The nameless friend

I look for nice little coincidences more often than I probably should. Maybe it’s because they are just a bit too interesting for me when I stretch my imagination a bit too far at times. Imagination or otherwise, coincidences invariably invoke an interesting and an enjoyable chain of thoughts. This one’s about one such small coincidence which gave me some food for thought on what would otherwise have been a wearisome and uninteresting flight journey.

The Brits often feel proud about their sense of humour (which in my opinion is as good as it can possibly get), London, their football or rather their sports and lastly, their language. The fact that English, for all practical purposes, is the language of the world for official purposes isn’t something that one can contest anymore. Yet, language isn’t just a mode of communication entirely. It’s about how people connect to each other. And with that definition of language, the place for the world language would unarguably go to sports, in my opinion.

Coming back to the point, flight journeys are awfully boring, aren’t they? They are just a big tax levied on the consumers just because they are flying. So here I was on board a flight from Barcelona to Madrid after an extremely tiring but a memorable two-day trip at Barcelona. Completely worn-out that I was I just threw myself in the reasonably comfortable seat of Air Europa flights, especially if you consider the cheap airlines that is, and started reading one of those good-for-nothing on-board magazines that these airlines give you. Next to me was a friend of mine who too was as tired as me which meant that we were not particularly energetic to talk on and on about anything. As the flight started moving towards the runway the routine safety instructions started. About those safety instructions you know, I have asked many people so far if they’ve heard of any mishaps on flights where people have been saved because of those safety instructions. To the best of my knowledge, either all of them die or all of them survive. Moreover if there are actually some survivors and some deaths then the reason why some people survive is almost certainly not due to those safety instructions. Yet, the air-hostesses do their best to keep us informed about how the oxygen mask would fall from the top when the cabin pressure drops and how we should inflate the life-jacket in the unfortunate event of the aircraft landing on water. Like every passenger I too started doing something else that could probably be more interesting than listening to those instructions. And I certainly found something...

Along with those magazines and that safety card, airlines always have a vomiting bag and this was the most interesting vomiting bag I have ever seen. A passenger on the previous flight (assumption) had scribbled something on that bag and that made it as interesting as it could possibly get. This is what it read -

England Vs Australia, Stumps Day 2.
England - 435
Johnson – 3 wickets
Hauritz – 3 wickets
Hilfenhaus - 2 wickets
Siddle – 2 wickets

Australia – 1/249
Katich – 104*
Ponting – 100*

Thought you’d be interested

Not that I was following Ashes keenly in Spain but this made my flight journey a special one, a journey that I will not forget for years to come. As I stretched my imagination or deductions a bit, I inferred that it must have been an Aussie flying on that flight. Firstly, the scoreboard was strikingly Aussie focussed with only Australian wicket takers mentioned below the England total and then Aussie century makers mentioned in their innings total. The nail in the coffin is the trademark Aussie style, 1/249 with wickets written first kind of scoring.

As I said before, I love coincidences. Isn’t it truly amazing that an Australian flying on a Air Europa flight from somewhere to Barcelona would actually bother writing the Ashes score on a vomiting bag and leave it for the next passenger. He himself would think it so unlikely for a cricket fan to sit on that seat next that he would write the last line “Thought you’d be interested” in a way that possibly suggests that what he actually wanted to say was, “Mate, I know that you are not going to give a damn but that’s how I would spend 5 mins of my boring journey”. But then, when nature plays randomly things often turn out to be more interesting that they could otherwise. What would happen is in fact the next passenger occupying that very seat would hail from the country that’s most passionate about this game and probably be as staunch a cricket fan as the Aussie was.

Cricket had connected that nameless Aussie with me. He was my new friend. That's why I say that Sports is indeed the language of the world for the way it connects millions of people across the globe. To that Aussie friend of mine I can only say, "Thanks a lot mate. I certainly was interested!" :)

P.S. - This post was originally written for http://theindiansportal.com and appears here.

From the other side

As my second European adventure comes to an end, as in the past, there's a bit of sadness about missing out on so many of the amazing things that Europe has to offer. This time though, with things having changed in my personal life than the last time, I am quite looking forward to going back. :)

Europe is truly diverse. I am totally amazed to see how different people are just across the mountains. But then, I wouldn't want to make it a boring travelogue, would I? If at all I do try to write one there would be people making justice to it more than I possibly can.

So let's keep all that blabber aside and let me share a nice little incident that made my day. Last week, I went to the famous music and books shop in Madrid called Fnac. I was looking for some classic spanish music to buy. Buying music?? Sounds strange eh? I know! Imagine how embarassing it would be for Indian passport holders to return to India and show a pack of CDs and say, "Hey I bought this". Exaggeration hasn't lost it's charm yet in this world and it comes in handy at such times. I would use it a bit of that to equate the crime of this order, especially buying a software, to nothing short of surrendering the Indian passport. Buying music would still not be considered a crime probably but if I stretch the liberty too far and buy a software then I will have to pay for my sins upon my return. Luckily enough, it was just music that I was looking for and not a software. Scared that I was for being mocked by friends, relatives and well-wishers for buying music I decided to do so only after I was fairly convinced that I could not get it on rapidshare, torrents, free websites and borrowing CDs from acquaintances. So here I was trying to find some classic Spanish music in the music section on the third floor of the shop. Being a huge shop that it is, I could faintly hear some familiar sound coming from some corner. I chased the sound which took me to the CDs section. What music was being played would be a spoiler right now and it would be nice if I let the cat out of the bag just a couple minutes later.

What makes our moments? For most people, I guess the answer would be some sort of a nice coincidence, a nice connection or a very vibrant expression of emotions of some kind. Like when you see a cute kid just trying to do something with a toy in train it probably does bring a smile. When you see old women sitting at a pub enjoying a beer on a Saturday night it does bring a smile. The things that make your moment are of this kind. Out of the world incidents to make one go euphoric aren't an everyday affair. But we certainly need to feel happy about something or the other everyday.

This moment was one of those kinds. After about 3 months in Madrid I had spotted probably about 5-7 Indians. Not that I was craving to socialise with Indians or was missing the company of my clan but the last thing I would have expected was to hear something Indian somewhere. But what really made my moment was it wasn't an Indian conversation. It was our very own A R Rahman. And more importantly, it wasn't Jai Ho that was being played but it was 'Kehna Hi Kya' from Bombay. It took me to the old times when I watched the movie as a kid. I remembered Manisha Koirala dancing in that white dress. As an Indian it was nice to hear Rahman being played in the music section of the biggest shop in Madrid, a section which had a collection of Albeniz, Rodrigo, Bach and the likes. It was probably a suggestion from the owners of the place that people with such eclectic taste of music could find Rahman appealing. As an Indian that made me proud. Just as the happy and proud Indian in me started tapping to the tune of Rahman's magic that the cellphone rang. It was my girlfriend on the line, calling from India. I was waiting to hear her reaction so I didn't say anything. In a minute she would just yell out of excitement, "Oh my god, they're playing Rahman" She couldn't believe it. Thousands of miles apart, it brought a smile on her face too.

There's nothing particularly great about this coincidence but most often it's things like these that make our moments and make us happy. And before I forget, Jai Ho Rahman! :)

Swine Flu hits a kgpian

In a major development over the past 24 hours, Mr.Karamyog Singh, an IIT-Kharagpur metallurgist turned investment banker specializing in extremely sensitive databases of the banks has been diagnosed with the deadly swine flu virus. This takes him to the list of those rare people who have acquired this disease over the past few months. According to the sources, he is the first Kgpian, a first IITian in Singapore and possibly world to have been infected with this virus. Thus, Kamy Singh (as he is popularly known) has one more feather in his cap with this achievement.

Kamy Singh was unavailable for comments for a long time. But our resilience paid off eventually. Jubilant Kamy Singh said, "although it's a disease I am happy to be the first kgpian to get it. Next 10 days are going to be tough but I am sure I will manage".

Karamyog Singh's adventures in Hong Kong, mainly his drinking sessions till 3a.m. on the streets have been suspected as the major cause of this. We wish him a speedy recovery.

Finally B.C.Roy claims one

Today morning, when I barely had managed to wake up I did the usual thing. With half open eyes I just hovered my mouse to check what's new and I had received a couple of pings with a link to TOI news. I opened it and was NOT shocked! I was sad, depressed but well, not shocked!
"Rohit Kumar, A third year Electrical Engineering student of IIT Kharagpur passed away due to head injuries."

In this sad moment for my alma-matter there is a weird sense of vindication that must be running through many students' minds. Not being present at the occasion does not give me any rights to give out the verdict as to whose fault it was but then having spent 4 years in Kharagpur, having seen the health and education facilities around the area it's not entirely unbelievable that the student died purely out of negligence and lack of facilities.

Ironically, Kharagpur is in the state of West Bengal, the only communist state in India. By that logic it should boast the highest health and education facilities in the rural areas. But then, for those of us who've been there long enough and have seen the state sponsored travesty of "justice" as the hypocrites love to call it, this was inevitable to be honest.

As it turns out the director resigned from the post! The same director who had imposed despotic restrictions on people going out of campus after 11 pm couldn't ensure a student's life. So much for the rules and the despots.

At this moment there could hardly be any point in doing case studies of who went wrong. So, I do the most common thing that people do - I share my condolences with Rohit Kumar's family and IIT Kharagpur.

Apna bhai Manager

I have by now lost count of the number of times I came here, scribbled something and decided against continuing. But this one's seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for sure. Shouldn't I be bombarding scores of those online fans of mine who make it a point to drop by this slightly less occupied space on the internet with many of my insightful thoughts?

It's been quite some time, isn't it? An year since I obliged you people with that last post of mine, right? By the way, before you take any further pains to go through this whole post and comment that it was probably the most ridiculous work of mine (which probably means quite pathetic I would think for I am not P G Wodehouse whose most ridiculous work could be worth a read too) I would like to let you know that I might appear to be dumb here but then it's not me! Been quite some time since I have used either the left or the right part of my brain, that is neither the artistic or the analytical part of my brain.

People often ask me questions like, How do you like Singapore? How is work coming along? I need to be prodded in the ribs to answer such questions. Most often the person who is asking me these questions is just trying to make a conversation and I just can't vent out my frust outpourings in front of quite a few white-lies formal friends like those. :)

So, in stead of wasting my time writing about how I like(?) Singapore or my job let me share with you a very Dilbert-like incident that took place very recently in one of the casinos errr bank in Singapore.

A very good friend of mine, let's call him Hari again, (for the yo yo kewl kewl junta he is Harry and for the normal beings like me he is Hari for Hariharan) works in an investment bank here. As part of that Bank's continuous Nurturing Talent Through the Graduate Programme scheme he is supposed to be moving to a different team than what he had been working in for the past 6 months.

Out of "excitement" Hari mailed the future manager of his asking him for a meeting time to "facilitate his smoother transition" into his team. I don't know exactly how jobless was the manager either that Hari got a reply in 1 minute followed by a meeting request in the next minute.

Following this Hari went to meet him (probably he didn't have any choice either or maybe he chose to accept it rather than working on the desk ;) ) the next day. According to Hari the manager was thinking for some reason that Hari was quite enthusiastic and motivated to work in his team. So the conversation began.

Manager - So, I need to put you in one of these extremely challenging teams. What are you skills like?
Hari - Umm...I am a good team worker, I can contribute effectively to the resulting synergies because of the organic growth of the firm. (Hari thanks god for somehow keeping him awake through those HR presentations where at the end of every presentation you start from where you began.)
Manager - No, I mean technical skills
Hari - Ohh..
Pause
Manager - Yeah, so what are they like?
Hari - ...
Manager - So you know about databases?
Hari - No, I know that we have Sybase and SQL databases.
(I don't know what did he think about my database abilities after this answer but he moved on.)
Manager - Hmm, Networking?
Hari - Yeah, we had quite a few networking events in the graduate programme. We have always been told to know more and more people as it helps. Building contacts, meeting people, knowing people, knowing the bank culture is of paramount importance for a graduate. So, I have done quite a lot of networking.
Manager - No, I mean computer networking. The way computers connect to each other.
Hari - Oh, wasn't really interested in that.
Manager - Unix?
Hari - I have worked a bit on Linux but nothing substantial.
Manager - What have you done on Linux in the past?
Hari - I managed to install it.
(He changed the topic again.)
Manager - Web services and web development?
Hari - I have heard that HTML is pretty simple.
Manager - No, I mean Apache Tomcat and all?
Hari - I know of Apache Indian. I used to love that Chock There song of his.
Manager - Hmm, Programming?
Hari - I know very basic VBA but that's it.
Manager - Windows Server Administration?
Hari - No
Manager - Hmm, good (don't know why he said good there). Send me your C.V. and I will put you in some team accordingly.

Following this Hari didn't send his C.V. either.
Apparently, all along Hari was just deliberately pondering over his skills, which ones to share for any admission to knowing something worthwhile would have led Hari to be put in the respective team and an extremely high risk of having to work hard was lurking in his mind.

After 2-3 days Hari got this mail.

Dear NAME
Hari has been put in the [team name] Operations and Project Management.
Please add him to the rota.
Regards,
[Name of the sender]



This came as a shocker for Hari!! Most of us have had the ambition of getting into management since a long time I believe. In fact it came as a shock to me too. I really envy him. Out there Hari's joys knew no bounds. Hari had finally broken through all the obstacles and made his way into management, just by saying "I don't know" to any of the skills questions that he was asked. Kudos to Hari and all the management gurus all around. For the time being, let me get back to doing something...for I am not a manager as yet! :)

Show must go on

There arrived a star, a handsome teenager, on the British football scene in the early nineties. He wore the prestigious # 7 jersey for Manchester United later on. He needs no introduction, he is David Beckham.


About at the same time, a 24 year old young man was making his presence felt on the Formula One circuits. He gave Ayrton Senna a run for his money. Neither does he need any more introduction. He is Michael Schumacher.



When these people were making news, on the tennis court a smart young guy was giving lessons on 'Serve and Volley'. He went on to win three consecutive Wimbledons. Yes, he is Pete Sampras.


A few years later on the Tour De France circles, a well-built racer started making news. He took a break because of Cancer and went to win Tour De France quite a few times.You guessed it right. He is Lance Armstrong.


I was also a teenager during that period and my horizons widened beyond Cricket during this time. I vividly remember how I started worshiping Beckham. I got myself a CD of FIFA'99 through a friend and started playing that game. I didn't even use to follow football then. For some inexplicable reasons, I chose to play with England and scored a lot of goals with Beckham. It was after this that I started watching football and was amazed to see those curling free kicks and pin point crosses by the star #7.

In the year 2000 I also started following Formula One. That was one of the most breathtaking seasons in the recent past. The way Schumi fought back from his mid season slump to snatch a victory in the driver's and constructor's championship was a legendary achievement. Then on, he won the championship for 5 consecutive times before his streak was broken by a newly arrived 24 yr old Fernando Alonso. A hint of what was going to come next. Maybe, Schumi's time was over.

At the end of 2005, the cyclist magician Lance Armstrong quit Tour De France. I do not know what happened in 2006 in Tour De France.

In 2002, Pete Sampras announced a fairytale exit from the Tennis circuit. He won the US open beating his greatest rival Andre Agassi in the last grand slam of the year and bid adieu to professional tennis. Rarely have I followed tennis since then.

Two years before that, the Manchester United's most hyped star David Beckham was sold to Real Madrid. He did play decently well there till 2006 but surely the old magic, that elegance, that class was missing. Finally, at the end of 2006 he announced his departure to USA to play for LA Galaxy. Europe, the international powerhouse of football, will no longer get to see how to bend it like Beckham. Sad as it certainly is the show must go on.

The reason why I am writing all this is because today was my farewell and in a few days I will be leaving this place, college life and entering professional life.
Who knows if I will get to follow sports afterwards. Sure there are players who are better than David Beckham today. There is Ronaldinho, there is Messi.and a few others too. It's just that football isn't the same for us without our heroes. We grew up with them and they will remain to be the champions for us.

Alonso could be better than Schumacher...though I claim that he isn't. But the fact is that charm is gone from Formula One. No longer on Sunday evenings I go rushing to the T.V. to watch a race.

At this juncture, when we are out to conquer the real world our heroes are fading away. A generation has grown up. A generation that used to go to the school,college and watch premiership, Formula One on the weekend admiring the skills and attitude of our idols no more has anyone to look up to. They are all gone but the show must go on...the spectators and actors have changed though.

An engineering odyssey

Where was the engineer born? For Hari's mother, it was the richly academic environment that she kept at home over the years that sowed the seeds. She, unlike his father, believed that more than the genes or anything it was just the way of upbringing that brought Hari all the way. Hari's father though, liked to believe that it was merely a transmission of genes from father to son. He always thought that Hari's extraordinary mathematical ability was solely a gift that he gave to his son. Reality though had different ideas. The engineer had long died a slow death which both of them were quite oblivious to. Today, on the day of Hari's convocation, let us go back to try and see the things squarely in the absence of a supreme judge.

A few years ago, when Hari came to this best engineering college he was more than excited. After passing the entrance test with flying colours, he had chosen electrical engineering side and right from day one, he had devoted as much time as possible towards his academics. Somewhere something went wrong though. In my reckoning, it would be more than unfair to call it wrong because time is yet to decide that. It is very difficult indeed to point out the time where the death process began for Hari did seem to enjoy even academics for some time, initially. He got swept by the wave of public opinion and all those 'cool' things somewhere along the line and renounced academics for his passion for management.

Luckily for Hari, in the following years he got more than one opportunities to take his management lessons. Sometimes it was his lab, lab viva or examinations. He learned the rule #1 of management - Talking about things that you don't know, doing things that you have absolutely no idea about and eventually getting your way out. Like many of his counterparts, blasphemy had not yet been imbibed in him which is why he carried on. For whatever hatred that he developed towards engineering there was always a happy, content and relaxed Hari as soon as he used to come back to his hostel and go out with his friend.

His management lessons were getting more and more intense as the time progressed. At the end of his junior undergraduate year he went to a cement company and worked for 2 months. It used to be called as "Practical Training" and Hari had mastered these by now. For a mere sum of 5000 rupees a month, he came up with a grand idea of new development technique for the cement company which would save the firm about 3 crores rupees every year. All his fellows displayed their high intellect in similar fashion, wherever they went. Yet for some reason he was still paid just 5000 rupees.

In his undergraduate year, he was made to carry out a project as a part of his thesis. This was his penultimate test of management. He did quite well there too. It was there that he learned that the HR side of management also holds some practical relevance. Going by the title, it seemed like a project of the century. Building an electric motor vehicle and propulsion system or something like that. Hari was smart enough by this time to have no problems with this one. Also, with the advent of popular sites like www.google.com, the task was never any easier for him. He made sure that his final presentation looked like a professional's one. Thereafter he gave it at the best binding shop. He could do at least this much.

The D-Day of his ultimate test arrived. It was his grand viva. For someone who has given up on academics 2-3 years ago, it was always going to be an intimidating challenge to learn everything in so less a time. Yet with the heart of a man he went to face the professors. Quite expectedly Hari wasn't having a good time there. They kept on asking questions and Hari kept on thinking. Finally a frustrated professor asked Hari. "A very simple question for you, how do you calculate the horse power of a horse?"
Hari had to say something on this one. Silence. The professor looks in his eyes. Hari looks down. Finally, he opens his mouth. "Sir, you take a horse, burn it and measure it's calorific value!"

Bang! The door was shut on him. That was how it all ended.

Today on the day of convocation, he is out there with his parents and he has been awarded the B.Tech. degree. He looks at it carefully and gifts the "Tech." part to his parents. For them to cherish the memories of their engineer son and for him to officially relinquish the "Tech." part associated with himself. With just that one letter "B." he gets all the confidence to conquer the world for he firmly believes that it is this magical letter that separates him from the rest.

On this momentous day for Hari and his parents let us not discuss whether he did right or wrong. Instead let us do one good thing that we certainly can. We wish him all the luck for future.

Perfect strangers

Today morning when I woke up, I realized that I needed to get all the redundant stuff removed from my wallet. Some old phone numbers of the people whom I don't remember anymore, random visiting cards,bills dated ages ago etc. I have always had the habit of accumulating a lot of junk which I might never need. As my wallet was almost 2 inches thick by now, it was high time that I got started with the cleansing act. I found a small yellow paper with 1 or 2 names and email addresses written on it. Also, on the back side there was a name 'Kaciane' and her phone number written in blue ink. That takes me a few months back.

Yes, to the good old days in Stuttgart. I do not remember missing anything in my life as much as I miss Germany. It was one more of those world cup days in the month of June. If I am not mistaken, it was sometime near the end of June. I came from the office at about 5 p.m. and was lying on my bed when I suddenly recalled that there was an England game that day. With a hope to see Beckham bend those special ones, I caught the train to Hauptbahnhoff or the main station. I could afford this liberty of traveling at my will thanks to the free train pass I had for the month of June. I got down at Stadtmitte and went to the Fan Fest. As always, the space was quite lively with diverse groups from all over the world wearing their flags, showing their national spirits. It was a sight to witness. There were more than 10,000 people at the Stadtmitte. The British fans or hooligans, as they are famously called, were making their presence felt. One could feel some nice little battles between these European giants. It was there that I learned that the Brits aren't great fans of the Germans or the French but surprisingly they get along quite well with the Dutch. The Germans don't like the Brits and hate the Dutch to the core.I doubt if any country in this world really enjoys the company of the French people. Then, I went inside the Fan Fest area where there was a huge screen placed in front and more than 5000 people either sitting or standing and relaxing themselves, drinking beer, eating sausages and many other food items. A 5 euro beer was a bit too expensive for a lowly paid intern that I was and I decided to go in the front and enjoy the game.

As the game progressed, I found myself standing amongst a few enthusiastic English fans wearing their T-Shirts, flags painted on their cheeks and shouting for Wayne Rooney. There was a slightly bald guy in his 40s or late 30s probably standing just next to me and accompanied by his wife/partner/girlfriend and their 2 children, wearing the England jersey. As barely anything was happening in the game, people indulged in some light talks as it was just a league game. So, this lady (his wife/ girlfriend) started a conversation with me...maybe because she wasn't of British origin and therefore wasn't exactly as white as the others. No, but that sure wasn't the case with the Germans. Then she asked me where I was from and what I was doing there and the talks began.

She wasn't a very beautiful woman or anything. She was wearing a nice red spaghetti and was at best fare but she was quite talkative. Her name was Kaciane. At first, I was quite glad to speak proper English, where I didn't need to stop after every sentence as I had been used to while in Germany. She told me that she was from Cyprus and then had moved to U.K. She was from London but lived in Stuttgart for 20 years or so. She was working as an English tutor for the corporates in Stuttgart. Then she introduced me to her partner and her sons.

We had some jokes about the Germans' English, she told her experiences in the past 20 years. Her partner told about his. He was quite excited to learn that I am from India for he was quite a regular visitor to Kolkata for some vague spiritual reasons. After a lot of days I had a nice talk with totally new people and had a great time.

Kaciane told me that they were always quite close to the Indian community in the U.K. and they used to go to the Indian restaurants quite often, in London as well as in Stuttgart. Following this she gave me her phone no and asked me to call anytime on the weekdays so that they could take me for dinner in an Indian restaurant. I was quite excited for it was a long time since I had had some nice spicy Indian food and started daydreaming about butter chicken and tandoori chicken. Meanwhile the match got over and we had those typical good-bye and will-call-you talks. I returned with a sense of achievement. I had made new friends of entirely different age group, ethnicity, colour and culture. More importantly I was to get a free Indian dinner and couldn't resist that temptation.

After about a week I called her up asking if they were free. Unfortunately, that day her sister from U.K. had come and they were going out and she asked me to call in the next week. The next week was the first week of July. My train pass had expired. Now, to go to Stadtmitte and come back, it would have cost me 4.4 euros. A normal meal which I used to cook, cost me less than 1 euro. This Indian dinner treat was no longer free. With the temptation for saving 3.4 euros I never called her up. I came back to India and almost forgot about everything. Everything comes back to me as I am removing all the stuff which I no longer need and the question comes to my mind as to what do I do with this paper. It has the sweet memories of the great hospitality shown by complete strangers and also associated with it is the fact, which certainly doesn't make me feel proud, that for a meager sum of 3.3 euros I did not return the elegant conduct that was required out of me. But then, life's long or so I feel. I might go to Stuttgart someday. She might still be there and maybe that time I would call and take them for dinner...or so do I convince myself and put that yellow paper in my wallet for it's the sweet memories associated with that paper that I don't want to get rid of. Maybe next time.....

It's time to fly

I don't exactly remember when did I acquire this habit, not that its strange or unique or anything, that I simply can't start my day without newspapers. For quite some days recently my newspaperwala is testing my patience by either giving me HT, Telegraph or no newspaper at all. This has finally diverted me into reading the e-paper on www.timesofindia.com.

So, like every other day, I woke up today morning to find out that once again I have to log in to the timeswebsite. Just as I went there, I found a headline saying -
" 71% say they are proud to be Indians."
It was certainly a news worth reading into and after I was done with it, I was quite astonished to know that this 71% comes from all over the nation...from metros also.

So, like Mr.Maugham starts in 'The Razor's Edge', here also, The man I am writing about is not famous, and probably he never will be. Coincidentally, he is one amongst those 71%.

He is really a very simple man. Ya, he does read a bit of newspaper everyday but that's all there is to it. Also, that habit of reading the newspaper, which he has cultivated over the years, hasn't really improved his general knowledge in any sense. Ya he surely does know the corporators and MLAs in his locality but when it comes to simple trivia like the name of George Bush's shoemaker's daughter's school's Headmaster's Son's girlfriend, he is found speechless.

For some vague reasons, he follows the civic elections quite curiously but more stupefying was the fact that he shows no interest in the US presidential elections. Not that he is particularly uninterested in the international politics only, he is clueless about the celebrities also. Of course he does know a lot about the Indian cinema but surprisingly he didn't quite enjoy the movies by the hollywood greats like Jim Carrey or Quentin Tarantino.

Astonishingly, his music tastes are also quite unrefined. I don't really know where did he form his impression that Indian Classical music is older and also probably more melodious than the western giants. In fact he's so naive that I have once heard him claim that Classical Music Ragas have been a result of research for hundreds of years and there is a vast theory behind the kind of music to be played at a particular time of the day. In spite of all this I didn't give up. I made him listen to a few Beatles songs and passed some important facts like in which Beatles song, the lead guitarist's girlfriend got impressed by his friend and then ran away with him and then how they were separated later on. But these interesting facts didn't impress him and his impression remained more or less the same.

Well, he certainly can read and write English. He does read the TOI everyday. When I asked him out of curiosity the reason why he reads the TOI, he said he quite admired "You said it" by R.K.Laxman for his satirical take on the things in the Indian Society. He simply adored the concept of Common Man. I could not help but pity his sense of humor. I asked him if he had read Dilbert or such other American cartoons and surprisingly he had but he didn't find them funny. I knew that he needed some time to mature.

Recently, I met him after a long time. I asked him how he was doing and he told me about his recent project of working as a social worker in the red light area. While working for the welfare of prostitutes there, much to his horror he found out that a lot of sex workers are gays. He felt the strong need to have some kind of a legislation for gays in India. On hearing this, I asked him whether he knew about the gay rights in U.S. and England. He was oblivious to such things. He didn't even know the much publicized gay marriage of Elton John for he didn't know Elton John either. I gave him a lot of inputs from my side about the state of affairs in the U.S. and U.K. but he was expressionless.

If all this insanity, weirdness, indifference to the world were not enough he has reached a new pinnacle now. This is certainly going to make him a subject of mockery. He is too naive to realize why no matter where he goes people will laugh at him. He is going to be a subject of derision by his contemporaries. Well, I quite forgot to tell you why, right? He has bought a new T-Shirt saying - "India Poised, its time to fly!"

When you say nothing at all

As my stay at IIT dawns to an end, there are lots of different things that are going through my mind.But let me not indulge into writing all the crap about nostalgia and all and how you can make great friends at IIT, life etc. I seriously doubt the veracity of all such statement and they sound grossly overrated to me.

Also, when it comes to discussing movies,books,philosophy that also I do in person with some of my intellectual(open to interpretation) friends. And then a few bunch of extremely jobless people who will land up here would neither be interested in reading any of this stuff which essentially leaves me with nothing at all to post.

But then, its been a really long time since I haven't posted anything. So should I post something for the heck of it? Of course not!But not writing something that you want to would mean that you are managable. So am I?

I don't know the answer to this question but the real question that is troubling me right now is 'do I need to post anything?'
Now, at this critical time in my life this question is actually quite inconsequential but the fact of the matter is, sitting in my room, I am thinking about it. At the outset this question does look fairly simple with a binary answer set but in reality it isn't.

Because if I do then, in all probability, it will be something non-sense as I have decided to keep sensible stuff away from a place like blogs.
But if I don't do it now then I may not do it again and my blog will die.
Now, if it dies then I would not write anything anywhere because as it is whatever I write is on my blogs.
Now, if I don't write anywhere then I will get bored and confused next semester as I will have a lot of free time.
But then, if I have a lot of free time next semester and I am not blogging then I would anyways have to blog. So, the fundamental question of my blog dfading away doesn't arise.

So, I am left with one more equally difficult question - If I have to post right now then what should I write about?

Requiem for a dream

In my first year, I had seen a few T-Shirts saying "You can take an IITian out of a Kgpian but not a Kgpian out of an IITian"
For a first year student who had just joined his dream institute after toiling for 1 year it was a dream come true.The T-Shirt was a hallmark of a true IITian or rather IIT-KGPian for which I did have a huge respect.The time passed by, now I am about to become a final year and now if I could, I wish to print those T-Shirts again, with a slight change though this time - "Unfortunately, you can take an IITian out of a Kgpian but not a Kgpian out of an IITian."
I strive hard to get that Kgpian tag away but I can't! What do I have against being a Kgpian? Well, after seeing some of the traits of kgpians I would desperately try and avoid being a kgpian.During my past 3 years at Kgp and intermediate visits to my sweet home, where I could meet a lot of level-headed, sensible, civilised, mature friends where I began to feel a bit out of place with time, I have learnt quite a few things.Some of them are:

There exists a world outside Kgp
That world rules!
Besides 'ch**t' there are other more precious things in life like formula 1.
Being civilized is not rocket science
A bit of formality makes no harm
Being marginally better than a few people here doesn't make you a god
Rat race does NOT exist everywhere, so the justification that 'poltu' is there everywhere in life is out and out rubbish and baseless.

Studs are the following people -

Who have a very low cgpa
Have nothing to do in life so they make friends with people from the other hostels
who are also equally jobless
Must not be well read or having some set of principles
Are parts of fests where getting in is generally achieved by licking asses of seniors
generally have a bike and they smoke
mustn't be a part of many extra-curricular activities

The intellectual IITians become so dumb and insensitive that they are ordered whom to vote for and unfortunately they do not have the guts to stand up against it.
Kgp is the only place people waste half of their life in thinking about crap like- Hall tempo, election pacts, no of heads and members in the fest per hall, general championship which is NEVER fought cleanly etc.The accountability, credibility and achievements of the people who control all these things is a black box!

Well, what I am writing here is nothing new.Not that there aren't many people who think this way.The unfortunate part is they are not united.They are least bothered. They are frustrated with this hypocrisy. Anywhere you go all you can see is mediocres holding on to the power.Why??? Not because the others can't but the fact is others don't want to.Why? Because they are smart enough to have realized that the rat race is not going to take them anywhere.

I have now started to enjoy it though.I am getting to terms with a new facet of a world that I had never seen before, maybe it will help me!It will teach me how not to be in an outside world.

At the end of the day, who cares? I got to see a lot of nice movies here, got to learn the guitar, the hostel life,could make a few great friends, late nights and many other things.When it comes to music, Kgp rocks! So I will just look at this bright side of the picture and be an optimist!But then the pessimist that has his roots deep inside my body, pops up every now and then when I try to be a bit happy, it jolts me back to my self! The utterly negative person! It sends shivers down my body...in about an year my odyssey of kharagpur would be over, my dream of being an iitian would have been realized but the pessimist refuses to fly away.He comes again and plays some melancholic music...I hope its not called the requiem for a dream...

complètement sans emploi

No no, I am not taking french lessons at all. Neither have I fallen in love with a french girl (sadly ;)). Its just that I have been reading excess of TOI off late who have this weird habit of replacing simple english words by French in order to make it cool. e.g They will never say 'PM's meeting with Finance minister'. It will be PM's rendezvous with the FinMan.So, I thought that plagiarism didn't harm any mediocres (look at TOI once again for that matter :D) so just make use of it.And thus goes the title of this post, "complètement sans emploi" which essentially means completely jobless, which is what I am, not today but in general.And this is precisely the reason that I am posting one more utter non sense article here because that will help me spend some of my "precious" time.

Yesterday was a real fun day.I Woke up at 2.30 p.m. and went to the Kshitij arena and had some good food.Thats my share of tech life in IIT's techno-management fest.Then in the evening I got a chance to witness one of the best scientists of this era, Von Klitzing from Germany, a Nobel laurate for his quantum hall effect.Don't worry ,even I don't know what exactly that is and thankfully it wasn't a technical speech and so most of the people like us could enjoy it. And after that was real fun...went to little sisters and boozed like crazy, drinking without an occasion.Shelled out 250 bucks for 5 pegs of Vodka, white mischief.Turst me, on the 5 th peg, you can actually have what they call as the 'tranquil pleasures'...free from everything!

Note: I had a terrible time after that as the pH of my blood was going a bit towards 7 and hence brain guided some of the cells to eject the OH- substances with immediate effect.

Sunday- Sunday, bloody sunday...this is the only thing that comes to my mind whenever I wake up on a sunday morning.In fact, Sunday morning is a very boring time for me as I wake up quite early (9.30 that is) and most of my wingies are sleeping.So, I have to somehow spend my time till 12-1 when people slowly start blinking their eyes when the sunlight gets over them.But, there is always some fun on sunday morning courtesy Mr.Jug Suraiya's Jugular vain.He is by far the best columnist I have ever come across.I also spent a lot of time in organizing my music collection and now its back on track.While doing so, I came across a folder called "Best Rock collection in the World" This inspired me to come up with my all time top 20 rock songs.This ain't an easy task.After a lengthy disquisition here goes the list.

1)Coming back to life - Pink Floyd
2)Stairway to heaven - Led Zepplin
3)Riders on the Storm - The Doors
4)Highway to hell - ACDC
5)Sweet Child O mine - Guns and Roses
6)Rock you like a hurricane - Scorpions
7)[Don't Fear] The Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult
8)Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd
9)Hallowed be thy name - Iron Maiden
10)Rock and Roll - Led Zepplin
11)Leaving on a Jet Plane - John Denver
12)American Pie - Don McLean
13)Wind of Change - Scorpions
14)High Hopes -Pink Floyd
15)Break on through - The Doors
16)Don't cry - Guns and Roses
17)Money for Nothing - Dire Straits
18)Free bird - Lynard Skynard
19)Not my kind of a girl - Zero
20)Burn - Deep Purple

And this truly stamps my assumption, I am a real Persona- complètement sans emploi and I am proud of it!

p.s. comments on the list more than welcome!

Coming back to life (II)

This is nothing special, neither am I trying to say that the previous ones were any special (:p) but this is absolutely nothing.Here are the lyrics of my probably all time favourite song. Coming back to life - Pink Floyd (who else?)

Where were you when I was burned and broken
While the days slipped by from my window watching
Where were you when I was hurt and I was helpless
Because the things you say and the things you do surround me
While you were hanging yourself on someone else’s words
Dying to believe in what you heard
I was staring straight into the shining sun

Lost in thought and lost in time
While the seeds of live and the seeds of change were planted

Outside the rain fell dark and slow
While I pondered on this dangerous but
I took a heavenly ride through one silence
I knew the moment had arrived
For killing the past and coming back to life

I took a heavenly ride trough our silence
I knew the waiting had begin
And headed straight... into the shining sun

If any of you haven't heard this song and want it plz mail me, I would be more than glad to send it.
bhikumhatre007@yahoo.com :)
kudos to the legends! long live the gods!

e4-c5 or e4-e5

Well,I don't know how many of the "numerous" people, who visit this heavenly place, do play chess but then I think that even a novice at chess would be knowing a bit about it.
It has been a week full of making my moves correctly for me.Yes,its purely chess...just a game and trust me, I have never enjoyed and learnt so much of it in so short duration.Ups and downs, highs and lows, we went through them and finally unlike a bollywood movie type "And they lived happily ever after" ending, in all probability we will be left with just a small piece of cherry.

The interhalls kicked off in style with our first match against Nehru in which we almost lost 3-0 until I got my share of UNDESRVED luck and we made it 2-1, a defeat but not all that awful. (from the scoreline point of view I am talking about :) )

As far as the games are concerned, I don't know whether any of the people play Ruy Lopez here but I would say that with white if you are going for Ruy Lopez my suggestion would be think twice!Its not as simple as it looks...its good, its attacking but its vulnerable.With black, after a lot of research (within the constraints of space, time and our intellect) we finally settled for Najdorf which did look quite aggressive for black.For the first time I implemented it today god hold of the game, dominated...came to the end game, with 25 more minutes than my opponent, one pawn up....and overlooked a simple trap only to find myself singing "I tried so hard and got so far but in the end it doesn't even matter!"

Enough of technical terms I guess, but it was really an enjoyable week and believe me, its really a great fun to watch a game of chess.
After around 3-4 years, I came back to this wonderful game.Chess has always been my favourite game and I am really glad to find a lot of time to play in full flow again.
We finally made it to semis, lost in the semis and now we will fight for Bronze tomorrow.
May god help us in achieving that Bronze!I wish me and my team all the good luck! :)

Bond, James Bond!

After a month long vacation, I finally (very reluctantly) set foot on the ground of Kharagpur yet again...coming closer towards a longer lasting salvation and solitude.I had spent barely a few hours in acclimatising myself before I was handed over with one piece of paper which most of the iitians inadvertently tend to throw away! (barring a few exceptions who are still stuck in the rat race of grades and marks). But still I had some kind of curiosity about my CGPA (cumulative grade point average which is called as CG ).I saw the magical figure and it just reminded me of the greatest fictional character ever! Bond-James Bond.We often used to crack a joke (not an original) that my CG is 9- 6.9.In this case though, quite unfortunately, it was true! My CG was 8....7.8! For a second I laughed for I had retired from the race of the lesser mortals for the grades long back.But then, the third consecutive massacre was a bit hard to deal with.Not that it came completely unannounced but then again seeing anything in black and white does tend to make you think a bit.
This time I was or rather am quite stubborn about my decision to study regularly.I said to myself "ok, enough is enough, this time I am going to study regularly and I am going to get 9.5!" Now, I started contemplating my grades and plans for getting 9.5.
I also realized that it was quite a daunting task but then I told myself "when the going gets tough the tough gets going"
This also reminded me of many more things that I had to carry out..for years I used to be depressed about the state of the rickshaw pullers and other fourth class people in West Bengal.I really wanted to do something for them.I could clearly see that this was probably the only sem where I could do any such things.So, finally I was going to get the home lessons of time management!Also, the news of terrorist attacks on IISc and its repercusions on IITs had really saddened me....so I had decided to educate the Indian Muslims to be loyal...I had very less time at my disposal.This further led me to chalk out a plan to educate all the infidels all around the world...so there could be no fights between the rulers and ruled....which will lead to world peace....which will eventually make all the people equal...there won't be any oppressed and oppressors....everyone would be happy! There won't be any poors and riches...all of them will be self sufficient!There won't be any war..all the countries would be co-operating each other.There won't be any gangsters and murders and AIDS will be a disease of the past.Everyone would be happy...everybody would be completely happy...so I had some extravagant plans in my tiny little brain results of which would be hidden from noone in a time of barely a few months.My 9.5 would just be one of them....everyone would be happy.....