On Birthday's

PC had his obligatory birthday do today, a week after his birthday on 25th.
Needless to say, we had quite a lot of fun, ate Debbie Aunties fantastic culinary delights, and PC and me played one of our favorite sports: Be mean to Damini.

Now, let me point out that this is a contact sport, as for the contestants, it does involve a lot of bruising. I would reccomend wearing a good pair of boots and shin gaurds to anyone who wants to take part in this glorious sport, as protection in these areas against stamping/kicking is a really good idea.

But, as with all sports, the pain is worth it. Its a lot like Calvinball too, there are a few general ways to play, but its always something new, well, we try to be new anyhow. There are, of course, a few general ways to be mean and get to her, but I'm not going to tell you those. Find out for yourself. There's no easy way over here. Bax, apparently you've now got the opportunity. Don't squander it.

A second major sport I played today is DTC surfing. Here's what you do. Get onto a fast moving DTC bus, i.e something thats running on ring road. Get onto a fast moving stretch, such as the cloverleaf at Medical. Now, as the bus speeds along the flyover, let go of all support, and try to balance yourself, preventing yourself from falling down.

Now conditions for this have to be near perfect, so its a tough sport to play.

A third fun thing that happened today was Karan having first encounter with Vidz. Now, first encounters with Vidz are quite an eye opener for most people, and Karan was no less. But here it from him. I think a character sketch from his is coming up, if one goads him on.

I fully plan to.

Hehe.

Hauz Khaz

Today, after a long haitus, I walked around Hauz Khas.

Now, just to clarify, I don't mean the poshy colony where 21 year old married paedophiles reside, but the real deal, where 21 year old Mughal Emporer paedophiles and their young harem used to reside.

I have spoken at length about deer park. Now just before deer park is the Hauz Khas district part, which is full of swings, and skating rinks, and general bonhomie. It is also home to Hauz Khas, The Special Tank.

Well, to be quite frank, there not much special about the tank now. Its a big hole in the ground, lined with concrete, and where its full of water, it looks like a miniature swamp, with trees growing out through the murky, algae-green water.

What, however, is nice is the ruins of the surrounding settlement of Hauz Khas. This dates back to the Tughluq's, and also houses the tomb of one Firoz Shah Tughluq, who apparently renovated the place.
Now, Mughal ruins abound in Delhi, and most of them, like this, go unnoticed and unkempt. They are taken for granted, I believe, because there are way too many of them. I was walking through them with Haripal, and he through this is sharp focus when he pointed out that we were damn lucky to have this kind of stuff just lying around, as Chandigarh was a shit-hole(well not those exact words) with nothing to see.

Back to the point. Around the tank is a summer retreat of the Tughluq's. The complex has living quaters, something which we presumed to be stations for guards, and the northern side apparently had a mosque, though we couldn't really make out what that was exactly. We also noticed that renovations are underway, which is a good thing, as some of the buildings are really crumbling away.

Now, walking through ruins is really quite fun. And this was more fun, as they were quite deserted, and didn't have the usual "Rupa Loves Rahul" type of shit written all over them, and hordes or pokey visitors who like to go into the domes and yell out obsceneties to get the echo back.
Going up and down the narrow steps is quite an experience. One wonders whether Mughals were really thin, really short, or just really lazy builders, who didn't want to waste time broadening the passageways.

The only sad thing about Mughal Ruins is they all have this terrible bird shit smell about them, owing to the lovely domed areas, where birds, and bats can stay and make merry.

All in all, it was a fun experience. Again, I would just like to point out how lucky we are to have a lot of history just lying around us. Mebbe we should occasionally take time out to give it a look see.

Big Fish

I went for "Big Fish" today, with my brother. This, of course is because practically everyone is in a state of extreme depression due to marks. Those who aren't, are giving FIIT-JEE reshuffling tests, or have been given strict orders by Bigdi Bangaali Bacchi's not to leave house.

But the end result was, I saw I very good movie. Here's what its like, without any spoilers, so you can go watch and enjoy it yourselves.

Big Fish is a story about telling stories. Its wonderfully done, and though it starts of slowly, it starts to flow. Its a bit like Forrest Gump, the style, though the stories can be at times more unbelieveable, and don't really revolve around coincidence, as Gump does.

But here's the thing. Big Fish asks us to question what we really want. A boring, drab reality of truth, or the story about the Big Fish, the one that always got away, which, though made up, sounds much better. Of course, it is a movie, so it leaves us with the message the sometimes the very stories and reality merge, and you no longer know what was true, and what was fabricated.

The performances themselves are solid. Billy Crudup, (Minus the Mustache from Almost Famous) puts in a fine performance as the dissolusioned son, while Albert Finney is class as the master storyteller.

If anyone goes for this movie, and enjoys it, I seriously reccomend reading Haroon and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie.

Incidently, the title "Badshah of Blah" is taken from there. Subconciously, I assure you. Wasn't intended at all...

On unrelated news, I did secret government work today(Seriously) for an undisclosed organisation(you had bloody well guess what it is). I'd tell you what it was, but then I'd have to get people to kill you. And I don't want that.

Again, on unrelated news, my oldest friend (of 16 years), Haripal Singh Brar, is in town from Chandighar. I haven't seen him in a good year, as he's been on a tenth board exam sabbatical. He will no doubt, over the next few days related kissa's of Punjab, and that horrible shit-hole of a town, Chaddighar.

Goodums.

The Year In Review: Part de Deux

Its long overdue, but hey, I just didn't get the time. But before I start, I'd just like to say that I'm very very happy, as I've got a 84.6% aggregrate in my finals, dispite such pressing factors as India-Pakistan matches, and week long excursions to Kanpur just before the papers.
Anyhoos, back to the point. Taking off right where I left off.


October: First off in october was the Mod Quiz, at MSVV, where I had the double joy of not only winning, but also ensuring that Modern School, Barakhamba didn't come second.
October time was exam time, and our second terminals went quite well for me. I managed an 84, which was good enough.
After my exams was Diwali break, and I had a good time. Diwali is family time for me, and hey, its all about loving your parents, eh?

NovemberPost Diwali, on joining school, I had a treat, insomuch as I went to Thailand as a part of my winnings in the Asimo thingummy. It was, as promised, a very "educational trip", one that I won't fast forget. Also did a great deal of shopping, and got a lot of stuff that I really like, including excellent clothing, sunglasses, food(unfortunately all eaten now), and a neat little flashdrive-mp3 player for my brother.
Later in november, there were a few more fun competitions, and I went and won my first debate of the year. Goodums.

December:December was a really interesting month. I won't tell you why because this post still technically comes under Mundane Musings.

January: All happenings of January have been blogged about. In short, it was the happy happy joy joy month, with great SAT results, and the most fun competition I went for all year.

February: My lasting memory of Feb will be IIT Kanpur, which I have blogged about at length. Aside from this, mostly padhai, leading upto Final Exams in march, and thus ended class 11.

I'm a twelvethie now. Its scary. I've just got a year left. I'll miss school like crazy, but knowing me, I'll love college too.

Blah!

Such is the nature of things.

Badshahpanti

Hoom.

For all of you who don't know, I'm this sessions President, Debating Society. This is just a nice big fancy title that simple means that I am The Badshah Of Blah!

Blah! shall be my debating strategy for this year. If anything goes wrong while speaking, if anyone comes up with a killer interjection, my response is preplanned. If, during a debate, I run into Lord Farquaad(Bacchus) or Eaps(Vinay), and they give me shit, well, Blah!

No, but seriously, getting this post has had the undesirable effect of putting a lot of undue pressure on my head. You see, the previous chap who occupied this post, one Vaibhav Saighal was the schools biggest, loudest flirt. He also was apparently very popular with Members-of-the-opposite-sex (MOTOS, for future reference). I am now, apparently supposed to take over, as people seem to think that this sort of behaviour is not restricted to one Vaibhav Saighal, but is a direct result of this post.

Now here's the problem. I'm not cut out for this at all. I'm a terrible flirt, I just about can't. The time last year when I bothered to learn, it was from the wrong people, so I got exceedingly bad ideas into my head.

For example, tch, tch, rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! is not the best pick up line in the world.

Problem Number 2, I'm exceedingly unnatractive. I'm short, as mentioned a lot, I'm fair, and my head is still two sizes to small. Thankfully, unlike a lot of other bloggers, and people in general, I'm not fat. But still, thats not much to go by.

Problem Number 3: I've got this lovely habit of saying the exact wrong thing at the exact wrong time. This is why I write more.

Thus, its a grim prognosis. I'm not going live up to an adoring public's unrealistic expectations.

But then, there's always hope for the least of us.

Nepotism

The appointments were more or less announced today, and the swearing in will be tomorrow.

Now, people had been telling me for quite a bit of time that Mr. Zafar Khurshid would become our next head boy. But I didn't think so.
You see, I have this problem. I believe that everyone has respect, and honour, and understands these things very well. I also, unlike quite a few others, and notably other bloggers such as Resident Pant Splitter, had a lot of respect and high regard for Madam Chona.

But nepotism seems to have won in the end.

One of the sickest feelings in the world is when you loose respect for someone you regard highly.

Quite unfortunate.

Yesterdays

Yesterday was an exceedinly fun and long day. In the morning, I went to school to do some kaam, and then left for Vidz's house, where I was to spend most of the day.

Now, I was meeting her after a long time, and she did not dissapoint. Fun things soon transpired, and she, I kid you not, decided to shave Gyan's legs.
Now, when Vidz decides to do something, there aren't too many things in this world that can stop her, and so in faith, Gyan's legs were shaved. Thankfully, she stopped after one stroke of the razor, otherwise the poor chap would have a lot of explaining to do.

"Gyan? Tummm.... legs shave kiye ho?"

Later in the evening, I went to watch a play with Vidz, Shivani and the-girl-who-got-the-passes-for-the-wrong-effing-day.
The play, entitled Adolf, was a monologue on the final scenes of Hitler's life. The thespian followed the monologue with an interactive conversation with the audience. He first joked with us, and tested our limits of tolerance, and then got into character as Hitler.
The play was excellent, and really threw light into the success of Hitler, and how Hitler's live on in our society today. Examples of this abound everywhere, from Isreal and Palestine, the protectionism policies against BPO of the United States.

All in all, it was quite a good day.

Welcome to Blah

Welcome to Blah! The new avatar of my blog, for a new year. Blah might be interesting, it might include vague unknown details, and it might cover topics that are a lot more interesting that school exams.

What it will definitely include is a spirit of pure stubborness and refusal to comply, as expressed in my one word life statement.

BLAH!

The Year in Review, Volume 1

Well, class 11 ends, and with it, so does Mundane Musings. On the 22nd, as the new academic year begins, this blog will enter its new Avatar as "Blah!

Class 11, for serious lack of a better word, rocked. It was amazing fun, and exceedingly challenging. Well, it was amazingly fun because it was exceedingly challenging, actually. But thats just if you are a competition driven nut job like me.

Well, without further ado, the year in review.

April: We join class 11, fresh from board exams. What happens for the whole month? Precisely nothing, it was a major waste. Even the school work we did was all for nothing, as we would be repeating it again in July.
Encounter with Vaibhav Saighal, a man who much influenced my life for class 11. He told me to pretend not to be arrogant, and be a weasel like him, otherwise I'd never be sucessful. Made me decide to be exactly the opposite.

I hope he's damn sucessful in life. Believe me, I'm going to find out.

May: Summer Holidays begin. This was a very very boring month. It was also a very hot month. There were rehearsals for this awful DD show called something-or-the-other-that-I've-forgotten, conducted by a not so nice teacher.

June: Me, and the usual suspects went for Idiscoveri camp. We all took trekking,(minus Vidushi), and had a blast, in our avatar as the Dheet Khacchar's(Stubborn Mules). Several notable and inspirational phrases came out of the camp, as well as a new found fondness for singing very bad Govinda songs, which lasted for half the year.
Also met such people at camp as Shakey and Chayan, the two actually-shorter-than-I-am lovelorn misfits from Springdales.

JulySchool reopens. New Admissions join.
As I have the experience, here is what it is like to be a new admission entering DPS RKP for the first time.

You get off the bus/car in an all white uniform, to see a sea of white on white marching up to a comparably small gate. As you enter, you get swept along in a tide, you can't go back, you can't rush foward, its all encompassing. You haven't learnt how to navigate a crowd yet, so you're getting pushed around every so often. Soon you reach F Block, and now the trouble begins. You don't know where the hell to go. Luckily, if you were in 11th when this happened, there were about 500 others in the same boat to help you along.

Organised Talent Hunt Quiz for the Newadmins, where Akash was unearthed.
Later in the month, we went for our first quiz of the year. The Columban Open. This was where we had to prove ourselves, so that we could stake our claim to the quiz team for the year. We did. We came second in the closest quiz of the year.

AugustAmazing month. All sorts of competitions, and great fun in general. A very rainy monsoon added to the general mirth of the situation. Took to singing "It is such lovely weather/we will have fun together" on a regular basis.

SeptemberInsanely busy month. Lets start. First, the exceedinly stupid first term examinations, that didn't even count for us. I still got 82 in them. Then, happy birthday. Then, The Asimo Science Quiz, where me and PC tasted first place after a long long long time.
Oh, and we also won 1 lakh for the school, and a trip to thailand, to boot. Yay!
Along with that, several other competitions, and a load of fun at school.

End of Volume 1.

Siyapa Muka

For my non-Punjabi audience, the title basically means tension/problem/general bad things have ended. Read: Final examinations.

The eco paper was much better than I expected, considering I spent most of my study leave watching another very very close India-Pakistan match.

After the exams, there were a series of farcial interviews for posts which have basically already been predecided, which delayed extended company from reaching my house, where the after exam relaxation session was being held(party is such a wrong word to use for what we do).

This involved the usual imbibing of drinks, eating of food, watching of movies, and the not-so-usual, newly inspired Teen Patti session.

Now a lot of people don't seem to know what teen patti is. Its a card game, which also goes by the names Flash, and Jua. Its quite popular during diwali, and is basically a simplified version of poker.

Well, since we're all mostly kangaal, we played with toffees, as usual. The main purpose of playing, however, was to watch Anurag gamble.

Our first experience of Sud gambling was in IIT, and believe me, its a sight. He has what can only adequetely describe as an anti-poker face. You never know when he's bluffing, cos he always looks like he's got the best cards around. A shark-like devilish smile plays around his face, and he lagao's chaals with the same confidence, regardless of what his cards are. This, strange enough, pays off. He was won hands playing King high.

Sadly, he was a litle bit conservitive by his standards, today.

What I would really like to see is Sud playing with real money. I'd even provide the cash.

But I can see the appeal of gambling. Its great fun. If you have the money, it should be made legal. There are a lot worse things you can do with 200 bucks, and you don't even stand a chance of winning it back. Among these horrible things include watching Mona Lisa Smile, or paying for Rs. 600 reclining chair tickets at those new multiplexes in Gurgaavan and Noida.

Mathematics

In the course of the last few days, I've been watching a really amazing cricket match, which had the direct result of fugging up my maths paper.

Well, actually, it wen't much better than I expected, though worse than I'd hoped.

All's well that ends well. Well, its not exactly over yet. There's still one more to go, economics. Tension is off, though, as all the big papers are over.

How wonderful.

Physics

Today, I had my Physics Exam. It can appropriately be described in one word, or in fact, a two word combination. What that word is, I shall leave up to your imagination. Please feel free to get creative. If you're really into it, you can put your best word in the comments, and I'll offer a prize to whoever I feel gives the best description of the paper.

English tomorrow, which gives me the opportunity to relax a bit. So I will.

Chemistry

Today was my first, exam, Chemistry. Contrary to all my expectations, it actually went well, and I shall be getting 80+ quite comfortably.

Wooooooohooooooo!

The paper was quite basic, either that, or all the stuff that I remembered how do to came. The organic especially wasn't bad, and I only didn't know one reaction, the rest I think I've got right.

Ionic Equilibrium, which is the least cohenrent bit in our course, went way way better than expected. Out of 8 marks, I think I shall be getting 4. Awesome!

Thats a major relief, and a great load off my mind. Well, four more to go. One sincerely wishes they go well too.

Hmm, since I'm blogging after a bit, I might as well mention some unrelated thingummys.

Firstly, due to extreme circumstances involving my gastro intestinal tract, I shall be going vegetarian for a decent while.

Secondly, I am to make a desicion in one weeks time, regarding this blog.

I plan to change its title, and thus its nature, away from Mundane Musings.

One wonders whether this is a good idea. Who knows how much untoward havoc I could cause if interesting things began to be mentioned.

Feedback?

Practicals

I had both my practicals today. Doing one practical after the other is not something I would reccomend to anyone in their right mind. Thankfully, I am not in my right mind, never have been. So it wasn't a major issue.

The chem prac was a disaster, the kipps apparatus was not working, hence my group 4 test came negative. Thankfully, ma'am gave us a little leeway, and told me and Aastha, the other unfortunate stuck with the group 4 salt, to do the thingummy again, at which point it did come correct. Yay.

My Viva went well, I answered all my questions correctly, albiet taking a bit of time to decide whether NO2 got oxidised or reduced.

Then, my Volumetric analysis. First, the base was not availible. When the base became availible, I discovered my biurette did not work. I then discovered that two further biurettes did not work.

At this point, I had all of half an hour left to do my Volumetric analysis, which is responsible for me getting the wrong answer.

One hopes and prays that only 1 mark is cut for this.

Then, my physics prac went great. By luck, I got Beam Balance and spring constant to do, both very easy experiments.

Blah. That is all. Now I have four days of hard core chemistry ki padhai ahead of me.

Don't drink and Derive.