Life, Don't talk to me about life

Oh, today's just been a brilliant day. In fact, the whole week has been one big mistake. Its one of those times when you just want to go to sleep, wake up a day later, and forget everything, except I can't even do that, as I'm getting all of six hours of sleep a day, of my own damn will(well, my body's, anyway).

DIVERSION: By the way, MTV at five in the morning is quite good. They play a lot of classic rock, and have videos you'll never have seen before. I saw the uncut light my fire, in concert today, along with a host of decent stuff. Some advantages of getting no sleep.

Back to the point. Firstly, doom hit as expected. My exam results were unbelievably bad, and I have plenty of opportunity to "learn from my mistakes, and prepare for the boards".
For all you nosy parkers who want a quantification of how terribly I did, how does 76% sound?

Right, so after that, you'd think things would start looking up, but no. Now I have to organise a debate for class 12, who are all in decent depression after exams, and are preparing for Monday test to make up for it. This basically means that no one in their right minds will want to participate, so the debate will be quite a flop. Thankfully, later this day, I managed to get the debate postponed by a week. This will be "a good thing", and all might turn out to be fine again.

Then, of course, the day got better. There was "President's Meeting", where they called presidents of all clubs, and informed them that March Past Practice would be beggining, for our investiture ceremony. Frr crissakes, investiture now? We've been on active duty for three months!
Ah, but its at any rate an excuse to make us look as stupid and out of place as humanly possible, and ruin our mornings, because, hey, don't we just deserve it?
Anyhow, since all my science classes are in the morn, I shall not be attending the March Past practice, come whatever the consequences. I'll get a lot of yellings, thats for sure, but hey, lets balance the scales over here. On one side, worst case scenario suggests that I get yelled at and excommunicated, ruining half an hour of my day, on the other hand, I miss classes, don't understand anything, get horrible marks, have an "understanding" Chem Teacher tell me that those horrible marks are perfectly acceptable(which makes it worse), put those horrible marks on my college transcripts, and get no scholarship. Then, assuming I don't make it to law school, I get no decent college, and the next four years of my life might pass something like Bhaiyya's college years. So its not a major brainer. I'm picking the yelling over the, excuse me for the melodramitic tinge, ruining of life. Karan is in Cahoots with me on this one, and we shall plead our case come Monday. Expectedly, we shall be a big big let down to our teachers, but hey, life's like that.

The choice, however, is not as easy for my friends in higher places, PC and Damini, who are pretty much obligated to go for "March Past". Ah, well, its their life, and their path. Mine not to reason why.

Anyhow, all will work out in the end. I have unerring belief in that. As long as I do what I feel is right.


Yeah, fine, I'm upset. So I'll shut up now.

Pears!

Ah, its that time of the year again. Actually, this time of the year comes around very very rarely, some years, never at all. This year, with the grace of god, it has.

Yeah, I'm babbling, but hey, pears have arrived. They come only ever so often, the nice ones, that is, the ones that drip juice, and dissolve in your mouth. They come for all of three weeks in a year, and then dissapear with haste.

Pears are, by far, the nicest fruit. There are, of course, two kinds. The first are nasty, and hard, and have no juice. The second kind are my favorite, and are here at last. So I'm going to have a grand old time, and enjoy them while they last (which is not very long)

WooHoo!

Ah, impending doom will finally hit tomorrow.

inQUIZition returned

WooHoo! We held inQUIZition today, our quiz as I have mentioned before.
We had chief guests and all, namely Siddharth "Bongo" Banerjee, and Arvind "censored" Bhaskar.
Barring the mandatory screw ups with the Audio Round, and scoring related hassles, it was a great success, and the eleventh team that won looks like they'll go far in life. They answered a good deal of questions, and since just about all the questions we asked were nice juicy ones, we were much enthralled.
On a personal note, I had a ball as quizmaster, hehe, I think I might get addicted to it, and not go back to quizzing at all.
The stage, by the way, is a major addiction, if you get over your initial fears. Once on it, its really hard to get off.

On an even more personal note, sometime during the day these couple of giggly girls from class 11 came up to me to ask my name, giggled, and said "You're the Quiz Guy, right?" Now, if girls are to giggle, they should be in class 11 or 12, or Maria Sharapova, but under no circumstances should they be old crazy-women-married-to-Senile-Quizmasters
Hehe, this of course gave me cheap kicks, but everyones allowed those, right?

Qualifying was great too, with lots of teams scoring enough points, we had very few teams getting ones and twos, which we have been used to in the past, and had a tiebreaker for qualifying at 7 out of 21, which is very encouraging. DPS will put good fight at Columban.

On even better news today, our planned interschool quiz is now definitely on, as school has agreed to fund. No if only we could think of a name for it...any suggestions?
This made everyone involved much happy and joyous.

Oh, but there was bad news too. My english and economics marks came out today, and made me very concerned, and not at all happy and joyous.
But I guess the good outweighs the bad. Besides, I have to keep my mood up, my chem marks are yet to come.

inQUIZistion

Yeah, yeah, so Quiz Club, along with me and PC are organising and holding inQUIZistion(corny, ain't it?), an inter section quiz for classes 11 and 12th on Monday, in the first four periods. It oughta be good fun, the questions are nice and workable(most of them), and it oughta be quite competetive. A lot of enthusiastic eleventhies wanted details about the stuff, so we're expecting good participation, too.

So any dipsites in the age group reading this are of course encouraged to take part. Worst comes to worst, you miss the first period, while giving qualifying.

Statuatory warning to anyone ever giving a quiz who's questions are prepared by me and PC. To get a lot of the answers, you have to think like us, and please bear in mind that we're a couple of filthy perverts.

Columban Invitations

Ah, it was a big old day for quizzing. The invitations for the Columban Open Quiz arrived. Its on the 5th, 6th, and 7th of August, and the prize money's finally up (yay). This year, its being done my Aditya Mubai, and one hopes he can keep it at its high standards.

Ah...life, its nice again.

DIPS DIARY dissapointments

Ah, the dips came out today, first day of school and everything. While I have got a few articles, and my favorite short story in there, they have, however, failed to put in my all time favorite poem (self composed one, that is), Cheshire Man, on the pretext that it was too long.

So fine, its a 950 word poem, which spreads into three A4 sheets, but still. Its a fantastic piece of work, I put a lot of work into that thing.

So I'm going to put it up here. Without futher adieu, I present to you, Cheshire Man! Its a bit of a long read, but bear with it.

Cheshire Man

Once upon a time, in a land close by
It was a dark and dreary night
And I was lost, without a light
Astray in the back alleys did I roam
And prayed to find my way back home
When all at once, by night’s good chance
A smiling face I happened to glance
From the mists haste he did appear
And took me to where my house drew near

But before we parted, a burning fire
In my mind possessed me to enquire

“My mother dearest tells me of dangers
And pleads me not to talk to strangers
So tell me your name, if you please can”
“Why dear child, I’m Cheshire Man”

“Well, Cheshire Man, now you’re no stranger
And I shouldn’t be in danger
Pray tell sir, if so be your grace
What for the broad grin on your face”

And for the briefest moment changed his mug
And his smile seemed to grow to smug
And all at once he seemed to terrify
As I saw a glint in his evil eye

“O child of wonder”, the man reckoned
“Come hither”, to me he beckoned
And held me close, to close to breathe
“I’ll let you guess what my smile does sheath”
A single shot, and pray you’re right
And I will bless you with your heart’s delight
But if indeed you answer wrong
You could feel like this all life long”
And at that moment I saw him scowl
And it opened to me things unholy and foul
“Dear lad, that was just a sample
You’ll feel far worse than that example”

And at that moment, I could have fled
But was anchored down by what he said
Who could ever doubt his case?
Who could doubt that smiling face?
And whatever could be his crafted hell
My wildest guess I had to tell

OH, that’s easy! I loudly cried
Its happiness, you’ve nothing to hide
For what else does one smile
You’ve been elated all the while

“Oh truly I wish you were right
Now I must design you to the night”

But at that moment he held my eye
Which about the truth could not lie
And without a second glace
Decided to give a second chance

“It’s all right, my dear, I see hope for you
I give your three guesses, not one nor two”

With hope and grace I saw his face
And tried to muster what lay beneath
But my wildest fancies could not fathom
What sword lay shielded in his smirking sheath?

"Sadness!" In desperation I cried
"Sadness under your smile has shied
To hide a hidden hurt you’ve tried
A beam over a frown you’ve plied"

“A good guess, Young Turk, but try again”
And I looked at him in mock disdain
“One shot to go, better make it good
With such high stakes, I think you should”

My mind wandered there and here
Clouded by adrenalin and fear
Unless his secret I soon discovered
In a paper bag my face would be covered
And when panic gripped me, My Dears
My thoughts were washed away with tears
And in glorious moment, the truth in sank
“My mind, like yours, is completely blank”

And if all else had seemed but a joke
His face turned sour and then he spoke

“In two hundred years and more
Dozens give or take a score
I have ensnared many a child
The poor, the rich, the meek and mild
But none have answered, when put to task
What my smiling face did mask

The curse is cast, my blessing pass’d
It’s yours to use in love or guile
O child of truth and wonder
Your face will never cease to smile”

And with these words nor any few
Off into the mist he blew
And in my window I glanced by my side
And saw my face was a mile wide

I count in decades, to tell the truth
The smile is the secret to eternal youth
In years gone by, I’ve seen it all
Love and sorrow, rise and fall
But elated or depressed, I swear it
All I could do was grin and bear it
A blessing, a curse, what you please
For feeling anything, it’s been a while
For I cannot help but smile

And often, in a dark and dreary night
I help a lost child through his plight
And some days a curious cat comes along
And asks me in his innocent song
“Pray tell sir, if so be your grace
What for the broad grin on your face”
But none in two hundred years and more
Dozens give or take a score
Have answered right when put to task
What my smiling face did mask

The Dynamics of the End-Day

Ah, exams ended today, on the worst possible note, especially after four wunnerful papers. I'm doing the worst I've done in a paper since class 9, but anyhow, why bother with such trivialties.

Well, done with the exam, as tradition has it, we and most of DPS decided to go for movie at Priya. Troy was on, and for once, our post exam excursion was actually worth a watch.

It was a nice epic type movie, which is deserving of a decent review, but this is not what todays blog is about. This blog will attempt to explain what happens when a school as big as DPS finishes its exams, and decides to go out.

First of all, there's the fun of spotting. You reach the hallowed Vasant Lok market, and to pass time, go "Oh,look, its so and so", as if its a great surprise that they are there. But its time honoured tradition, and you must do it.
Then comes the magic of discovering that people who were to turn up have ditched, and a completely new set of friends have arrived to replace them. This is quite convinient, as you need people to sell those extra tickets you now have in your pocket, and thus begins the drama of convincing so and so to buy them.

With this tamasha over, you finally watch the movie, during which, you make large amounts of smartass comments, to compete with the 200 other dipsites in theatre making smartass comments. The three people in the theatre who are not dipsites are naturally, quite perturbed.

Ah, but the real fun happens after the movie. At this point, one has to decide where to pass the rest of the time. This is not so much fun for poor market wallahs, who have to watch in agony, as huge tide of dipsites first enter Barista, realise there is no space, exit, go around to n number of places, re enter barista, and order, yes, nothing at all. At somepoint during this interval, a group of 10 people will decide to pool in all of 40 bucks, and buy the cheapest thing avalible on the menu. But it serves the Barista people right, everything is now overpriced, and shodddy. Their scrabble, for instance, has letters that are now faded to oblivion, and they won't use any of their money to renew them. Oh, and the guitar has also gone missing, so we didn't have the usual recital by one Shravan "Bobby" Verma, a selfdecribed "hardcore", yet five foot nothing, 20 kilo guy.

Done with this, the crowd may or may not decide to move, and if a decent conversation strikes up, will definitely not. Thus, the entire barista will be occupied by exam-khatam, stress releasing teenagers. I wish I could describe exactly what thats like, but words fail me.

On to specifics. Today itself was more fun than average. On most days, you only get to see present dipsites. Today, by quirk of fate, all the big boys of our senior batch, with nothing else to do before they joined college, decided to show up at Reliance Web World, for gaming. Then, we met Bongo, Shapes, Keerthi and assorted rabble from two batches senior, who also had a reunion of sorts while watching troy. Later, we played scrabble, in a sort of Old "Hum Do Hamare Do" vs current "Hum Do Hamare Do" team duel. (Hum do hamare do is the name of school quiz team) We lost, but to be quite fair ,the old chaps cheated. Nuts to them.

With that done with, and a good day after a long painful couple of weeks of summer holidays, life returns to normal. Next two months are loaded with fun fun fun, and life is all cheery again.

Just hope it rains a little more...

The "Furry" of the Monsoons

Oh, ye of little faith, who dismissed the sprinkling showers a couple of days ago, see what the rain gods have wrought upon us! Today, we had mother of all thundershowers(By Delhi's standards, of course. Even regular monsoon rain in Kerala put anything we experience here to shame), which unleashed, so to speak, the full furry of the monsoons upon Dilli Nagar.

Now, Delhi is a city that is completely incapable of dealing with this kind of weather, for the simple fact that no ones really bothered to make it capable. The general belief is, whats the point? And to be quite frank, its well founded, something like this happens only once or twice a year,if the monsoon's bad, then it never happens, and you can't really budget for that. So, basically, Delhi just simply packs up. Roads get flooded, traffic ceases to move, electricity is simply taken off, to prevent anything from shorting out. Its comical, really, and quite fun while it lasts.

Now, today's thunderstorm also brought with it a bit of a tragedy. My poor, termite attacked, long standing Gulmohar had half of its branches simply torn of by one lusty blow of wind. These branches also, unfortunately, fell onto the power lines next to them, and caused quite a fireworks display. One is not sure whether the tree will last now, its been through a lot, and its contempory had already bitten the dust a few years back.

Remarkably, this caused our electricity to be gone for only 3 hours, and considering two of those hours, it was raining, its quite an admirable feat, from the good men at BSES.

Ah, exams get over tomorrow, and life returns again, to somewhat resembling normal. Can't wait to get back to regular school, there's not much of that I've got left.
Enjoy it while it lasts, eh?

Its Here!

Ah, the winds have started to blow, the clouds are coming in, and lightning strikes behind me. At last, respite from the heat, and the humidity, and yet more heat comes, and the rain gods finally smile upon us poor denizens of Das Capital.

To cut a long story short, MONSOONS ARE HERE!

Woohoo! I'm off for a walk in the rain!

Empty Space

To everyone who has visited "The Space", I render my heartfelt sympathies and apologies. It seems to have not only died, but in its brief period of existence, talked mostly about Bitchney. What scares me more is that its probably going to come back to life soon. Sample this conversation with One Shakey, (of lovelorn springdales dude fame)

Elated Buddha(Oh, Jaan! Ai, Tamanna! kidhar ja rahi ho?) says:
So, Baxtard returns tomorrow?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? says:
must be...

Elated Buddha(Oh, Jaan! Ai, Tamanna! kidhar ja rahi ho?) says:
I just hope he doesn't plan to blog about his experience

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? says:
he he

Elated Buddha(Oh, Jaan! Ai, Tamanna! kidhar ja rahi ho?) says:
for the sake of all Mankind

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? says:
it'll be all about how he dreamt about britney and
1)how you should have the lovely chaat in pune
2)how you should carry some aspirin too
3)how you should write your s ch
4)how you should try and look tall amongst people twice your size


With friends like these, who neeeds enemies?

He's Off

Early this morning, Bhaiyya left for IIM, Bangalore. He's going to be gone the next two years, and well, after that, who knows where he'll be and where he'll be working. I might have bigshot brother in foreign multinational.

Strangely enough, I'm going to, and I think I already am missing him. Its not like when he was in Patiala, and coming home all the time, there's a finality about him going to Bangalore. He's not returning, and whats making it worse is that it makes me think, in a years time, I'm going to be gone too.

Compounded to this, my big house, which was not so long ago a little house, has now got even bigger. When once I had to share a room with my brother and cousin, I now have two rooms from which to choose from. Anyone who thinks that this is a great thing, and that so much space is great, can quite frankly go shoot himself in the head. Its big, unpersonal, and lonely.

Blah! Its damn hard to study in a mood like this. Thankfully, I finished the major portion of my padhai three days ago. I have today to relax, before I get back to serious studying, before my first paper on Thursday, Mathematics. Godwillingly, I'll get a 90 plus. But then, I don't believe in god, do I?

Bhavya's 406th Law
Everyone becomes a believer when exams come around.

A Room with a View

The Backwaters

The Irony of it All

Having nothing to do but maths (and a bit of physics) gives you a lot of time to think. Thinking is a terrible thing, by the way. It leads to ideas, and conclusions, and insights, which sound terrific while you are thinking, but are eminently boneheaded when you write them out, or reflect upon them in a busier, more practical state. To prove this, I'm going to write down what I've been thinking.

Okay, so here's the thing. A great premium is placed in this world on hearing, or listening, or inseminating knowledge. Music costs money, books cost money, listening to speakers costs money, the newspapers cost money, and all these things are really big business.
On the other hand, being heard, which actually is a lot more signicant than hearing, is almost free in todays world. This blog, for instance, is free. Writing your thoughts is free. Publishing them, though tough, is not only free, but actually makes you money. Thus something that should actually have more value, ends up giving you money, rather than spending it.

This is one of the few times that life is unfair in a good way. We are at a point in history, where being heard is easy, won't get you killed unless you're in one of the few surviving fascist or communist states, and can actually be a source of living. Its not always been like this. In the old days, being heard cost a lot of money, and a lot more. A lot of men died to get their point of view across.

So I thank the good world, for being this way when I'm around. For as pointless as my voice seems, at least I can get it across.

Wunnerful, wunnerful.

Kerala in Review, part Deux

Ah, let me continue where I left off. Kerala and related items.

Le Meridian, Cochin

The Meridian Resort, like all resorts has its inbuilt advantages and disadvantages. The advantages are, they're beautiful, particularly this resort. It was on the banks of a backwater, and was surrounded by palm trees. There was a nice swimming pool, which had little ponds around it, and the backwater behind it, and there were geese all over the place. The geese were also unually quiet, and not as indignant, and protesting as the geese in Deer Park, who always seem to have a major grouse in life.
The disadvantages of resorts are that they are all far away from anywhere, and thus you must eat at their overpriced restraunts.
Now the buffet here was quite shabby, but there was a seafood restaurant named Lagoon, which had the most amazing fish I've ever eaten. Seriously.

Aquariums

Aquariums abound all over the place. In the Cochin Airport, for instance, one got to observe Clown Fish and anemone, a la Finding Nemo. At Lagoon, the above mentioned seafood restaurant(the irony of placing an aquarium in an eating joint which had exclusively seafood dishes is inescapable), had these grumpy fish, which reminded me and Ma of my brother. They were grey, with orange colorations, and seemed permanently moody. There were a few of them, and every so often, a couple would get really riled up with each other, and charge full force, with their mouths open and gaping. It was quite amusing.
Aquariums, I have found, can provide endless entertainment. Fishies are not only good to eat, but quite enjoyable to watch. I think I'm going to go snorkling on my next vacation, I feel I should do that very strongly.

Teletubbies

In the hotel room at the Meridian, my mother and I had the fortune to happen upon this wonderful program on Pogo. For the full ten minutes we were watching it, we simply could not contain our laughter. And this is why.
Teletubbies has the most simplistic plots in the entire world. I know they're meant for really young kids, but believe me, Sesame Street was a regular Lord of The Rings infront of Tellytubbies. Allow me to narrate the entire plot, running for a full 15 minitues.

Lala went to give Tinky-Winky a big hug.
Tinky Winky! Big Hug! (they hug) Again, Again! (this entire sequence runs for about 2 mins, and is accompained by really funny noises)
Then, Lala went to give Tipsy a big hug. Lala then proceeds to run around some hobbit-like dwelling for a couple of mins, while Tipsy is running at 180 degrees phase difference. Finally, they do catch up.
Lala! Big Hug!
Again! Again!
Then, Lala went to give Po a big hug.
Po! Big hug! Again, again! More weird noises.

All the tellytubbies love each other very much.
Big group hug.
You have to love what they're subjecting kids to these days. Makes you glad for your old days of He Man, G.I Joe, and Japanese Anime, with robots and spaceships and all-sorts-of-things-that-transformed-into-a-whole-range-of-other-things.

Muttancherry

Muttancherry is this old Jewish part of Cochin. Its one of the oldest living Jewish settlements in Asia, and has one hell of an antique market. The whole range of junk availible here was incredible, ranging from semi-pornographic Supari Nutcrackers(which I really was tempted to pick up for Manav), to old lighthouse lamps. The lamp, by the way, was a steal at Rs. 2000, though the transportation costs would be great.
There were also these old fashioned telephones, which really caught my fancy. Money matters prevailed, and I couldn't pick one up. Besides, it would mean giving up cordless existence, which would mean giving up pacing around the corridors. Good sense prevailed in the end.
Next, we went to and old Dutch Palace, of sorts, which housed the Raja's of Cochin, who were all named Ravi, Rama, or Kerala. The palace itself was painted with these wonderfully intricate murals.
Notable were the paintings in what I could only presume was the Raja's Honeymoon Suite. They were incribed with Krishna getting it on with big busomed gopis, a LOT of big busomed gopis, and a whole lot of people getting it on with each other on one wall, and Shiv getting it on with Mohini, while Parvati watched in disdain. This is understandable, as she was the only person in the room( including various animals in the murals) not having sex.
There was also and old synagogue in Jewtown, which unfortunately was closed at the time we came.

Oh, and yes, Sarika, I did have the Puffy Rice, which is perfectly designed for soaking up ishtew, and other currys.

Well, in the words of Forrest Gump, thats all I have to say about that.

Happy 100 to Blah!

Yes, Blah has merrily completed one hundred posts as of this one, and I am back from Kerala to tell the tale.

But first, there is a lot of backlog that has to be cleared. Lets go one by one. Besides, it'll make for a bigass 100th post anniversary thingie.

16th June: Happy Birthday Bua!

Bua turned I-shouldn't-say on this holy day. She's still going strong, and continues to be unstoppable in whatever she wants.

17th June: Happy Birthday Vrinda!

Well, now she's just Seventeen, if you know what I mean. (Vrinda Maheshwari)moves a year closer to imminent adulthood, but we shan't depress her further with such rotten things to say.

19th June: Happy Birthday

SAT 2 Woes, Reloaded

As if doing badly wasn't enough, my scores haven't arrived, for some odd reason, leaving me even more tense and pissed. One word, of course can cover my entire range of emotions on the topic.
BLAH!

Ah, on to more pressing matters. I've just got back from Kerala from my first family vacation in bloody ages. It was, minus my brothers inccessant carping, amazing fun. Forget Lutyens, when I grow up, I'm moving to Kerala, and setting up home and housing.
So let us begin!

Kerala In Review

God's own Country

I don't know about God's own, but if he did this would sure be the right place to settle down. Kerala is simply bee-yoo-ti-ful. Its amazingly green, it has lovely weather, and it rains quite a bit, in the nice monsoony way. The hills are low, and thus not very cold. They are, however, so amazingly lush, its almost like being in a rainforest. Except you're not, so you can see the sky and not be pecked to death by bugs. Its basically perfect.

Its a Manly Country

Mallu's are a very manly lot. On my way from the Airport to Le Meridian Hotel, where we resided, I was greeted by billboards for the most incredible movies. One's english subtitle was, I kid you not, "Its a Manly Movie". All the guys in the movie posters had a minimum of 4 females dancing around them. I watched Mallu TV channels too, and it resonates in the serials, and music as well.
Every Mallu Male must, under all circumstances, have a thick and bushy mustache, that must be well maintained. It is perfectly acceptable in Kerala to wander around topless, with nothing but a lungi on. The strange thing is that this is a Matriachal Society, by and large. But yet, it's a Manly Country.

The food is Incredible

I spent the better part of my trip stuffing myself silly. Mallu food is by far, one of the best, if not the best in the world. Its simple, revolves mostly around coconuts, and inclues a LOT of fish. I went wild on fish. I must have had it twice everyday, along with a host of other things.
These things include, but are not limited to, Poriyal, Allepy, Pollichathu, some more unpronouncable things, par boiled rice, Moiley, Thoran, Crab something-unpronouncable, and many more. The food is amazing, its always spiced, frequently very spicy, and many many others.

Stupid Commies ruined my trip

Kerala, for all its brilliance, is unfortunately run by a bunch of commies, may their red souls burn in hell. A week after petrol fees were hiked, they decided to strike to protest against it, on the very day that we are at Thekkady to check out Periyar. As a result of this the forest department convieniently could not show up for work, and I could not go to see Periyar. Blah! Commie bastards, they ruin everything.

Well, I shall write a second issue on Kerala, and related diversions as a result of my vacations, including Teletubbies, and fishies in Aquariums, tomorrow. THis is quite enough for one blog, and 101 should have some interesting stuff too.

In conclusion, get your asses to Kerala. Its an amazing place.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Well, correction. Tomorrow, I shall, infact, be leaving on a Sahara plane, to Cochin, where I shall spend the next 4 days stuffing myself silly on Malyali cuisine, which is, in my humble opinion, one of the finest in the world. This will be ultimately good for me, for reasons that I shall just explain.

Well, see, my mission for these summer holidays was to get some meat on my bones. I was about six kilos underweight, for my height, and quite frankly, I look it. I'm a stick, and I don't like being one. So, in earnest, I broke one of my longstanding rules, and in addition to eating in my general gluttonous style, I also snacked between meals, on namkeen, and biscuits, and bhuttas, and anything I could lay my hands on. Oh, and also lots of ice cream.

Well, I thought this would work, until today, when at the fancy smancy weighing machine at Centerstage Mall(CAUTION! LONG DIGRESSION AHEAD: Nisheet had taken us to Wave for his budday do, where we saw the funniest, worst scripted, and most unrealistic Hollywood movie ever made, The Day After Tomorrow. If I have the phursat, I'll give a full review of how incredibly bad this movie was, and why you should under no circumstances miss it), I discovered that I have actually lost two kilos, and am now all of 9 kilos underweight.
Aaaaaaaargh.
In hindsight, the reason for this is simple. In addition to all this eating, I was regularly swimming 50 lengths a day, along with gallavanting around town every other day. Thus, I seemed to have burned more than I have gained.

Well, I'll try to rectify that now, lets see how things go.

Moving on to other things, this is the 99th post on Blah! The next post will be the Hundreth, so bring out the bubbly, or juice, for us sober souls.

The Continuing Saga of Huhn and Torr

Allow me to give a brief explanation. Huhn and Torr are two characters I created. They're cavemen sorts, who I claim responsible for inventing all those things that were invented back when men were men, women were women, and large furry animals were Mammoths. These things include, but are not limited to, the worship of all sorts of things, money, gold, fashion, fire, and stones(They only had boulders back in those days, and it was really impractical to rub two boulders together to get fire).

Well, today, I shall share the story of how Huhn and Torr discovered Gold.

One day, Huhn and Torr were walking along a river bank, to get a sip of water. Suddenly, Huhn spotted something shiny down on the bedrock. So he bent over, picked it up, and turned to Torr, and told him, "Huuhn! Shiny!"
(Allow me to point out that I am translating, here, back in caveman days, they hadn't yet evolved english, and their language, while elegant, and simple, could not be depicted here, as the sound of the grunt cannot be conveyed phonetically)

Anyhow, back to the story. Well, Torr saw the shiny gold piece, and owing to his own peculiar sensibilities, he took quite a liking to it. Thus, he looked upon it with a calm, composed, and highly greedy air, and said in the nicest possible grunt he could muster, "Huhn, Torr Want Shiny!"

Now, Huhn didn't take to kindly to this, and did not reliquish the gold piece. Suddenly, that gold piece had become the most valuable commidity in CavemanLand. Despite Torr's efforts to barter his good loincloth, his only pair of stones, and his new invention, the axe-like-thing, for the gold piece, Huhn wasn't giving it up.

So it came to pass that Torr, in true Caveman fashion, used his fast evolving brain to realise that he could use the Axe-Like-Thing to bash in Huhn's skull, and he did so, thus also inventing illegal trade practices, and ambritage in the process.

Thus, Torr got the gold piece, and using its mighty Shiny Power, became pretty much the most important guy in CavemanLand. This was, of course, till his good friend Gutt found two gold pieces, and bought over his land, property, and good loincloths.

And this is the true story of how gold was discovered, and how its power in this world came to be.


Oh, and do go visit Baxtard's "The Space". One should give the young lad some encouragement. Mebbe then, he will get self concious, and shave of that creature growing on his upper lip.

Happy Birthday Nisheeth!

The resident Pant-Splitter completes a whole year without splitting his pants. We congratulate him, and wish him another fully fit year.

G-Mail

I have all of 4 G-mail account invitations left, and these are now in short supply. A lot of the account ID's are already gone, and now its apparently got exceedingly tough to get ones first name as their G-mail account.

There has also been the happy realisation that the 1 GB of mailspace is simply not going to get finished, unless your entire life is spent recieving mail. Also, junk mail just doesn't seem to get through to the G-mail servers.

In other words, I'm definitely switching to G-mail.
I would reccomend you do the same. Four of you who do not have G-mail accounts, can of course, ask me for an invite. The comments space is open, dearies, and I will accept bribes.

Book Review: Transmission

By Hari Kunzru

Yes, this is the chap who's first novel, The Impressionist, broke all records for the most amount of money made signing a debut novel. Unfortunately, I never got around to reading it, as it looked big and boring. Transmission, however, looked a lot less imposing, and a lot more interesting.

It was. Its quite an interesting book, in the oddest way. You know what is going on, you know how it is going on, even though the narrative wildly switches between characters, but you aren't exactly sure why its going on. The three characters seemed so incredibly disjointed, right upto the end of the book.

Ah, what is the book about, you ask? Its about a Computer Programmer from Noida, who gets his shot at the American Dream, goes abroad, and has his dream shattered. First, unable to find a job, and then unable to keep one in the face of economic slowdown, he, in frustration releases the most deadly virus the world has ever seen, upon, well, the world at large.

Well, after this, as you may suspect, disaster ensues. And this is how the three characters are linked up, the effect on each of them. Again, as with each book, I refuse to give spoilers, so you'll have to go read it for the plot.

The book is intelligently crafted, though takes Bollywood a little too jocularly. The characters are all sadly real, and victims of circumstance. But the best thing about the book is the ending. Its unreal, it sort of defies the normal logic of literature, not in its content, but in the way it is presented. It is somewhat like a Martin Scorsese film. Go read it, this is great material, and short enough not to cut too far back on your time.

Book Review: Digital Fortress

My current form in devouvouring literature continues, and I demolished this nice, juicy novel by Dan Brown today itself, reading almost cover to cover(I had to break for lunch in between).

Needless to say, it was a really good book. Now, I generally don't enjoy thrillers, but Mr. Brown seems writes them exceedingly well. Digital Fortress was just as fast paced as The Da Vinci Code, and every bit as exciting. Each chapter, as the critics have said, is indeed a cliffhanger. The author uses the style of switching betweeen characters at the end of each chapter, which is quite perfect for the genre. In addition to this, the novel itself is well researched, and presented. Its about an unbreakable code, which if released, will render everyone's favorite non-existent spy agency, the NSA(National Security Agency) completely obsolete.

The characters in the book are also very well crafted. The author seems to have this love for keeping proffesor types as his main characters, which seems to work quite well.

The only criticism I have to offer is that these otherwise intelligent, crafted characters seem to turn absolutely dense at the turning points in the story, when the big ass clues are to be deciphered. As the reader, you usually guess way before the characters do, which quite frankly is not right. You feel like yelling at them, as the answer seems so obvious, but will not occur to them for a couple of pages more.

But, aside from that, it was an excellent read. Go pick it up, or if you have a decent library, go issue it. It will be an afternoon/night/week well spent.

SAT 2 Woes and a Visit to "India Shining"

OK, so the SAT 2 didn't go all that well. I got royally jacked in Writing, unable to finish my essay, and messing up grammar completely. I'm sure that you'll have experienced the same on my blog, but the way I see it, who needs grammar when you have MS Word, eh?

Maths was better than I expected, and I might pull off 750, but again, just might.

Chem was the silver lining, on what was quite literally a cloudy day. If the good lords be willing, I'm getting a nice 800, it was that simple. Tiddly om poms.

After this unholy event, we went for dinner and afternoons entertainment to Damini's house, where she fed us well, and slaked our thirst, and kept us in much merriment.
Unfortunately, we were afterwards dragged off to this sodoff hell hole called Gurgaon, and to its unholy chapel, the Metropolitan Mall.
The Mall is a terribly boring place, and is designed for people who like to shop for clothes. It has all of one bookshop, OM Book Shop, which has 4 shelves on cookery, 3 on fiction, and 1 of those fiction shelves is stocked entirely with multiple copies of the entire works of Paolo Cohelo, which, lets face it, suck. The Alchemist was a decent enough read, but the rest are just quite terrible. The childrens section is also quite large, and filled with little kids who are at about Groin level, and there's no need to go into how dangerous that can be. Little kids have a habit of running around a good bit, lets just leave it at that.
I did not as much as notice a music shop, or a technology bazaar, but lets face it, places where two whole floors are dedicated to clothing aren't exactly going to be big on computer goods. The only music the Guppies probably listen to is Remixes, and the new Rock-Pop nonsense, thats got a lot of glaring and blaring, but not a lot of content.
Another decent reason for avoiding the place like the plague would be that its apparently a common hangout for my favorite school's denizens.
Basically, the only reason to "hang out" at a mall would be if you've got no electricity at home, and you need decent air conditioning, to prevent melting. Since BSES has taken over, this is happening less and less frequently, at least at my residence. For the few times it actually does occur, I'd advise going to the pool to take a dip, trust me, a mall is not worth it.


Now, call me an envious dilliwalla, but I just can't stand the place(Gurgaon). Its too artificial; they say that its like a little Singapore in India, but its not. Its Gurgaon, its a created township, that stinks of every created subarban paradise in the world. Cities, you see, have character, they have charm, the have a certain pizzaz that simply cannot be recreated, untill you decide to found a city, and not a suburb.

Basically, give me Dilli anyday, or give me Bombay, or Bangalore, or Chennai, or London, or Singapore, or any city in the world. I'm sure each will have a charm of its own. Just don't give me some builder designed subarban concrete paradise, with high rises to nowhere, and Guppies galore.

You want an example of planning that inculcates charm, head on over to Lutyens Delhi. Its the trees really, you have to have trees. And the architechture. Furthermore(I'm obssesed with this word now), its got something to do with the fact that the buildings generally aren't more than 2 stories high. Thats the way they should be.

D-Day Approaches

Ah, the hour of reckoning arrives. I have my SAT 2 tomorrow. Despite studying more than I did for my SATs, my practice scores are simply not good enough. I hope and pray for some kind of miraculous easy paper tomorrow, otherwise, I might have to give these damn papers again, something which I do not want to do.

But hope springs eternal.

On unrelated news, I've continued my reading form, finishing both "The Da Vinci Code", by Dan Brown, and "Is New York Burning?", by Dominique Lapierre and The Other Guy.

They were both decent reads, though lacking that killer punch that makes a book into a legend. But, such is life. Not every book can qualify for that priveledge.

I've recently become obsessed with a cartoon from the heydeys of animation, where they actually tried to make kids cartoons which were intelligent and funny, instead of the insipid crap they dole out these days. It was called, Darkwing Duck, by Disney, dunno how many of you remember it.

If you want to jog your memory, try checking out Darkwing Duck's Entrances, come what may, it'll give you a good laugh.

I'll also probably be posting a picture of DW on FUFASHION, as an example of the most ultimate fashion victim the world has yet seen. With purple cape in pink border, it doesn't get much worse than that. Unless, of course, any of you have seen Vrinda Marwah in pink bunny ears, but then I'd be seriously endagering myself if I decided to put that up for public display.

And I just love myself to much to do that.

Many thanks to picasa.com for their Hello software, that makes Photoblogging possible for us poor souls without webspace.

My Gulmohar Tree in Bloom. Bee-yoo-tiful, isn't it?
My Gulmohar in Bloom

The Many Meanings of MBA

Ever since my brother started preparing for MBA, we've encountered several new definitions of the same.

The Original: M.B.A : Masters of Business Administration

The Gujrati M.B.A : Manne Baddu Avechh (I know everything)

Dinky Uncle's M.B.A: Marriage, Bhog, Anniversary.

Dinky Uncle is my ex-neighbour, now living in Chandigarh, who is quite often obligated to attend several social functions, travelling across north India to attend Marriages, Bhogs (something like Chauthas), and Anniversaries of his several contacts. Thus, he is self-styled M.B.A

Does anyone else have any more fun definitions of M.B.A? I'm forgetting the rest I've heard, and would love to be reminded.

Book Review

I've been doing a lot of reading during and before the holidays. Here's a low down on some of the ones that stood out.

The World According to Garp

By John Irving
This is an amazing novel. First of all, I'll outrightly say I'm biased. I love any piece of fiction that deals with writing, or writers. But this was good all on its own. A highly imaginative plotline, combined with exceedingly interesting characters. For the likes of Manav and Vinay, yes, there was also a lot of hot passionate sex. It also contained in it a critique of fundamentalism, and extremism, in a manner that I have never read before. All in all, an engrossing read, which challenges you to think, and also, as I have previously mentioned, challenges you to write.

Five-Point Someone

By Chetan Bhagat

This is a book about what goes wrong in I.I.T. Its an account by an ex-IITian, of the type of people you never hear about in I.I.T, the bottom of the grade curve, the five-point someones. More than that, its a story of how three guys struggle with freedom in college, especially a college of the likes of I.I.T. I reccomend it to anyone who's always believed that I.I.T was the perfect place, and has devoted their life and energy into getting in. You should know all the good, and bad that you are getting yourself into.
For the rest of us poor mortals, who don't even dream of the above, its a good read, and reaffirms my desicion to not even try.

The Ramayana of Ashok Banker

This is a seven part series, retelling the Ramayana. I have read the first two parts, with the third coming out sometime this year.
This book is a sort of amalgam of The Ramayana and star wars, not in terms of Characters, but in terms of Style. The narrative is fast paced, and thrilling, and this retelling does what quite a few simply have not. Pay attention to detail. All the stories are included, as each book is long, over 500 pages. Thats 3500 pages for the whole thing, so one can be assured that not one tiny bit has been left out.
I enjoyed that. A lot of stories were in there that I hadn't heard, and a few that I must only have heard from my grandmother when I was wee lad.

Well, thats about all. The rest were crap.

Writing/Reading

I just finished a book called "The World According to Garp", by Irving Wallace. It is a good book, at you react very differently to it all through the book. It has, however, forced me to think about writing again, so thats just what I'm going to do.

In a couple of days, I'll have my first piece of fiction out after a long time, and no, Little Red Riding Sash does not count.

Ego and Self

The dictionary, well most of them, seem to believe that ego, and the self are synonymous. Most self proclaimed egotists also believe that ego's are pretty much themselves. Well, here's the deal. Me, you and pretty much everyone else, including a dog named Boo, are not their ego's. Ego's are these wonderful things, which are very important to general survival, and success, especially if you're male.

See, ego's are the part of you that have developed to combat, well pretty much anything that needs to be combatted. Competition, crises, hardship, even values, which so so love to believe are innate to human nature, are pretty much creations of our egos.

Lemme give a personal example to illustrate my point. When I'm going for a debate, my ego takes over. I become proud, strutting, intensly competitive, I'll make jibes at whomsoever I see fit, oh, and it gives me the confidence and ability to speak well. Thus, its really important.

But remove the situation, make it normal, when nothing is going on, when you've got nothing to win or lose, and then you see the Self. Its the part of you that frankly doesn't give a damn. Its the part that sings your favorite song, and says things that your ego knows it shouldn't.

For example, my Self is pretty much content toying around with pens and shiny mettalic objects, and pretty much everything else. Ego's aren't allowed to play, not in the true sense.

Start the Drum Rolls

Announcing the start of a new blog, and the introduction of Sabse Bada Aadmi, Prateek Chadha to the blogosphere.

Please welcome, and frequent FUFASHION, the new guide to fashion for the unfashionable, by the unfashionable.

The Retrosexual Male

The last few years have seen a dramatic rise in a new species of guys, Metrosexuals. Now, the newspapers and magazines really overhype how many of these chaps there are, but lets get one thing clear, there are enough. They are growing. And they're becoming the top of the food chain. You can actually see guys getting mudpacks and facials in my Barbershop, oh I'm sorry "Beauty Salon" now, and the strangest things are becoming acceptable. A friend of mine's boyfriend, for instance, wore a pink shirt. I don't even think girls should be wearing pink, forget the stupider gender.

But worse than the rise of this new,SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guy) is the rapid demise of the Old Fashioned guys. Hence, I humbly coin a term for our like. We are Retrosexuals, males caught in a time warp, who don't want to join the new, fashion concious, trend-setting, and quite frankly, estranged Metrosexuals.

Lets outline what a retrosexual is.
A retrosexual pays little or no attention to personal grooming. He's very low maintanence, he tries to keep it that way. He still manages to dress well, though not in the latest of things. He's a simple Jeans and T shirt guy, no fancy stuff. No studs. No hair gel, no shosha-baazi.

A retrosexual has old fashioned hang ups, and values. He won't drink, he won't smoke. If he's religiously inclined, he'll stay vegetarian too. He's not a prude, but he's not inclined to sharing his feelings. His feelings are his own.

A retrosexual will probably have enough Female Friends, and they will be just that. Friends. Not Gal Pals. He will not, under any circumstances, go shopping with them. He will not councel them on relationships, or on what to wear. He will however, listen, and advise on any other matter he can. Which brings us to a really important thing.

A retrosexual is not a male chauvanist, but he does believe in Chivalry. If a girl is in trouble, he will help her, come what make. Equal treatment of sexes ceases to matter at that point, the girl gets preference.

Retrosexuals have a retro taste in music. They aren't in tune with the latest tunes, and will probably go for rock anyday.

Lastly, I'll repeat a key point. Retrosexual males are not open minded. They have set views, they are stubborn, and they don't make any pretenses about it. Because, lets face it, all males are stubborn, stupid, with set ways of thought. Its just that most of us try to hide it in this day and age.

Well, thats about it. I'm also introducing a new blog, co-authored by PC( Prateek Chadha), entitled Fucked-Up Fashion, shortly. It will be a guide to fashion for the unfashionable, from two guys who know all there is to know about being unfashionable.

Strange food-related obsessions

Two food-related obssesions have struck me in as many days. Now, this isn't a really strange occurance, as most obssesions of mine revolve either around food, or shiny objects.

The first was yesterday. Gol Gappa's and Chuski.
As I had earlier written, we protested to the mangament of Evergreen, and with good effect. The Gol Gappa Stand is back outside, the Paani is chilled again, and the bite is back. Wonderful, wonderful. The chuski was godawful though. Kala Khatta, which was neither Kala, nor Khatta. Most dissapointing.

The second was today, Hot Chocolate Fudge at Nirulas. My crowning achievement was not actually eating the damn thing, but convincing Vinay to step outside of his house at half past 1 in the afternoon, and accompany me to the Chanakya Nirulas.
Of course, this was easier, as I was treating him to one as well, but we shouldn't discount the magnitude of this achievement. Eaps is possibly the laziest human being to grace this god given earth. Walking is his least favorite activity, and he has all his fast food numbers on speed dial. (He's very tall and lean, he tells me, but lets see how long that lasts).
So congratulate me. His parents sure did.

A computer Saga

My computers been fucked.

Well, it still is. And is going to be till Monday.

But every cloud has a silver lining. Come monday, I shall have not a slow piece of obsolete crap, but something with 128 MB extra RAM, a fresh Hard Disk, and Windows 2000 Professional.

Finally, Karan won't be able to make fun of me!

WooHoo! Repect at last.

See ya Monday.

Well, Me Really

My brother's treat amongst my friends at Flavors provoked an often repeated discussion between me and PC. It relates basically to my Bluntness, its disadvantages, and, according to PC, the one sole advantage that it allowed me to be the only person to not have Zafar clinging to him. (I basically told him to fugg off)

This discussion, predictably, leads to the fact that this has made me make many enemies. Allow me to defend myself a bit. I have enemies, yes, but not many. Quite few, in fact, especially contrasted with the number of friends I make.
So I'll ask a question for my own feedback. Are some of you closer friends with me because of, or despite my bluntness?

Another point raised by PC, again an old one, but nevertheless pertinent, is that there are very few people that meet me that are indifferent to me. Whether or not this is correct, the reverse, I am sure, is not true. I do not share the same love-hate feelings with the world at large.

But again a question. Is it better to cultivate a large number of friends, and a good few enemies, or a small cliche of friends, a large number of people you're indifferent to, and keep no enemies?

As with many things, only time will tell.

A Slightly Pinkish one will do

Now that brother dearest is going to Bangalore, he's going to need some transportation money. He should travel first class, by plane, nonetheless, and for this you need money. Me being the ever enterprising one (I'm the one who revolutionized the Canteen Duty System, by introducing Hafta system) came up with a brilliant plan to secure this paisa maal.

See, IIM has this instant draw to it, and added to that, Bhaiyya has a good few other things going for him.
Presenting!

Bhaiyya's Matrimonial

Aadisht Khanna: Fair, 5 foot 8.5 inches Punjabi boy; Engineering graduate, currently doing first year in IIM Bangalore. From a liberal and open minded Business family, owning property in South Delhi Locality. Teetotaller and non-smoker, occasionally vegetarian. Religion/height no bar. Dimples and curly hair preferred. Horoscope not required.
Please send in your biodata and a cash amount of Rs. 100 enclosed in envelope to be considered, c/o Bhavya Khanna, B1/40, Safdarjung Enclave.


Ma says that at least 200 applicants would apply, I mean, Engineering and IIM doesn't just grown on trees! Thats a cool Rs. 20,000 I could rob from sick, deranged parents who think that money can buy their child's happiness.

Oh, and of course, I'd take a bit of a cut. That, of course, goes without saying.

Congratulations!

I am the new proud owner of a brother in IIM.

Prahji got admission into Calcutta and Bangalore, and is, of course, heading for Bangalooru.

Needless to say, the happiness quotient in Khanna parivar has never been higher.

Woohoo!

Sehwag Ki Ma

Sehwag ki Ma is one of those people you knows about, hell, one of those people everyone knows about, but no one really knows. She has, thanks to Reliance India become a cult icon, equivalent to Uncle Sam, or Doctor Peppers. Except she, unlike the above two, exists.

Now, I was discusing this today. Just imagine if Mrs. Sehwag were to enter politics, and campaign as an independant against Sahib Singh Verma in outer Delhi, hell any consituency in Delhi. She would never have to give her name. Her entire campaign would be as Sehwag Ki Ma, not even as Mother of Sehwag, or Mrs. Sehwag, or Amma Sehwag, but specifically, and only Sehwag Ki Ma.

She'd sweep it. You know why? Cos everyone knows her. You can't escape her. She's entered the national psyche, and won't leave.

I can imagine the ads already. Atal Bihari in an Inpo-Pak Conference.
Phone rings. Jaitley picks it up. "Sehwag ki ma?"
Ataaaaaaaaal! Message for you! Kar le Pakistan muthhi mein.

And thus ended the Indo Pak conflict.

Its possible, just give peace a chance.

Evergreen Reloaded

For those of you unfamliar with Evergreen Sweet House, its one of those hallmarks of South Delhi, the Bengali Sweet Market of our fair land.
Now, I hadn't had Gol Gappa's in quite a while, owing to my Ulcers, and Chapters in economics relating entirely to the pleasure obtained from eating the above had much increased my desire to consume the above. So I went to Evergreen after quite a bit of time today, to satisfy my hunger.

I was much taken aback. Evergreen has renovated, and become all sanitized-fast-food-joint types. Gone are the steel plates and cutelery, its gone onto a second floor, its become all sanitized, and here's the absolute worst part. The Gol Gappa's and Chaat have moved inside.

This means that you get Gol Gappa's in a plate, with the paani and aalo separate. You, I repeat, YOU are supposed to make the Gol Gappa yourself, and eat it not in the usual rush, but at your own sweet pace. On top of that, the Paani wasn't chilled. Needless to say, My Marginal Utility derived had definitely fallen.

Now, call me a bluffo traditionalist, but this had spoilt all the fun. I'm going to complain. I want my Gol Gappa's back.

Some things just shouldn't change.

Swaaaaah!

Each language, each culture has some words that simply cannot be translated without loosing some of the meaning. For example, we can try to use Chutzpah all we like, but only Yiddish speakers can understand in full the concept they want to relate by using it.

Another such word, or expression, for quite frankly, I don't really think there is much of a meaning behind it, is Swaah!.
Swaah is a word somewhat like Oy Vey, or Aiyyo, or something along the same lines. Except that it goes a bit deeper than that.
Now, like I said, this word would lose a lot in translation, but I'll give it a shot anyhow.
You use Swaah, not just when you are frustrated with a particular situation, but when you stand back, and take a look at the pure stupidity of what is going on. Swaah expresses not just frustration, but a sad understanding of what the hell has happened, and how you can do absolutely nothing to stop it.

Such is the nature of Swaaaaah! Now, if any pure minded gent would like to give an example of a Swaah situation, the commenting board is always open.

Skirting the Issue

F Block is a place full of mysteries and surprises. The mechanics of fitting over 1000 students in it, for instance. Or the Som Vihar Woman, who flashes to observers in F Block classes that face that way.
See, its been windy a lot the past two three mornings, and this has allowed us to experience another one of the great wonders of F Block.

See, there are very long corridors in F Block, and long balconies for entry of wind. Now, once wind enters, it sort of forms a vortex inside the block, and circulates. Doors magically shut and open, exhaust fans move of their own accord, and here's the real mystical thing, the wind decides to swirl and blows from bottom to top.
If you haven't figured out what this leads to, its quite simple. Skirts billow up, all of their own accord, and without prior warning of a gust of wind.
Now, this can either be a good thing, or a bad thing, depending on obvious factors. But what one now observes is the tendancies of MOTOS to walk around grabbing the hems of the skirts in F Block Premises.

Strangely enough, my father claims similiar things happened in his old school, TAFS, and happen in several other schools as well.
It leads one to question, were they designed this way?
Ah, well, some things will never be answered.

Demons of the Past

This is supposed to be a free access site, where anyone can say or do what they like, but there's a limit.
See, there's a constant spammer, a Mr./Ms/Shiramite Jamaican Doodh, who, while intensely dislikes reading my blog, chooses quite freely to comment upon it.
See, if you don't like it, don't read it, or offer some constructive criticism to make it better.
Uff, the advice is pointless, really. One would have thought that 10 years of experience would have taught me better.

So I went and blocked the Range of IP adress's that Jamiacan Doodh was posting on. If indentity of the above is indeed, one Stuti Gujral, head girl of the above mentioned institution, gawd bless em all.

So, as a kind request, if you're from TSRS, and your name is not Vinay Eapen, kindly fugg off my blog. I really have a problem with the pointless profanity.

It ends

Finally, after a more than a month, the work on our house has finally come to an end today.

Upstairs was pure hell, as we didn't have the benefit of shifting out. In the ensuing chaos, as I have pointed out earlier, many important things got lost, and quite frankly, the fortune of DPS at competitions has been drastically changed as a result.

Added to this ignominity(what a nice word) was the complications that arose from having Colorblind Painters.

Now, workmen in India are generally incompetent. They're lazy, never follow schedule, and always end up wanting more money than they settled on in the first place. But they generally have a vague conception of what they're doing. Now, being colorblind is one of those things that painters simply should not be. It goes against their fundament, their purpose, but such was life.

Green turned into off-white, Brown into off-white, and if they weren't stopped, my room would probably have been a distinct shade of Mauve. If anyone knows what Mauve is, please feel free to point it out to the painters.

Well, anyhoo, many rooms actually had to be painted twice over, and the shade of green my mother actually wanted for her room, is in the hallways, which, of course, are off-white.

Squall

Delhi has been experiencing one of the usual summer items, namely Squalls, over the past few days.
Now, squalls come of many kinds, but here's the general outline.
There's a really really hot day and afternoon, the mercury must go above 40 degrees. As the afternoon progresses, all of a sudden, a quick wind starts beating up. In a matter of minutes, the sky goes dark, as clouds and haze magically appear from nowhere. From this point, a squall can go anywhere. Ususally what happens is that a hell of a lot of dust starts getting blown around at insane speeds. The sky turns brown with it, and unsuspecting Delhiites rush to board up their windows and doors. The temprature cools down a lot, for a short period of time. Going out is insanity, as it would involve getting a kiloton of dirt shoved into your face, eyes, and if you happen to be wearing those low-riding butt showing jeans, your ass as well.

The second kind of squall is what we've had over the last couple of days. Occasionally, there's enough moisture in the air for rainclouds to form. Then what happens is, the wind blows them into shape. The wind keeps at it, and all of a sudden, without prior warning, it begins to rain.

Now the rain is brilliant. Its a god-holy shower, not a light drizzle, and it only lasts for a maximum of an hour, so you have to get out immediately for all the raindancing that one should indulge in. Also, there is the whole squall breeze blowing, which sprays the rain around a good bit.

And they say Delhi has terrible summers. What rot. You just have to know how to enjoy them.

Blah!

I went to springdales for a declamation contest today, along with Madam Vrinda (Marwah). Both of us spoke quite terribly, and as a result, and quite a first after long time for both of us, won NOTHING. I'm not taking this well at all, and am extremely pissed with myself.

Added to that, the Pen is lost, in the same jhamaal of disorder that lost my Badge, and has had my house in dissaray for way too long now. Its really starting to get me down, by mars and Juno.

I recently, in a fit on inspiration(Thank god I can still write fine without the pen) wrote DPS's first fairy tale, the story of Little Red Riding Sash.
The Word Document is availible for download, just hit the links.

New Policy Descion, for all future comps, I take along a towel.

Happy Birthday Sonali!

Sonali (Bhasin) turns Sweet Sixteen today. Here's wishing her a wunnerful year ahead.

Law of Socks

After years of experimentation, and research, I have found that socks are polygamous by nature. Thus says the law of socks.

A sock will tend to repel its pair till it has attained the maximum distance from the pair as possible. Furthermore, this lone sock will attract as many more lone socks as possible, forming a large collection of socks.

Learning from this law, I have got myself all new socks, all the same color and type, so that there's no escape for any of them. They have to end up with something that looks like them.

Call it genetic in-breeding.

Outsourcing

There's a lot of bruhahaha about outsourcing, how its good, or evil, or just plain unimporant. A lot of Indian's get their jobs doing outsourcing, i.e doing someone elses work for them, and getting paid for it. I think I should start getting in on this, because the way I see it, I'm DPS's biggest outsourcing set-up.

Exun, of course, will beg to disagree. They claim they outsource the most, but honestly, thats not outsourcing. Thats a job. Thats just taking printouts for anyone and everyone. Lets take a look at real outsourcing.

Firstly, my Job is President, Debating Society. In that capacity, I'm supposed to handle all that comes my way.
Next, I'm outsourced to Quiz Club, for making questions, and probably soon for quizmastering later on.
Exun wishes to outsource me for Quizzing, and Extempore Speaking at one of their events. Additionaly, I'm "stupid guy" consultant for one of their projects, to ensure even a fool like me can use it.
In weeks gone past, Madam Head Girl, and this means high beaurocracy, wished to outsource writing her speech for the investiture, cos she was too busy dealing with Compost(I kid you not), so guess who got that job too?
Later that week, Student's council outsourced me to help write and polish a debate, for a competition.

So there we go, and here I am. Taking your jobs, and stealing your women.

Disorder

First of all, and in behalf of everyone everywhere, WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Congratulations, to eleven men, who've finally one a test series out of India. And just to make up for all the time, they won it against Pakistan. Feel Good doesn't exist? Bullshit.

Well, back to the point. Or something resembling a point.

My house is in disorder. Painting is being done, its its terrible. The damn smell permeades the house, and my nose, and I've got an awful cough and sneeze. What is worse is that my room is currently being done. This means my bed and desk is now in the living room(ex-dining room, ex-table tennis table room), my wadrobe is in my brother's room, and of course, my bathroom remains where it was. This means that I'm going to have to migrate from place to place very often. Blah!

One seemingly plus point is that in the ensuing chaos, my disgusting embroidered badge has gone missing. This is seemingly good, as in the long run it simply means that I'm going to get one hell of a yelling, and of course, I'll probably have to pay for a new one, unless it turns up. Ah, well, such is life.

If pro is the opposite of con, is progress the opposite of congress?

Happy Happy Joy Joy goes Fourth!

Appetite for Destruction

I've been very upset the last month and a half. I've been down and bruised, because the love of my life deserted me, and left a gaping hole in my soul.

But thats all right now. Because yesterday my love returned. That gaping hole, it got filled. The source of my discontent ended, and to cut a long story short, I got my my appetite back!

This basically means my stomach ailments are cured. This basically means that I'm back to eating copious amounts of basically anything, because, I'm again Always Hungry.

This makes me supremely, supremely happy. In fact, I'm bouncing again, and have been doing so since yesterday. Little Red Riding Sash, in fact, claimed to hear me smile.

:-D

Dogmatix would have loved it

Now, sometime yesterday, outside my Maasi's house, there was this tree that was getting in the way of some odd thing, and it was decided, in good form, to cut down the offending fauna.

Now came into effect on of the newer, better, sensible laws that our government has passed. The police was called, you see, and they almost arrested my Maasi's servant for attempting to chop down the thing.

See, here's the thing. There is a law in Delhi that prohibits civilians from cutting down trees. It is now actually a criminal offence to chop down a tree in the city, and you can be arrested for doing so. There is, apparently, quite a hefty fine for doing the above.

The correct procedure, by the way, if you really have a decent and valid reason for getting rid of a tree, is to call the horticultural department, and they send someone over to do it for you, and of course, make a note so that they can replace the tree lost with three more planted.

Now, I don't often applaud the efforts of the Gorement of India, (Or Delhi, as the case may be, I'm not sure if its a center or state law), but credit must go where credit is due. This is a brilliant act, that will help preserve our city, and ensure it doesn't turn into one big dustbowl. See, its allright for a coastal city, like Mumbai to go all concrete jungle, cos they have this lovely breeze that will blow everything away. But if you're sitting on the edge of the Thar Desert, and you've blown the Aravalli's to bits, the least you can do is keep some tree cover to save yourself. And they've not lost sight of that. So everyone, all together now, Three Cheers for Gorement.

Hip, hip, Hurray.

Flower Power

On Thursday, I was present at Karan's birthday do, the pictures of which are being widely publicised. Let me take a bit of credit, I was the cameraman for the most of them, after it was found out the Maanick can't take a snap to save his life.

On this blessed day, I had the fortune to meet the much heard about Flower Girl. Now, this poor girl had in it for herself. It was total "And as I walk through the valley of death, I shall fear no evil" type of thing she was facing. We WERE going to tease her. We were going to make it difficult. But the good lady was up to the challenge. She handled what was a quite horrific situation for her quite well. And I have to say. I was very very impressed.

Thus, I would like to ask everyone to lay off Karan and Flower Girl from now on. So it has been written, so it shall be done.

Otherwise, its BaDong justice for the lot of you.

Happy Birthday Karan

Our Alpha Geek turns Seventeen today. He's one year short of becoming a productive member of society.

Till then, he'll have to be content with taking printouts.

Here's looking at you, kid.

Peptic!

After a long time procrastinating, and trying every home/dietary/funny-feng-shui type-things cure, after yet another stomach attack, I today decided to call in sick, and go to the Doc.

The Doc in question was Doctor Ajay Bhalla, Gastroentrologist. After a decent amount of questioning, and then limited amount of stomach prodding, he reached the following conclusions.

Diagnosis

A classic case of Peptic Ulcers, every single symptom, in fact, pointing to it.

The Bad News

I have to have three pills every day. I hate pills. I'm also not allowed anything chilly, and have to eat "bland food". My stomach itself is in a woozy state, and doesn't feel all that good. I also can't lie down for two hours after eating, and considering that, as you will see, I will be eating pretty much all the time, I'm going to get no rest.

The Good News

The Doc prescribed having Five, I kid you not, Five meals a day. Breakfast, mid-day snack, lunch, mid-evening snack, and dinner. Also, the good Doc says that I'll be cured in 7 days, and can then return to my regular eating life, or come back to him for an endoscopy(where I suspect a long thin camera tube will be shoved down my thoat, not too keen on that, I'm not.

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.