What sweet dreams taste like

11Oct09

Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a frigging big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of frigging fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the hell you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing frigging junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all,  pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, sucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got coffee?

Post: Yes, I am on a high. Two words, Saravana Bhawan.

Post-Post: This blog has a PG rating according to MPAA and hence the text-substitution

Filed under: General News   |  6 Comments

Thou shalt love thy neighbour

30Sep09

There are two kinds of people – those who know binary and those who don’t. Neighbours however, belong to the third breed, those who make you ponder about the reason why the human race exists in the first place. These 42 days in Ajaad (approximation is one of the quintessential qualities of an engineer) amongst the finest postgraduates our nation has to offer has added many new dimensions to the word “neighbourly”.

As a tribute to these fine, young gentlemen (PC demands), I present ten innovative ways to shower affection on your wingmates and continue maintaining the good relations you’ve built. Guaranteed to have your neighbours squealing with delight.

(in no particular order)

1. Meet the Smokers
“Sutta na mila” is a farce, period. The swine flu prevention mask that you bought has finally found some use, albeit for something completely different; wearing it inside your room prevents asthma (Pre-Order your chocolate flavoured mask today!). The flipside is that the various cigarettes scattered around double as a good tool for brand identification/equity (thanks to which we stood second in the legendary shARE quiz).

2. Keep it “Brief”
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, no it’s just the neighborhood chuddi-maan! In the lineage of Marvel and DC’s crimebusters who wore their underwear over their pants, comes the omnipresent undie-man, who errr….chooses to wear only his underwear and roam about. Never has a single man evoked such a plethora of reactions – inspiration, disgust, amusement and (rarely) indifference. Though “Come on ra, it’s only a boys hostel” can be used to his defence, you have to take into account the opinion of two horny southies who exclaim with anguish, “I can accept the boxers but wearing V-cut chuddies all the time is ridiculous”.

3. Loved, Louder
Now, before you mistake the benign souls who play loud music on their 5.1 surround speakers, let me explain. These gentlemen only wish to provide free entertainment to the entire wing (or sometimes, the whole hostel) and what better way than Backstreet Boys and Pritam Chakraborty. Altruism knoweth no bounds.

4. What the Flush
Recent studies indicate that pressing the flush after you are done requires an average of 35.42J of energy. Blaming the folks who do not use the flush is incorrect as they are merely following the principle of conservation of energy. A wise man once said, “It is understandable if people forget to use the taps above the urinals but…………………………..” you get the picture, don’t you?

I am totally flus(h)tered.

5. Maddus are from Mars and Haddus are from Pluto
If you ever thought all those residing south of the Vindhyas were similar, think again! Apologies to my Haddu Brethren, but when you’ve grown up on Illayaraja’s and ARR’s very best and end up hearing the same in another language, it is but natural to curse the entire gult cult. During an I’m-missing-maddu-land phase of life, “Anjalu Anjaloo” is probably the last thing you want to hear. Had it not been for S.P.B’s divine baritone, I would have probably gone mad by now.

6. Election Manifrustos
“Do you mind, if I stick a ‘Vote for Ajay Mishra (that’s me)’ poster on your door”. “Hi. I am standing for mess secy. Please get me atleast 40-50 votes from your batchmates”.  “Food is neither B.Tech nor M.Tech, so I am counting on you to get all B.Tech votes”. Nuff said.

7. Pukeistan
One reason to welcome Azad’s banning the elixir of those who swear by, “I drink, therefore I am”. In adherence to nature’s fundamental law of “What goes in has to come out”, the Bevdaa brigade once decided to defile the bathroom after their endeavours at sea. The result being no one in the wing was able to have a bath for the next few days.

8. Moan(a) Lisa
Moaning Myrtle’s got competition. Introducing Moan(a) Lisa, based on a true story. Not so long ago, in a galaxy close to the gaon, existed a particular room which emanated all sorts of noises. Moans, Shrieks, Wails, howls, you name it, they were all there in their full acoustic glory. Legend also has it the intensity of the sounds was inversely proportional to the distance from the nearest TS. Considering it was a double room, the lesser said, the better!

9. Read my blaag

Blaaaagging it seems, is the latest fad in the insti. Though not that common a grouch, “go read my latest blog post and make sure you comment” has become more of a command than a request. Inspirations are plenty though, especially when your neighbour’s blog is reassuringly titled “Change”. Obama, watch out!

10. Hairy Potter and the basin of hairyness

Tolkien would have probably said, “One day the hirsute shall rule the world”. Rajinikanth opines in Thillu Mullu, “Moustache is the mirror of the heart”. Neither of these however, can justify the presence of hair in the washbasin every single time. Do we need any more reasons to introduce TM-101 (Toilet Manners) as a compulsory course.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (especially those residing in Azad’s fifth wing) is purely co-incidental.

Posht Script: In Steven Tyler’s wise words, “All the things you do come back to you”. By this very logic, one can expect the aforementioned gentlemen to be blogging about a little chronophilic rat in their midst. Do keep tuning in to “Change”, ‘the unofficial pipth wing ka blog’ for further updates.

Filed under: IIT Roorkee, Yet Another Rant   |  20 Comments
Tags: Azad, Lame-Attempt-at-Humor, List, R-Land

Aeon Flux

26Aug09

It is that familiar time of the year again, when every group family on campus worth its aloo-subzi hyperactively initiates its annual family planning ritual. It was however during a completely different and predominantly enterprising endaevour that I found myself back in Fort knox, the only difference being that I was now the hunter. The smell of fresh meat pervaded the atmosphere, being on this side of the table was sure going to be fun, such sadistic pleasures came to foreplay. *Pop (goes the weasel).. These “confident, interesting, outgoing <insert cliched term used by freshers to describe themselves>” people burst my bubble by prefixing, suffixing and affixing every possible statement by three irritating letters Sir(jee?). Being a firm believer in the philosophy that “Respect should be commanded and not demanded”, this is one thing about R that had always irked me. Yet never had reality hit me this hard; whoever said “giving is better than receiving”, sure wasn’t kidding. “I’m just 18 for christ’s sake, not any older than you, and in all probability no smarter either”, I wanted to scream out loud, but the morons’ adulation for me knew no bounds. Before I knew it, sirs were being hurled at me left, right and centre. The I-was-just-waiting-for-this paranoia of being too old soon started knocking my door.

19 years on and Senescence still remains one of the more arcane elements of life. Perhaps it is the Almighty’s own divine way of saying with panache, “Screw you… I’m the maaaan”. As I enter my last year of teenage-dom (Or have I already crossed it? The 19 completed, 20 running thingy always confuses me), the metaphorical difference between 19 and 20 has never been so apparent. I shall soon embark on the journey that from the land of the young to that of the  young-at-heart, while the clock (relentlessly) ticks life away. As the all-encompassing 21.2 looms large, I seek solace in Mathematics. If there exists an average, then clearly the set must contain ATLEAST one element below the average and I consider myself to be the chosen one.

One fine day when I’m 63 (which FYI is 42+21), I shall be regaling my grandkids with glorious tales surrounding mah heroism – my romantic escapades, innumerable concubines, jostles with the templar knights, revelling in my imagination. And then my second childhood shall set in.

But it’s not the bard’s magical words which ring in my mind but a classy one-liner from a even classier maddu song, “Jalsa” (Do download it. It’s worth the effort, I promise you).

Irukara varikum anubavikka ilamayae yethukko da
(Learn to accept youth till it lasts)

Happy Birthday, bah, a poor excuse to pick a man’s pocket every year.

P.S: *bows to Freddie. You are a legend.

P.P.S: Happy Birthday rapu-ra!

Filed under: All about Me, Yet Another Rant   |  15 Comments
Tags: Birthday, Nostalgia, R-Land, Senti

Phew!

28Jul09

All through the while, as I was typing this post (I miss the good old days when I used to write stuff before typing it *sigh), I had half a mind to change the title to “The Week that wasn’t”, because I couldn’t think of anything else that describes my first week in IITR better.

Abra, Cadabra “Electronics and Communication” – so said the notice. After the initial feeling of being a “prisoner of my own device”, the chastisations by my venerable seniors and haunting  by ghosts of the ubiquitous second-decimal point, I attained a state which can be classified as predominantly blissful. The subjects seemed great and to my joy Data Structures was a five credit course… I was just thinking “All’s well….” when R-land’s very own Murphy showed his ugly face.

Of all the great institutes in the world, it is only in R that you end up regretting filling up that coveted list; it is only in R that branch-changers are treated like criminals. The last one week has seen me losing almost all the weight that I gained this summer. Running about the institute – dept to dept, acad section to ug, dosw to dean-ug , I would have given those ethopian marathon runners a run for their money. Bureaucracy at its very best. Last I heard, I had become such a familiar face in the DOSW’s office that they were considering giving me a clerical position. What with the recession and all, I should probably go ahead and take it.

But all cribbing aside, R-land’s tranformation is still underway. New faces, New cycles and new buildings, one wonders what happend to our dear mantra of “Go green“. Familiar faces are being sorely missed, especially in the gaon (make it) dubai. But their legacy lives on, “Ashok Rajaraman, B.Tech Metallurgy”, it says on my trunk. Thanks rapu And there is this quaint charm of seeing lost faces in front of RJB, parents bidding teary farewells and snapping of photos near the library building – feels like you’ve travelled one year back. But with a difference. The hunter has become the hunted. The albatross around our necks in the form those two “Rs.10 non-judicial papers” has led to the sophomores maintaining significant distance from the freshers. As for dreaded R-word…. shuuuussshhh!! it does not exist except in those huge banners. Fearless fachahas striding about the insti playing mafia wars in the library computers. Bah!

Just like the knights templar out to get the holy grail, I too was on a mission – to get my abode transferred to other side of the dreadead slope. After hours of pleading and making the government workers understand what I wanted in my heavily accented broken hindi, things seem to have taken a turn for the better. Azad, here I come. (No, not if I get a matchbox room).

Azad reminds of one of my favourite quotes that I happened to re-read recently.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows

Cheers!

Filed under: Council of Elders   |  24 Comments

Winds of Change

09Jul09

“A Maddu Related to time – 5 Weeks ago” croons the blogroll of a certain Mr.B. Speaking of Blogrolls, my own begs to be updated. The brightly lit population of R-land having to taken to blogging as the last resort to counter velagiri, it is high time I updated my blogroll with the newest bunch of illustrious names.  It was just the other day that the Mallu Marauder with his usual verbose pragmatism posed the question, “you have been a rather sedate blogger these vacations?”… more a double edged sword than a question.

The answer, I borrow from the Platonist, “It’s not time but me”.. And yet this summer has been an eye-opener of sorts. In all probability the most packed and productive summer of my whole eighteen years of existence. The realization of a certain Ex-Chairman’s, “The closer you get to Maddu land the more awesome you get” has fully dawned upon me (Awesome being a very subjective term of course). Very vividly, I recall the last few days spent at R-Land, the packing of books and the promise I made to myself, “Enough of ghissing. It’s time I started participating” with the most sincere of intentions. But now, the label of “ghissu”, nor the jeers of my compatriots matter nought, I know that my tryst with graph theory, parameterized complexity and the connected vertex cover and in general algorithms is far from over.

Inspirations come in different shapes and sizes. More often than not, it has been people. Be it Pete Sampras, Steve Jobs, innumerable family members, seniors at school and college or even teachers. This time however it is an environment that has opened my knowledge eye, to quote a tamil cliché. The summer programme has come at the right time and right place. Having rediscovered my passion for algorithms and been exposed to the fascinating world of Theoretical Comp.Science, I am left wondering whether I have found the answer to my life, the universe and everything else. Sample this:

1)       The atmosphere – brilliant
2)       The papers being published – mind blowing
3)       The rapport between PhD Scholars and profs – a stark contrast to my own dear institute

I am contemplating, with utmost seriousness, about a career in research. Research, as I have learnt, is slow and terribly frustrating but nothing beats the sheer joy of having discovered something by yourself. However insignificant it may be, it still remains a small step for mankind and giant leap for yourself.

Epilogue:

As awesome as Maddu Land is, R-land still commands a class of its own. “Results not yet finalized da”, the god of fun announced giving room to more frustration. One wonders whether we are expected to do a Pinky before finding out our true destination.

Fate hangs in the balance, but the road ahead is clear. All is well… for now.

Filed under: Council of Elders   |  11 Comments
Tags: Algorithms, Maddu-Land, R-Land, Research, Tech, Thoughts

Angels and Dementors

01Jun09

If signs could kill, this could have as well been classified as manslaughter. Right from the seating, (5 rows from the screen, it could have been a 3D movie for all practical purposes) to the terrible reviews, nothing seemed right about the film adaption of one of my favourite works of fiction. To add to the misery, The Hindu’s, “You are better off reading the book” and Mr.Rajeev Wannabee-Sarcastic  Masand’s two on five still lingered in our minds as we entered one of the city’s coveted theatres feeling like Harry Potter after a meeting with a dementor.

And guess what, the state of expectations tending to zero actually helped our cause. The age old trick of an open mind did make the movie quite an enjoyable experience. Ofcourse, this won’t go down in my all-time-list but atleast it has the honour of not gracing the “Rotten Tomatoes” either. The movie is no way even half as gripping as the book but then again comparisons are unfair because as a wise man once said, “A book is a book is a book”! Moreover, compacting Dan Brown’s gargantuan blend of fact and fiction into a two hour movie is no mean feat and Ron Howard has to be appreciated for his half-decent effort. The subtle yet observable differences between the book and movie while might irritate some die hard Dan Brownians, does lend some credibility and originality to an otherwise predictable movie.

Most conspicuous in the movie is lack of strong individual performances. Weird hairstyles and in-emotiveness notwithstanding, Tom  Hanks has clearly done a better job than Da Vinci Code. But yet, coming from the same actor who stole the show in Forrest Gump, his performance leaves a lot to be desired. Vittoria Vetra would probably be better off as Langdon’s pet dog. The strong independent young lady portrayed in the book is replaced by an anxious scientist who prefers flirting with Langdon all the time apart from displaying a newfound interest in Christian history. Sadly, she isn’t eye-candy either. The assassin, one of my favourite characters in the book is non-existant. His brutal flamboyance is sadly missing, instead in his place we have a bespectacled joker who only follows his unknown master’s instructions.

The show however, belonged to Ewan McGregor. Obi-Wan Kenobi returns in a new avatar to stun the audience with a performance par excellence making full use of the Camerlengo carefully sketched by Brown. Comparisons to Ledger may seem inevitable. While he may not win an Oscar for his role, he is without a doubt the Man of the match.

Overall, I wouldn’t go as far as to call the movie a “must-watch”. If haven’t read the book, then don’t ruin your life by watching the movie first. If you have and are suffering from the “Extreme Velaness Disorder” (read as jobless), then give it a shot. If you aren’t vela, but are a Dan Brown fan, you shouldn’t miss it either. Either ways, you’d probably be better off watching this Hanks rather than his son in that awful excuse for a movie.

My rating – 3/5

Filed under: All about Me   |  13 Comments

One flew over the cuckoo’s nest

26May09

Laziness is in the air! For a metaphorical eternity I’ve been wanting to press the publish button and unleash the clichéd and retrospective year end post. But yet as I sit in front of this black box, the very fingers which boast of a typing speed of well over 75wpm are unable to co-ordinate with their cranial master and string together a few words. Neither the  receding blogline which says “Chronotron – 5 weeks ago”, nor the dozen others senti posts by fellow basters are able to break this mould of laziness which has cropped up. But dear reader(??), do forgive me this one time … After all, its that time of the year when my enviable hindi skills can rest in peace, when the ubiquitous “Oh! You’ve grown so thin” exclamation results in brilli-aunt sweets being stuffed inside and when I get to meet old acquaintances and reminisce about those green and salad days.

Savage Garden with their “Truly, Madly, Deeply” were the runners-up for the title of a post where I attempt a futile sojourn down my short-term memory lane.  How can I forget? My legendary pole dance in the first of its kind Litta chapo.  The destruction of various rooms – the only meaningful exercise in an farzi endeavor calling itself Bhawan day. The end of an era where I was a diligent NCC Cadet. Fervour (the passion?) in Azad and Cautley TV rooms as we cheered the Devils who are truly on their way towards a magical quadruple. Long hours  spent in front the RJB canteen for FAQ (Fachchas associated with Quizzing no more?) meetings, and more recently the farewell quiz. A few memorable moments that I draw from the pool of nostalgia but believe me, this semester was so much more. It is times like these that make me wish that I lived in Harry Potter’s magical world. That way, a Pensive could help me re-live all these magical moments which otherwise may fall into the bottomless abyss of life.

The coming semester will be exciting in its own way. Yet the hallowed portals of LitSec^TM and WONA will never be the same. No more quizzes where the QM in all his geekiness proclaims “bullet time” to be a household word. No more wardrobe malfunctions or modified-Baba-Dude Symbols. No more turban-spotting. And alarmingly, no more girls in Litta (hopefully the coming batch is able to throw up an answer to that)… The crowd in Cautley’s TV room shall never be the same again. No more fist pumping by an otherwise serene, cute chap with the Man-U Tee Shirt. Meetings of the morons Inc will throw up many new faces. Bulks, Sulks and resident geeks have taken their seats in the audience, it is the era of baldness, of Chewbeccas and underwear.

Life being a cycle, the future will always bring with it an element of the past. Maybe one fine day I’ll look at some minion and comment, “Did I ever tell you? You remind me of this dinosaur/left hander”… but they can never be the same. G-71 & 81 shall always hold a sweet spot in this memory… Scrabble, 1TB harddisks and WOTalk notwithstanding, there is something special about those visits to the farm house or maybe as the Mallu Marauder put it perfectly, “We came to seek your blessings”..

When I’m 64 (sorry Dela, you changed the title), and when I think of this particular phase of my life labeled by an ordered pair (1,2), all that I’ll have with me to enter the bittersweet world of nostalgia will be a few dozen jpeg files (for the uninitiated, facebook is your friend) and a boastworthy nine point something. But neither in all their mundaneness can hope to sum up a (as clichéd as it may sound), a roller-coaster of a semester.  For some undecipherable reason, this rhyme which inspired Ken Kesey and probably thousands of others comes closest

One flew east, one flew west
And one flew over the cuckoo’s nest

Filed under: IIT Roorkee   |  7 Comments
Tags: Farewell, Litta, R-Land, Senti, WONA

The Other Side

14Apr09

Buried deep beneath the deep crevices of self centered euphoria, agony and emotions lie the few fleeting moments one is able to extend his vision beyond the mundane realms of everyday life to the flipside, what appears to us as the dark side. Call it what you may, history is too partial with odes to the triumphant and shadows of death to the vanquished.

It had all the markings of a quintessential rickshaw journey. Starting off with the usual bargaining, we finally settled on the amicable amount of Rs.50 (More on my legendary bargaining skills later). I should have noticed the signs when he tried to make small talk enquiring about my health. Generally I avoid any sort of conversation with the rickshaw-wallahs so as to simply not expose my exemplary hindi skills. Initially I managed to fend off some questions with the customary smiles and “theek hai” ’s and then the conversation took a turn. For the worse.

Note: Bhaiyya’s conversations were all in Hindi. It is imperative here to mention that I really didn’t get half of what he said. The other half which I supposedly got, again I’m guessing as to what he said. My understanding of hindi is primarily based on my logical skills, limited vocabulary and use of arbit English words here and there which let me pick up the context.

What ensued was total chaos. Read on….

Filed under: All about Me   |  23 Comments