Thursday, November 13, 2008
when peppy days became pulsating ones..!
Saturday, October 4, 2008
network problems..
Friday, September 5, 2008
WALL-E
Woke up with a start, feeling the pinch of the newly bred monsters all over my body.. the mosquitoes were at it again aided by the loss of power, the only time the government projected their punctuality. It was a holiday(courtesy Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who once upon a time in once upon a time India was a teacher/vice president/president and hence eventually his birthday came to be known as teacher's day) and i had to start my day quite early! Coffee and Mahabharata(the book) hand in hand, I worked my way through the early hours and in the course of time was helped by ten sports.. Novac v Roddick live.. Nole as he is called kicked Roddick's ass eventually..
Then, the minutes swam across completing several laps, engulfing me into deep thought. It got to 10.45pm.. and I remembered my appointment.. On came the black bob marley t-shirt.. and my pep hit the trafficked roads.. first stop: the satyeki palace.. the genius and i were off once again and then we were stuck in the godforsaken G.N.Chetty Road.. Reason..?? The side fiddle man was in town..! Sorry, but thats what I've been calling the nation's Prime Minister since yesterday when I was stuck in traffic near the airport just because the Prime Minister was arriving by flight, and taking the next helicopter to Pondicherry..! Y were the bloody roads blocked when all the action was on the runway..!?!?.. And to top it all, posters were hanging everywhere.. posters of the Azzurri(Italian) woman.. posters in which the Prime Minister was of no relevance.. he was dumped into a corner to be more precise.. Anyway, back to today.. It took us more than 30 immovable minutes to move out of that place.. British Council awaited my return.. Entered the wonderland after 2 long years.. Hardly had time for a glance because it was already 1:00 pm.. WALL-E beckoned. Rushed out and back on Anna Salai.. Sathyam Cinemas was just a minute away.. One U-Turn in the next signal was all that was required..
Catastrophe hit us when we least expected it. We waited and waited to take the U-Turn.. But the option was unavailable, and there weren't any vehicles approaching from the other side either.. It struck me then.. Side Fiddle man and the Azzurri girl were about to go by.. And then came one car.. and then another.. 'Ambassador'.. 'ikon'.. they kept alternating.. and occasionally a 'Mercedes' caught my eye.. What a big convoy.. and what a waste of time..! Whoz gonna shoot down poor Manmo, the most educated leader in this country..
After the convoy raced away, we were all waiting for that U-Turn.. It never came.. The wonderfully efficient traffic police said.. "No U-Turn.. Go Straight.." and thats exactly what I did.. straight, straight, straight... And then suddenly, into view came a tower, with a board on it saying 'Doordarshan'.. Funny.. thats supposed to be near the marina..! I drove ahead.. and then came to face the beautiful Napier Bridge.. Marina on my right, it was a beautiful sight.. Drove on.. and I came to the 'end' of the Super Marina road... At long last.. took the desired U-Turn, one which I should have taken some 3kms ago.. But yeah, in the end, I was able to enter the gates of Sathyam.. Wasted Rs.10 on parking yet again.. They could give me a season ticket instead..
Satyeki went his way, in search of tickets that he never possessed.. I had already booked mine, courtesy Fuel Card.. Ash was already waiting for me.. Rushed to collect my tickets from the window.. and we got inside Serene.. The Movie had started..!! I cursed the Prime Minister once again..! The Rabbit and the Magician on screen were rocking the theatre.. and it ended..! Abruptly..! Was just some trailer.. which had been going on for some 10 mins.. And then.. 'Walt Disney'.. 'Pixar'.. 'WALL-E'..!!!
No comments about the movie except for the much deserved final verdict: "A Class Apart..!!"
Started from Sathyam, and chose the bad option of hitting the 'psbb' area.. Reminiscence prevailed.. School beckoned.. Teachers day wishes were to be delivered.. the phone buzzed at that very moment.. It was my friendie 'jan-e'.. she wanted company to get to school and meet the gurus of psbb..! My art of avoiding things and people has reached great heights these days and this helped me convince her that I wasn't worth the company.. the actual reason though was that I didn't want to step into the school, atleast not for now..
And then 'Buzz..!!' WALL-E got back into my head..
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Fifth Semesters..
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...
Friday, August 1, 2008
The Irony of Haircuts..
"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.....
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
A Boring Day..
jus realized.. funny, todays date is.. 08.07.08.. the lucky number seven sandwiched between two unlucky fateful numbers.. well, i dont believe in beliefs.. but well.. may people do and that was what i was trying to portray.
you take a 5 day break from work, and when you step back to work, u feel a chill down your spine, it feels so very different, sometimes makes you feel pretty sick as well, well it all depends on the job that you do. Mine, on a pathetic note was to go to college. and on an even more pathetic note, i would like to proclaim my college as even more pathetic than the pathetic note itself. doesn't make sense probably, but thats what my college is all about, nonsense.
now onto my boring day, i stepped onto the bus with sleep toying with my eyes calling it to the dreamland where i am often present. But, resistance is what life is all about and i managed it. got into the bus, tin can on four wheels to be quite precise and i preferred to limit myself to my favorite window seat where solitude had the better of me. and alas the silence was broken when a so called senior mechanical entertainer insulted roger federer hailing him the grandfather of tennis. fuming with rage, sounds stupid but yeah, i was angry, thats the point.. i got into the conversation and with amazing and amusing facts silenced my super senior... the conversation had gone quite long and we ended up reaching the dreamland itself, not sleep, but the nonsensical college.
and then i spent a day chatting all along with friends, inquiring about all those who had scaled heights by entering the arrear history books, well i am a part of it too, am i not..!
then, we had another lunch time, where the lunch was the saddest part, and time hardly rolled on. stuffed our stomachs with so called foods and rushed back to class only to play pen fight on the table, a passion that was present in the mind of the genius since school days. many of you might wonder about who the genius probably is, well, yeah, thats me!
and then 3 full hours of dbms lab, was real fun going through all the known sql queries once again, proving that i am probably better at it than the rest. and ofcourse, logging into orkut and scrapping people with pride. why the pride some might ask, and my reply "online from college".. doesn't it sound paradoxical? but i managed it, and i am proud about that! i so very rock!
well.. then back onto the bus, got down in kknagar, and then a long long walk back home. some might call me stupid to walk that far, but yeah.. i loved every moment of it. was able to recollect my wonderful past, thought about the invisible future and pondered over the unfortunate present. well.. reached home at last, hoping to break the arrear news at home, but then mum had gone out, so till then, i smile..!
Friday, July 4, 2008
NOSeTALGIA
well.. i'm back to proper writing at last though i'm writing this for the sake of writing something though it maybe a bit funny. I'm gonna remind myself about the most sensitive part of my body.. my nose..!
Well, it needs no telling to people around me about my nose because it has been attracting undue attention over the past one week just because its all bandaged up. I am looking like a bandaged bandit right now and my friends have started to call me Barryman, probably something like superman, batman, and spiderman. I just hope that i don't let them down and will probably conjure some heroic attitude and performance at the right place and at the right time.
well.. coming to my pitiable story, it all happened on a drab sunday, the 29th of june, hours before the historic spanish victory in the euros. Well, what happened in my apartments was probably another epic battle, maybe not something like the euros, not because we are not in europe but in asia, but because it was really not that big an epic.
I went down to an arousing reception just like what german captain michael ballack received later that day. And yeah, he got injured too that day. The teams were split, and as usual, i was supposedly a very strong player among the lot, the "best" some people say but only i knew about how horrible i was going to perform. With sachin, and kaushik in my side, we were supposed to win all our games. But then, i don't remember winning anything that day except for a high ball which i went for, won and yeah.. got injured in the process.
Was it the stupidity of kaushik that caused my injury? Or was it my stupid attitude that drowned me? well.. talking about my very stupid attitude, what i actually meant was i was trying to show off that day, not show off to be precise but yeah, there were many on-lookers who were watching our game with interest, and i wanted to be the best player on the pitch. And then i was ditched. The ball went high. I went forward, kaushik came backward, and his spherical head banged into my already overpowered nose. Probably the best blooper of the year. i touched his head, and saw my hand, and i saw blood, it was a beautiful sight.
And i still remember what i said to him then,
"mate, you are bleeding, head injury"..
he checked it out.. and it was a negative.. and only then did i realize a stream gushing down my own nose. blood, and even worse, a bent nose, or rather.. a further bend to an already bent nose. It literally was pointing towards south when my eyes were looking towards the west. Had to push it back slowly and steadily back to a respectable position, say south by south west.
And yeah, i would like to thank the MRS pharmacy guys who showed great care and concern on the injured guy who had on numerous previous occasions sent the football rocketing into the shop. And alas ends the tale of the fallen hero. Hero? ok.. make it zero, coz i was no longer a hero after i fell. The rest.. is history, but yeah as i am running outta posts, i'll be pondering over that piece of history as well. Till then, its goodbye..!
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
the reason..
So here i go with a fake reason for starting this blog though it is true in a way. the 1413 steps?? well.. that was derived from the classic by alfred hitchcock "the 39 steps".. but 1413..? does it signify anything? yeah.. it probably does.. 14 being the day i was born on, though i consider by birthday to be the worst day every year. but then yeah, all these years, the number 14 has been a special one for me.. coming to the 13 part.. maybe its because 13 is close to 14.. and i can't rule out the possibility for the reason to be because its my register number at college.. and yeah, its considered to be an unlucky number, but to me.. its probably the luckiest number i've come across, hence the 13..!
i guess the data i've provided suffice for a proper explanation.. there you go.. the reason for this blog, or rather, the reason for that chosen url of mine.. you can find my posts here.. and these are mine.. copyright protected.. don't shamelessly copy em and use it for ur sake.. if any post here doesn't belong to me, then i'd have credited it to the person who wrote it..