She would understand? He didnt know. Maybe he was too young to get into this. Maybe he just needed to let time play out its own game. If it was to happen, it would. or maybe it wouldn't. He had no idea. He needed to follow what he believed in. He could not.

Outside were the paddy fields. Stretching as far as he could see. And a hillock slightly to the left, in the direction from which he had come. They moved on and the scenery changed again. Now it was a river. Wide, but not quite the gushing waters you would expect. They lapped around quietly, the afternoon sun reflecting off them. He smiled again, wondering how much of his ruminations he would ever bring to life, and how much of his new resolve was meant to stay.

There was, he thought, a little bit left.

Then the hungry tide came in and swept it away.

"No saaar, not like that..."

2006-09-23T21:57:00.000+05:30

.
I have spoken so many times in this blog of life going around in cycles. Of how things come to their logical conclusions. Maybe, fitting is a better adjective there. Whatever. It seems to me now that this blog has come the proverbial full circle. When I started off last year with little readership, the purpose was to write as a form of catharsis at a difficult point in my life. Somewhere, it lost that purpose. Now, as I feel like posting again, I realize that, as a result of not having posted for quite a while, the blog has lost the readers!!! And this time round, I am not sure if I am unhappy. I can write for only myself again. It can be whatever I want it to be.

Went trying to learn a bike today ;) Much obliged to Dutta for taking the time (don't tell him or he'll gloat over it all the time now!!!). Was struck by the strange futility of things. Of how we often want something and end up with quite something else. Of how something has a purpose to start off and takes on a new dimension altogether.

Of how generalizing is not as fallacious as everyone seems to think it is. Time after time when I have heard from people debating completely different issues about how dangerous it can be. The logic I understand everytime, but somehow its a precept that has never been borne out in practice. Almost unerringly, the generalization holds. So as to render their complement set the exceptions. People poles apart in terms of background, perspective, ideology and ambition bear out all the theories ever proposed, and also claim that they are exceptions.

All our views, I think, get moulded by circumstance, the company we keep and the incidents we witness. This is what builds our basic credo. Then something happens. We choose to think otherwise. That we may not be right altogether. We let ourselves believe that there is enough credibility in the counter arguments. And choose that path. It does not work. I am yet to figure out if that is because, at some level, our basic beliefs are so deeply rooted that we cannot shake them off so easily or whether its just that there is nothing that describes us completely.

Bottomline: Its a lot simpler if you stick to what you believe in. I pledge that to myself!!!

******************************************************

Mr. Adhikary passed away yesterday. I read it on the DBPC community and it was a huge shock. His standard lines were amazing and the "Chullu Sir" community made for hilarious reading. I have shown it to a lot of my friends in Kgp and it has, by and large, been thoroughly enjoyed. We, and the school, shall miss him thoroughly.

******************************************************

Was discussing today of how sitcom-ish our life is with a friend. The one-liners, the perfect expressions to go with them and the booze to get you in the right mood- all 3 flow. With ease. Between friends sharing the same life, and the camaraderie. Legs are mercilessly pulled, a fleeting image drawn into an entire cartoon strip, dreams dreamt, plans made, songs sung. Another 8-10 months to go. The countdown hasnt begun yet. It will probably start sinking in when the jobs start to come in, the schols start to be granted, and the final phase of treats begin. Four years just sneaked past.

For the moment though, theres just one question to be asked: Wheres the party tonight??

weird pic!!!

2006-09-20T05:56:00.000+05:30

Weird pic tag: Tagged by DD...

All right, I know I have been late on this... but whatever, it was difficult to choose from among all my weird pics... wasnt sure whether to put it on, but i have it on orkut, so i guess its ok...

Others who have completed the tag seem to have developed this habit of explaining how the weird pic came into existence. I have no idea honestly!! It was one of those crazy moments in the wing, when chuchchi wanted to be photographed with the dark glasses, there were tubelight holders strewn around, and I had just returned from a bath, or was going for one(dont rembr which)... neways bottom line pic taken... this beat out competition even from a pic of me on mess top dead to the world...

I dont tag anybody!!! Anybody who wants to can go on and do it...
No wait, I tag rimi, coz she cheated on the first one!!!

musings... on a rainy september morning

2006-09-20T05:50:00.000+05:30

Its 5 30 in the morning... one of those times of day when i have often been up awake. Not because I am an early riser, but because I procrastinate to the extent of leaving so much work to be done that hours like these have to be kept.

Nonetheless, its one of the best times to be awake. To watch the sky get lighter, a red hue spread only to be replaced by a golden one in a few minutes, and then bright sunshine. My window overlooks a green pasture and a railtrack beyond. Its somehow a complete picture. A goods train chugging along at its own serene pace, the sky lightening, birds starting to leave their nests, and me preparing for sleep!!!

It wont be that way today, though. Its been raining since the afternoon. Almost incessantly. But its picked up pace now. And the wind causing the drops to lash against my window.

Just finished watching "The girl next door". Nice movie.

I am posting after a long long time.
No reason really, except the sloth!!!
So much has happened, so much to write about that I wont even try. Returned from Finland, took my GRE, gave the midsems, anticipating the pujos, and trying to stop myself from looking a little farther ahead from there.

I love solitude. i realize that now. I like to be able to think to myself. For myself. Went through the last few chapters of Fountainhead once more in the afternoon. It really is too surreal. But it made me think once more on the lines of a raison-de-etre. Something which has kept cropping up again and again in the recent past. The devil within, so to say. And one I have been fighting desperately against. All the points I have are against. Yet, there is no shred of doubt in my mind as to which way the verdict would lean. I have been grown up on a lavish diet of romantic ideas, books and films to change that myself. All the temperance that I should have ingrained have not managed to dilute, what I think is now, an inherent trait.

"Throughout the centuries, there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was the first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received-hatred..... it will be a victory for something that should win, that moves the world-and never wins acknowledgement.It will vindicate so many who have fallen before you, who have suffered as you shall suffer."

Counting down...

2006-07-14T16:25:00.000+05:30

.
90 hours remain.

It was a dream and it was beautiful while it lasted. The trouble with waking up from some of them is that you don't quite know whether you are awake, or whether you are awake in the dream. I don't quite know either.

I remember a friend telling me once (or maybe he wrote it in his blog sometime) about how vacations had been turning points in my life!!! I had laughed. But then, I got thinking about it, and its strange coz they have been. Even this one. There are some basic creeds that constitute the essence of the person. And then, sometimes, they get shaken. And the person becomes a different one altogether. Or they are re-affirmed and then they become you. Rarely, though, over the course of a vacation has both happened to me. I am never sure if change is for the better, but its probably not for the worse. So, I guess I will owe this one a lot too...

**************

Finland: Beautiful, absolutely dazzling. Of course, it is my first trip outside India and hence, I have nothing to compare it with. But it was amazing. For one, it induced my blog out of the somnolence with three posts, I think, in remarkably quick succession. Then happened to me a bit of coincidence that bordered on the insane. Then, life settled into more regular patterns, and I stopped blogging again :P

So over the two months, cafeterias, lunches, cooking, kayaking, drowning, traveling and making new friends, I had quite a bit of fun. And I learnt a lot. Lessons that this time, I think, I wont forget!!!

People came and went. It was the season for departures when I arrived. Thorben, Marcus, teresita, Sara, Xavi, Constance, Marina, Carol, the whole lot who were there during my first month gradually took the flights back to their home towns. Milica, Vlasta flitted by. Short durations of a month each. They all left indelible impressions, and a much better and clearer understanding into people. Its the one thing I really appreciated about most of them. They are what they are, no twists, subtleties or anything like that. And I will miss them. Not in person perhaps, but in essence. And the fact that we were all people who did not really need each other resulted in a sort of closeness that comes naturally from not having to weigh words, not having to wonder whether or not to say something, not bothering about being judged. I haven't been closer to tears in a long time as when Xavi left, but i think it was probably induced by all the people around!!! Karthik left yesterday. And I am next on Tuesday.

But like the sun that doesn't quite leave the sky nowadays, I think there s a bit of Helsinki in me that will stay forever, and I will be the better for it. There will also perhaps be a little bit of me there, that I shall go back to see sometime; atop the Olympic stadium, in the night on Suomenlinna, in the kayak club, in Nuuksio, in TML, in Sello, in Kannelmaki.

I think I have almost become immune to changes, to people leaving, to people having to leave and all that. It doesn't affect me at all anymore.

I was at the airport to see Karthik off yesterday, and we had some good times, even if he didn't “run his fingers through my hair!!!!” I got there before him over an hour before, and spent my time in the arrivals lounge, watching people come in, and almost enact the first few clips of “Love, Actually”. It was heart warming, especially one where this lady stepped out of the gates with her daughter, and there was this man waiting with a tiny black poodle. Almost as though rehearsed, man and lady went straight for each other, and child and dog for each other!!! In some strange way, it was almost comforting to see them embrace!!!

Nonetheless, my life is overshadowed by worry. I am going to be carrying excess baggage back home :( this is what happens when you end up with five pairs of footwear. And I have to buy a few kilos of chocolates and all. And there are amazing sales on!!!

Sigh, i wish I could just stay here only for a little while longer at least, till I got bored. It would be the perfect fairytale. But then they don't happen. Ask Zidane.

Interval

2006-06-30T19:04:00.000+05:30

"Ek chhota sa lamha hai,
Jo khatm nahi hota,
Main laakh jalata hoo,
Woh bhasm nahi hota..."

I remember when my granduncle came visiting last September, he told me about driving to work. He lives in new Jersey, and drives a couple of hundred km on the inter-city or inter-state highways(i forget which) to get to his workplace. He told me about how monotonous it was, the long drive, and how with age and all getting on for him, he had caught himself dozing off at the wheel a couple of times. Proper dozing off. So that sometimes when he was awake, he would not be sure if he wasnt in fact sleeping and dreaming. Dangerous to even think on those lines at speeds over a 100kmph.

Sort of, in very different ways, my kind of dangerous thoughts. Been having plenty of them. the kinds that spell trouble. Someone find a cure!!!

****************

Just two weeks remain in my Finnish sojourn... am reminded of a lot of things friends said in the past... strange how things come full circles... more later... at work, and just needed to get some things out!!!

I have a feeling this blog might rediscover some of its purpose again!!!
So long for now...

Enter the minstral

2006-05-27T15:34:00.000+05:30

.
I think somewhere deep down we all have our little fairytale worlds, where we nourish our dreams of a tomorrow, a magical, beautiful tomorrow; with hope, excitement and wide-eyed expectations. But, more often than not, the common characteristic running through them is that it is also an impossible tomorrow.

Almost of the kind that the movie "Serendipity" depicts. Perhaps many hearts have yearned for that kind of a fairytale romance, as mine did. Regardless, however, it is the kind of story best summed up by MsPunch on IMDB: "A little bit of perfect escapism."

I have never wondered how long we bother to feed these fairytales, how long it is before we give in to the harsher truths of reality and accept that not all of us will get to live in houses of chocolate.

Soft-spoken and obsessive, Trager never looked the part a hopeless romantic.
But in the final days of his life, he revealed an unknown side of his psyche. This hidden quasi-jungian persona serves during the Agatha Christie-like pursuit for his long-reputed soul mate: A woman whom he only spent a few precious hours with.
Sadly, the protracted search ended late Saturday night in complete and utter failure.

----------Serendipity

Sort of like this??
Or is it just a natural death as time goes by and the senses too dulled.
For when you have felt every emotion, there are none left to feel.
For when you have dreamt every dream, there are none left to dream.

Or sometimes they just refuse, to die.
Perhaps because of a typical taurean obstinacy, a refusal to yield.
Perhaps because of chance and circumstance that give the whiff of hope that drags the dream onto the life support keeping it alive for a little longer, hoping against hope.
Perhaps because the wrong tunes play at the wrong time.

Aankhein khuli ho ya ho bandh,
Deedar unka hota hai...

Or perhaps simply because wandering minstrals pop up to set alight the flames of a subsiding passion.
"Pipe to the spirit, ditties of no tone."

Perhaps there is something to be said in favour of the afternoon sob operas on TV. They start off like a house on fire, gripping, taut, and then fall away, lose a good part of the viewership, some sudden inspiration in the script writing produces a spark, a momentary interest, and then more flagging... Life, often, is like that. Or at least, the best fairytales are. But, mine has already been too long, winding aimlessly through the tides of time, the sparks too few and far between.

And just as you are about to sit back, and consider saying "goodnight" to it, along comes the minstral, and in a matter of minutes, the spark's back. You know its just another twist that goes nowhere...
Sure there have been the fleeting glimpses, the incredible lookalikes, when you give your stupid head a playful smack and remind yourself its meant for the silver screen alone. Hallucinations, dreams, a lot of banter over them but just wishful thinking, nonetheless. And in the second the minstral pops up, it no longer is. It is a vibrant soul that fuses into you for this is very very real.

Hell, it is a twist!!! Of the only fairytale of your life, and damn, it may be your very last opportunity. And every inch of your practical being screams that you are better off without it.
It isn't their fairytale however, its yours. Nay, its not the fairytale of your life; its your life itself. It is every inch of your being, every inch of your spirit, just you.

I want to turn the clock back.
Sure, so does everybody. Athletes with flagging energy levels, models with the hints of wrinkles appearing, politicians gambling on every card, they all want to.
Except that I dont know why I want to turn the clock back and they do. I dont know if I want to go back and just live in those years, or whether I want to grow up differently, whether I want to weave a new fairytale, or whether I want to vanquish them.

And there are the clouds. White, cottonlike, dreamy. Floating forever. Taking you on magic carpet rides. To fantasyland. Where dreams come true. Where it is all smiles, where there are uncertain, affectionate squeezes of the hand. Where it can never end, where this is forever. Where you whisper with ice-creams in hand, giggle over nothing, dream and promise, live and love.
And never think.

Chand sifarish karta humari, deta woh tumko bata,
.....
Humko aata nahi hai chhupana, hona hai tujh mein fanaa.

And then the darker ones move in. And fill up the horizon.
But, by then, you are already in dreamland.
Or not.

The story thus far...

2006-05-14T19:34:00.001+05:30

Finland is not a communist satellite, it is a part of western Europe and shares its prosperity. The shops are jammed full of beefsteaks and LP records, frozen food and TV sets.
Helsinki is a well-ordered provincial town where it never ceases to be winter. It smells of wood-sap and oil-heating, like a village shop. Fancy restaurants put smoked reindeer tongue on the menu next to the tournedos rossini and pretend that they have come to terms with the endless lakes and forests that are buried silent and deep out there under the snow and ice. But Helsinki is just the appendix of Finland, an urban afterthought where half a million people try to forget that thousand upon thousand square miles of desolation and Arctic wasteland begin just a bus stop away.

*********

Or so says Len Deighton in "Billion-Dollar Brain".

It is actually one of those quiet cities, and if one of the professors at the lab is to be believed, Finland is the most law-abiding country in Europe, with the kind of atmosphere that readily lends itself to a very boring life.

Remarkably well-ordered though, the "well ordered provincial town" is. From people waiting at zebra crossings till the pedestrian light turns green to using their bus cards to pay for their ride, with little or no supervision. In my apartment in KannelMaki, you hardly get the feeling that you are in the capital city of the country that gave the sauna and Nokia to the world. Yet, it takes just a 10 minute train journey to the city centre in one of the trains from the station 30 metres away from my place to realize that the hub is elsewhere. This place is alive.

With Stockmann, purportedly one of the largest department stores in Europe, choc-a-bloc with people to Big Mac adorned by the PYT customers, to the Versace showrooms, it seems just the place to take a beautiful marathon runner for a date.

But we shall reserve that for another post.

ABout 10 kms away from KannelMaki is another area called Otaniemi, an outrageous € 3.10 by bus no 512A or a less outrageous free ride by bicycle, which houses the sprawling campus of the Helsinki University of technology or the TKK(TeKoKo, as it is called here). Picture perfect lawns with sunbathing students lead you onto the TML, the lab where I shall be spending the next two months. The first thing that greets you on entry is a very comfortable rise in temperature from the bone chilling winds that seem to blow ceaselessly.

The second thing that greets you is the aroma of coffee, one of my favourites, perhaps second only to a very strange brand of perfumes that every Finnish woman seems to use without fail, one that leaves the air redolent and wafts temptingly for some time. In through another door, a couple of feet to the left is the room I share with Anton Alstes and Bing Zhou, and for the majority of the time have to myself,
since the other two dont turn up all that often.

A Linux PC that performs quite well with the occasional temperamental tantrum that is unique to Linus Torvalds' creation, a coffee room for the lab alone and a set of very amiable professors and Masters and PhD students make the day quite peaceful.

Lunch with the continental food at the cafeteria is usually quite nice, with the salmon, seita ( a Finnish fish), chicken stew, et al having been quite delicious, with only the beef stroganoff being a little off-key for me. A well ordered salad adds the vitamin content, I presume, and there are plenty of varieties of bread to go with it. Finns, I think, have rice and boiled potatoes as omnipresent parts of their meal, and if I have any space left, they fill it.

**********

Back at the apartment, though, its the spanish armada that lights up the nightlife of a town where the sun sets around 11pm and rises by 3 am!!! With almost half the population of KannelMaki being from Spain, you can trust them to party every night, be it a birthday or a farewell. And while its a little difficult getting your message across, a couple of tries usually suffice.

Sangria, dont know if i spelt that right, is apparently, a typically spanish drink with wine, vodka, and fruits. QUite the best I have had so far. The French, it seems, dont like it too much, and they bring along their own wine, seasoned from the vineyards of Rennes. Hence, I am getting to be quite the connoisseur in these matters, and learning bits and pieces of the languages as well.

**********

Friday's lunch was a laboratory trip to an Indian Restaurant, where we all feasted on murgi and gosht. All very well, and it was the lunch where I managed to get hold of a digicam as well temporarily, for a couple of weeks till I can buy my own. Will upload photos tomorrow of the lunch. They be on the university's internal server.

Friday night was a farewell party for Onza, again spelling i know nothing about, guy from the Czech Republic. And was followed on Saturday by one for 3 spanish guys(2 guys and a gal, that is).

Photos coming up in a few days, soon as i get hold of a USB cord.

Finlandia...

2006-05-05T20:36:00.000+05:30

.
Awrite folks, this place is GODLY!!!
Beautiful, and absolutely great...
And the technology here makes India(which is the only yardstick I have for comparison) look like a village in the 1920s.

Right, then, I came here, was picked up by Kristiina and Timo, who are from the TML lab, and went straight to my apartment, which i share with 2 others, 1 german guy called Thormon, and a spanish guy called Xavier(Javi/Xavi). Now, for all those who remember, I had written about the baby syndrome I face earlier. It seems set to continue. Both these chaps are a good 5 years older than me, and have (sadly), having found my name too hard to pronounce, settled on Toy(Thormon) and Rish(Xavier). As a result, :((

Anyways, so my room is, I think, more than twice that of my hostel, has a huge window that looks out onto the street, and is quite lovely!!! The apartment has a common dining space and kitchen with all the equipment that none of you are interested in hearing about.

However, my first day coincided with Thormon's farewell party, and the party saw beer flow by the six-pack. And when they finished the 8 six-packs, they took a couple of large whisky bottles and finished them off too. However, I discovered this only next morning, coz I went to sleep at 12 so that I could be up in time next morning for work. Thormon, Xavi and the rest still haven't figured out how I slept in that racket, but I guess Kgp prepares you for some things in life!!!

So yennyways, i learned the following things about them regarding booze:
1. Somewhere in Latvia, you can get vodka with 80% alcohol content!!! Yes, its true, Xavi has three of those bottles.

2. Germans can open beer bottles with absolutely anything, from plastic bottles to the table to newspapers(believe it!!!) and for all the studs who try opening with their teeth, you might be warned that it's not a good idea, or so say these people, and I would believe them if I were you; they be Le Masters.

3. Drunken Spaniards will climb onto roofs at 12 at night to celebrate Barca's win and to replace the English flag that some of the English chaps had put on earlier!!!

Now then, beyond that everything's peaceful. Am frying sausages or having sandwiches for dinner. Lunch is an exotic combination of salads, and bread, and salmon or chicken stew or some others depending on what day it is(Lunch, of course, is at the univ-I can't cook).

This post is already too long. So we'll continue about the univ some other time, which is ze coolest!!! So long, gotta go fix dinner, and then another of Thormon's farewell parties(this one's by his friends, he last one was by him :D); he leaves tomorrow... so long...

******
Oh, this one's on the door of one of the profs involved in the project:
" Never underestimate the power of a sick mind. "
******

Flying Finn

2006-05-04T17:27:00.000+05:30

err not everybody will understand the next few lines but normal post content resumes right after.

for those who get it!!!
puglu's name can be modified again, what with all the poogloo and igloo jokes going around, and puglu being the lovable "shuor" that he is, we could do with pigloo!!! WHAT SAY???

************

Normal post resumes:

04.05.2006

Helsinki, Finland.
My office (yes, MY office) which is a cubicle shared with 3 others(guessing by the number of comps) who havent turned up today. More about being here since yesterday later. More about getting here now.

Left Calcutta on the morning of the 3rd at 8 55a.m. by Jet. Was a peaceful flight to Delhi, where I sat down to get bored till 1 55 at night, when my flight to Austria was scheduled. The waiting lounge at the international terminal was certainly better than the one in cal, but it was appalling to see flies around in it. And for anybody who thinks its just india where all this kinda thing happens, take another guess; encountered flies on the austrian airlines flight as well!!!

Anyways, more to the point. spent hours online from the cyber cafe at delhi airport, some terrible, and i should add "to the power infinity" to the terrible, vegetarian food at the snack bar-they didn't have non-veg, i wasn't experimenting, some sleep(quite a bit in fact) some reading(a research paper sent by the prof from helsinki), some watching(not much... everybody was taken :( ) and then it was around 11 pm.
Oh, something happened in the meantime that got me listening to:
"I feel it in my fingers,
I feel it in my toes,
Love is all around me,
And so the feeling grows."
And, in spite of the source being what it was, I listened to it some 100 times. And then felt compelled to reflect some on the first scene of "Love actually" which, I now feel, could not have been shot at a more appropriate place. It really was almost touching to see people take leave, and I watched quite a few in the twelve hours. Mothers and sons/daughters hugged tearfully, couples kissed and just held on to each other, little kids all cute and bustling ran from one end to the other in their excitement, honeymooners more than happy to get rid of their families and just sit gazing into each others' eyes, hands clasped together, and a few bored ones like me, yawning away to glory.

****sorry for the interruption*******
Something else also happened that reminded me of something S said earlier(btw, ppl who know me well enough don't try o guess who S is, coz u wont guess it!!), that I had turned almost into stony emotionlessness. I remember smiling then, and I think, as I did then, that he is very close to being right, even though I would rather be the reactive welter of emotions that I was a couple of years ago.
*****rukawat ke liye khed hai, post jari rahega**********

And then off on an eight and a half hour flight to Vienna, Austria. Some browsing through the duty free shops, setting my watch back by three-and-a-half hours to match local time, some lip-smacking at the chocolates, and no purchases later, I was off for the final flight to Helsinki.

Observations at the airports:

1. I wonder if its something to do with me. Steward on Jet Airways flight to Delhi treated me like a kid; worse still, made me feel like one.

2. The best looking air-hostesses are with Lufthansa.

3. Austrian Airlines air hostesses wear different uniforms, one with red coat, skirt and stockings, and the other with blue, except the stocking which are skin coloured. The second one's are better.

4. However, the sight of an air hostess in the first uniform running is second only to that of a running penguin- it is sooooooooooo cutely funny!!!

5. Of all things, a man at the airport came and tried to talk to me in Japanese. What gave him THAT impression?? Or chinese, it may have been.

6. Certain air hostesses(not all; its not a uniform) and cutting across all airlines, wear this wristgear, bangle like only a bit thicker and white and red colour. Very becoming.

7. I didnt see any of Austria because they wouldnt let me through into the city, but what I saw from the air made me feel that if I ever built a city using lego or something like that, it would be exactly like that.
Vast farmland, very green, blocks of inhabitation, and neighbourhoods separated by more farmland and long highways, and those conical sloped roofs, tapering into a point at the top, houses. Beautiful it was. And cloud cover over it was very litle, so I could see the land from a fair way up.

8. The approach to Helsinki was the godliest I ever saw. It was a sea of clouds till we came low enough, and then there was a sea of water right below. And small islands here and there, for quite a long time till the coastline hovered into view.

9. i never knew how pilots find the airport. Didnt think they could remember routes, so always thought they used sight, to locate where there were aeroplanes around and landed. So when this chap went low enough so I could see the telephone wires within touching distance outside he window, I looked all around and was terrified to find no planes and only tractors. And he continued to fly at that kind of altitude for another 20 minutes before his myopic vision finally located a plane.

10. It helps to be rich. You could have bought half those adorable things at the duty free shop if you were.

11. Adjusting to couples in love can be quite difficult. I tried to decide for a while whether it would be easier if you had a girlfriend and thought of her back at home, or whether it would be easier not having one, when you were alone and saw people very obviously in love. Not sure, but it didnt matter too much.

12. Not speaking english is a good way to get talking to women apparently asking for help. But then, they giggle too much and too irritatingly at your accent and t their own fumbling efforts to make you comprehend.

But I had a great time, and Kristina and Timo were there at the airport to take me to my apartment, so it was no problem. Just that there seems to be no funda here on how to make international calls, and no places from where you can make them. "Use your mobile" is the most received answer when you ask "how do you make international calls?" Also reminded me of the time I call the States using my mobile from kharagpur.

All right now, lets work some, and get back to blog later.

Post script: I dont know how i forgot this before, but tall!!! and seriously tall, everyone of them... and i am talking only about the women here coz i havent been looking at the men too much, but the passing glances tell me they average pretty high as well. But the women, omg, hardly seem to be the heights i am used to!!!

Dilli... yet again :D

2006-05-02T15:13:00.000+05:30

I just can't stop laughing. At myself, at the moment. Almost delirious. It is an insanely funny situation of my own doing that I find myself in. And unable to do anything about. As I was telling a friend yesterday, I do not have the guts or the necessary luck to do anything about it.

As a result, I am sitting at this cyber cafe in Delhi airport doing what I least want to be doing. Or at present anyway. Flight to Delhi was pretty ok. Except that I didnt feel like asking for a second helping, as I had done on the same flight in my first year. Growing old, I think, and more conscious ;)

Or maybe, I didnt because conditions today are the exact opposite of what they were then :D Midnight flights should be banned. Actually weighing my options sitting all this while considering whether to read a paper(research paper, that is) or to watch the stupid star news channel or to use this bl**** expensive cyber cafe.

Managed to spend just one day at home before leaving; what with exams, and then an express BTP report submission, and sleeping early mornings everyday, I think the most peaceful time of the year for me is when exams are on. Think I am quite tired of academia...

"Ek chhota sa lamha hai, jo khatm nahi hota,
Main lakh jalata hoon, woh bhasm nahi hota..."

Had a discussion with a friend who has been travelling through slightly roughish relationship waters. Reminded of all those times I had been through, and all those that I didn't get through, after all. Friends are useless, I think. They make you think of the wrong things at the wrong time :D

I am getting a sort of realization as to why my posting frequency's gone down these days. It seems its only in a certain mood that I resort to blogger.com.

***************

Sequence of farewells over.

And le treats with them. My tribute to many brilliant individuals I have had the good fortune of working with in soc-n-cult events and in sports. Will remember all the sessions, the strategies hammered back and forth, the tempo, and the events themselves forever. One particular match will have pride of place for the sheer level of the hooting!!! My most tangible and bestest memory from the year, I think.

Right then, ladies and gentlemen, so much in today's bulletin. Have a good day!!! See you in Finland.

Footprints on the sands of time

2006-04-18T10:37:00.000+05:30

Its been an eventful month since i posted... or has it been more than a month?? Anyways, the sad part is that not much came out of it at the end of it all.

For starters, my 3rd Delhi trip in as many years. All in distinctly differing circumstances. Worse still, my return flight was with Indian Airlines, and the food and service as bad as I have encountered on any flight. At around 8 45 in the evening, the flight took off from New Delhi airport, and in spite of myself, I couldn't help but think a little on the lines of "what if.." as the plane went higher and higher, and the lights of the capital grew smaller and smaller before fading out altogether. A bittersweet time, as it always is, except that this time it brought to me the realization that it takes far longer to get over things that I had thought I had gotten over. I could, from my window seat, make out the lights that marked out the roads, winding and with a definite pattern, car headlights, lights in houses, floodlights lighting up some stadia, lights everywhere below, and then they just dimmed and dimmed and went out altogether, cloaked by the clouds....

"... me and you and the lights of London..."

18th of April, 2006 has come and gone, adding to itself this time round the disaapointment of not being able to take my GRE coz my dumb passport was stuck in the Finn embassy. And still we continue to hope. For nothing. Wonder how many more 18th of April's will have to come and go before things work themselves out one way or the other.

"Delivery report: Failed... "

Alankar has finally gone to print. Anybody from Kgp reading this, please note that I am not responsible for the terrible spellings in the surveys and the terrible english in the Section 0. I am only responsible for the articles in the English section, a resposibility that was sadly not shared by a couple of others!!! People were to lazy to correct them and under too much pressure to meet a deadline to worry about the fact that spellings were being taken to the cleaners.

There still are a couple of deep rooted regrets regarding Alankar this year. One, of the two interviews i took and subsequently sent for print, I couldn't print, perhaps, the best parts(maybe i should call them the juiciest parts), of what Mr. Sandipan Deb and Mr. Palash Sen had to say. Its sad that the freedom of the press wasn't quite enough to make me feel that i could print these stuff and not have a DC set on me.

Its farewell season around here. Its strange that these people will be leaving so soon. All the captains of various events in my hall, all those who fought the GCs together, who taught me so much in the course of this year and the last, all (well, most anyways) of them will be leaving, making us the senior batch. Its a strange feeling...

Had my first treat in GIH with the money sent by last year's lawn tennis captain for our performance this year. It was amazing fun, including the pigging out over kababs and steaks, and photos with hands in the mouth of a tiger, while it lasted.

"So... what after your BTech??"
"I don't know, CAT maybe, maybe even a job, or maybe I'll app..."
"Great, in 4 years you'll be done with your BTech, a year after that and you'll be fairly settled, and I'll be done with my Master's by around then..."

Yes, we'll be done with it all right. :)
Still looking for my dose of serendipity. :D

"When the morning's freshness has been replaced by the weariness of mid-day, when the leg muscles quiver under the strain, the climb seems endless and suddenly nothing will go quite as you wish-it is then that you must not STOP!"

Trying :) .... very hard!!!

Rains

2006-03-11T17:33:00.000+05:30

Finally the rains hit Kgp.
Postponed the tennis match as a result, and our quest for an elusive GC that looks like it might just go beyond once more.
But it left the campus bathed in a brilliant golden glow, with warm rays of a much cooler sun peering through the grey clouds. And the imposing buildings of the institute, Vikramshila and the hostels etched against the grey sky, somehow creating the image of a magical fairytale land, with the bare branches of the trees nodding in appreciation.
Somehow, for once, this saturday afternoon at least, nobody's chasing anybody down the corridor, no sounds from the volley court, none from anywhere around. Nothing breaks the serenity except the occasional twitter of the "shalik"(nebody knows what its called in english??) that chooses the moment to roost on the tree just outside my window.

Its election and hall day season again, but with the nominations being the way they are, hardly any interest has been generated. I have some strong objections to a number of things that have entered the system in the last couple of years and shall write about them sometime, but a couple of decisions taken by the Gymkhana office bearers last year, I feel, have damaged the system to an extent that it might not be retrievable.
Java evals over. And a short cal trip due tomorrow to take care of some matters pertaining to my internship.

The weather's just awesome. Exactly the kind where you sit on a verandah with packets of telebhaja, close friends and family, and adda about everything from the CPI(M) to football.

Someday, somewhere

2006-02-16T03:11:00.000+05:30

I think my blog is over six months old, in fact I am almost certain it is. Its just that i am too lazy to check. Much has changed over this time, and time and again I have managed to keep coming back to post, and it is most gratifying to note that people have kept coming back to read. It is strange because I know if I look at the posts through this blog, I shall almost certainly find that I have used the phrase "Things are very different now from what they were..." or something to that effect hundreds of times, in different contexts.

I remember this line that I used to like a lot in school even though i never used it for any purpose other than embellishing a speech or a prose piece, and then as it got more and more hackneyed, I stopped using it altogether. It went like this "The only thing constant in this world is change". In a strange way today, or I guess over time, the significance and meaning has sunk in.

I have spent the last few nights awake like now, but in a less relaxed frame of mind. I do not know if it is actually time to relax, but things have changed again and I hope for the better this time. Perhaps, if things get sorted out soon, i shall be able to make http://lancelotstake.blogspot.com/ my default page again instead of the Kgp mail account whose hit counters I must alone have trebled in the last few days.

I stood up from my desk at around 5 last morning. Dawn was just breaking. My room is on the top floor of D-block and hence the view from the windows is not blocked by anything. Its strange that i didn't notice it before, but when I stood up yesterday morning, the first thing that struck me was the redness of the flowers on the tree just outside, with hordes of bees homing in on them. Past that and across the wall that marks the boundaries of Nehru Hall lie a field. Evenings find budding cricketers practicing their trade, but at 5 in the morning, it was only inhabited by a couple of cows chewing grass to their heart's content. Just behind that is what i am guessing the IIT bypass, and there were a few cycles only. A goods train was peacefully chugging its way along the railway tracks. And the sun had started to spread light in the world, the hue of purple, red and golden, providing an amazing backdrop, etching the outline of the goods train, and casting a lovely glow across the field. It was one of the best scenes I have seen here in Kgp, and perhaps someday I shall make sure I am armed with a digicam so that I can record it.

With any luck, I should be able to get back to more frequent posting and going through the blogs that I love reading. Adios for now.

"All that we love deeply becomes a part of us."
Just a thought.

Kal Ho Naa Ho

2006-01-30T12:04:00.000+05:30

All things have a purpose.

If you start something, you have something in mind, some purpose for which it was created. Sometimes, however, a phase is reached when that reason no longer exists. In times like these, you decide whether to scuttle it altogether or to find a new purpose for it, a new raison-d’-etre, if you will. Today, my blog finds itself at a similar crossroads.

When I started it, writing was like a catharsis of sorts. A purgative. It took loads off my mind. Helped me speak out to an audience that mostly knew little about me. Under the constraints of time, blogging became erratic, but I always came back for another spell of catharsis (wonder if that’s grammatically acceptable). Today, it no longer seems necessary.

Its been close to a month since I posted. SF has come and gone. My third. Time flies, doesn’t it?? I have been lucky. All three SFs have been spent in very different ways from each other. Leaves you with different perspectives. Had a brand new one this time around too. And an absolutely lovely time. There are a couple of experiences through SF that I absolutely must write about next time (short of time right now, again; besides those are fairly long, so its best to deal with them in separate posts).

Right now, I am in worse physical condition than I can recall having been in ever. Haven’t shaved in days, which makes it look worse than it is, and been on a spree of nights-out. Things don’t look like they will change much by the looks of my schedule for the next month. I need a Duracell.

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R left last week after a lovely winter. Don’t know when I shall see him again.

And the important generalization:

What do you do with something that has outlived its purpose? Throw it away?

From the general to specifics:

Do I abandon my blog, then? Or find a new purpose?

A reflection on the above general question. Discussed it with a friend a few days back. He laughed and said that regardless of what it was, I would never be able to throw it away. I realize that he was probably right. So, then,… help me find a new raison-d’-etre for my blog…

Options I considered turning it into:

1. Kgp gaffe section
2. Sports journal
3. Ganguly backing or bashing
4. Travel guide(you can get details of my journeys from Kgp to Cal, journeys whose frequency has sadly decreased to one-fifth of what it used to be)
5. Choc hunt(my passion :D)
6. Food page(dedicated to cuisines)
7. A couple more that I am actually seriously considering
8. Taking one of the options suggested by readers (if any still come back, that is)

And the new sun rose....

2006-01-01T19:35:00.001+05:30

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......bringing in a new year. Or something on those lines ran the poem. Unfortunately, I wasn’t there to see it rise. “Sleeping like a baby,” as my mother puts it. Which is something I am in no position to verify or contradict never having been in a position to observe myself sleep. But it also raises another issue that I am in favour of at times, but mostly not. This “baby” syndrome. Somehow, the “baby” tag has always attached itself to me. We’ll come back to that in a minute.

Firstly, Happy New Year, everybody. Wish all of you a very prosperous etc etc.

Its back to Kgp again. And because this time I had to drag the comp along in the car, we had to leave by 7 30 in the morning so that my mother would be able to drive back while it was still daylight. And that meant “early to bed” on the last day of last year. This time round, though, my rebellious streak curbed itself for reasons I cannot quite fathom. Was docilely back in the evening by 8 so that we could leave for my aunt’s place in time for the dinner invitation. And when we got back home around 10.30-11, and I finished my packing, it was nice reflecting on a few things that I do seem to take mostly for granted. For most people, hereon are just reflections and boring ruminations, so it would be wise to leave now :D And happy new year again to you.

As a sort of background introduction, let me just talk a little about the “baby” thing I mentioned earlier. For reasons that I am not very sure of, and definitely having nothing to do with physical appearance, I have, in most circles, been labeled a “kid”. This started very early, at around age 7-8, if I remember correctly, when I joined the guys in the para for cricket. Somehow, everyone there was older than me, and I was the kid. I remained that way for as long as we met to play. Since, they have (thank goodness!!!) stopped reminding me of the fact. :D In school, I was on the younger side in my class, and that didn’t help. Among my cousins, at least within comparable age groups and those that I have occasion to meet, I am again the youngest. The ones younger to me are 8-10 years younger. And what the heck, till date, no girl I have gone out with has been younger than me!!! As a result of these and being the only son as well, I had, on the positive side, plenty of opportunities to let myself be spoilt silly. And while it was fun sometimes (well, most times, actually), there were occasions when it got irritating. I mean if I was leaving my aunt’s place, I did not find it amusing to be told by everybody from grandmother to mother to aunt to cousin-2-years-older-than-me-with-big-silly-grin-on-her-face that I should be careful crossing the road. And then suggestion by aforementioned cousin that she should come back after helping me cross the road. And to drink water regularly and have fruits and have food on time.

Perhaps, in this sense, the chance to go to a hostel was like a godsend to me. Freedom, finally, I thought. It was, too. I couldn’t wait to start. So keen was I then that I fought with my parents to not fill KGP in my options. (Didn’t win that one :() And while the advice flowed over the phone, I could pick and choose which ones to heed. Two and a half years of terrific fun. Some good luck, some very good luck, some bad, some very bad. Near misses, reprieves, amendments. Ecstasy, despair, anticipation, excitement, nervousness, fear- been through all of them. Feels good at the end of it. And a rocking winter to top it off.

Yesterday ended the year in which I entered the third decade of my existence on this unearthly planet. Innumerable lessons later, having worked through disillusionment, struggling to find faith, finding it, then struggling to retain it, I find myself strangely hardened. An ardent believer in destiny.

And as I sifted through some of my childhood stuff absently yesterday, I realized that I might well have spent my last vacation at home. An internship in the summers, placement season next winter, and then the summer after the final year. Not sure where I will be and how much of that summer I shall spend at home. It was a strange feeling. Over an entirely different matter I was wondering, a few days ago how much of myself had gone with that “matter”. I wonder how much of myself I will be leaving behind at that house, and how much of that place will defines me today.

Thanks to all the people who made these winters a memorable one-Kgp pals, old school pals-now scattered across the globe, fortunately home for these hols- and to all those who made so many other ones memorable-friends, relatives, seniors, batchmates, juniors, one and all. Just thought I’d mention it, especially since I am associated with the type who rarely react ;D and lack most of the finer emotions.

In other news, best wishes for R&C. R is one of my oldest friends and I just came to know about them. And many thanks to him for some wonderful times this winter and through many summers before this. Met S who I thought was very sweet. Nice, simple, and fun. And by the looks of it, they share a very special friendship.

ManU has almost thrown away every possibility of winning the EPL back.

Its been a nice journey. Through DBPC, Zeeshan, Ms P’s, B.Byte2k++, Rollick’s Square, Durgabari, Priya, Bawarchi, IIT, CCD, BarBQ, Hobby Centre, City Centre, Forum, Illuminations, IIMC, LS, Park, SF, GCs, to today. Feeling hungry after so much…..typing.

PS: The mind keeps wondering back to an auto in Park Circus, (black?) magic on an early morning Dhauli, a familiar voice on a wrong number call. Save the last laugh for destiny!!!

Christmas, Nightmares, Lamborghinis....

2005-12-26T22:42:00.000+05:30

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Ah, no, I have not retired. Trouble is that i am always behind schedule. While the semester is on, I am behind schedule in terms of assignments, and after it I am behind in terms of sleep. Making up leaves little time for posting. Add to that the season, catching up with friends, and you will realize that half my day is spent outside home and the other half sleeping. If you don't find that funny, you should join the club my parents are about to start-they don't find it funny either.

In other news, I have been exploring Kolkata further ;D After KFC the last time I posted, I visited Sourav's on Christmas Eve. I know this one's been around forever as well-it's just me who hasn't been!!! It was an Ok sort of place, actually slightly better than that-fairly decent. Just that it really didn't have anything really out of the ordinary. Followed that up with a visit to St. Paul's around 10 30. Place was decked up and looked really nice. It always does, of course, but usually you won't find it swarming with the number of people as on this occasion. Proceedings began once the governor arrived. We left about 20 minutes later. Quite impressive, though, to say the least.

A did come down for the vacations and it was great to see him after a year and a half. Has thinned down!!! Still quite huggable though :D Had him stay over at my place last Thursday(I think, or Friday), following dinner at Tandoor Park. And all you people who claim to have been through every eatery in cal, lets see how many of you have eaten there??? ;D

Anyways, after swapping stories through the dinner, during the course of which we mistook a man for a woman (err, no we, hic, weren't drunk, just that that guy had the locks to put old Rapunzel to shame), and then late into the night, both of us fell asleep sometime while watching Sahara.

We were due to meet S and G at Tollygunge Metro station. More discoveries in Cal for me. Hardly expected the Metro to be a hot-spot, but there were as many well-dressed, good-looking people outside that terminus as in any restaurant at any point of time in any day. S arrived in due course and promptly proceeded to amuse us by standing right in front of us, and scanning the crowd directly oppposite. I now realize most of my friends are very huggable!!! Think it was our guffaws that gave it away in the end. G called up to say he wouldn't be able to make it to Tolly Metro, so would we please go to City Centre instead??? Hardly reasonable, but we did anyways, and were rewarded with dinner there :)) Thankfully, any conversation that went on there will never leave the place, for it was the most inane and senseless ever. Thoroughly enjoy this kind of inane break with everyone at top form with their PJs.

Oh, and there was a performance on at City Centre. Bangla rock, it seems, is the in-thing. "Jhi-er pete Ma-er jonmo..." (or the reverse, can't remember) screamed the lead singer at the top of his voice to the accompaniment of an impassioned guitarist and a frenzied drummer, and we beat a hasty retreat before he consigned Baba to the same fate. I am sure the lyrics had a level we never reached, and this is not to hurt anyone who might love the song, group or any one or more of the artistes, but you cannot ignore the situational humour. Santas swarmed about the place to the extent that I felt slightly guilty for not having anything red on.

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Saw Bardaasht-yes, I do seem to be THAT jobless!!! Thought Lara Dutta looked more attractive than I have seen her yet.

Apparently Lamborghini is launching in India. Prices in the region of Rs. 1.5 crore only. Unconfirmed sources-dont kill me if it is wrong. I dont mind a gift if it is right though.

Andre Nel dropped Ponting on 17 but made up for it by taking his wicket. Didn't let Ponting add more than a 100 after that.

Milan Baros must have scored the most blatantly "handball-ed" goal ever against Everton today. How the ref dint notice was beyond anyone.

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The dreams don't leave me. Every sleeping hour is like a movie(w/o tickets fortunately). Weird dream after weird dream- they just keep on coming. Worse, nobody gifted me a Lamborghini in any of them. No fun. You had any??

Sunny side up

2005-12-15T20:18:00.000+05:30

By all accounts, it was a miserable semester. While some things (dont ask me what, take a long time to think!!!) went somewhat according to plan, a whole lot just implemented some kind of random "next move" theory. In spite of that, just one aspect of my life almost fell into place right at the end of it. The academic aspect. And then it didn't. A terrible display of inane grading habits by a couple of professors(well, 3 actually) ensured that what probably should have been a 9 remained an 8+ only. What hurts is not missing out, but missing out when you deserve it.

And of course the other side. Somehow, all my life, I relished situations where people told me it couldn't be done that way, or this won't work out, or there's no chance. It was sort of a kick battling the odds. Not that I made miracles happen, but simply go against the odds to make a possibility a reality. My friends are somewhat used to me doing crazy things at times. Nothing outrageous, just unexpected.

In spite of that, they asked me "Why??"
"Why this, after what happened just one month back??"
Surprise was a common emotion. And I smiled and said that I was basing my conclusions on the results of some tests. And that if it worked out, it could probably change my life!!!

Not many agreed, but they didn't go beyond the warnings because they knew I wouldn't change my mind!!! And sadly enough, I proved them right. Now I know why we need to take 10 readings and not 1!!!! Not that it helps coz I will have to start from scratch again. But what astounds me is that of the 5-6 parameters I had judged, I was wrong on every count. Just the sort of thing that makes you feel that you are in the wrong profession!!!

And Venugopal and the whole CSRG group might just kill me. HALP!!!

On the sunny side, had a bit of adventure early in the hols with a drive to Kgp to get my comp back. 145 km each way, and I had to drive the whole distance, coz only Baba was there and he can't drive!!! Total driving time of 5 and a half hours. We started at 4 in the morning and were back by 12 for a lunch invitation. Ma must have called up 20 times.

A couple of friends coming down for the winters and so I expect to have a good time.

Oh, and I guess staying so long in kgp is the reason I'm so late and I'm sure everybody's already been there, but if you haven't, go check out Kentucky Fried Chicken at City Centre. Awesome.

Mama, I'm coming home!!!

2005-12-02T15:39:00.002+05:30

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On my way home.

WHEW!!!

A disaster of a sem behind me...

But at least made up partially by a couple of projects that I am excited about at hand right now, the prospect of great food, free chocolates(err, not free exactly, but not my money!!) and a great winter on the cards. Will probably have to come back again sometime next week, because the TAs were too lazy to put the marks on the site.

Could have taken the 2 30 train in the afti... but the two of us are still looking for two others so that we can play bridge on the way back... taking the 5 30 as of now... hoping we can find two ppl who can play the game... :D

suddenly life doesnt seem all that boring anymore...

YO!!! home after 12 weeks with only a snatched 20 hour drop-by in between...
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Sem 5 consigned to the history books

2005-11-26T12:15:00.000+05:30

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Its all over. Finally. After 4 long months of trying to flog the life out of a dead horse. 4 intense months. That played havoc with my schedules, sleep and eating habits. Perhaps every peak was not scaled, but every nadir was probably touched. 4 months of frustration. Of anticipation, at times. Of mirth, laughter, anxiety, worry. Of birthdays and deadlines and back-up plans. Of GPLs and treats. Uproarious laughter, and a few unshed tears. Of hopes, and then hopes dashed. Highs and lows. Unexpected successes, and more unexpected failures. Wonder if I will look back after 4 years, or further down the line, and feel that these four months defined me, or at least, my stay here. And just when I thought that "the ship had weather'd every rack" came the cruellest blow of them all. Kathleen had nothing in stock last night :(( Me a little in shock right now.

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Its so horrible to have others finish their exams one day before yours. Coz they just generally go crazy, and freak out. You should have heard the screams from the floor below on thursday when the much-awaited bottles with the emancipating fluids arrived. There couldn't have been more excitement at the Gold Rush. Unfortunately, we couldn't have one yesterday. Everyone just couldn't match times. So finally, around 1 at night 5 of an old group congregated in my room for a bhaat session. Sadly, my proposal of bridge was unanimously vetoed.

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Still got a lab assignment to submit. Damn it, why can't my department just get normal... will have to stay back till monday at least, it seems.

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And then the winters. My favourite time of the year. Except, like I said, in posts some time back, things are slightly different from what they were last year. Will certainly make this winter weird. Developments made me realize that I have an Achilles' there, and in that matter, I am not nearly as strong as I like to think I am in other matters. Dont know if I want to go face it. Alternatives?? A winter in Kgp- uh-oh, I don't think so.

Perhaps the only worthwhile thing in the last few days. Being involved with the inception of CSRG-CET Student Research Group. It is an exciting prospect if we manage to get things done. Let's see.

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A treat couple of weeks back. Venugopal's birthday. Venu on the extreme right. Me to his left and behind.

Food at the LS bar was good. A snapshot.

Well, the best I have had in sometime anyways. And then I had to go and see the pics here. :D

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Expecting a close friend from school to be back from the US this winter. Just not been in touch over the last couple of months. Hope he does come.

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A long, cold winter awaits.

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Been listening to the lyrics of this song through the exams.. Seemed apt ;D

"I guess there is no one to blame.... we're leaving ground...
Will things ever be the same again?? It's the final countdown......"

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FFwd into tomorrow-Part-II

2005-11-06T19:06:00.000+05:30

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A note at the beginning for all those unaware of what Illumination is. Its this amazing thing where you create images on huge chatais with thousands of lighted diyas, a spectacle to take your breath away.

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To continue from where I left off in my last post.

Illu morning:
9 00 am: All preparations done. A few flutters with getting the small things right.

10 00: A change of clothes on a suggestion from a friend, and I am all set.

10 30: Bugging to find no trains.

11 30: Finally a train.

1 00 pm: She calls to find out when I will be getting there. Making allowances for traffic etc, I set it for 4 30 at CCD.

2 25: Train into Howrah

3 30: Buses surprisingly sprightly. I am already there. An exchange of sms-es helps me bring it fwd to 4 00.

4 05: Got onto the CCD guy's nerves by not ordering nething saying I was waiting for a friend. Then she got there. WOW.

5 30: Late decision to catch a movie, scramble into a taxi en route to Priya.

8 45: Me frust with the movie. Not that bad but both of us sort-of distracted, so we decided to leave 20 minutes from the end!!!

9 00: More talk. Less sense. Confused. Both of us. Uncertain. Want to. Dont want to.

10 00: ATM at Beckbagan. Wrong question at wrong time generates humour. Not much use.

10 30: Time to go. Decide to meet tomorrow. Knew we wouldn't.

Tomorrow: Didn't.

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Back to the future:

Illu night:
Preparations almost done. All set. The dhop teams wait outside for the judges. We go over the lines one last nervous time.

10 30: Judges leaving Azad.

10 40: We usher the rangoli judges in. Unknown to the judges, my dialogue with Sam changes further from the script with every sentence, as we go on.

10 55: Presentation over.

11 00: Take the rangoli judges to the Illu ground. We realize a something's gone wrong. Darned wind.

12 30: Results out. Amidst uncertainty, a joint 3rd in Rangoli, we think. Disappointed.

In between what happened around 11 30 brought back some nightmares. Not again. Not on the same day as well. This can't be happening, was my first reaction. No way.

Strange but the feeling of deja vu hasn't quite gone. Compounded by something a guy on the dumbc team said. And amidst the "fun"fare of the season, the treats, the laughter, jokes and cheering India on, something feels a little strange. A bit of uncertainty.

Riverdance to the rescue (:-)

Fast-Forward into tomorrow!!!

2005-11-01T02:04:00.000+05:30

.
"....Jab leher leher se takraye,
Dariya mein jo toofan aaye,
Tala tum woh kehlaye..."

************************************

Time flies. Seems like yesterday that I was at the same point in time and it was in my second year. The unceasing running from one end of the football ground to the other end of the hall, legs feeling that they would never be able to stand again, rubbing my eyes as though I hadn't slept in a hundred years, and then feel all the tiredness just drain out of myself, as I stood on the catwalk watching thousands of diyas crackle into life-the moment into which had gone weeks of night-outs for so many people. Like all Diyas, these burnt out too. It was good while it lasted, and left an indelible impression.

*************************************

Its Illu-eve again.

Been much the same this year, more running around- inter-hall followed by inter-hall followed by dhop gathering sessions followed by some day-dreaming interspersed with some playful banter. Except that there were no wet tests this time-none of the thousands of diyas burning bright in their final dress rehearsal before the big day.

*************************************

There are Illu-eves and there are Illu-eves.

Like the one described below.

1.50 am: This is night, mind you, and it just became Illu eve at midnight-an hour and a half back. End of a hard day's work. Was passing my room with acroyali on our way to his room. Stopped short at the sound of the cell ringing with the special tone. Went in. Cell had 16 missed calls and a message waiting. Got a jhaar from her. Sweetest I ever had. Had my best sleep that night. All ready to meet up the day after. What I would have to miss for it didn't seem to be much in comparison. Still doesn't.

4.40 pm: Reach the hall after classes all geared for the last day of back-breaking work. Somehow it doesn't hurt anymore. Everybody's ready to handle all you can give them.

6.00 pm: The first signs of the sloth creeping in. People starting to gather in groups for bhaat sessions.

7.00 pm:The dinner gong

7.30pm: Back to the ground. Called by a senior. The final form of the dhops have to be drafted now.

9.30 pm: Dhop drafting over. Amazed as usual at the tempo this guy retains in his final year. Did most of the stuff himself. happily. I let him do it. happily!!!

10.00 pm: Final preparations for the last dress rehearsal. Some more banter with a couple of super-final year students. Adam-teasing, in my opinion, is what they did to me.

11 pm: A sight to behold. Every chatai, every diya alive, every shape etched vividly. Like they had finally found the moment for which they had been conceived. For a few minutes, everyone just stood and gaped, entranced.

11.05 pm: The reverie broken. An enthralled buzz, which slowly diffuses into the ever-rising din.

11.10 pm: Hits me for the first time that I would miss the grand finale. A pang of regret. Not strong enough to compare with my anticipation though.

11.30 pm: She called. All seems right with the world.

12 midnight: Hugs all round for an illu job well done. Everybody's doubly pumped for D-day now. A sight.

For just a few minutes, every ordeal in kgp seems worth it.

********************************

"...Is tala tum mein hum,
Dil ki kashti sanam,
aa chuka lenge...."

Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi.....

2005-10-29T17:48:00.000+05:30

Exactly three days from now, it will be illumination time again. One year will have passed me by. The dust of time is gathering on the single event that, probably, changed me beyond recognition. Life has come almost a full circle, perhaps in more ways than the usual. It feels strange. So many things last year have their exact opposites occurring this year.

Profound Conclusion that emerges: I have changed!!!

***************************

Been a hectic last Saturday-Thursday.
Up till almost morning every night. And then classes. Followed by event in the evening. 2 lab submissions, 1 lab quiz, and 4 inter-halls in the aforementioned span. 3 for soc-cult, 1 for tech. Completely frust with the last of the inter-halls, one 3rd place finish, one 2nd place finish, and one result pending.

****************************

The NLS, Bangalore, is having a parliamentary debate from the 10th-14th of november. If only my department wasn't as merciless or as demanding as it is, I could have said "yes" to the most generous offer. As it was, i had to turn down the opportunity to represent my college at one of the country's biggest events. Frust!!!

****************************

Some things had to be put on hold because of developments in quarters most unexpected. Strange are the ways of life.

Completely forgot my cousin sister's birthday. :(

Major cut-down on intake of chocolates in the last few days. Doesnt seem to be reducing my expenses somehow. Confused.

India have made a heartening start to the series against SriLanka. 3 cheers for Ashim who got a TV into the hall. Should be entered as a B-plan somewhere.

****************************

Been listening to this song for a while now. Bowled over.

"Mann yeh bavra, tujh bin maane na;
Dhunde raat din kya, bavra..."

Watch the movie also if you haven't. My humble opinion would recommend it as a must-see.

Oh for some free time...

2005-10-26T13:21:00.000+05:30

Apologies for another hiatus in the posts....

Been a terribly hectic, but rewarding, last 4 days. Will continue to be hectic for the next couple of days as well. Just hope the rub of the green continues to go our way for that period to make it rewarding as well. Hopefully, I'll get a proper post in by this weekend.

PS: Exciting to find that my blog counter is approaching 500. If u r the 500th, do leave a comment :D

Been Listening To....

2005-10-19T14:04:00.000+05:30

"Chaha tha kya, Paaya hai kya, Humne dekhiye;
Dil mein magar jalte rahe chahat ke diye... "

Just realized how closely it describes my life at this moment. Almost psychic.

Want good food. Landed at Mess@NH,IITKgp.
Want to have fun. Enter OS assignment with submission date tmrw.
Want chocolates. No money.
Want to go on vacation. Hehe, reasons not even needed for why I can't do this one.

And the list just goes on and on.

***********************************

Went to college street last week with Load-da.
We were looking for quotations for printing Alankar.
Weird place man!!! Everything was closed and people around helpfully informed us that they would open by tuesday. Big help for us.

Thus rendered jobless, we spent some time browsing through the stalls after Load-da's unceasing search for natoker bois.

Followed with a visit to Coffee House. We sat there bad-mouthing the printers for not having reopened by Friday-pujos long gone. Reached the solemn conclusion je ei jonno bangalir dara byabsha hoye na.
Got around to discussing the place itself. Pointed out the standard stuff of how it reminds you of the days when coffee tables saw learned views and arguments exchanged over steaming cups by people dressed in fatuas, pyjamas, chappal, with a jhola slung over their shoulder, long hair askew. When we were leaving we saw a man with exactly that description standing on the balcony observing the scene below. No doubt, a literary work in progress in his mind.
Ordered mutton kabiraji. Was damn nice. I fell in love with the place. The peeling paint and the quiet dignity adding up to give it the kind of charm that we grew up reading about. Walking through near-deserted lanes, unlike the usual college street bustle, made me feel like i was on one of those feluda type adventures. :D If anything I liked this place more than the malls- way more...probably just temporary insanity, I dunno, but it was amazing. Culminated with me promising Load-da that next time I proposed to a girl, it would be there!!!
He smiled indulgently, before pointing out that that didn't quite seem an option in the near future. I agreed, but my statement(before people start getting me wrong) was more to show just how much I liked it this time around.

***********************************

Been raining incessantly since yesterday or the day before.... gloomy outside...

So many things by season season'd are,
To their right praise and true perfection.

My Digest

2005-10-17T20:33:00.000+05:30

My thanks(:D) to all those who keep coming back despite the long breaks in between my posts. Been an eventful week with no comp, and the result is 3 new posts on some stuff. Do read them here, and there, and there too.

Thank you,
Take care,
And shubho bijoya,
me.

Deja vu-The first anniversary

2005-10-17T18:27:00.000+05:30

Things change. Quickly. This is the time of year when I am at my most vulnerable. i have often wondered about this thing called luck or coincidence and stuff like that, and how if something was working for you you should never change that. I have often wondered through this last year when not much has gone my way, whether something that changed around Illumination last year might be responsible for it. There is, of course, no concrete answer to the question.

But it remains a fact that the last year has seen a complete metamorphosis in me. Everything changed. From grades to beliefs. From strong convictions to complete revamps in my opinions. From a sheltered life to the real world. From idyllic views to a loss of innocence of sorts.

It kind of came over me like a wave while I was thinking about some stuff. That all those Howard Roark-ian ideologies that we had dreamt of through Ayn Rand infatuated school days, through animated discussions over cha-chanachur on rainy evenings at rup's place, of how we would make a "difference", of what we would do to immortalize our beloveds(who at the moment happened to be recent crushes ;D), of the most amazing lives spent with them, face aglow as we spoke about them, about them being the inspiration behind all that we would achieve, of those huge pictures that we would hang at home and office recording some of those golden moments for posterity.

Somewhere over the last year, I saw the world for what it was. Think I did anyway. Things happened which brought those fantasies come crashing down, like one of the waves reducing the castle to what it really was-a lot of (useless) sand. Lost a lot of faith in those lofty ideals, in the universe, which as Paulo Coelho likes to say is supposed to conspire to get you something that you really want. A year of epiphany, if you might call it that.

Two things happened over the last few days that seemed to sort of reaffirm faith, so to say:

A friend of mine posted this(and do take a look) on his blog, something that seems to hark back to those flights of fantasies that I had once shared with a school friend of mine, and what we had dreamt of doing was on these lines. Very happy about this guy and the person he is writing about, and that things seem to be working out so brilliantly for them.

Second, Babelfish posted this on her blog about the recent IIPM controversy, and do read the links she has put on her blog. Its great to see people like Gaurav Sabnis stand up for what they think is right. And its more so simply because I have come to realize just how difficult it is to do so at far smaller levels, leave alone resign a cushy position at IBM.

Thanx, S&M and Gaurav Sabnis(shmall part to babelfish for providing comprehensive links about the matter!!!!)

PS: If this post sounds a little sento, then you are mishtaken!! Not that way, at all, I am not going soft or anything. Just a statement of facts, if you will, which mean a little something to me ;D

PUJO!!!!

2005-10-17T17:53:00.000+05:30

ITS THAT TIME OF THE YEAR AGAIN!!!!!!!! PUJOOOOOOOOO!!!!

And it just keeps getting better with every passing year. This year's must rank right behind the pujo in my first year, and thats only because nothing can compete with that year.

The para pujo, Jodhpur Park, just keeps getting bigger and bigger. This year it was covered by Zee Bangla for all the four pujo days. The crowds were mammoth and I hardly felt like venturing into them again. And missed the ashtami anjali again after promising myself that this year I would not, come what may.

Sasthi was spent with some of my pujo shopping since I had returned on choturthi from kgp, and that evening and the next day were spent calling up friends, and meeting a couple.

It did not hurt that the guy who cooks at home chose to go to his native Orissa this pujo and, as a result, dined out with my parents everyday(!!!!) except when there was an invitation from a relative or a family friend or a school friend. That way, I have just realized, you save a lot of money as well.

Saptami was spent with friends, catching up on stuff, some time with kgp ppl discussing stuff, and sometime with my girlfriend.

Ashtami found a frust me turning up at Maddox, another broken resolution here- for I had promised not to enter the human sheep-pen that that place transforms itself into at this time of the year. Frust coz my gf's mom had decided to take her shopping on ashtami of all days, god-knows-why. Friends grinned ear-to-ear pointing out, as though they knew it all along, that this was what would come of having a non-bengali gf. Met a lot of school ppl there though, whom I see there only, if at all, in the entire year. Had to have dinner at The Chinese Pavilion that night coz everything else was so jam-packed.

Nabami, I had a lunch invitation, and it was the only day I ventured out in the early afternoon. The heat was awful. Lunch was at the Senator in Camac Street, and pretty good it was too. Unfortunately, the friend who took me out had some misunderstanding with his girlfriend immediately afterward and, as a result, we disbanded pretty soon, the pall of melancholy hanging heavy over us. The heat of the afternoon alternated with the AC had given me quite a headache, and I took the rest of the evening off at home watching TV-my parents had gone out, and werent expecting me back that early. They were SURPRISED when they returned at 8 and found me back already.

Oh btw, SHUBHO BIJOYA to all.

Dashami and subsequent days were spent visiting relatives. Sadly its back to kgp again, and the headache has already returned!!!

Blog Meet

2005-10-17T17:29:00.000+05:30

Had our own blog meet last saturday at CCD Park Street. You can read a VERY abridged version of it here. And a little more
here.

A few gaffes in between. Like when
babelfish asked me if i was the fantasy lover, and the rightful owner protested loudly from across the table, resulting in two girls in the table behind us sizing up the fantasy lover and reaching no concrete conclusion as to what he had done to deserve the epithet.

The amazing pastries and doughnuts were shared which felt great except when it was your own and someone who had promised you a treat in cal actually hogged yours :( And having given me up as a hopeless case tried to convince acroyali that she was a nice person!!!!

jaded for some reason chose to give us all descriptions w/o letting us know who is who. Just leaves you sort of hanging. Bad girl.

Were talking about the lamp which herenow had made as a birthday gift for DC. I have since decided that its a rare talent and plan to use it in the near future :D

pain...

2005-10-05T22:01:00.000+05:30

The following post is being hosted, sadly free of cost, for a friend who wants responses but is too lazy to start a blog.
Note: Anybody else struck with the same idea - further hosting will be charged to your credit card.

***********

when the pain sears through her insides. splitting every nerve in clear half. torn to shreds. can we hope to heal? maybe.

theres destruction, debris all over the place. the lasting feeling is the pain. poisonous pain. acrid sulphurous fumes. choke her everytime she thinks. it burns through and that is all one can feel.

she died atleast 10 times since morning. walking down the road, after class. the blue skies and sparkling sun of autumn laughed cruelly.

she was washing the apparatus. the experiment was over. she closed her eyes mometarily... her head swirled. her heart stopped beating. she died for a second. the pain killed her. she was nudged back to life by the cold water that was overflowing the basin. her hunger had died. everything was in place. oh yes! nothing had fallen out of place. she walked straight back from lab to her room. infact she ran. she wanted to hide. to confront her pain and wallow in it.

oh! did he? she closed her eyes, and saw them both. together. lost. the pain seared through her insides. each time she closed her eyes. each time she saw them together. did they? she wondered... ... and then she stopped breathing. the blood stopped flowing through her veins.

reason asks her to be more reasonable. but the pain killed it. and theres nothing left. the flood gates of pain open to inundate her.

Its that time of the year again!!!

2005-09-30T20:42:00.000+05:30

Things have been better since my last post. A couple of assignments successfully completed even though this assignment thing in my department is taking the majority of my time. And cost me the opportunity of doing the open-IIT drams.

Nonetheless, the last few days have been pleasant as you might expect with the exams just over, one of my stronger open-IITs held and no disappointments. And with the assignments submitted, I guess the deadline for the next will be after DP, and hence we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

This career guidance thingie kicked off today, and Sandipan Deb, I must say, was an amazing speaker. Definitely connected to him straight away. Will interview him tomorrow for Alankar. Hope it goes the way I foresee it. Unfortunately it means that I will have to wake up early morning tomorrow. That keeps getting tougher, with every saturday spent in Kgp.

Inter-hall preparations need to start. Cannot see one reason in the whole wide world why they have turned the Lit and Drams calendars upside down with DumbC the first onstage inter-halls, followed by WTGW. Pujo will eat into the time big-time!!!

And that brings me to the topic of Pujo. Its the source of my biggest frustration at the moment, and yet, the thing that I am anticipating most. Can't imagine that I was within 116 KM of home and yet havent managed to pop down once in the last two months. Which has meant no Pujo shopping yet. Missed my mom's birthday(I mean wished her, of course, but darn, who will do justice to that cake???).

Coming back to Pujo-the four days. Feels different this year. Somehow. Not sure exactly how or why. Classes 10-12 -I would divide my time between the para pujo (quite a good one), and Durga bari. Its strange how priorities change over time. Had para friends then, all of whom finished school one year early, and disappeared to various parts of the country. Almost like a "those were the best days" kind of thing. A couple of days with them, another couple with school friends, dropping by at Maddox, occasionally. All the crazy plans that we knew would never materialize to impress the senoritas. Laughing over them. Hatching more plans over bhel puri. Discarding them after someone would get cold feet halfway into them. And then hatching a few more over dinner at Zeeshan or over ice-creams at Sheriff. Simple, uncomplicated fun. Till date, I get reminders from some of them over my miserable state of existence over my inability to shake off the cold feet in my interactions with the one woman I worshipped then.

My first year. This was arguably the best pujo of my life. My parents had planned for a vacation. But we hadnt banked on my cracking the JEE, and then finding out that pujo holidays were just for the one week of pujos. So, my trip to Chandigarh, Shimla, Kulu, Manali had to be cut off at Kulu, and I took the flight back from Chandigarh(via Delhi-Destiny sometimes gives you that big broad wink in the face, doesnt it??) to Kolkata. Reached Nabami night(a Saturday). Home, after the taxi had battled through the rush, at 10.30pm. And left immediately to meet up with friends. And then had the best Dashami of my life, for it was the first time that I had the feeling that God was in his heaven and all was right with the world. I was literally singing on my way back to Kharagpur the next morning by the 6.00a.m. Dhauli.

My second year was "quite alright." Lacked that which made the previous one so special. But, it was in one of those phases when I had the "God is in his...." feeling. Because everything was as close to perfect as they could have been. met up with old pals from school. It was nice exchanging experiences, and recollecting the days in school, even though I got the feeling that we had grown apart in more ways than one. Even then, an overall pleasant time.

Somehow, feel different now. Just can't see myself jostling through the Maddox crowds anymore. Somehow, things have changed. In me. Around me. Actually wondered if I have aged faster!!! Took the blog things test on What age do you act?? It said I was 17!!!! God Bless them!!!!!!!!

Note to DD, who in his comment on my last post guessed that, if I did get the time-machine, I would go ahead in time. Wrong. I would go back a couple of years. Even though ahead would be more logical. It's a thought that has bothered me for some time now.

A desperate search for peace

2005-09-23T14:13:00.000+05:30

Its been a month, in fact a good couple of weeks more than that, since I last posted. And the period between has been tiring. Just generally. One of those elongated stretches when you get the feeling that the rub of the green has gone against you so consistently that even the law of averages should be ashamed of itself.

It did not, of course, help that the mid-semester examinations just underlined the fact. They started off pretty decently, and then things started to go haywire in my signature style. Unforced error after unforced error, a new ill that has crept into my system since the end of my first year. A lot of things coincided with the end of the first year---in fact, to be precise, I would put the end of my golden period(ok, thats a bit of an overstatement) at around November, 2004. Keep wondering since then if its just accident. Have almost come to the conclusion that it is not. Its just destiny, and I feel anybody's destiny is woven intricately around the lives of his/her associates. And as people around you change, so does your destiny.

Desperately seeking some serendipity.

My frust life:

Exams-one topic that does not need elaborating.

Exams got over on Wednesday. Everybody has gone home for a couple of days at least, everybody who lives in Cal, that is. I have not coz my lovely dep chose to put in a couple of lab assignments to keep us busy while the mid sems were on, and those have to go by Sunday and Monday respectively.

Ants infest my room. I do my best to keep it free of food and all and still they find god-knows-what to be attracted to. They were grazing my monitor today morning. And to add insult to injury, went to the WTGW captain's room yesterday night for a short practice. The guy has chocolate wrappers, biscuit packets, Real juice tetrapacks strewn across the room. No sign of ants.

The draw in the tournament has gone against me. And it could have been set right but the key people have chosen to go partying out-of-station.

Sources of comfort a little in short supply, and the past keeps coming back to haunt my present.

Saw one of those blogthing links on herenow's blog, which said I am 70% boyish and 30% girlish. Worried.

Spent over 600 bucks on chocolates in the last 6 weeks.

Just realized things which should bother me don't and those which shouldn't do.

Does my life get better by the day or what??

As an alternative to my desperate search for serendipity, I have decided that anyone who can get me a time machine will be amply rewarded.

A two week-blur

2005-08-16T14:29:00.001+05:30

I am aware that this is a much-delayed post, in spite of my best efforts to get it in somehow. Assignments, submissions, Alankar, events, football in the hall, meet-up with friends, etc have just eaten into my time. Add my inherent laziness to that, and it should not be too difficult for you to comprehend the reasons behind this sabbatical. It has been gratifying to find people asking for updates. Trouble is, since my last post, so many things have come to pass that it is a little difficult for me to put it all into one. However, I shall try and recount as many of those as possible.

First things first, though. Especially for people from IIT Kharagpur reading this post, please check out this post by phippogriff. It is disappointing to know about the treatment meted out to Indian Ocean here. And I agree completely with phippogriff when he says it could have been handled better by the people in charge. I mean we all know they are under a lot of pressure during that time, but it is disappointing if people go back from Kharagpur with the kind of experience these people had, and don’t want to come back. I mean, besides the fact that IO happens to be a top class band, I don’t think any kgp-ian would want people leaving the campus determined not to come back here. I sincerely hope other guest performers in the future receive better treatment than them. And I guess, IIT Kharagpur owes them an apology of sorts.

Now, onto the life and times of Lancelot!!! Over the last couple of weeks.

The Saturday right before Friendship Day was the worst of my life. I mean, it just couldn’t get worse than that. My cousin had been married in the US, and they were in cal for a reception on Sunday. Sunday was the submission date for my lab assignment. I got sick with fever and all on Friday night. As a result, I was in bed whole of Saturday morning. My lab assignment didn’t get done, and I couldn’t go home on Sunday, as a result. Started getting an absolutely splitting headache towards the end of the day, probably due to the fierce concentration staring at a comp screen for so long. Blew up big-time at my girlfriend for no good reason. Needless to say, she wasn’t too happy about it, even though we made up.

Friendship Day. Not particularly a special day, even though I did wish everybody on my friend lists. Highest point of this was provided by a friend who set up a common friend with a date. What happened there belongs to the Wodehousian genre of comedy, farcical in places, with the most inexplicable coincidences to further put the proverbial cat among the pigeons. I do want to describe it in detail, but I guess I should ask for permission. Besides, it would take a post all by itself.

UPDATE THUS FAR:
1. I did actually manage to finish the assignments.
2. I did, unfortunately, miss the reception though.
3. Illness perfectly OK, for anybody concerned.

POST-FRIENDSHIP DAY STATUS:
Work for Alankar, the annual magazine of the Students’ Gymkhana, has begun. It’s been great, so far, with all the enthusiasm of a new team, and could have been better, if I did not have so many submissions breathing down my neck

Convocation was on Saturday. It was great to see the seniors come back for their final hurrah, in the sense that the receipt of the degree is the finale to their stay in this grand institution. Of course, we all hope that they keep coming back, and let the good times and memories flow.
Flow it did though, with general doses of alcohol going around.
Meetings, assignments and submissions did not allow me to partake of this aspect of the revelries this time, but it was a great time nonetheless.

Some of my favourite seniors are in the US now, some in the IIMs, others spread across the length and breadth of the industry, all of them exploring new avenues, having just embarked on perhaps their longest journey.
It was strange to think, as we embraced, that just some 7-8 months back, I had been sitting with some of them, choosing pieces for elocution, planning strategies for debates, practicing for WTGW, and through all the nights spent in the common room during drams’ practices, how quickly those months had passed, and that in a day, they would be oceans away.

The open-IITs have begun.

Started off with debate, spread over Friday and Saturday, tiring indeed, for the judges, and for the participants. Unconfirmed news says that I made it to my first Foundation Day Debate.

Yesterday was the quiz.
My four member team, which also included acroyali, DT and BS, made it through the qualifiers, another first for us, (pretty easily actually, which sent our hopes soaring) before proceeding to get totally screwed in the finals. Not a nice experience, that, I can tell you.

And at the end of that weekend, extended to Monday by Independence Day, its back again to the daily grind. Hopefully, the next post will not take this long.

PS: By the way, I have been riding a cycle over the last 4 days that belongs to someone else. I don’t know who it is, but it’s been a big help, with all the running around. If anybody hears its owner lamenting, you might ask him to get in to touch with me.

Of a Man and a Machine

2005-08-02T18:49:00.000+05:30

I guess I had better make use of the fact that I am finally here to type out stuff I have been meaning to for some time now, but have been prevented from doing so by a combination of work, classes, my social responsibilities and my immense laziness. So I'll try and finish it before the sloth catches up again.

Most people would have read about the demise of Mr. CR Irani, editor-in-chief of The Statesman. In case any of you haven't and want to, you can check up a hundred and one sites about it; you may check out this link just so you have only a hundred left after that.

It is, of course, not possible for someone who doesn't know another person personally to say whether or not the latter actually believed in and lived by every one of the ideals that he preached. But, as far as CR Irani is concerned, at least he had the right ideals in place. Whether they were, or were not, a true reflection of the man that he was is not a debate I wish to enter into right now.

The reason I am writing about him at all is probably because he was one of the verrrrrrrry few "eminent" people I had occasion to meet face-to-face. Even that was for a very short time at an inter-school meet at South Point school, where I had a silver in the Creative Writing section, and he happened to be the chief guest. And we exchanged maybe two sentences each at the end of the function.

When I read the news in the paper, the image of a dignified, aging man, completely dependent on his walking stick, yet standing erect, flashed in front of me. Like I said, I have no idea in the world whether the man actually lived by the ideals he advocated. But, if it were so, then it a sad loss to a nation where the number of people with his kind of courage and conviction is dwindling rapidly. One can only hope that "The Statesman" will continue to aspire to the standards of ethic and reporting quality that they eulogise him for today.

Pray for him and the aforementioned standards.

And that the nagging doubts about all this in me be put to rest.

********************************

If you have read this post by DD before reading this one, then you might remember that I ran into him, while he was on one of his short visits to Kharagpur, outside the shop where I was assembling my comp.

That particular shop and its owner are together an excellent example of how everything in life seems to even out. In that shop lies collections of fairly sophisticated and reasonably advanced computer hardware. Pretty close to the latest stuff available as far as the basic comp requirements are concerned. And then there's the owner of that shop, who works at the kind of speed that would have put all the abacus-handlers of yesteryear to shame.

He is the kind of man who will make you comprehend why the wise men of the ages gone by have advocated the principle of doing things without expecting anything in return. If, for instance, you were to ask him a question, then it would take a pretty good memory on your part to remember what the question was by the time he gives you the answer. Also, do not expect, when you place an order, to get the configuration or the specifications that you asked for, notwithstanding the fact that you are the one paying for it. You might, like me, have ordered an all-white system, go there, pick a cabinet of your choice, watch the motherboard, hard disk, RAM et al painstakingly installed in their places, and then be told,"Sorry Sir, but white monitors and keyboards are not available. Would black be a bother??"

Would it be a bother?? It better not, if you are in my shoes.

Thus, at the end of the whole sequence, you find yourself in a situation where you return to the hostel with a white cabinet, temporary monitors, keyboards and mouse, so that at least the comp can run while the stuff you ordered are sent for again. Dire threats and abuse, its worth mentioning at this point, are completely useless coz the lad just doesn't have the ability to compile all that.

So you do what I did, quietly submit to his data output, and take what you get, praying that the rest of it turns up on your doorstep by some miracle. And you also realize that because of the excruciatingly slow speed of working of this man, you have spent 10 hours just to get that much done.

Fortunately for me, at the end of the day( which was around 1 o' clock at night, DD, a couple of his friends, and acroyali were there with a few drinks to help ease the pain. And then Chhedi's and bed.

My adventures with the comp did not end here, but the rest of the honeymoon period needs to wait for its chance on the blog, because a bad connection forced me to retype this one once already. Besides, I gave my swimming slot a miss yet again, and I somehow fancy that quite a few people would not mind giving me a feel of the rough edge of things, given the inter halls are less than a month away. The only reason they haven't is coz they probably realize(rightly) that I won't make to big a difference to our chances.
There are a few more things apart from my teething problems with my comp that I wanted to write about; such as my 5th semester so far, being a (ahem!) senior at IIT Kgp, meetings with last years passouts who are going their ways, and life in general, but I must stop this one now and go feed my tummy which has been making protesting grumbles for some time now.

Auf wiedersehen.

The viewless wings of poesy

2005-07-28T23:06:00.000+05:30

Excerpt from one of my high school poems that I loved-Flute Music. Original poem was by Tagore in Bengali. Sadly, no access to that right now. This is the translated version:

The music is true
Where in the everlasting twilight....
The Dhalesvari river flows,
Tamal trees shading her banks,
And she who waits in the courtyard,
Dacca sari, vermilion on her forehead.

Sorry to anybody who might find the words not quite as in the original english version...this is from memory, so bear with me. Conveys the essence though.

********************************************

How hard it is to snap the ties that bind our hearts to the eternal fountain of hope.

How hard it is to just stand and watch.

And how much harder to bear it all with a smile.

*********************************************

Just realized, Netaji had the right idea.

"Urim" or "thummim"??

2005-07-25T10:45:00.000+05:30

Classes on at full toll... assignments pouring in, complete chaos with timetable mishandling, inexplicable breadth options that have forced me to take subjects as far from my core as could be imagined. Quite tired of this running around and have vowed to stick to my resolution of following the heart, come what may.
OK, OK, I can see all the smiles.... but this time, am determined.... well, :D

In the middle of "The Alchemist". Can't recall any book that ever took me longer to finish, but with all thats happenning around, its a miracle I still manage to read it. Pretty insightful stuff. The line, about us seeing the world as we want to see it and not the way it actually is, stood out, for me anyway. Had the truth of this statement driven home to me through incident after incident in the last few days.

Wonder then, just what it is that movies like "Serendipity" and "Sleepless in Seattle" are so liked for. Those are the kinds of stuff that happen in movies. Show me a person who dreams about them happening in life, and I'll show you a fool. If I rattled on about this, it would start to resemble one of those discourses on "We use movies to get away from reality-Argue for or against" type of high school topics, so I'll drop that for now.

Another trip to cal, great fun over the weekend, ppl from school, and catching up... perfect weekend spoilt by the train on the return journey. Would you believe the engine acted up enough to leave us high and dry and waiting for a couple of hours. Reached kgp two hours late, and missed dinner. Not the greatest of finishes to the day either, after that, but thats something I am rapidly getting used to.

Getting more and more hooked by poetry... guess its to do with states of mind. Just makes you come back and question the kind of mechanical life all of us seem to be leading, the purpose, and the strange selfishness of it all. Desperately seeking my raison-de-etre...

"Intellectual disgrace,
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of [pity lie,
Locked in each eye."
I

Life Cycle

2005-07-19T23:26:00.000+05:30

Cycles rule life out here. Thats the big tragedy. All the same things just keep coming back semester after semester. And all the big plans and promises and resolutions before every sem just to see them washed away in tides of weary laziness, rejected by a mind sickened of the routine. If you think I am bitter about the cycles, you got it. Its hard not to be, especially when you haven't got one, and the sun beats mercilessly down on your already-burnt skin, and when its evening, the rains take their turn at it.

Another sem. And all the baggage with it. Through with the excitement of room-shifting and registration. Chaos reigned after that. Strange that students have to tell deptts that they are running short on subjects. Still not sorted out. Guess it will be soon enough though. And the classes from tomorrow. OMG.

Strange how days of introspection can drain you out. Almost weird to think of everything you build dreams with and then watch them tumble down, torn down like those waves do to the sandcastles. Annihilated, all traces of existence removed. And just carry on as we were, numbed. Perhaps its just that we are automatons of a higher order.

It defeats comprehension that there should be objects that one would, at some point of time, have given his life for, and at another point of time, simply behave as though it never existed. But, then, isn't that what we call maturity??

I am not yet certain that idealism is a curse, but it is difficult to ignore the viewpoints that created people like the Gail Wynands. And it is little better than a tragedy that we fail to concentrate minds in single minded pursuits. I agree that to be a Howard Roark is senseless, but I wonder if it might not be happier. Sadly, the parameters of judgement, as they exist, are hardly equipped to serve their purpose for they do little more than spit out an inhuman array of statistics. For those wondering where all this is suddenly coming from, the whole string of thought was stimulated by a book I just happened to flip through this summer. Forced to agree with St. Antoine de Exupery in "the little prince" who chides adults for their fascination with facts and figures.
Wonder if it isn't time that we stop this spoonfeeding that has grown into so integral a part of our systems, steer ourselves beyond all this cycles, keep things simple as they should be, and realize that its our faith that determines our identities; that its time we created our own and stood up for them.

"Beauty is truth, and truth beauty,
That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

The Cal Effect

2005-07-13T20:43:00.000+05:30

All right, everybody, am back in cal and having a lovely time. Just realized that a few things about life are so so strange and some just stick out like sore thumbs...

1. Every time I make a journey to college from cal or the reverse, I suffer a bout of dehydration.

2. I have to pay for the use of the net here, and the very thought is appalling.

3. As an alternative, I can go to my dad's office and use it after he is done, but for all the world, the speed at which his comp operates is equally appalling. And even though his office claims (passionately) that they have a P-3 machine, it seems incredible to me that anything apart from a Celeron charged machine can work like that!!!I mean I am almost tearing my hair out by the time the page appears.

4. Hope as a result of all that, anybody who reads it will bear with infrequent replies to comments and a slow-ish rate of updating in general for a week, after which college restarts.

5. Just realized that there's little worth watching on TV. So, all you people who watch it please suggest some stuff worth watching.

6. Food is just toooo good out here. Man, makes you wanna stay forever.

7. No one can say where your next free movie ticket's coming from!!! Just got one today for WOTW. Unfortunately everybody's discouraged me already :(

8. Somehow, everytime I come to cal, its marked by at least 3 power cuts in 24 hours. :(

9. At least, the radio stations are great. But, had to catch up with so many people that I have hardly had time to listen to it. Will definitely try picking it up in college again.

10. It seems nomenclature has been a dicey proposition for years now. Saw part of the final ODI between England & Australia at the OVAL. Now, this ground has straight boundaries each 63 m long, 1 square boundary 63 and the other 62 m long. WHY WOULD YOU CALL IT "THE OVAL"?????

Untagging...

2005-07-10T18:01:00.000+05:30

DD tagged me. So here goes...

Three names I go by:
1. Lancelot
2. T (my actual nickname abbr.)
3. moron

Three screen names:
1. lets_make_a_difference (early idealism)
2. light_the_candle_of_hope (;D)
3. hourglass2000 (ok, but its not what u think, had a reason then)

Things I like about myself:
1. Unpredictability
2. Eternal optimism
3. My sudden creative sparks

Things I don't like about myself:
1. Having desensitised myself to shocks.
2. Unpredictability
3. Dreaming (Tooooo much!!!)

Things that scare me:
1. Routine
2. Mess food
3. Cockroaches

Three essentials:
1. Good literature
2. New avenues to explore
3. Hope

Three things I like in the opposite sex:
1. Beauty
2. Sense of humour
3. Maturity

Three things I want to do badly now:
1. Watch the F1 race(and its on right now)
2. Go out with my friends in cal(and freak)
3. Pig out on a Mainland China buffet (just thinking about them hurts)

Three careers I am considering right now:
1. Tennis (;) ref:eternal optimism earlier!!)
2. Engineering(did u guess it??)
3. Entrepreneur ( right after I flunk the first two and find a bank with no security!!)

Three places I want to go on vacation:
1. Munnar(hill station down south with amazing tea plantations.)
2. Europe(Think it beats USA hollow simply with heritage and natural beauty.)
3. Kashmir.

Three kids names I like:
1. Pugloo (Beats everything else by miles :))
2. Chintoo
3. Bhodor (simply becoz offhand, it implies everything apart from wat it is)

Three things to do before dying:
1. Stop myself from cracking (hilarious) jokes at moments evrybody seems to find sensitive( :(( )
2. Do everything I agreed upon with certain spl. ppl
3. Beat Federer at Wimbledon

Three lucky people to take this quiz:
1. Tushar
2. Herenow
3. Rimi

Finally, Cal jus round the corner

2005-07-09T20:37:00.000+05:30

Perhaps the less romantic origin of "honeymoon" is the one that appears in etymonline.com, which claims that honey refers to the sweetness of the marriage, and moon refers to the changing aspect-no sooner full than it begins to wane!!!
There is another source that traces its origin to Babylon 4000 years back, where for a month after the wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, which coupled with the fact that they followed a lunar based calendar, resulted in "honeymoon".
How many for reviving this 4000 year old practice, with suitable changes to suit the times?? ;D

Certain readers of this post might remember one particular near-midnight tryst in the not-so-distant past in an inebriated condition, and the ensuing hilarity. Frightening(:D) to contemplate the possibilities if the practice of "sozzling" oneself was to be endorsed by the bride's father.

The ICC certainly has put the cat among the pigeons with its latest "rule change". The thought just popped in that it, if implemented in our inter halls, might wreak havoc-player to be substituted will not enjoy it!!! Not that i care too much but a new headache for captains.

Another pole for Alonso, another Grand Prix missed for me.

Finally decided to get out of this place. The last few days are the toughest. Academic productivity dropping exponentially throughout today. Got a week in cal to put the mind where it belongs-at rest. Started planning for it yesterday. Btw, for those who have not tried it, try conferencing on YM; if everybody has something to contribute, you can have the roar of your lives with confusion reigning supreme.
S called up today, and we thought of getting an old pal from school drunk. Strange the way clandestine ideas just roll off our heads. Her memory's going my way, asks the same stuff thrice in three days. But seriously wonder if we can put one of them into practise-we've planned for too long and done nothing. Would be fun...

Renee Zellweger is placed at 7 in rediff's list of the most desirable women. Thought she should be at 1. But I guess that's only coz i saw me, myself and Irene again today. Strange thing, though, saw Drew Barrymore in Never been kissed, and wondered why she was not there. And will somebody please tell me why Nicole Kidman does not figure in the list??
BTW, for those interested, there's also a most desirable men's list.

Sorry, distracted right now coz C just came online. More later.

"The difference between a rebel and a patriot depends on who's in power at that time."

My sparkling summer!!!

2005-07-08T12:25:00.000+05:30

well, anybody who knows me will perhaps have strong objections if I use "gainfully employed" to describe this summer. But I do feel that that is not so far off the mark. Learnt a lot this summer. Seriously, guys....
Lets list the stuff i "learnt":

Tennis. Ok, so maybe I can't give Roddick (or for that matter, Sania Mirza) a run for his(her) money, but at least i learnt that to belt the balls back and forth at that pace across those courts is way tougher than it looks.

Swimming. Well, knew it earlier. Learnt that I am completely out of touch when I panted and wheezed across 45 metres racing a class 8 kid and only just finished ahead of him.

Course in first half of summer. errr, lets leave that alone.... oh ok, learnt what i did not want, though I (yay!!) cleared it...

Project in second half of summer. Loved it. Learnt a little, finally found something that sparked some interest in me. And no joke, this one, grrrrrr....

Life, hmmm...another thing tougher than it seems, learnt a fair bit.

And how easy it is to be misinterpreted :((

Blogging. Damn nice thing. Helps you release stuff once in a while when you really need to.

Learnt from where "honeymoon" originated.

Thats all that comes to mind rite now...will update in case of memory blink....

*************************

Had an absolute roar over stuff some of my friends got into. Ended happily in the end, well from my point of view, that is, not so much from theirs. But, it was hilarious. Will share it sometime when they are not nearby just waiting to move in for the kill.

*************************

England finally put it across Australia though could not catch the commentary on the site s! so kindly provided. Will make sure i do that next time.

Didnt know about the bomb blasts till just now. kgp does that to news. Really tragic.

*************************

Started to watch "Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy". Stopped coz I found it a tad dragging; besides not having read the book, could not help the feeling that I was missing out on some underlying satire and the veiled sarcasms coz it would take some reflection to appreciate entirely. Anybody got a hard copy to lend me?? Sick of reading stuff on comps.

*************************

An appeal to all would-be entrepreneurs and restaurateurs. Please tap the untapped potential of the HUNGRY market in this place, and start a GOOD restaurant on campus, with reasonable prices. Not been back to cal in two weeks and feeling it.

Flora and fauna

2005-07-06T00:18:00.000+05:30

Rained today like it was trying to prove why the phrase with "cats and dogs" was coined. Had to turn on the speakers to full to hear (over the thunder, and the raindrops hammering down) how Ross would call up a girl, who finally fell for him, w/o having her phone no-"U know what, if its meant to happen, I'll guess it." Why, sure he would!!!!! Now, that would be true love!!!
Raining again as it has all of the last couple of weeks. Not that I mind. Quite like the rains, especially when you have to choose between them and a sun that comes out with the kind of vengeance that would have helped Saurav Ganguly silence his critics.
Only just realized that the rains can make you rediscover the flora and fauna in this place. Brings the best out in the flora, makes the trees look greener, flowers, happier, and the grass, fresher.And as far as the fauna is concerned, well, brings it out, period. Froms frogs of all shapes and sizes, to flying creatures(not birds) that look like the insect world has come out to celebrate the end of their hibernation period. Quite fine with me, except that they chose my room for their expressions of joy. Had been saving up for a rainy day, i guess.
The four lizards in my room have had a couple of field days.
Miss the food in cal, the hanging out after school, and the addas through life. At least the labs are AC, and we've now got songs in here.
Wonder how close a parallel our lives have with those of the aforementioned flora and fauna?

***********************

Too bad England couldn't nail Australia in the end. Was the first ever match that I "watched" on a website. Kept refreshing the scorecard on the website. What a way to watch!!!
Alonso pulled off another one. Just seems unstoppable at the moment. Buck up, Schumi....

***********************

Wrote this while my code was running.
Code still running.
Guess I will go grab some tea.

Killing,Gross n Painful Life

2005-07-02T22:29:00.000+05:30

Actually, not all that bad.
But almost.
Bleak times down here. Place becoming more and more desolate by the day. To think that in 15 days time, the ruckus will begin again.
Kept drizzling throughout yesterday.
Power cut since morning today. Couldn't get my work done at the bank. Came and sat in the AC in the lab but power cut prevented the servers from working. Then got locked inside the lab by some #*$%#. Had to scream to get out.
Got so bored, went to play in the afti. Played, just racquet, wall, ball and me, till i was dead tired. Could almost feel the muscles creaking back to life. Felt good. Came back and slept like a log till 8.
Found a frog in my room. Was reminded of Haripada, the clerk, in Tagore's Flute Music, who had a non-rent-paying-lizard in his room. Got half a dozen in mine-saw them multiply through the year. And now, dear froggy. Hope its the last of the self-decided inhabitants of my room.
In the lab again now, struggling as usual. And rooting for England, who are finally making a match of the final.
Was damn sorry to see Sharapova lose. First person since Steffi with ability, beauty and dignity.
Saw something about Federer in another blog.
C asked me sometime back if i was jealous of S. Not sure if i convinced her that I am not. But I am not.
As of now, just jealous of Federer-not fair that some people should have it all:a girlfriend like that and a backhand like that.

I knew that it was "never"

2005-07-01T14:38:00.000+05:30

He went back. To the ice-cream parlour at Elm's and Moore. To sit and think. Of everything that had come to pass in his life. To all those years which he felt like hanging up on the wall with a "Those were the best days of my life."

It struck him that it was all a big mistake. Which he was paying for. And would continue to. It also struck him that it was exactly the kind of mistake he would look back on with pride. He shrugged and smiled as he thought of the escapades, hiding from parents, praying that nobody he knew would walk in while he was with her, the "Tom Sawyer-like cartwheels" to impress her!!

"Don't leave me."
"Of course not."
"Never?"
"Never."

He did not. She did not. But they did.
He thought of when she was upset, another rollicking fight against the "establishment" that just wouldn't let two people be.
The tears were just flowing. So was the anger.

"Do you watch Hindi movies??"
"What?!?"
"I said, do you watch Hindi movies??"
"Not much. Why??"
"Oh, they would have told you that you look much better when you are angry or crying or something like that. Don't believe them."
"Oh..."

They just walked out of each other's lives. Both had nicely mapped lives. They followed the signs along the highway. Where there were no signs, they just took the road everybody before them had taken. Never hesitated. Never stopped to wonder if the other road held a pot of gold at the end. Never really looked back. Reached their parking spots at the end of the day and never found each other.

"I..I can't. Not now. Later maybe."
"Oh, I see."
"Listen, I would love to make a difference to your life."
"I know."

Hope springs eternal.
His life was happy enough. The map had been a good one.
She did not mean much anymore. That phase was over. There was more to life.

What if his map took him away again?? From what he had today. What if hers did?? Well, he would get somewhere at least. I mean, so many had been through this before. Couldn't be a bluff.
This was Elm's. Things looked different, didn't they?? He stopped by a bootblack.

"Isn't there an ice-cream parlour here??"
"Ice-cream parlour??Here??What is this, the 20th century??"

He smiled. The guy was right. Things had moved on at Elm's and Moore.
He gunned the engine and turned the car around. He never went back again. It was too late.

*************

I thank thee, Lord, for.....
........and for such a winderful cartographer.

Things had never been better and would never be.
He had met her yesterday Things had gone perfectly.

"Don't ever leave me."
"I won't."
"Never?"
"Ne...."

The best days of his life were not behind him. They were up ahead.

*************

"Can you tell me which way Elm's and Moore is??"
"Sure. Straight down this way. Take a right at the gas pump. You new here??"
"Thanks. No. Just coming back after 10 years."
"Well, then, its no use. Place changed beyond recognition."
"Well, some things never change. Thanks anyway....."

In that sweet mood...

2005-06-30T13:30:00.000+05:30

"shama kahein parwane se, badhe chala jaa,
meri tarha jal jayega, yahan nahin aa,
woh nahin sunta, usko jal jana hota hai."

thats the kind of song i have been listening to since yesterday. Enveloped by a strange kind of retro mood. The kind that makes you want to turn back time, and go back, say 3 years in time. The kind that makes you discover a love for the romantic genre of poetry. And to think of the amount we abused them while struggling through lesson after lesson in high school.
Of course, I suspect that this place has more than a significant role to play in making my mood the way it is. Been drizzling since yesterday, the kind of weather thats perfect when your friends are around.The kind of weather that puts you into this mood when they are not, and you yearn for those times again.
Went to TM for dinner. Alone. Strange experience. Nice in a way. Overheard, unintentionally, the animated discussion at the next table over why Argentina would be no match for Brazil in the final. Awesome match though. Brazil completely walloped Argentina. Have to say that though I am completely anti-Brazil.
Funny to think how charged and passionate the quartet at the table was in their arguments. Reminded me of the days in school, R, S, G and me....R and S in an equally impassioned argument over WWE "stars", occasionally joined by Nan, speculation over "Friends, swinging arguments over whether ganguly was more of a matchwinner than sachin....
Munching on a chicken roll in TM, remembered dinners together, lunch at MLC after our ISC, completely pigging out, CCD last summer, school, mimicing teachers, classes at Ms. P's, bawarchi after that, zipping through not caring.
Read an article on Aung San suu kyi thought of Jaco synthesis and the UN Mock and representing Burma ;-) did some vague stuff with R. High school crushes and all the planning before and after every move, brainstorming sessions....and little results at the end of it all. Playing Quake, blind firing with machine guns. Zeeshan for rolls after classes....
Wonder what everybody is doing. Would be the perfect time and atmosphere to catch up with old stories....
And all this is only a fraction of all that I thought sitting in TM and then through the Brazil final. Long chat with A in between. Wonder if I am finally at the stage where the heart aches but no more. Free. A plaything in the hands of destiny. Just what I never wanted to be. And am desperately hoping I have become.
Monsoons can be a bit of a pain. They don't seem to come at all, and when they do, don't seem to want to let up. I guess its a little bit the same with life and emotions. Can just picture myself floating away on 10 pegs of neat vodka....how I long to let myself go like that. Must be man's greatest creation. Especially in that sweet mood when sad thoughts bring pleasant thoughts to the mind. Signing off with due apologies to one William W