The Short Essay..

Alas, I am back with another post, stupidity to be portrayed as ever in this one too..
Well, I had a GD session at IMS today, and hilarious it was. We were asked to write a short essay within the span of five minutes. The topic was given and the ink started to flow. Insanity was embossed on the white papyrus of my classmate notebook. The funny thing; I read out the essay aloud when I was asked to, and in the end I earned a 'well written' compliment from the eminent(?) faculty from British Council. I simply marvel at the praise which was very much unprecedented considering the fact that I always write horrendous stuff, and also the time available here was very less. Probably, my rubbish looked better to them when compared to the work of others.

I've posted the essay below for enlightened souls to read and ponder upon how the faculty from the British Council erred in their judgment.

The Topic : In the past, success was certain if you were wealthy but its not true anymore.

The Essay :
'Throw in your cash, life becomes a bash' was the common notion in the earlier days. The rich continued to thrive in the society where their wealth was the focal point.

In our country though, stepped in the government with rules, that did its best to reverse this trend. The first stop was education. Reservations became the order of the day much to the delight of the less privileged who for generations had been struggling to break the shackles to reap the benefits of quality education from the elite institutions.

The Universities which once upon a time accepted cash to educate the undeserving could do it no more. The same was the case when one had to hunt for a job. Recommendations were not much of a lifeline anymore. The resume had to speak for the candidate and this depended upon the qualification which had to be obtained purely by merit, and not by splashing wealth.

But at times, personal wealth has shown its ability too. Take the case of Abhinav Bindra, who is now considered a legend in our country. He used to travel to his range for training in a Mercedes accompanied by his driver and his servant. He was one who had never experienced the strenuous life which was endured by several other aspirants. The truth is, his wealth, apart from his talent enabled him to grab the Olympic Gold. An exceptional case.

The times have changed though. The equation for the majority is pretty simple: 'You don't get success from wealth anymore, but You do get wealth from success.'(punch dialogue)

The Destiny..

It was one weird incident that evolved, that day.. He, was on his way to the theater, to witness the screening of a movie scheduled to start thirty minutes from then; two hours from noon..

It was a pleasant day, reason one, being the weather; reason two, being the day, on which sixty one years ago, the nation was rid of the British rule for the supposed good.. The roads were void, with plenty of room to gallop; the sun was up there taking shelter behind the puff of clouds.. Three special colors had taken shape everywhere, forming their outline on vehicles, on attire, and in the hearts of millions..

He though, was trying to decipher the solution to an enigma which he had foreseen en route. And then suddenly, though not unexpectedly, he was stopped on his way by one grotesque figure, clad in strange attire with a mysterious look upon the face.. He knew that he was staring at those eyes, which belonged, to the 'God of Death'..

"The time.. is now.. The life of thy, has an end.. And the end is here.." said the God with a cunning smile upon his face..

"No, it ain't possible.. Housed in my heart, is an ambition, and I believe it is my destiny to fulfill my goal, and achieve my ambition.."

"Son, the world has got ambitions.. The young and the old.. Dog or Man, an ambition exists.. An ambition is like a phoenix.. One ambition is done; the next is reborn.. Its a chain.. If I were to let people to get to their ambitions, none will ever leave this domain, the cosmos will have to suffocate.."

"My destiny is mine to create, and so is my ambition. Nothing can stop me, not even you.." said the lad..

"what is that ambition of yours..?"

"It is 'to live on'.."

Escaped, those words from the heart of the young lad, words fueled by undying desire causing the grotesque God of Death to think.. 'This encounter was quite unprecedented', thought he..

The God of Death too had a destiny, that of to meet the one who would repel the almighty himself away.. making him realize, that he was not the one to decide the destiny of his people.. One had the power to control their own destiny. That which was needed to achieve it was only the 'belief', which was the actual God..

Retreated the God of Death, from the scene.. It was decided. He would never meet this lad again.. The lad, continued his journey.. knowing that nothing could stop him from reaching his destination.. If there was something that could stop him, it was he himself..

The Act of Stealing..

Well, this might end up being like the confession of a crime topper, but yeah, I don't mind being called one such person though I guess I no longer am the same..

I remember, once upon a time, after I got back home from college one day, I was talking to this friend of mine with whom I used to talk quite regularly.. She asked me

"how was your day..?" to which I answered

"One awesome day, and you know what.. I helped the college incur a loss of Rs.50.." and she asked me

"how..??".. to which I shamelessly replied..

"I just took out stuff from the canteen when they weren't noticing, some talent to do that..!"..

And I really got slaughtered by her that day..

"You stole huh..?.. Thats not a great thing..! Its probably the worst thing ever.."

..and I tried justifying my act of insanity, projecting this villain as the Robin Hood who was performing the act of 'stealing from the rich and giving it to the poor'.. (I considered myself poor in this very case).. But she persisted.. saying..

"I dunno, but its not right.. I don't feel good when you do all this..".. and this dragged on to set shape to an argument which lead to a fight..

Days went by, and so did the months.. And now, I realize that she was indeed very correct in what she said.. 'Stealing was and is an act of immorality..'.. Its probably the worst sin ever in this world..

I just finished the book 'The Kite Runner' by Khaled Hosseini, and at a particular instant in the book, the story brushes upon the definition of sins and stealing.. 'Amir' asks his father about sins to which his father replies..

"When you kill a man, you steal a life.. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father.. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.. There is no act more wretched than stealing.. A man who takes what is not his to take has supposedly committed a sin, one which can never be forgiven.."

I am not trying to preach values over here, I merely am talking about something which I very recently realized.. And I am sure I will never commit the same mistake again.. Even an attractive Parker pen which lies unclaimed on my desk will not attract my attention, owing to the fact that it rightfully does not belong to me..

I had been thinking about this all day long, which is the reason for this post.. I have now understood the mistake that my friend was trying to point out to me long ago..

To my friend who bestowed upon me this bit of sense..

"Thanks..! I owe it all to you.."

Fifth Semesters..

Semesters are eight in total in the engineering course, only six of which are quite relevant to my life.. I've gone through four already, with only its reflection yet to be conquered.. I would like to touch upon the beauty of one day in one such semester which is in fact this very day, the 12th of August, 2008..

The day started as usual with my late entry into reality from the now seemingly distant dreamland; when my mum had to pour water on my face to achieve the unachievable.. 'My awakening'.. After some last minute scurry and filling in my bag with the right 'fiction books' to read for the day, I stepped out to be escorted by dad in the ever so peppy 'scooty pep' to my kk nagar stop.. and there I ascended that heavenly abode on wheels, and it took me a couple of minutes before I covered myself from head to chin with my kerchief in the intention of repelling the dust that had been thrown up by the roads, and took out my book 'Joker in the Pack'.. a book with an irreverent view of life at the IIMs..

Lost in the book, I had hardly noticed the distance traversed by the bus for we had already reached the holy land.. I crept into my classroom without being noticed for that saintly look I now possessed.. Then rang that siren, quite similar in sound to the ones that are heard blaring in jails, though I've seen it only in the movies.. But the siren carried a bit of truth in itself depicting the college to be one such jail..

In came the Queen of Computer Networks, 'Mrs. Wall' and I did the only thing I'd mastered at college, a "YES" when my name was called out to collect the days attendance.. And then I was totally lost in time. With my '6 subjects in 1' notebook on top and 'Joker in the Pack' at the bottom, I shifted all interest on the latter turning page after page at a steady rate.. And thus the hour was spent..

And then entered probably the only teacher at 'holy land' with heart, 'Professor M' .. to enrich our infected knowledge on microprocessors.. And yet again, I was caught red handed while I was looking out of the window admiring Mr.Ramasamy.. "Ramasamy who?", might be the only thing up your heads at this moment.. but I assure you that I am no gay guy, for he is not one of those absentminded professors, not one of my so called mates, and definitely not the man behind the "Ramasamy Road" in kk nagar, whoever he is/was..! Rather, Mr.Ramasamy was the tiny humble owl, that seated itself on a nearby branch observing without much ado all the boring lectures that we students endured during our hours at the premises of the holy land.. Camouflaged by the bark of the tree, he spent the day without moving a muscle, sometimes earning my jealousy, as I wished to become like him someday, 'idle'.. Before I get into the next hour, I would like to convey my gratitude to Mr.Quake for suggesting the brilliant name 'Ramasamy' for the tiny owl..

Then came the super hour, and in came the discrete mathematician, Mr.Sunk, 'a legend', which he deemed himself to be, with a one in a million brain which had enabled him to get his PhD.. It was not his wish to bore us today with his stories of 'How he left his discrete maths(d.m) paper blank just because he didn't know one question which would have earned him only 98%; and how he came back to write the arrear and score a centum in that to get that coveted gold medal of his..' He was to continue today with another routine of his, 'testing us at something we never knew'.. As usual, the man, went to the last bench, took his seat and dictated a set of 6 questions.. an increase in number compared to the previous days.. And we happily copied the answers from under the desk, from the book, which we had surprisingly bought as we had had enough of his so called self boasting stories, when we usually failed to solve the sums.. Then, the man came to my desk, looked at my paper, talked to me about alternative techniques to solve the sums, to which I confidently nodded though I was quite perplexed at his sudden intervention when I barely knew a thing in the subject.. He kept talking to me about some 'lattice', and the only lattice I was thinking about was in Adyar in the form of 'Lattice Bridge Road' where I had my CAT classes... And then the hour was gone..

Then came Professor Ball.. and I won't be taking much of your time discussing about this hour because I hardly know what happened.. The man who resembled a lighthouse in the midst of two storied buildings entered the class and started his nonsense on DBMS referring to bucket as 'bucketu', packet as 'packetu' and more of that induction of tamil slang into that already horrible English.. Joker in the Pack, though, was my choice, with its 'internships' and 'love life with girls doing humanities in IIT Bombay' far more interesting than dbms.. And there was that terrific siren again, tickling our brains with reminders about the lunch hour..

I would not want to talk to anyone about the lunch, because I simply do not consider it to be one.. Apart from the so called lunch, I enriched myself with the mango pulp in the form of the 'Mazaa'.. and then back to class I went to Joke with the Joker.. After sometime, it was Siren time! again..!

DBMS Lab.. probably the best three hours in fifth semester where the queries seemed easy, and the teacher seemed easier that one program could shut her mouth for good.. Mrs. Wall, she obviously was. Surprisingly, today.. the lab was cool for they had switched on that wretched AC for a change.. The teacher seemed least interested in us, and so was I busy with the Joker again.. and then I did reach that epitome of sadness, erupting in the form of emotions.. The reason?.. I had finished the book, though i enjoyed every bit of the reality in it... The 'love for the IIT girl' was lost, life seemed 'miserable and cursed in every aspect but for the financial one with the huge Pay packet from MNCs'.. the magic of the IIMs i guess.. 'to gain something, sacrifice was undeniable', was the moral in a way..

Back to the holy land, I was wondering as to what I must do, when my senior came to my rescue taking me away from the job of being idle by assigning me the job of a 'test gamer'.. All I had to do was to play match after match of FIFA 07 with him on the network, 'just to pass time' according to me, and according to teachers 'make sure that the LAN connections were in order' so that the gaming event would not be a flop show during the symposium scheduled to be held on the 22nd of August.. Apart from gaming, I got my report card, with the results of the first unit test and I was beaming with pride, because the comment read "GOOD" and I had achieved a 'not so mere' feat of passing all the exams in the unit test for the first time since i joined college.. I was now a 'Six Piece'.. or rather.. my report card had '6 Ps', each P referring to an otherwise unfamiliar word, 'PASS'..! And then for the last time, blared the jail siren, disrupting my report card celebrations..

Back onto the heavenly abode on wheels, I was off to sleep infested dreamland soon, because of the lack of company during the journey, for I had not expected to finish the book so early..

And then I got down in kk nagar only to enjoy a ride back home in a 200cc pulsar driven by a mechanical mastermind, who verified the vehicle's quality pickup in that short journey.. This is how fifth semesters are.. Or atleast.. seem to be...

whats the time..?

During those golden olden days, when the time, was needed to be known, one would look up at the skies searching for the position of the sun, its relative position with the horizon.. and bang.. there was your time..

As time went by, inferring it became a lot more easier. Up went that hand, one little turn and your watch told you what you had been looking for. But then, as more days went by.. the time lost its importance in the world of watches. The watches started dominating the time; they started becoming the more eminent species of the duo.

Once Hans Wilsdorf, the founder of Rolex, the Swiss giant in watch manufacturing, while travelling on a Boeing met up with his old friend who immediately recognized him, and asked him..

'Hello there my dear Hans.. Hows the watch business going..?'.. to which Mr.Wilsdorf coolly replied..

'Watch business? What watch business? I don't do any watch business.'

The friend was quite baffled by this unforeseen reply.. Mr.Wilsdorf, who sensed that his friend had missed the cliche then explained..

'My dear friend, we at Rolex do jewelery business, not mere watch business.'

True, realized his friend. If one's aim was to identify merely the time, a Rolex would not be necessary in anyway. Any ordinary piece of dial with two hands, showing the time would have sufficed. Ultimately, the aim, was not the time.. It was the watch, that piece of 'jewelery' rather.

The Irony of Haircuts..

Well, personal experience talks and Haircut is that talk. Two days ago, i got this sudden idea..

"Why not have a haircut?"..

not precisely a sudden idea, but yeah, what else can one think about when its nearly 5 months since they last cut it. As usual it was hope that got the better of me and what did I hope for? Lame hope you would call it, I just wanted my college authorities to catch me and fine me for having looong hair but it never happened. I tried all sorts of things, went to the office room with a funny hairdo only for that foolish supervisor to shoo me away. He didn't even bother to look at my hair. Pity!

I'd been growing my hair since my practical exams in April and had no intentions of cutting it for a while, or rather months. With each passing day, the length increased gradually much to the delight of myself and to the disgust of my granddad who referred to me as a terrorist. But then my vision started to recede.. People suggested me to visit a doc but they hardly understood the real reason.

And then one day in class, I was sitting in the traditional back bench when the teacher realized that i was dreaming. He called out my name and asked me to repeat what he had just said.

I, with immense pride said "No Clue Sir.."

And he made a fool of me by saying "Shame, the answer is on the board.."

"Sorry sir, but i can't see the board.."

"Then make it to the first bench o' stupid boy.."

"Sir, you don't get it.. i won't be able to see the board even i stood in front of it.."

He could take no more, and the timely bell made him storm out of the class, with a puzzled look on his face..

Then we move on to those bus journeys when I've found myself in great jeopardy... to read a book, i had to tie my hair, and every inmate of the bus used to tease me for that..!

But unfortunately, almost everyone just loved my hair and for that very reason, i had to demonstrate a head bang to all those rock addicts.. Those were times when i felt like a mad man, not to mention a rock star..

Then came the unit tests, and i was looking forward to making a new record.. to create history.. For your information, never in a unit test since my first year had i passed all the exams.. I was proud to be in that club which had so many other elite names as well. But this time, the college had tricked us with its impudent rules. Fail even a single subject and you stay at college till 6pm for special classes not to mention special classes on saturday, that made me mad and that made me work hard.. Had no choice.. I'd do anything to avoid saturday college..!

Success was written all over my fate and through to the final exam i sailed in style, needing just one more to etch my name in the history books.. and during that exam entered the squad.. What squad you might ask.. Though a bomb squad is the most possible one in India right now, I don't think that is possible at all in my college.. Any terrorist would kill himself rather than plant a bomb in my college, so bad are the roads.. So coming back to the squad, it was a team of around 6 henchmen clad in white shirts and black pants looking like the members of the legislative assembly. They stormed into the room, checking our answer papers at random, digging our pockets for unholy bits of paper when that tradition had actually been done and dusted. We people know better methods to exchange answers.. write behind your question papers and exchange them or even better, show your answers to your friend directly.. These big men had little brains after all.. but as their search went on, my expectation rose.. I just hoped for at least one dumb head to look at my hair.. They came, searched my papers, dug my pockets and left in a jiffy.. Frustrating it was..

And then i made the choice..! to cut my hair..! All those promises i made to myself about cutting it only after i got caught had to be broken..

I stepped into green trends salon at 7pm and sat in that chair, and there in front of me in the mirror sat a funny boy with stunning hair! Blah..! all this time i wanted to cut it but then when I was moments away from cutting it, it looked awesome..! Thats the irony of haircuts..! Had no choice, so i asked the guy to 'trim' my hair and trim he did as usual..

Next day at college was one funny day when everyone failed to look at me in the eye.. they were all looking at my head.. Tears poured out of their hearts.. And one of them said..

"Barry, Why........! I just loved your hair..!"

and i cracked an untimely one..

"Sorry mate.. never knew.. if you'd told me before, i'd have cut it and given it to you..!"

All this for a haircut..! I sit and gaze at the stars right now, though its actually day time.. but yeah, my science teacher once had said that the stars always stayed even during daytime..!

And in ten minutes time, I'd be off to Sathyam Cinemas for another show of The Dark Knight..! So until then.....