I can’t believe the time has come. The hostel farewell is over, the college farewell is two days away, and my final review is over (phew! finally.thank god) and people are already talking about study hols and their plans after exams. I have filled a zillion slam books till now. each of these incidents in some small ways are reminding me that my time is up. my college days have come to an end. soon I must face a world where I must behave in a responsible manner I must fend for myself where I cannot sleep till 12.00 in the afternoon and sleep at 3.00 in the night. Never thought I would be this senti about leaving college.

When I was in tenth I just couldn’t wait to go to high school go to a new place (Jamnagar to Chennai) make new friends. I was apprehensive but excited. when I was in high school I couldn’t wait to get to college, go to hostel meet people from different places and have a taste of freedom. at all these times I was completely ready for the next step. but now as I stand as a final year student who in a few months must go to work handle deadlines, work pressure (or whatever it is that working people have to face. I have no idea.) I suddenly realize that I don’t want to do all this. I want to stay as a college student forever and ever. It is also the thought of the future that scares the shit outta me.

It’s funny how everyone in my house seems to know what I must do after I graduate except me. mom says "since CTS is going to call u only in November u should probably do something else before that maybe join a language course or work somewhere else". other well wishers say "no no must consider the six month break given by cognizant as a boon and prepare for CAT and other entrance exams". my sister says "just while away six months of ur time before u join CTS. eat well sleep well and take care of urself.you will never get these days again with ur parents". after everyone has finished advising I m absolutely clueless about what to do. my sister's suggestion attracted me the most but that would mean staying in Jamnagar. I would more easily go to a concentration camp than go to that retirement home a.k.a Jamnagar.

It’s an absolutely dead city with nothing to do. I call it a retirement home because that’s what it is. u can go for long walks in the morning, u can listen to bhajans in the evening in the temple, u can gossip with neighbors about their sons and daughters and husbands and their promotion, u can join yoga and reiki classes to find inner peace(yada yada!!bull shit). but if u want to watch a movie u must travel 35 kms to reach the nearest theatre. if u want to go shopping u must plan an expedition(the kon tiki expedition would have been easier). because shopping means traveling another 40 kms into the main city of Jamnagar on roads which have twenty five take diversions boards on a 10m km stretch and which has craters not unlike the ones seen on the moon. if u don’t get backache,spondalitis, trachoma(yeah Jamnagar is a desert and traveling on that road with dust flying at the rate of zillion particles per second u r bound
to get dust allergy or trachoma,I know the term because I suffered from it during my stay in Jamnagar:() etc then u must either be super man, or mukesh ambani(yeah!!the dude comes by helicopter from Jamnagar)..I can’t stay there for a fortnight without losing my sanity and six months at this age is an indefinite period of time. so it must be Chennai after about a months stay in Jamnagar(can’t help it if ur parents stay there).

But what do I do after coming to chennai.i don’t want to work, I don’t to join language classes, I don’t know if I want to do an MBA right away and if I don’t do any of the above I will be shipped to Jamnagar..:( I am so confused now that I don’t want to leave college’s don’t want to leave this bliss these times of fun, no tensions, etc.

I flicked the following poem from somewhere and it describes perfectly what I feel now..


So many battles won on this soil
So many defeats embraced
So many desires fulfilled here
So many painful heartbreaks

So many friends I won here
I won a few foes too
So may blessings I did earn
Hope the curses were but few

From a teenager I became a man
Nowhere else but here
Saw life’s pleasures, felt its pains
Suffered losses and enjoyed gains

Now its time to say good-bye
To this place to its bliss
Tears of love roll down each cheek
As I plant the farewell kiss

Adieu sweet times, Adieu sweet place

Adieu…………SSN

I m going to miss my life here, I am going to miss all my friends, I am going to miss the hostel dog(ganguly), I am going to miss mess food(yeah!!i think I have totally lost it),I am going to miss all those midnight birthday parties, miss the culturals,the symposium, and miss those night outs before the exams, those endless cups of tea, all those chat/gossip sessions which lasted through the night, miss teasing the professors.....
I could just keep going on...but I will just stop here. I am going o miss you SSN!!:(:(

I have been really silent for quite some time. mainly because of project(ewww!!) and culturals(wow!!). i also took some time off to read "The kite runner" by Khaled Hosseini..guys!! please go and read the book the first chance u get, beg borrow steal the book but please read it. WOW!! what a book. on the cover there is a revirew for the book which says "after i read this book for a long time everything else i read seemed bland"..how true...my favorite book doctors by erich segal seems pale in comparison now..
thats all for now..
ciao
P.S: please read the book!!:):)

MEGA SERIAL- PART-II :):)

I have been wanting to write mega serials part II for quite a long time but I was waiting for an auspicious time. In short I was waiting for pari (ignorant ppl read THIS) to die so I could write part II.. but the 40th and last day has been stretching for the past three weeks and I just don’t have any patience. The way she is going, it looks like she might even outlive me. So rather than waiting I have decided to go ahead with part II.

Like i already mentioned in part I this pari’s relatives believe in this baba guy (though I feel ashamed to admit it I have been watching these serials with my sis. But I can justify myself saying that I was doing ground work for part II :):)) who tells them that pari is destined to die on the 10th 20th 30th and 40th day after her marriage by water fire land and air respectively. Each of these elements would have nothing better to do for the next 40 days except for plotting against pari. Actually if I had been in their place even I would have used all my powers to put an end to her on the first day itself.

Anyway so her husband (the bastard who is now changing for the good by the way) is also plotting against her. But as 40 days pass he realizes what a sweet, nice and extremely aacharamana (gag gag!!puke puke) girl she is. So now he is falling in love with her. I can even take the falling in love part. The part which absolutely had me bugged was that each time they feel “love ” for each other (which they feel when they do extremely stupid and mundane things like drinking coffee, walking down the stairs, going down the lift etc) there is a song in the background and both of them go into dream land with her dupatta flying on his face and he standing and enjoying the feel of the dupatta on his face (his dream) or him standing like an expressionless blob of flesh with her running around him(her dream) singing “itne hum kareeb aa gaye..dil ko tho pata bhi na chala ..naa chala..naaaaaaa chala..naa-aa-aaa-aaaaa chala and so on so forth till the director is able to successfully convert a three second coming down the lift into a twenty minute part with two breaks in between.

So as time passes bastard slowly falls in love with her and as expected falls out of love with his original girl friend(who is always dressed in jeans a t-shirt and is called ishika(obviously if she were called sita,tulsi,pari our bastard would still be in love with her)) finally on the 40th day he takes her out somewhere to spend the full day with her and tell her how much he loves and they spend the full day doing things which please her like eating kulfi from a road side kulfi shop where she very conveniently drops her kulfi and shares his kulfi thereby making both of them go into dreamland(another 20 minutes) and then drinking some disgusting chai in some road side shope.

Now this is one more thing I don’t understand. In all these kinds of serials without exception the lady in the lead always likes tacky things and dingy places and always says stuff like “platform ke kulfi ke dunkanon mein kulfi khaane ki baat hi kuch aur hai. Baskin robbins ke ice cream mein who swaad kahan jo inmein hai” and then they will take a huge bite of the kulfi and go mmmmmmmmmmmmm... Gimme a break. Whats wrong if u like the good things in life. If u prefer eating the heavenly masala dosai at hotel saravana bhavan and not parotta paya in the kaiyendhi bhavans. Whats wrong if u like eating ice creams at baskin robbins or creamy inn and do not prefer to eat road road side ice lollies where the ice could be water from the cooum in the frozen form. And the worst part is that the heroines eating in such places is found endearing by the heroes. Puhleaseeeeee!!

Anyway so after a full day of doing disgusting things like sitting beside a fountain and discussing how pari can be so saint like and playing with unwilling children they check into a hotel room and bastard (who is absolutely smitten with pari now) asks her to wait down in the reception and goes up for sometime and then comes down and they go up by lift (and reach the third floor after 20 mins while they hold hands, giggle and go into dreamland)..well before I narrate the scenes that followed kindly read the following

Corny
Definition in oxford English dictionary:
Adj.informal
Sentimental, hackneyed

Corny
New definition in my dictionary
Adi, informal
All scenes in mega serials when the man and his lady love are left together..

Seriously the scenes which followed could have gone down in the history as few of the corniest scenes ever. Anyway as soon as pari opens the lift door she finds a huge heart made of flowers (not unlike the ones seen in wedding which proclaim X weds Y) and in the centre is written “I Love u pari” and the hotel corridor is strewn with rose flowers (pulled mercilessly out of some poor beautiful looking rose no doubt) and pari puts on a pained expression (the kind I have seen people with severe constipation portray). Its only after a while that I realize that its not a pained expression but is a look of romance. Sigh!!

And after she enters the room there is a huge heart of flowers on the bed on which is written I love u pari again (really creative guy I must say. Man!! Can’t he think of anything else other than “I love u pari” to say to the woman he loves???) and then on the side table is a yummy chocolate cake with the icing (u guessed it right!!) “I love u pari”!!!!

Pari is beyond help now and must use the loo(that’s pretty much the look on her face) and she decides she must use the lift go down and buy bastard some gift and surprise him (and give him constipation in return). She goes to use the lift (which has a sign in big bold letters which says “lift not working”. But I guess she is so used to seeing “I love u pari” that she probably thinks that the writing next to the lift is also “I love you pari” or maybe she is illiterate. Whatever!!) and this time the director decides to be creative and rather than using the lift scene for dreamy songs pari meets with an accident (finally!!there is a god after all!!) and then the next twenty mins are devoted to the accident and bastard running down the stairs like a madman to rescue his lady love. Finally he meets her on the ground floor with a gash on her head which is bleeding which is the only damage and for which she is admitted to a hospital kept in an ICU and the doctors (a few creeps paid to walk up and down and look busy) shake their heads and try to appear intelligent and say “very serious case. Bacchna mushkil hai. She is in coma”..

I have seen the serial only uptil now and though I would love to write part III I really don’t think I have the patience to watch that shit again for another two weeks. And oh by the way what I have written in this blog are about 13-14 episodes.
So with a heavy heart I must say that this is the concluding part of this series unless someone is willing to watch it and give me inputs ;).. any volunteers???:D:D

PATHETIC PROFS!!!

Sometime last week i got my results and have been wanting to blog about it for sometime but due to lack of proper net connection have been unable to write. The first feeling that coursed through my mind when I saw the results was ultimate relief. "Shit man I cleared all my papers. I m gonna keep that job in CTS after all." was the thought that crossed my mind. Because I did not have access to the internet I learnt about my marks only the next day. I m basically writing this blog in a state of extreme hatred and anger towards my professors. When I actually saw my marks I was aghast when I saw the internal marks column of my marksheet. Three of the professors had given me 15 on 20 which is extremely poor internals

Now I wonder how the brains (if they have any that is) of these professors work. I am somehow convinced that their brains must be filled with cowdung. But hey wait a minute. Even cowdung is supposed to have medicinal properties so I guess their “brains” don’t even have cowdung. All they have is loads of spite, a very distorted sense of respect and the amazing and unwanted ability to harbor ill feelings.

I guess the professors must be using the following scheme for marking

1. If student is creative, can think on his/her own and asks relevant questions which make u squirm and say “I will refer and tell you ” >> -5

2. If the above student forgets to wish u when he sees u in the library(where u r pretending to read but actually cant understand a god damned word of whats written ) or canteen(where you are seen fighting with the canteen manager to let u take food for free because u r a staff) or sports block (where u r seen taking advantage of the fact that u r a staff by playing with bare feet when the rules say that must wear proper sports gear) >> -10

3. If student is extremely silent copies all the assignments from the prescribed book without a clue about what the assignment is all about and always sits on the first bench pretending to take notes(I say this not to insult the student but the professor. Which student can possibly take notes when the professor says stuff shit like “I want both the solution and the answers” , “what is this noise coming from the backside of me” , “it is like that only that the compiler compiles”..sheesh!! ) and nodding his head dumbly >> +10

4. If student is an active member in the organizing committee of either the symposium or the culturals and therefore does not attend classes frequently but still does well in the unit tests >> -20


5. If student runs behind the staff after every class asking silly and stupid doubts, asking them “important” questions for the upcoming test grinning sheepishly and wringing his/her hands. Also compliments the staff and asks for extra tests assignments >> +20

Seriously I am not at all being sarcastic. Each of the statements which I mention I have seen them happen to many students and most of the times to myself. I will be honest. No I cannot run behind staff trying to be extra polite and please them when I have ZERO respect for them but just want to get internals. I CANNOT sit on the first bench trying to appear serious when all I want to do is laugh my head off at the staff’s stupidity. I CANNOT and will not wish staff when I see them outside college hours. We are just two unrelated human beings then.

What irritates me most is that professors like these always say that they will grade u based only on ur test performance when frankly speaking they don’t care a rats ass about ur test marks. One particular professor(an extremely pathetic one) I know taught us for only a month and during this period(it was the symposium time) kept three tests, some hundred assignments and then left for God knows where and gave everyone(except a few) extremely poor internals. What the hell could he have judged about a student in just a month?? I am so pissed that I could track him down and give him such a piece of my mind that he will never forget his entire life.

Though I feel extremely pained to be leaving college in another 2 months(I m gonna really miss coll life) academically I am so glad that I am no longer gonna be associated with such half witted, moronic and anally retentive profs. I still have my project to go and I am sure all the profs are just waiting to screw me. Anyway lets see what happens!!

Some people just have the knack of getting on the others’ nerves I guess!!!

Tagged!!

I have been tagged by Srikanth with this huge tag which seems to keep going on and on and on.
Anyway here goes!!
Favorite Color:
There is no particular color that I dislike so I guess I like all colors. No Favorites

Favorite Food:
Everything edible and vegetarian

Favorite Month: June

Favorite Song
Tough one.I like so many. Favorite would be Tere Bin by Atif..
Hindi :
I love soooo many songs. All oldies - Mohammed rafi, kishore, mukesh, manna dey All Atif’s, KK”s, Shanker Mahadevan, and of course all Rehman’s songs. He is GOD.

Tamil:Again all Rehman’s songs and Ilayaraja.. Lately even yuvan shanker raja.

English:
Boyzone- U say it best when u say nothing at all. John Denver- Leaving on a jet plane, All Don Williams songs. All time favorites are Abba and Boney M. Hard rock and metal come under the category NOISE for me. :):)

Favorite Movie: This is a long List. Read if u have the patience.
fools rush in,life is beautiful, erin brokovich, forrest gump Casablanca, schindlers list, dil chahta hai, black, shawshank redemption, men of honor, Hotel Rwanda, Sweet November, all romantic comedies, Swadesh, mouna ragam and all animation movies

Favorite Sport:
Play – Badminton, TT, Scrabble(does it count??) , Watch - Cricket.

Favorite Season:
Summer, Summer, Summer

Favorite Day Of the week:
Saturday

Favorite Ice Cream Flavor:
Chocolate

Favorite Time of Day:
Night time. When there is no body around and I get loads of time to read and blog. I sleep during the day time to avoid people!! Heh heh..

8 CURRENTS
Current Mood: Ecstatic

Current Taste: Tangy

Current Clothes: Blue Tracks and Red T-shirt

Current Desktop: Windows XP

Current Toenail Color: I have never colored my nails

Current Time: 12.01 pm IST

Current Surroundings: My kid cousin Sid acting smart grandmom lecturing, lots of books a radio and a messy bed

Current Thoughts: Man!!! I hate advice.

6 FIRSTS

First Best Friend: don’t remember.

First Screen Name: revs

First Pet: My sister :D:D

First Piercing: Have pierced only ears

First Movie: Hum aapke hain koun(that was the first I saw in the theatre. I don’t remmeber the first one I saw)

6 LASTS

Last Cigarette: I don’t smoke.

Last Drink: Alcoholic: I don’t drink. Non-Alcoholic: Water

Last Car Ride: Feb 14th 2007. Went to watch movie Music and Lyrics with my SISTER(please note this point and NOT the date ;))

Last Movie Seen: Music and Lyrics

Last Phone Call: My sister asking me what I wanted for dinner.(its not like I have many options but I still tell her something to please her)

Last Book Read: Interpreter of maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.

Have You Ever Broken the Law: Dude!! I have never followed the law

Have You Ever Been Arrested: No. I haven’t broken laws to that extent. House arrest yes but police arrest No

Have You Ever Been on TV: No

Have You Ever Lied: Many Many times. There was a time in my life when I lied so much that even I believed it was the truth.. LOL

Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn’t Know: No

4 THINGS

Thing You’ve Done Today: Spoken to my granmom after a long time, Didn’t meet for a project meeting after a long time, Had great food after a long time

Thing You Can Hear Right Now: Atif singing Tere Bin, My kid cousin Sid singing something. Cant make out words. My garndmom talking

Thing You Can’t Live Without: Internet, Cell phone, Friends and my family(mom dad sis and grandmom).

Thing You Do When You’re Bored: I love to read. I have the ability to read the same books and novels again and agaon. I once read an Archie comic about 30 times because I was so bored. Sometimes I message when I am bored

4 PLACES YOU’VE BEEN TODAY:
Airport(to collect my laptop[yipeeeeeeee]) from my dad’s colleague, sisters house, grandmothers place and garndmom’s kitchen

3 PEOPLE YOU CAN TELL ANYTHING TO
Sister, Milinta, Ebin

2 CHOICES

1. Black or White: White 2. Hot or Cold: Hot

1 THING YOU WANT TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE
Start an NGO.

I TAG:
Rahul, Milinta(new to blogger), Ashwin, Padmashree ,Sheikheeee and Ravikumar

MEGA SERIAL- PART-I

Because I have absolutely nothing to do during my final year of engineering(not that I did much during the first three yrs but I at least had college five days a week and tests and assignments over the weekend but in final yr I have just two papers and hence college only on two days of the week and hence enormous scope for doing nothing) I have been staying at my sister's place(to do “project work”. just typing the word makes me go into peals of laughter. god only knows what’s going to happen to our project. well I will reserve that for another blog).

Well for the past 20 years I have known my sister and though she is far from being sane, level headed and normal I could safely say that her views on soaps and mega serials were pretty much the same as me. So u can imagine how surprised/shocked/flabbergasted (no forget it!!U can’t imagine. I positively goggled) I would have been at 9.00 pm on Monday night when I sat down to watch KBC my sister snatched the remote from me and declared that she wanted to watch "Woh Rehne Waali aasmanon ki" or some crap like that. When I gave her one of my looks (the kind of look which said "u know. It’s not too late. I can still take you to a good doctor and u will be all right in a couple of days"). That was when I got my second shock when she said "please yaar.I have been watching it for the past five months"... (Errr.is there anyway that u can divorce a sibling??). And she put me through the torture and I had to sit and watch that serial.

Well this is how the story of this megaaaaa serial goes. (I got the whole story by just watching one episode). There is this guy whose horoscope says that the girl whom he marries will die within 40 days. He loves some woman and because he obviously doesn’t want her to die he marries this other woman (who by the way is called pari (fairy in Hindi)...I have always wondered why the protagonist in these soaps is always called by names like tulsi, paarvathi, sita, kumkum, Devi. I mean seriously get a life. There are also people who are called revathi, shruthi etc and trust me they are not all that bad ;)). well anyway so he marries this pari female who is the epitome of sincerity, peace, patience and love (obviously!!) who keeps smiling even though she knows that the bastard married her because he wanted her to die. I mean seriously how can u keep smiling diabetically when u know that 40 days later u r going to die. Well anyway so this is the story. and oh by the way these 40 days started 5 months ago (when my sis started watching it) and still a day or two of this disgusting pari's life are left (which I am
sure will stretch for a month).

well anyway so this pari is so sweet that she changes bastard and makes him fall in love with her and so my sister is watching the serial because she wants bastard and pari to fall in love and obviously because she is the main heroine she must live and hence the 40 day theory is shit and since she is loveliness personified she gets the man she wants (all this does not deter my sis from watching). well anyway I wouldn’t be so irritated if these soaps were a real realistic(am sorry did I just use realistic and soap in the same sentence?? I must wash my mouth with soap. pun unintended).

Well anyway,
how is it that when I get up in the morning I find

1. Half my hair on the pillow
2. A new pimple on my face
3. My remaining hair standing in four different directions at unnatural angles
4. Dirt on the corners of my eyes
5. Dark circles under my eyes
6. My pjs absolutely crumpled and smudged with orange juice, sambhar etc…

and how is it that when pari gets up in the morning she finds

1. Blush on her cheeks (attributed to extra rouge)
2. Her lipstick still intact
3. Her fake eyelashes and eyeliner absolutely in place without smudging
4. Her hair perfectly made without a strand outta place
5. Her silk nightie looking the way it does in showrooms
6. The standard smile on her face

And all this after bastard makes her sleep on the floor because he does not want to share a bed with her!!

puhlease!!!!!seriously sometimes I think ekkkktaaaa kkaappooorr(I dunno what the latest spelling of her name is. this is the last one I know according to numerology) thinks she is making these serials for monkeys and not human beings. actually I think monkeys must have more IQ than people who watch these serials(sis I did not mean U..really..I swear;))..

well this post is getting way too long. I will be back soon with Mega Serials- Part II where I will delve into the various illogical repetitive and unbearable scenes of WRWAK(if u r blinking then all I can say is Duh!!dumbo.that is the short form of Woh Rehne waali aasmanon ki)

Ciao for now!!

THE BRIDGE

‘The Bridge’ (an NGO) organizes every year a day filled with fun for NGO’s in and around Chennai . The day starts with having some out door activities and games wherein the inmates participate and indoor activities where they exhibit their skills on their dancing and singing ! This year the event is organized at ‘Ethiraj College for Women’ at Mount Road on 4th Feb 2006 and we are expecting a gathering of approx 1000 people. We require volunteers to help us in organizing the activities planned for the day. If you are interested please send me the confirmation mail(Jyothsana_Kuppurao@Satyam.com) right away with the details below :

Ø Name
Ø Address for communication
Ø Mobile Number
Ø Availability (Fullday or half day - mention time)

Please let me know if you need any other details …You can give names of your friends too with the above details if they also can make it !!

I have been tagged by Sheks to tell the world five things that it does not know about me..so here goes

1. Whenever a particular flooring has square tiles i ALWAYS do the knight walk i.e three squares forward two squares right then three squares forward and two squares left so on and so forth(or the L shaped walk). i acquired this weird habit after learning to play chess and have been doing it ever since. it was an obsession a few years back but nowadays i try not to do it when i am in public places.

2. Whenever i am driving or in the bus or in general on road i have the habit of adding up the numbers on the registration plate of the vehicles stading before me or passing me. i started this because i used to get really bored waiting for the signal to change.Nowadays i am so obssessed that i sometimes do not notice the signal change to green and go on adding..:)

3. Whenever i travel alone in the train i always make it a point to take a P.G.Wodehouse or Bill Bryson or James Herriot or some other author who cracks me up because i love the look on the faces of fellow passengers which says "what the hell is she laughing about" when i read something and laugh.(Sometimes i also get a look which says "poor thing!!maybe she has lost it"..frankly, I dont care)!!

4. I have this absolutely weird habit of reading the last few pages of a mystery novel to find out who the culprit is and then start reading the book. i also love to hear how a particular film (whose end has been kept a suspense) ends before watching it.

5. Whenever i am studying, reading a book or thinking i pull out strands of my hair. This habit of mine irritates my mother and sister because like a cat i shed hair all over the house and as a result of this habit i also have very very few hairs left on my head!! :(:(.. But somehow i just cannot stop it.

I have many many other weird habits but since i have been asked for five i shall stop here. Now i get to tag someone(rubbing my hands in glee)..i tag Ragesh, Srikanth, Rahul, DD, Srinivasan, Sheikheeee and Padmashree!!

A lot of relatives have started reading my blog so I guess it is time for me to make some things clear.
Dear relatives,
I do not drink, I do not smoke, I do not have a boyfriend, I do not do drugs(which includes ganja,heroin,cocaine,opium,nicotine,weed,brown sugar etc.)..I know all these names because I read a lot of books and novels. I do not have AIDS. I do not play hooky from college (ok!!I do not play hooky from college that often).I do not spend hours talking on the phone to some member of the opposite sex. (crap!!Given the current pathetic condition of my phone I would say I don’t even have a phone. I can't make calls i can't send messages, and even if someone calls me i can't talk for more that ten minutes because the charge goes out!!sigh!!)...I have never lied at home to get extra money or tried to wheedle money out of my unsuspecting sister or grandmother (the fact that I am in a perennially impecunious state is a proof of this fact. oh by the way I am in such a state because the one vice which I DO have is food. I can’t resist good food. I spend crazy amounts of money on food).I do not wear tantra T-Shirts which say "certified bitch!!Have a problem??" or low hip jeans which leave nothing to imagination. I have never seen the insides of a discotheque, a pub or a bar (nor do I wish to).
I cannot think of anything else to confess but I am your typical girl next door who has her share of fun within her limits
Phew!!! That’s enough lies. Bring out the vodka and the cigars man!!!
Ok I am kidding!! I crack jokes sometimes and have a sense of humor!! :):)

TOUR!!!

The following are my tour experiences. What u are about to read is a very polished version of the rough journal i maintained during tour.

Day 1: 25/12/06
boarded Grand Trunk to leave for delhi at 7.15 pm..

I still have my doubts about what fuelled the train..whether it was coal or the infectious enthusiasm of 200 and odd 20 year olds(three departments ECE EEE and CSE boarded the same train same day).. Don't remember sleeping that night...whenever i tried i was woken up by someone singing, shrieking, shouting or squealing...

Day 2:26/12/06
Spent the whole day in the train playing cards singing songs catching up on college gossip sleeping (or trying to sleep actually)... Bought some oranges in Nagpur...Heavenly...Started getting cold in the night...

Day 3:27/12/06
Landed in Delhi at 7.00 in the morning. Extremely cold..expecially for us chennaiites who consider a temeperatue of 18-20(centigrade) as cold.. checked in a hotel called hotel sunshine..what a misnomer..it was situated in the dingiest corner of ka rol bagh where sunlight even if it wanted to wouldn't be able to penetrate..freshened up(took a bath..my bath no:1 during tour).

Had breakfast at saravana bhavan Karol bagh. Had a masala dosa worth 50 bucks plus 6 bucks of VAT. Phew!!!!i could have 5 plates of idly in Chennai for the same price..anyway was extremely hungry so gobbled up that too. Little did I know that this would be the only decent food i ate for days to come. : (: ( Then we went on a delhi tour..started with birla mandir..removed my shoes and socks to go inside the temple and the marble was so cold!!

Went to Qutub minar next..nice place..full of ruins..not one fully constructed structure there. Qutub minar was awesome.

Next stop was lotus temple/bahai temple. Reminded me of Sydney opera house(not that I have seen it but somehow bahai temple reminded me of it). Beautiful place. Lovely gardens. Very serene. A funny thing which happened there was that I went inside and sat on the rows and rows of seats waiting for someone to give a discourse or something. After spending 15 extremely confused minutes inside I came outside only to realize that I was supposed to meditate inside. Was laughed at mercilessly by my friends.

Quick stop at Gandhi's Samadhi. The Samadhi probably occupies only an area of about 50 feet by 30 feet but is surrounded by lush and beautiful gardens. Huge place.

Last stop was India gate.
This was at around 7.00 in the night. What a sight it is at night. Breathtaking
Due to lack of time the rest of delhi was shown only by bus. Parliament house, rashtrapati bhavan high court etc. didn't make any more stops. Ate dinner at a place called madras cafe. Absolute disgrace to madras. Disgusting place and horrible food. Wonder why they named it madras cafe. Ate an onion utthapam followed by a pudin hara as precaution Left for amritsar at 11.00 in the night. Spent the night in bus

Day 4: 28/12/06
Stopped at a dhaba at 8.00 in the morning and had some heavenly chai. Dint feel like trying the others things on the menu (the fact that there was no menu is not the point here) ;);) Reached amritsar at 11.00 am. Freshened up.(Bath no:2 during tour). Decently hot water was available. One of my aunts whose husband works in the army lives there and came to meet me. Left for jalianwala bagh and golden temple at 1.00.. Lunch was forgotten.

We went to jalianwala bagh by a ghoda gaadi(horse driven vehicle) and the 60 something driver called me "didi" (elder sister in hindi) sheesh!!! I was so embarrassed. Thankfully a lot of people around me dint know hindi!!

Jalianwala Bagh
The hair on my hair and neck rose and the cold wasn't the only reason . Dyer you bastard if only you were here before me today I would have torn u apart with my bare hands. Sigh!!!

Golden Temple
WoW!!! What a place..amazing..so beautiful and resplendent in gold. Due to time constraints couldn't go inside. Just took a tour of the temple and returned


Wagah border
Due to extra time spent in golden temple missed out first ten minutes of the parade. Some moron told us the parade starts at 5.00 but apparently during winters the time is 4.30. reached at 4.45 and pushed and shoved and kicked through the crowd to take some photographs.

I found it really funny actually. There is a particular time during the parade when the Pakistani and Indian soldier shake hands and I swear they would have looked friendlier had they shot at each other. Seriously man if that handshake is supposed to denote friendship I dread to think of how they are when they face each other in battle Went to my aunts place for dinner. Army quarters. Lovely palatial house. Had great heavenly yummy food after having absolutely no food the whole day(except for three cups of tea and a chaat) wasn't given permission to spend the night there. Had a miserable and stuck up professor with us. Anyway spent three hours at their place and came to the hotel. Spent the night at amritsar

Day 5: 29/12/06
Left for chandigarh early next morning. (Bath no: 3 during tour).reached chandigarh at around 2.00 in the afternoon. Stopped for breakfast. Had the only item on the menu. Aloo parantha. For the days to come this was the only food stuff I would have. Aloo aloo and more aloo..sigh!! how I longed for hot sambhar sadam and thayir sadam.

Anyway what a beautiful city chandigarh is.. such a neat place. What wide roads. The whole city is like a national highway. After seeing amritsar which is a really dirty place chandigarh felt like heaven. An extremely well planned city. The whole city is divided into sectors and each and every corner of the city is impeccable

Our first stop was rock garden. Totally built by a person called nek chand. Must have been one jobless guy.. just kidding. Amazing guy really. It is impossible to believe that he has built the whole place. What creativity. He has used bangles, old switches circuits etc and carved rock. Very nice place. Found "i love computer teacher"(see pic) written on a door inside rock garden. Must have been a real pervert..:D:D

Next we went to this lake and did nothing. Just ate and rested. Some others went boating. Next stop was pinjore gardens. All of us were damn tired so just took a tour of pinjore gardens in fifteen minutes and we were out. Left for manali at 10.

Day 6: 30/12/06
Since we hadn't had any dinner or lunch the previous day because the bus driver had promised to stop at a dhaba we were all extremely hungry. And the guy dint stop anywhere. Finally i(because I was the only person in the groups who spoke decent hindi which the driver could understand) begged and pleaded with the driver to stop at a dhaba at 2.45 am. Bought some really lousy bananas had some lovely chai(that is one thing about north. The tea is great everywhere. I think I survived solely on tea those 12 days)

Reached manali at 10.00 in the morning. It was GOD DAMNED cold..that was the first time I thought that maybe this is the wrong time to go visiting the north. Anyway 30th was a free rest day for us. We could do anything we wanted. Because we were really hungry we again went to a madras cafe(supposed to be the best eat out in manali.i dread to think of the others after I had my lunch there). Horrible food and the cold was extremely irritating. It feels disgusting to be bundled up in layers and layers of clothes and still feel cold.

Came back to the hotel and tried to sleep. It was impossible. I am the kind of person who moves around a LOT in my sleep but that was not possible because if u change position the new area of the bed will be freezing making it impossible to sleep till you warm that place and plus there were four of us(two of whom were sick) on bed meant for two people. Finally managed to sleep at 2.00 in the morning only to be rudely woken up at 6.30. I was later told that that night the temperature had gone to sub zero levels in manali.

Sathya disturbing my severe penance!!

Day 7: 31/12/06
Last day of the year. Went to all the places in and around manali. First went to this place called Ice point. Rented a fur coat worth 100 bucks. It was a waste. Manali is a very funny place. Ice point was full of snow and though u might not believe it I was sweating!!! It was so hot..finally got rid of the fur coat Had a great time at ice point being hurled down on a tyre from a height of 50 feet. Awesome!!! Spent a good three hours in ice point.

Next we went to manali hot water springs. Shit man!!! I was expecting some fissures in the earth from which hot water will be shooting up or something like that and finally they showed us a dirty gutter full of what seemed like sewage water and told us these were the hot water springs..what a disappointment.

Next stop was hadimba temple. For those of u who are blinking hadimba is bhima's(one of the five pandavas) wife. Nice temple..looks like a pagoda actually!!dressed up like of one of the locals and I looked really really silly. Went back to the hotel and called up everyone and wished them new year..

Had a blast in the night singing and dancing. Because I am a pathetic dancer formed a group called The Non Dancers, where it is not necessary to shake ur legs and minimum hand movement can be called dance!! ;);)..co-founders are sathya and swathi and guru is milinta. Thank you guys I owe u one!! :):). At the stroke of twelve we were the only people who were not tired because we had hardly moved our legs!! LOL!!..

Oh yeah by the way food was organized by the hotel and I swear I wished I were in hostel eating mess food..sheesh man!!!such unpalatable inedible and revolting food had my tastebuds crying bloody murder!!!thanks to pudin hara amoebiasis or some other dangerous stomach problem eluded me..

Day 8: 1/1/07
HAPPY NEW YEAR!! Had a blast till 2.00 in the morning and tried to sleep under three layers of bedsheets and four layers of clothing and still ended up feeling cold..cold sucks. Left for shimla at 10.00 Stopped for breakfast at a roadside dhaba. Had the same revolting aloo paranthas.. Stopped at a shawl factory and saw two really cute kids.
Reached Shimla at 1.00 in the night!! it was absolutely freezing. Must have been colder than manali I think. Slept really well

Day 9- 2/1/07
Left the hotel at 10.00 in the morning.(Bath no: 4 during tour. No bath in manali. Too damned cold) Went to a place called Kufri about 10 kms from shimla. The place is accessible only by horses. So I rented a horse called badal(cloud in hindi) to take me to kufri. A really gentle creature which very carefully took me up the steep hills

At an elevation of 18000 feet and surrounded by mysterious snow clad mountains which were some of the highest peaks in india the only thing we found interesting was the aloo tikki.. :):).. ate aloo tikki and maggi (the same maggi which I refuse at sea level I hogged like it was the last time I was ever going to eat) Came back to shimla on a horse called bijli(lightning in hindi). Not as friendly as badal

Next we were supposed to go to some dumb shopping malls in shimla but one of my classmates had been vomiting right from morning and was extremely de hydrated so we had to admit her in a hospital in shimla and she had to take three bottles of drips. Thanks Baekkie. Thanks to you I was able to avoid shopping. :):) Left for delhi at around 9.00

Day 10- 3/1/07
Delhi again. Again checked in at hotel sunshine at 7.00 and freshened up (Bath no: 5 during tour) After manali and shimla delhi actually seemed hot. Had lunch at a hotel sarvana bhavan and My god!! It was the best food I had had in ages..the photographs should be self explanatory!! ;);)..never before have I been so overjoyed to see sambhar, rasam and curd!! The whole day spent on shopping.
I of course did not do any shopping. Went inside a book bazaar and spent two hours and bought one book called "grandpa's bedtime stories " for my 7 yr old cousin.

BEFORE WE ATTACKED THE FOOD

AFTER WE WERE DONE!! :):)

That was the extent of my shopping. There were people who shopped for 3000 bucks. I shopped for 45 bucks. The only thing I enjoyed was traveling all around delhi in the local buses. Personally I think Chennai buses are much better in terms of service. Spent the night in delhi

Day 11- 4/1/07
Caught the Taj Express to go to Agra at 7.00 in the morning. Took Bath no: 6 during tour. The last bath of the tour. It is a three and a half hour train journey from delhi to agra. Reached agra at around 12. had lunch at a udipi hotel. Great food again..I Love Food man!!

Left for Agra fort at around 2.00. Nice place. Place where Shahjahan was imprisoned. Has a perfect view of taj mahal. Legend has it that shahjahan was planning to build a black taj mahal for mourning the death of mumtaz. I cant imagine what that would have looked like.

Anyway agra fort is awesome. Architecture is just mindblowing. I mean what tools would these people have had in the 16th century. The symmetry of each of these buildings is awe inspiring. I tried uploading a few pics. But uploading pics on blogger on a connection as lousy as mine is a pain.

Taj Mahal

No mobile phones or eatables or any other electronic items are allowed inside the Taj. I had my cell in my sweater and forgot about it. Even when I discovered I felt very lazy to go back to the bus and keep it. Like a smart ass I hid it further into my sweater and went inside. Security is very good. And I got caught and was literally thrown out of Taj. I am sure the guard thought I was a terrorist because when I came back I was asked to remove my shoes socks and sweater to prove to her that I was clean. Damn!!!

Anyway all that getting caught and embarrassment was worth it because let me tell you Taj Mahal is such a great place it is worth killing for. WOW!!! What a place. What beautiful paintings and work. I just couldn’t take my eyes off it. I seriously have no words to describe it. I cant even begin to imagine what great love Shahjahan must have felt for mumtaz to dedicate the Taj to her. Spent a good three hours in taj. Came out at 7.00.

Reached Agra station at 8.00
Train left at 10.00

Day 12- 5/01/07
Slept the whole day. god damned tired

Day 13-6/01/07
Reached Chennai..Chennai is the best place on earth any time any day. The more i see places in the north the more i wanna settle down in the south. I hate cold weather. I hate static electricity during the cold which strikes each time i touch metal. I hate chapatis. I hate being bundled up in layers and layers of clothes..In short I LOVE CHENNAI!!:):)

I have been having the time of my life for the past 15 days..it began on december 20th when all four of us(mom dad sis and me) set off to ooty to attend the 30th year 10th std school reunion of my mother..when i was first informed of the reunion i was like "yeah right..how much fun are 45 yr olds going to have "..i imagined few pot bellied men smoking a pipe and reminscing on the good old days probably leaving the seat only to refill their plates and glasses of vodka and the women wearing saris and lipsticks and refusing to get up lest the folds of their saris go out of place... The batchmates thirty years later with their teachers

i was in for a very very pleasant surprise..my god..the amount of energy and enthusiasm which was exuded those three days ABSOLUTELY blew my head off..i have never i repeat NEVER seen 45 yr olds let their hair down like this..u see such infectious enthusiasm only once in a lifetime..

some of the batchmates..mom in blue

now as a rule i never dance..i am a pathetic dancer..i have two left feet and the minute i take the dance floor ppl laugh their head off..That day I me Revathi Ramanan actually shook a leg..it was impossible not to actually..there were about 27 ppl 25 yrs older than me who were dancing without a care in the world without caring a damn about what ppl think about their dancing skills..it was awesome mindblowing astounding stupefying..actually i am running out of adjectives..before we left my mom told us that for three days she wasnt a wife and a mother but just a student and man i swear she relived 30 yrs in those 3 days..my mom is generally a very enthusiastic and jovial person but her enthu scaled new heights those three days..

singing the school song

And her batchmates..what can i say..such nice amazing ppl and most of them have done so well for themselves..what is most reassuring is that the ppl who were at the bottom of the class have become such big shots and are still so humble and nice..moral of the story: Studies is not important..;);)..jokes apart i have never met such nice absolutely down to earth elders..and i bonded really well with the children of all the batchmates too...overdose of nice ppl actually..

On the final night we kids had to organise some games for the students(they kept referring to each other as boys and girls so i shall refer to them as students)..we chose dumb charades and decided that we would give them really simple movies because it would be difficult for them to act..how wrong we were!!!how we wished later that we had given them tougher movies..they guessed each and every movie..movies like "fiddler on the roof" ,"hey dude!!!wheres my car","stop!!or my mom will shoot" were acted and guessed in record time..and then they danced and danced and danced like forever..my god..they just kept dancing..amazing energy really

shaking a leg..the 'students' are in the background

we came back onthe 24th and on the 25th i left on a 12 day trip to delhi,amritsar,chandigarh,kulu manali and shimla..another mind blowing trip to celevrate the last few months of college life..it deserves another blog actually..my tour experience shall be my next blog!!

the banner

Mention of the reunion in The Hindu

LIFE IS TOUGH...

Its tough being in a family of over- achievers...Its tough having parents who do 25 kms cycle trekking (at the age of 45 and 52 respectively) as a hobby...its tough having a mother who learns Vedic mathematics because it is "fun"...its tough having a sister who is a graduate of BITS-Pilani...its tough having cousins who think u r not fit to live if u haven’t studied in an IIT or an IIM...its tough having relatives who think if u write CAT u must get into an IIM...its tough having a grandmother who can multiply any two numbers given to her in her mind and give u the answer in 10 seconds...its tough having a great grand father who was a pioneer in the field of education and was a great mathematician and has a famous school in trichy named after him...all this can be really tough when u are the kind of person who thinks it is very very important to get at least 16 hours of sleep a day..a person who thinks exercise is important only when u go 20 kilos overweight, one who thinks that studying is a sin unless it is done just the night before the exam (and people studying just for "fun" should be institutionalized), one who is so pathetic in math that if asked to find the value of sin0 I would probably ask u for a calculator...sigh!!!
Life can be really tough sometimes...

Bliss, peace,happiness contentment..these are just some of the things i am feeling right now...yeah my exams got over today and i m so damned happy..there are some things which give u immense pleasure whenever they occur..some of them are,

1. The feeling u get after u finish ur last exam and rush to ur room in the hostel to pack ur bags and go home

2.The day after the exams get over and u accidently wake up at 7 AM and realise that u can go back to sleep till eternity instead of leaping sleepily out of bad,hastily brushing ur teeth and hitting ur books.

3.u feel hungry at 3.00 in the night after watching four movies back to back and then realise that u need not remain hungry because u are at home(not hostel) and mummy dearest has stacked the refrigerator with ur favorite dishes

4. on a weekday when u have to attend college and u set the alarm for 7.00 and u accidently wake up at 6.30 and get out of bed only to realise that u still have half an hour of sleep to go

5. When a professor forgets about a test he/she announced and u realise that u didn't waste time studying for it..

6.The feeling of completeness and bliss u experience when u walk on a tree lined road after it has rained heavily and the sky is still overcast

7. u got to the hostel mess to eat the crap the cook has dished out only to find that some friend's kind mother has sent enough food for the entire batch to feed on for a day.

8.When u have a craving for a particular book and by chance the next day either someone lends it to u or u find it in the library.

I could keep going on but i just finished my exams today and i m gonna go and hit the bed and rediscover sleep....zzzzzzzzzzz...

Late on Sunday evening one of the most loving and nicest human beings I have ever known passed away...Maami...a close relation of mine. I do not want to spoil the beauty of my relationship with maami by elucidating how she was related to me. Very few ppl would actually understand what my sister and I have shared with her.

For the past year (11 months to be precise) I have seen her fight a losing battle with blood cancer. I have seen the cancer slowly eat into her body in a slow tortuous way...In all these months I have seen her resolve break very rarely. even as I write this tears well up in my eyes as I think of the way maami was 11 months back, full of life, a zest to live and cheerful and a few weeks back when she was nothing but a bag of bones -some flesh here a muscle there. After watching the cancer eat away maami with vengeance I have come to the conclusion that death by any other means other than cancer is welcome.. the last four five months have been living hell for maami's family with each new medicine promising new hope and then failing miserably after maami's frail body refused to accept it...I think every well wishers prayer over the last few months has been a peaceful death for maami.

And for the people she leaves behind mourning for her...what can I say??? I have always maintained that it is the people that a dead person leaves behind who are to be pitied more than the person... She leaves behind a man who has been hopelessly dependent on her for the past 40 yrs for every small need of his. I really cannot imagine maama without his better half and needless to say he is devastated by her death

She leaves behind a son and a daughter (who come second and third in being the nicest ppl I know by the way) who have been hopelessly praying that a miracle just might cure their mother. I think the worst thing about the whole affair was that both the son and daughter are living in the US and hence were unable to be with her day and night in the last few months. I really can’t imagine what they must be going through because I can’t imagine just getting up one day and realising u don’t have a mother anymore. Even if u pay a million dollars u can never ever see her again, talk to her touch her. Reality bites and Death can be a cruel but efficient reminder of realities.

I can’t forget all those navratris when maami has called my sister and me to visit her house and would ALWAYS have some trinket for us when we left. How she cared for us like a grandmother, the way she genuinely blessed us to have great careers and a good life. I have never noticed anything false about this lady and that is saying something because I am a VERY cynical person and it takes me quite some time to like someone...I don’t think I can write anything more mainly because I cannot seem to type any further and also because I m not qualified enough to write anything more about her.

This is a tribute to a person who loved to live and lived to love...
May her soul rest in peace...

I wrote a paper called web technology today...this is becoming a routine u know. I write an exam and then I come in the afternoon and blog about my miserable performance. The worst part is that I studied so damned hard for this stupid paper..All in vain. I have been averaging 3 hrs sleep a day for the past four days and nothing NOTHING of what i studied came in the paper. I might as well have not studied anything. The paper was full of programs. Not that it wasn’t expected but it sure gave me a shock because hardly any programs had been asked in the previous years (yeah!!That’s how we study. We look at the past year question papers and decide what to study and what not to study)...well anyway it was a pathetic performance.

Realisation has just dawned me that I am NOT fit to be an engineer. I m probably the most useless engineer there ever was. I have zero technical knowledge, i am rubbish at programming and run miles when I hear about a technical seminar or symposium. suddenly after all these years I m being faced by the question "why engineering and what have I learnt in the four yrs of engineering”
Answering the first question is kind of tricky.

I think doing engineering was not a conscious decision on my part. I guess it was just assumed that I would do engineering. Other avenues were not even considered. One of the main reasons for this was the fact that I eleventh I set my mind on getting into BITS. Whatever I did for two years of secondary schooling I wanted to join BITS. In fact I was so hell bent on getting into BITS and was so sure that I would make it that I dint even feel the need to study hard for tnpcee or aieee.and I wanted to do engineering only if it was in BITS. I worked my ass out those two years and did all my exams pretty decently. Then came the last exam computer science. The exam was the day before the world cup India Australia match. i saw the whole match and wasted time.Time which i could have used to study.

OUTCOME??? Well I did almost as badly as India did in that match (maybe worse) and lost 14 valuable in comp sci.14 marks which cost me my precious dream place-BITS.

I think the only ever time in life when I was ABSOLUTELY broken and dejected and cried like I had lost everything in the world was June 30th 2003 when a cold and impersonal web page announced the fact that I had missed BITS by 1%...

After that I just wrote my SSN entrance exam like a zombie, was extremely disappointed when I got a seat in computer science of department of SSN. The top engineering college among 235 colleges, excellent placement record blah blah.....but it was not BITS. It has been four years and though I have had unbelievable fun in this place I think a part of me has still not recovered from that jolt of not getting into BITS.

Well anyway I am digressing. So engineering it was. I dint want to do engineering at all. Tried to give the exam for B.A. Journalism in MOP but everything was against me. registration for the test was over(I was so sure of getting into bits that I hadn’t even bothered to look up other colleges) and I was stuck with being an engineer...

Coming to the second part what have I learnt in four yrs of engineering have learnt many things about life. I have met some great people, made some really cool friends, few enemies too (read juniors),learnt a lot about people. Learnt that there is a hell a lot of difference between staying with people 24*7 in the hostel and spending some 6 hrs with them in college. I have learnt to laugh over my mistakes, get over my shortcomings,learnt to adjust with ppl, learnt to wash clothes(oh yeah!! my clothes are no longer multicolored because I left that bright red dress along with the pure white top and now both are a similar shade of red),organized events, had some serious fun and so many other things...

Now where does Computer Science and Engineering figure in this mess???U r right..It doesn’t figure anywhere. Which is why I m left wondering after every pathetic exam why the hell I m even doing engineering. Well I guess it is a little too late to ask this question when my graduation is only months away. Might as well sit back and enjoy what is left of it...but sometimes i do well i could have done something else much better with a lot more interest...Sigh!! Life would be so cool without the what if's!!!

THE MILLION DOLLAR QUESTION

Had a paper called Networks Protocols Security and Management today..I have done it so miserably that i m wondering if CTS and CSC will snatch their offer letters if i fail in this paper!! (Incidentally this is the million dollar question..Will he or Wont he snatch the offer letter)...

Only one thing keeps my hopes high..Maybe, just maybe they wont fail students in their penultimate semester..

Sigh!! lets see..till then i m going to keep my fingers crossed..please do drop in a prayer for me the next time u go to the temple..: ( : (

P.S: I knew it!! i knew that the job offers i had got from CTS and CSC were just too good to be true!!

A mail which was forwarded to me with a beautiful thought..Every word of it was true atleast for me.

P.S: and i dont want any comments about my ancientness!!i m just being nostalgic!!

When Gulli-Danda & Kanche (marbles) were more popular than cricket.

When we always had friends to play aais-paais (I Spy), chhepan-chhepai& pitthoo anytime...

When we desperately waited for 'Yeh Jo Hai Jindagi' (Doordarshan serial)

When chitrahaar, vikram-baitaal, Dada Daadi Ki Kahaniyaan were so fulfilling.

When there was just one Tv in every five houses and...

When Bisleris were not sold in the trains and we were worrying if papas will get back into the train in time or not when they were getting down at stations to fill up the water bottle ...

When we were going to bed by 9.00pm sharp except for the 'Yeh Jo Hai Jindagi' day ...

When Holis & Diwalis meant mostly hand-made pakwaans and sweets and moms seeking our help while preparing them ...

When Maths teachers were not worried of our Mummies and papas while slapping/beating us ...

When we were exchanging comics and stamps and Chacha-Chaudaris & Billus were our heroes ...

When we were in grandma's place every summer and loved flying kites and plucking and eating unripe mangoes and leechies ...

When one movie every Sunday evening on television was more than asked for and 'ek do teen chaar' and 'Rajani' inspired us ...

When 50 paisa meant at least 10 toffees ...

When left over pages of the last years notebooks were used for rough work or even fair work ...

When 'Chelpark' and 'Natraaj' were encouraged against 'Reynolds
& family' ...

When the first rain meant getting drenched and playing in water and mud and making 'kaagaj ki kishtis' ...

When there were no phones to tell friends that we will be at their homes at six in the evening ...

When our parents always had 15 paise blue colored 'Antardesis' and 5 paise machli wale stamps at home ...

When we remembered tens of jokes and were not finding 'ice-cream & papa' type jokes foolish enough to stop us from laughing ...

When we dint consider patakhes on Diwalis and gulaals on
Holis as air and noise polluting or allergic agents ...

The list can be endless ...

On the serious note I would like to summarize with ...
When we were using our hearts more than our brains, even for scientifically brainy activities like 'thinking' and 'deciding' ...

When we were crying and laughing more often, more openly and more sincerely ...

When we were enjoying our present more than worrying about our future ...

When being emotional was not synonymous to being weak ...

When sharing worries and happiness didn't mean getting vulnerable to the listener ...

When blacks and whites were the favorite colors instead of greys ...

When journeys also were important and not just the destinations ...

When life was a passenger's sleeper giving enough time and opportunity to enjoy the sceneries from its open and transparent glass windows instead of some
super fast's second ac with its curtained, closed and dark windows ...

THOSE were the days!!:):)

Finally i m done with CAT..after a whole year of not studying and complaining about it finally on november 19th i finished writing my CAT exam. About my CAT exam-The less i say about it better.the verbal part(the only part in which i usually dont get a negative score) was miserable with really wierd questions. we had to find out from a sentence if it was an inference judgement or fact.. unfortunately all sentences looked like inference judgement and fact to me.and i lost a lot of valuable marks in the guessing which i did in verbal.the Reading comprehension was equally bad.the passages as such werent very difficult but the options for the questions were miserable..all of them seemed to fit and all of them could be the answers.

Surprisingly the DI was very easy compared to the papers i wrote at my mock CAT.the quants part was also easy compared to the mock CAT papers but i was able to attempt only very few questions because of the lack of time(valuable time which i wasted trying to find out if some bloody sentence was a fact,inference or judgement).

well anyway CAT is over now and i dont want to go into all the dirty details.
Two days after my CAT exam my semester exams started.
I finished my ethics exam today. i wrote so many stories that i amazed myself. i wrote stuff like
"we as engineers need to be ethical because ethics in engineering is very important.we need to be honest intelligent diligent because honesty intelligence and diligence always pays and by following these virtues we do the best for our country,organization and community and doing the best for our country,organization and community is our duty" .
by the time i finished the answer even i wasnt very sure what ethics was all about.personally i feel studying etchics is stupid because according to the book which i followed i am the most unethical person on earth

1. The book said that taking photocopies of others notes was plagiarism. now i have never bought books.all i do is take the photocopy(more popularly known as xerox)of the relevant notes.
2. It said that i should not I should not use somebody's else's intellectual output. That is precisely what i have been doing for the past four years in my engineering life. some poor soul writes the programs and we just copy paste it and show the output.apparently i am stealing the recognition that the person gets or some nonsense like that.
and lots of other nonsense which i dont feel like going into. i just finished my ethics exam and i cant stand to write about it again.

and i was following a local author book(when u open ur books just before the exam there really is no time to go through all those fatuous foreign author books and waste time).now that guy himself had copied the foreign author word for word without any conscience by deleting all the necessary parts.and to top it all the book contained a copy right statement right on the first page which said "no part of this book shall be reproduced or copied in any form"..LOL.:D:D...

I just couldnt control my laughter.i think students would really appreciate it if such subjects were removed from the syllabus as they serve absolutely no purpose.not that all the subjects which i have studied till now have served any purpose but seriously this was the worst.

The next paper which i have is another silly subject.apparently we as engineers must take care of the environment and so we must know how to safeguard our environment. so we have this paper called Environmental science and engineering where we study how to protect the environment.

Sigh!!!I better brace myself to write stories again...

An incident which happened in the apartment complex where my sister lives set me thinking how much the times have changed. I mean I used to think I was the current generation- Gen X...But looking at the kids nowadays makes me think that I was mistaken..

I was sitting in a park reading a book and watching a couple of boys playing a game which at first looked like tag. After following the game I realized that it was a game which we as kids used to play.

When we were around 8-10 we played a game called "cut the cake"...There would be one person who was called the "catcher" and then there were the rest of us. The rest of us used to choose a particular color by which we were identified. And then one of us (usually me because i have voice which can be heard in four nearby villages: D: D) would shout out the names of all the colors to the catcher ("red yellow blue green. What do u choose") and then the catcher would choose a color and chase that particular kid. now when he is chasing, if someone else (one of the other colors/kids) cuts the way i.e. runs in between the catcher and the victim then he becomes the next victim..

It was a game which we enjoyed playing and the maximum variation which we had was that sometimes we used to choose animal names for ourselves("dog cat elephant pig. What do u choose?") instead of colors...

Coming back to that day when I saw a couple of boys playing I was quite taken aback to see them refer to themselves as typhoid chikgungunya malaria dengue...one of the kids said "typhoid chikgungunya malaria dengue. What do u choose”. And then the catcher screams dengue and runs behind a kid who squeals with delight at being called dengue and runs for dear life. I found it really amusing. I mean when I was 8-10 the only disease I knew was malaria and plague (because a plague epidemic had broken out in Surat when we lived there in 1994)...I had never heard of dengue, typhoid and certainly not heard of chikgungunya...

And then the other day one of my cousins while listening to Ramayana had a doubt which left me spell bound. She said that when Rama went to get the golden deer for sita and then the deer (actually mareech in disguise) screams out "oh laxmana help me” and sita orders laxmana to go and help rama why does laxmana leave her alone in the hut and go. He could have taken sita with him too if he was scared that something might happen to her...

I was dumb founded...I honestly did not know what to say. She had just prevented the whole sita kidnapping with her logical five yr old thinking

Her twin had another doubt. When i was narrating to her the story of Krishna she wanted to know that if kamsa knew that one of the children of devaki and vasudev was going to destroy him why did he put them both in the same cell

When I was narrated these stories as a kid I used to just listen and NEVER ask doubts. I loved mythological stories but such logical doubts never occurred to me!!!

And then the other day I got a forward which had a real conversation between a little girl and her grandfather. The little girl was sitting on her grandfather’s lap and this was the conversation which took place between them

Girl (touching her grandpa’s wrinkled cheek and asking): Grandpa did God make you??

Grandpa: Yes dear. But he made me a long time back...

Girl (touching her own smooth cheek): Grandpa did God make me too??

Grandpa: Yes dear but he made u only a little while ago

Girl (after thinking for some time)...Wow!!! He sure does a better job these days!! : D: D

Phew!!kids nowadays. They make me feel so ancient!!!

I wanted to blog about this incident which happened on my trip home about 4-5 months back..my sister and i had gone to jamnagar(where my parents live)..this was my sisters first trip home after marriage and we were strolling in the park when we met a lady who was a good friend of my mother's...now let me tell u something about this lady..She is one of those who is beautiful but is EXTREMELY dumb..if intellignece hit her right on the face she would probably take a kerchief and wipe it off and adjust her make up(u get the drift??)...

Well lets call her Miss.Dumb Aunty(DA)..well we met her and the following was the conversation which took place betewen my sister and her

DA: arey beta!!!when did u come?? how are u??

sis: i m fine aunty thank u..

DA:(looking at me): u must be doing engineering no??

me: yes aunty.
DA(addressing my sister): where is ur husband beta??has he come??

sis: no aunty..he couldnt make it so i came alone this trip

DA: oh ok..by the way what does ur husband do?

sis: Well he works for kotak securities..he is into portfolio management..

DA(obviously haveing missed out half of that)..ohhhh!!! that must be tough..

sis(thinks) : duh!!!!
but says nothing.just smiles politely

DA: he must be going to the border often nahi???is he at the border right now??

now i have a very very serious problem..if there one thing i cannot control it is laughter..if i find someone or something funny i HAVE to laugh right then otherwise i would die..so at this point of time i get what DA is trying to say and search for the nearest bush to hide my face and laugh..my sister had obviously not caught on and

sis:(absolutely flabbergasted) sorry aunty!!

DA: well he must be going to the border very often no if he is working for securities!!

sis(catching on and trying her best to keep a straight face..she is better at this i decide..had i been in her place i would have burst out laughing right at DA's face):no aunty actually he works for kotak securities which is a branch of kotak mahindra bank.

DA(obviously not understanding): oh..ok beta.tell mom that i asked about her..and do drop in at my place some time with ur husband

me(thinks).gosh!! i wonder how my brother in law(BIL) will react if he hears all this.

sis: oh definitely aunty...

DA leaves and sister dearest and I collapse on the nearest bench laughing our wits out..gosh!! some people can be sooooo dumb!!:D:D