New year resolutions? What's that?

Song for the mood: Same old song and dance - Aerosmith

It's the first weekend of 2008, am back in college after half a December worth of vacation (wanted more ... badly) and things look ... well ... the same :-). Which is good, coz there was nothing wrong with anything in the first place :-P

This is about the time of the year, any year, when funny things come to view. The foremost of those happens to be, "Hey, I made a New Year Resolution!" (Let's call it NYR for the rest of the post). Now, I like the concept of 'New Year', if nothing else for a chance to spend good time with friends, have a nice dinner, and getting to see TV shows showing people do amazing(ly stupid) things to catch the first rays of light of the year. Wow ... go my species, go!

Ok! Coming back to NYRs. So, a couple days back I heard a 'foodie' friend of mine refusing to go to the best ice-cream joint in town, saying he has made an NYR to not eat ice-cream ... because he is on a diet ... and ice-cream is his biggest weakness as far as food is concerned. So, he won't have ice-cream anymore. Knowing this guy and his liking for ice-cream it is not a mere resolution it is a revolution, however, I personally am gonna be on a spy-watch to see how long his resolution lasts!

NYRs don't last. I think they are just extended hangovers of New Year party mania ... a lingering thought carried on for a week into the next year of something that you wanted to do long ago but couldn't or didn't do then. Point is, why wait till the New Year's eve to do something? It's not like the earth flips on its axis on this day!
"Hmmm ... if I am on the right spot on the planet on this New Year's eve, maybe 20 kilos will just fly off my body into space!"

The following are a list of NYRs I have seen friends make ... and needless to say none of them lasted!
1. Not to swear at people any more - I remember this one clearly because my friend made it in the following way, "F**k dude! I will not bl***y swear at anyone anymore!" Didn't help ... he got into a quarrel with someone a few days later at the railway station and came back to life ...
2. Lose weight - The most popular of all! If you want to lose weight, it would help not eating at the new year party like it's your last day on earth ...
3. Quit a habit (munching, drinking, smoking ... some 'ing') - My question is how? Abstaining only makes it worse for even those 12 hours that the NYR lasts!
4. Start exercising - my personal favorite non-lasting NYR. The advent of the TV remote killed the last bit of exercising that you could get by at least getting up to change the channel. And, if you know how irritating it is to call someone for a jog, morning or evening, you'll know what I mean.
5. Become a vegetarian - If you know someone who has done this, try the following; at dinner in some restaurant say the following sentence three times aloud for everyone, "Wow! This chicken is tasty, right?" If becoming a vegetarian is an NYR for that person then he will be ... angry ... criticize you for mocking his steely resolve ... and the next time you meet to eat, will dig into a nice juicy kebab ... "What? You wanna say something?" ... no I was admiring your table manners ...
6. Start an activity (reading, music, chess etc) - if you never did this activity before, what's gonna prompt you to start?

... so on and so forth. NYRs are just another irony of being an 'intelligent creation'. But I sincerely hope the trend continues, which in all probability will ... we need NYRs and NYRers to show us the funny side of being a human ... Happy New Year again!

(All right, all right! I am going to do a few things myself but not as an NYR - I wanna get my hands on some Opeth albums coz I think they are amazing, I wanna read more books - I just finished an Arthur Hailey book last night and it was splendid, and I want to spend some more time on my guitaring skills which sadly to say I suck at ... :-) )

Happy New Year

Here's wishing everyone a Happy New Year. A new article will be up soon ...

The Mirandastics

Song for the mood: Kishore Kumar and Manna Dey - Yeh Dosti ham nahin todenge

Once upon a time there were a bunch of guys, friends for a long long time, who went to Tirupati and keeping in mind the temple traditions got their heads 'tonsured' (this is for Vijay). They always ate, played and moved together so they were quite a sight - 4 or 5 clean shaven heads walking together in a single file ... just fantastic! If you remember the old Mirinda ads you can guess by now why they were named the 'Mirandastics'.

Ok, before I proceed further, let me set the mood for this post. The Mirandastics are great friends of mine. They are quite a bunch; there is a lot of camaraderie amongst them. They are all very warm and helpful by nature. Although they speak in Telugu all the time, one of them speaks Telugu even with me (if you know them you can easily guess who it might be), and I don't understand a single word of it ... I never feel like an outsider whenever I am with them. In fact just a couple days days back I was out for a treat hosted by a Mirandastic, it was great ... :-)

Now lets get down to the bashing :-D

The Mirandastics are the most feared gang in college, yes like a true gang they always move together. They all stay on the top floor of my hostel building and you should see how scared people, especially juniors, are to go to that floor. Heck, I was scared to go to their part of the hostel before I got friendly with them.

As I said, the Mirandastics are very warm and friendly ... you can always feel their friendship. In their punches when they say 'HI'. In the punches again, when they say 'See You'. As I said, you can feel it. On these cold winter days when a Mirandastic greets me, my first reaction is a defensive stance that protects my face and stomach followed by a foot long back leap. I do say Hi, of course I do! But that's after the slight Muhammad Ali impression. Not that it helps, I still get punched. Their love especially pours out on birthdays. Birthdays bumps are served lavishly. I get kicked for just about anything. I once got kicked for getting good grades in the exam ... I was ambushed by a Mirandastic in the canteen and he along with Pranav twisted me around like merry-go-round while kicking me, at the end of which I was too dazed to realize that I had gotten close to 50 kicks! Yes, they counted. Another recent kicking was when my internship was confirmed. Very touching indeed ... :-)

The Mirandastics, apart from being a gang, are great individuals. There's Ravindra, the self-proclaimed "busiest lazy guy in the world". You always know when Ravindra is around, trust me. Plus he is a good photographer. Shashank is the quiet guy, as cool as ice. Always calm and collected no matter what the situation. Ravikanth is known as the 'Director'. He can make great videos, he has already made a few for the college. Nareen, and I have told him this, is the most mischievious guy ... and he does it so discreetly you'll never know. Rakesh looks quiet, but then he'll pull a joke on you when you least expect it. Rajashekar sleeps the whole day, wakes up at strange hours and goes to work when everyone's in neverland ... I meet him for breakfast in the morning many times ... difference being it is breakfast for me and for him it is a bedtime snack. Vikrant is the foodie. Plus he has a bike that no one except he can drive ... in fact only he can start it.

Whew! I can't write enough about these guys. The innumerable occasions playing marathon 12+ hour sessions of Call Of Duty multiplayer in the college lab would've been very dull without them. Here's a piece of advice, never put more than 3 Mirandastics in a single team when playing COD ... you'll lose. Forget the game for a bit ... the amount of antics and the edge-of-a-cliff rush that they bring to the game is fun! You can't stand in the room if you're not playing. I am not saying someone will chase you away. You'll go mad with the amount of noise! The celebrations that follow after a victory are nothing short of a battle march...

Do you know any such Mirandastics? If you don't then you are losing out on something. College life is fun when you have such folks around. They are a big part of whatever memories I carry with me when leaving this place ... if you ever get kicked so much, you won't forget either :-)

Terror Tuesdays

Song for the mood: Lynyrd Skynyrd - Tuesday's gone

Posting after a long time... actually the exams are over. The semester has ended, and with it most of what is known as college :-). Many have left for the winter to sunnier abodes (home) while some like me are still trundling to reach the exit ... translation, I got some project work left, so I can't leave for another week at the least! Woe is me...

Well, today is Tuesday. Which is one day before Wednesday - the day we live for. Okay okay, cutting out the crap, Wednesday happens to be our project meeting day ... the project for which I am staying back. Being the engineers that we are, Tuesday hence becomes the proverbial trial-by-fire, you see.

Tuesdays are sleepless ... Monday morning blues are nothing compared to Tuesday midnight terrors! Wednesday afternoon happens to be the project demo time, which naturally implies that 12 hours before the bell sounds we will be sitting in the lab integrating a piece of code into the huge software spaghetti.And as Murphy's Laws suggest, nothing will work at such a time.

Tuesdays are a test of language, personal and programming ... When a piece of code doesn't work, our nice language becomes even nicer. By the time the code (finally) starts working, like a car on bad oil, we would have exhausted the entire vocabulary. I think it is the constant shouting that makes us more tired than the code ... sleeping at 3:00 or 4:00am is a lot more satisfying than a normal sleep, I can vouch for that now...

By the time the Wednesday demos are done (worth a blog by itself) we are pissed enough to NOT work for the rest of the week. So, by the time the fire turns to a blazing inferno by Tuesday midnight the following week, the fire-fighting is ready to begin ... again ... we never manage to "go down in a blaze of glory" ... translation ... we always save our asses in the end ... :-)

As the late Ronnie Van Zandt wrote it, perfectly well ... "Tuesday's gone ... with the wind" ... see you around!

Not such a bad day after all...

Song for the mood: Dido – Thank You

The most enjoyable moments in life are impulsive. A moment is, after all, an impulse.

I’m not a big fan of Sundays, here at IIIT-B. Today was different though. We - me, Pranav and Seema - left to have dinner at Andhra Mess, at around 7:45pm. We were finished with dinner by around 8:50pm. As always we decided to walk back by the longer route to college, to have juice or milkshakes near the Infosys campus which is along the way. When we turned the corner near Andhra Mess we saw the 356C Volvo bus which goes from Electronics City to Majestic Bus Station here in Bangalore.

Pranav, and I must thank him for this, had a sudden though … “lets get on this bus and go to Forum to have ice-cream”. I said yes … so basically Seema had no choice but to come along :-D. Now, this being a Sunday, we were dressed in our best clothes; pyjamas and loose fit T-Shirts, unshaved, ruffled hair … Seema was the female equivalent of all that … top of it she was wearing rubber chappals which she felt ashamed about. I wonder why she felt people will stare at her footwear. Anyways, so we got on the bus and in 15 minutes time we were at Forum mall (on a weekdays the same route takes over one hour. I guess today was meant to be this way). We walked into this big mall, wearing something that resembles a night dress at best … so we did the right thing; we went and got a picture clicked!

It was one of those auto picture taking machines, which clicks three pictures back to back, you select the one you like best and then you can get special effects like pencil shading or charcoal shading done on it. I liked the first one, where all three of us were looking ‘not’ at the camera; but it couldn’t be captured on paper coz the machine trims the borders and that would’ve erased our faces half. So we reluctantly took the next one.

Next, was Corner House ice-cream. Then we walked back to the bus-stop, got a bus immediately, and were back in college by 11:00pm. All the while on this small escapade, Seema kept seeing at the picture every 5 minutes. Well, actually we all did … it is a special picture, that captured a special moment … the outcome of an impulse on an otherwise ordinary day.

We keep searching for moments of joy. We go to great extents to do something that will make us feel good. It is these small moments that we miss out on. A mad lil’ idea, a bunch of friends and some time on your hands … all in all a perfect end to the day … with a lot of smiles, a great picture for the record … and a sweet memory … good night!

A tale of two Diwalis

Song for the mood: Aaj Mausam Bada Beimaan Hain - Mohd. Rafi Saahab

Yesterday, November 9 was Diwali. Big festival. Yippee.

When I was in school, diwali used to be fun! I would get up bright and early, without mum or dad having to force me out of bed. That would be followed by morning puja (I just stood quietly for the sweets), new clothes and crackers! It was also on the day of diwali, me and my pals would bunch up and visit all the houses in the society to wish them all "Happy Diwali". The motive behind doing so was to get chocolates ... yes of course. Why else would we? You see, all the folks new that kids would be coming on this particular day, so most of them would be kind and considerate enough to greet the gang with a plate of chocolates. Yes, we never really thanked anyone for the chocolates afterwards. We were always too busy trying to grab as many chocolates from the plate as we could and stuff them in our pockets. Some folks were smart, they would hand us one chocolate, individually. Some were innovative - they got sweets instead of chocolates - which we hated - becozz the whole point of this strenuous wishing exercise was to collect enough chocolates to fill up a jar atleast! What were we going to do with, sweets! Some folks would get a whole plate of snacks and wonder why none of us would even touch it ... god! Couldn't they understand the difference between chocolates and snacks? I remember the one house we would all visit the last in line, coz the lady of the house would give us bananas. Not chocolates. Not sweets. Bananas. What was she expecting us to do? Jump in the air, scratch our armpits and ape our ancestors? Whew! Anyways, I always managed to gather atleast 45-50 pieces of candy by the end of it all. Needless to say, it would last only 5 days at the most after that ... :-P

Well, this year, I, for one had the most uneventful diwali possible.

I woke up at 10:00am. Had a fever the whole previous night, couldn't sleep a wink. Got up, went out for breakfast with Pranav. By the time we got back from breakfast it was almost 12:00pm. Hardly the time to have breakfast! By 1:30pm we again headed out, this time for lunch. We had to go out, since the college caterer was on leave ... and our food-committee didn't bother informing us ... so we had to go out. You can imagine what I am about to write ... yes, every restaurant, every joint was closed. Luckily for us one small joint was open where I ate some tomato-rice, with nariyal chatni. Trust me, not a good combo. We walked back to the college, then decided to go to the nearest bakery to purchase some biscuits - for the fear that joints might be closed again. There we realized that the food-joint atop the bakery, is open. So we had lunch again ... courtesy our very good friends, the 'mirandastics'. I came back to my hostel room at around 3:00pm ... and slept. I slept like a log! Must have been the lack of sleep in the past 2-3 days. Anyways, I got up around 7:00 or 7:30pm ... and then headed for dinner ... to the trusty food joint open on a diwali day. Back to room ... watched a movie ... 'Legend of Drunken Master' - Jackie Chan special. It was pretty good. And that was how diwali ended.

Maybe next year, diwali will be ... diwali. If not then I'll get something more to blog about ... either ways ... Happy Diwali!

You've got Mail ... Hate Mail...

Song for the mood: Carl Douglas - KungFu Fighting

No I can't do any kungfu. I can't even make the right kind of noise, you know the kind of, ''eeyaaaah!" or "whuaaan" sound that kungfu fighters make. I think it is the sound that confuses the opponent ... as soon as the guy makes that noise the opponent goes, "...where is that sound coming from... maan, u must have an upset tummy!" :-P The next thing he knows, *BAM*, he has a fist in his face... off to la la land... seeing stars am seeing stars!

Well, I actually want to share an extremely funny incident that happened with me about 2 months back. I had promised myself I would not make fun of this one ... but it is too damn freakin' funny! Plus I was kind of pushed to do this... ;-D I am in the senior year of the MTech course, at IIIT Bangalore. As a senior I could've opted for a teaching assistantship, but chose not to having seen the plight of my own seniors... he he. But, being an 'enthusiastic' chap (sheesh), I would generally help out the other TAs in their work. So one fine day I ended up assessing a certain Database Design assignment for a few of the groups from my junior batch.

In one of those groups was this certain Mr. A (A for ass, though I would prefer to call him R for retarded or D for dumb), the protagonist of this story. I'll be honest, Mr. A and his group did not such a great job of their assignment - and after spending more than an hour explaining them the little mistakes and faults in their analysis, design, approach, assumptions etc etc, Mr. A said, "This can't be wrong! I can't be wrong!" Ahem, buddy, it wasn't the time to be the king ... I asked him for his objections, and I'll be honest here, I answered every single one of his questions ... but ... Mr. A was kinda pissed off, I don't know at what though! Was he mad at me or was it the fact that he hadn't taken a piss for over 3-4 hours ... not kiddin', whenever I spot him in college he has the same retarded, piss-urgent look on his face! I was sure he wasn't gonna let this one go, but what he did after the next 2-3 days, was ... legendary!!

I gave him a borderline 4.0 outta 10.0 for his work; he had scored only 2.5; I kinda upped it. Some other groups that I assessed did pretty well: 4.5, 5.5 and 7.5 ... pretty good scores, considering many of them were from non computing backgrounds in their under grad engineering. After the TA revealed the grades in class ... I got a hate-mail the very next day ... The following are the contents of the 'great' mail ... and though I was kinda taken aback and sort of confused when I read it ... the first time I fell of my chair ... the reason being the splendid english. Read it yourself :-)

hi ....

Actually last night i have got my marks of DBMS test, when i saw my marks that was not "unusual"....but it becomes unusual when i saw other groups marked by you ...specially when i saw the highest marks given by you. You have just given them apprx 2 times that my group is having....which makes me below the average.

If u are a intellectual person ..then i think i m having freedom to ask that WHETHER THAT GROUP WORK WAS SO GOOD THAT YOU JUST GIVE THEM DOUBLE THE MARKS THAT U HAVE GIVEN TO MY GROUP.

There are no groups which is having this much of variance as group assesed by you are having..between the heighest and lowest marks.

As i m the looser one (as i m below the average) so now i m requesting u to send me a ER-DIAGRAM of library management system...so that i can make me satisfy that i have been judged in right way. Bcoz i have taken reference to a standarad book for making that ER...ofcourse this was not satisfying your view

Again for some minutes i do not think to mail you ....but thinking if marks has been disclosed ..that is for the reson that if u are having complain u can put with your assesmenter...thats why i m mailing you.

One more thing this mail be annoying for you ...but thinking this also, i m sending this mail to you simply to give me satisfaction whether i was really that much WORST on that day.

I m in wait for ur ER Diagram of library management system.....to assess this time to myself by of my own. One thing i m saying u very frankely that i will see to which % it satifies my view and practical view and how far was my ER Diagram

thks
- Mr. A

Wow ... finally I had a hate mail! I replied to this, indecipherable mail, assuming that he was pissed off about his marks. I told him to get his assignment, the 'reference' book (he kept talking about some unnamed reference book the whole time during his assessment, as if it was some Database Bhagvad Gita) and we'll solve the whole sum again. Then he can compare for himself. Ok, for the benifit of all, this is the mail I wrote to him, in reply ...

Can you come and meet me? I am in room 133 in college.

If you want some help, or you have some doubts, you can come and ask face to face. Mailing doesn't solve anything. Get the reference book and whatever else you want to ... and get your own ER diagram also.

I can understand your concern, it was not such an easy test. I was only trying to help, but I guess you don't think so. Plus, your comment about the grades that other groups have gotten is being unfair to them, most of them put in a lot of effort and got in a lot of functionality.

PS: Your mail has not really pissed me off, even with all the underlines and bold letterings so you'll have to try harder than that

But, Mr. A chose to mail back! This is the reply I got ... again ... an example of excellent english ... read on!

ok...

I got the thing of which i was in need of.

Now i m having no doubt ..and as per the matter of your help is concerned ... ....all sentence told by you and all suggetions given by u are totally in my mind ....so...i do not think on my side there is anything like that........

I will meet you..but not at this time ....if u do not have any problem... you just give me a time when i can find you on your room.

Now i m thinking i do not have to write those all.....nd i m assuring you ....i will not be having need to try harder than that......because there are very few situations when any things happens unexpected for me.......b'coz...I know my limits nd weakness and i do not expect any thing beyond my limit.

Though i was not mean to make u off...but if it makes u so...sry for that ....just plz give me the time when i can meet u at your room.........i am not meeting you in college again as i know my limits ..nd weakness..

I swear, I still haven't understood a single word of what he really wanted to say! Mr. A didn't stop at this ... he came over to my room in the evening and ... fought again. For the sake of communicating, I was speaking to him in Hindi, but, being the scholarly English orator that he is, he was replying all the while in English ... and I was trying my level best not to laugh in his face while he was talking. C'mon! I'm not a sicko!

By later that night, Mr. A had already spread some rumors about me, and the possible reasons as to why I gave 'more' marks to another group. I had a terrible time in college the next few days, with obscure looks from people and all sorts of weird questions. I don't give a damn about all that, but it was pretty irritating at the time ... of course it was!

Well, Mr. A got a warning of sorts from the TAs ... of every subject ... I must thank my classmates and friends for this ... they rallied behind me and got the mess cleared. The mails that he sent me very nearly made it to the principal, but I didn't do that. Didn't want to spoil the entire class' image for one dickhead.

Mr. A (lets make that A for asshole now) is pissed even now... and his face has gone from piss-urgent to constipated in the past two months... :-D He and his equally dumbass pals smile and mutter under their breath every time they spot me in college. It happened a couple hours back when I was coming back from lunch. Whew ... some never learn ...

Hmmm ... thats it ... :-)