Trainspotting
The journey of a thousand miles invariably begins with me offering prayers to all my favourite gods, hoping that I would be blessed with a companion in the train (keywords: despo, cute chick). That Murphy invariably ends up having the last laugh is a different story altogether. As I set foot upon my beloved M-Land, that too a day before superstar’s birthday (Happy Birthday Thalaiva!), the sirs and madams of my alma mater are busy following the road oft taken determined to end up as corporate hooters. Having obtusely incremented my six month long wait by four more days, I was wondering whether the charm of “home” was totally lost on this thick skin. But then, in a truly ‘skies lighten, faces brighten’ feeling, the boyish grin returned to my face the moment I left the portals of Azad.
There is something special about the Tamilnadu Express that words cannot explain. As I stand on platform number seven, (make no mistake, the magically most powerful number and one-sixth of the answer) listening to middle aged women abusing their hubbies in chaste Madras Basha and the local tea vendors trying to explain to the hindi-uninitiated lot that the chai costs rupees six and not five, there pervades a feeling that Chennai would have been proud of. Nevertheless there are those ignominious moments when conversations with co-passengers get a little too personal, and family details start tumbling out. It is at times like these that I have regretted my inability to pose questions in the vein of “Where did you say your co-brother was working again?”, “Oh! Your third sister’s second husband is a divorcee?”. Reminds of the truck which had a “Mera Bharat Mahaan” sign placed just above another one which said “Highly Inflammable”.
I’ve always wondered as to how every moron under the sun gets his own journey with a UOR Alumni who subjects the aforementioned chap to a sermon on the glorious heritage of the institute. Indeed, these are mere euphemisms and literary devices, I surmised. Yet, when I got my own forty two seconds of fame, the experience turned out to be nothing short of disappointing. The gentleman across me, a pass-out of my own department, rather than regaling me with old wives’ tales seemed quite apologetic about the fact that he had not graduated from an institute with a tag as glorious as the one I would get my degree from. The sole consolation came in the form of an apparent affair that a revered professor indulged in, with his lady hailing from a department just opposite the computer centre.
The journey of a thousand miles ended with the train reaching the famed Chennai central two full hours behind schedule, putting an end to the clichéd saga. Offering a stark contrast to the desi-bound hero of many a tamil movie, I wasn’t greeted by the smell of fresh jasmine nor was it the scent of the morning idli that my olfactory lobes picked up. Instead it a heady smell of rotten fish and dung that pervaded the platform, perhaps reminiscent of the octant of my life that I had just bid farewell to. I had read earlier in a beautiful editorial by Dog Day Afternoon’s predecessor, a comparison of Roorkee to a story book that appeared besmirched on the surface but yet even the fine print grew on you as you moved past the introductions. Indeed, my own lovely chapter opening many new eyes and paths, left me with a bitter-sweet smile with its deplorable ending. As the process of reshuffling priorities gets underway, I once again take inspiration from a great man’s immortal words hoping that the remaining chapters of my red-bound story book have something more holistic to offer.
- From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
- A light from the shadows shall spring;
- Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
- The crownless again shall be king
Filed under: General News | 7 Comments
Tags: Maddu-Land, R-Land, Train
What sweet dreams taste like
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 | 10 Comments
Aeon Flux
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!
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
“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
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
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