Backlog Writing

Ah, me finished an hour and a half of physics, and now feel like writing. I will no proceed to elaborate on a few topics of my choice, since no one in particular voted.

My Return to Shri Ram School

Last week, I went back to my old school, for Shri Debate, and cambridge rules debate they organise. Admittedly, I was quite excited to return after such a long time, and got all reminiscent when I saw DLF Building That Gives You The Finger on the way there. My teammates were Sonali Punhani, Arjun Agarwala, and Aditi Misra, and as we approached the school, they commented about how wonderful it looked. Yeah, its great infrastructure, but hey, students make a school.
Yeah, so my first words on entering, as have been reported on Sinha's blog, were indeed "Give me food", but hey, I was damn hungry, and had been promised a decent lunch by Eaps.
The lunch, by the way, was not very decent, and was in fact a very insipid Kadi Chawal. Blah!
Anyhow, to the point. I walk into school, and a lots changed, as far as the school goes. Half of it was cut out to make room for some apartment complex, which seemed quite funny.
But then, a lot remains the same. Same old people, first of all. Same bunch of idiots who, seeing me after maybe three years, decide they want to pick a fight again. This group, by the way, is the often mentioned "Hey, we think we're African Americans from the Bronx" group, otherwise known as the "Hey, how do we keep our pants from falling down" group. Then there was old...dunno what you call them, peoples like Harsh, and Sahil, that still acted and assumed themselves to be way cool.
Then, of course, there was the class 11 batch. I'm much heartened to know that after three years of abscence, they still harbour a grudge against me.
I soon realised that I just don't belong here, I never did. The second day,the day of our debates, I was actually missing home, DPS. Shri Ram was terrible during seventh and eighth for me, its the last place I'd ask a teenager to be while trying to form his identity, because I can still see that individuals just don't seem to survive there. Everyone's the same, in a really sick way.
How was the debate? Well, our first prelim was against DPS Vasant Kunj, and we won that very very comfortably, which was more due to the fact that our team was on the right side of a very skewed motion. Our second debate was against host team, and hey, everyone knows how that goes, so I won't elaborate.
See, a lot of Dipsites, the purebred type, who've been there since Vasant Vihar and East of Kailash simply don't know what its like to be in any other school, so they can't really appreciate what a difference it is, being in DPS, or being in any other school, and especially a school like my old one. When I went back to what I had left, I really knew the difference, and I'm happier than ever that I joined RKP.

Why Derek O'Brien should go stick his head in a pig

On the 23rd, I went for the NIE Fundamentals quiz, conducted by Derek O'Brien. Now, earlier, I had told you all the it doesn't get worse than Sid Basu. Well, guess what, it actually does. He actually asked MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS in qualifying! The rest of the questions, the ones that were not multi choice, were BQC level, and this is really damn bad when you've asked seniors to show up. On top of that, there were 4 or 5 questions in qualifying that were quite simply, incorrect. We only just managed to qualify. MIS and St. Columbas, the other two top teams in Delhi, didn't.
Then, during the quiz, Derek spends his time asking us the time, and trying to speed things along. His questions remain terrible, the standard was simply pathetic. Plus, there was the stupid buzzer again, and a lot, a lot a lot of theme rounds, which quite frankly, ruin quizzes. He conducted the whole quiz in some weird ass olympic style, and we got medals instead of trophies as prizes.
We came second, by the way, losing out to Sanskriti in the end, as we couldn't get anything in the Anagrams round, and they got pretty much all of them. Why anagrams? Don't ask me. I went there thinking it was a quiz.
Anyhow, some good came out of it. I got footage on front page of the school edition of Times of India, and footage in the school section of the regular paper. Knowing that I'd have my mug in the papers, I ensured that I looked as ridiculous as possible. Along with a school tie worn over the T-Shirts they provide, I had my cap on backwards. My economics teacher reached the conclusion that I was a rebellious child, probably smoking, and drinking, after seeing the pic. Needless to say, I think certain madcap so-and-so's will seriously reconsider their general opinions as to me. Haha! The CSBG scores!

New Methods of Breaking Up, and Why Alanis is a Bitch

If you've heard a song by Alanis Morrisitte, called "You Oughta Know", you'd realise why. Well this particular matter is subject of a longstanding, and I think, my only argument with Vrinda, over the fact that Alanis is a bitch. Vrinda insists the Alanis is infact dude-like, for socking it to the chap who broke up with her. Hey, no problems with that, but you gotta have limits.
I quote you this line.
"Did you forget about me, Mr. Duplicity
I hate to bug you in the middle of Dinner"

OK, fine, you're upset, he's dumped you, life sucks, you want to kill him, BUT DON"T DISTURB A CHAP DURING DINNER! Its a cardinal rule, for crissakes, why in gods name would you disturb someone while they were having their meals. Its not right. She should be shot.

Anyhow, this discussion lead me to suggest better and alternate ways to break up, to ensure that Alanis Like Actions never took place. You remember your old kiddie birthday parties, where you used to give return presents to everyone who came? You know, a pencil box, or some toffees, or the like?
Well, me thought, why not give return presents while breaking up. This would be an unexpected and umm...pleasantish surprise, and would distract the Alanis-Type long enough for you to make a quick and decent escape.
It would work something like this.

"I'm sorry, I don't think this is working out very well anymore, and I don't think I want to see you again. But hey, Here's a Pencil Box for you, see ya."

Alanis Type: "Cool! Pencil Box! Umm...Why a Pencil Box? Umm...Where are you? Damn! You just broke up with me!
Cool,Pencil Box!"

Its brilliant! I don't know why anyone hasn't thought of this before. I should open student advisory centers, in the mould of one Richard Branson.

#@!!!**##*Touchtel!

For all of you who've had doubts, this blog is not dead. It simply ran out of juice. And before all you girls start going, "Oh, whats the use of living anymore", I mean my DSL line was dead.

Now, after that shamless ripoff of Lord Flashheart, of Blackadder, lets get onto more important things.

Firstly, I would like to roundly abuse touchtel, my DSL providers, for having the worst customer care service on the planet earth. After first deciding that I wanted my line shifted to Papa's office, they then decided that there was, in fact, absolutely nothing wrong with my line. After taking much of my time and sanity over the last week and a half, I finally got them to send a chap to fix the damn thing.
Their technicians, however, are very sincere chaps, who get the problem sorted out sharpish. They also had the genius of coming at 5 15, which meant that with no one else in the house, I had to cut tuition to ensure that they got the job done.
Blah!

So, basically, my blog has been dead for about a week and a half, which is seriously unfortunate, because I've had loads to write about. So I'm just going to list of a few things, and again borrowinging shamelessly from my brother, will expand on whatever you guys want me to, by dropping the appropriate comment. I'll cover probably the four most popular choices.

1. Mundane Musings on Independance
2. My Return to Shri Ram, and why I'm so glad I left in the first place
3. Why Derek O'Brian should go stick his head in a pig
4. Morals, Jayalalitha, and Don Bosco(they are, by the way, connected)
5. Class Dynamics, and the Saga of Shravan's Parenthood
   
6. Major Footage on the Front Page, and how I hope it solved a few problems
7. A review of Losing my Virginity, Richard Bransons Autobiography
8. New Methods of Breaking Up, and why Alanis is a bitch
   

If you comment quickly enough, I might just get it up by tonight. Me feel like writing a lot, and in the absence of blog, I wrote short story which I shouldn't have. And no, none of you can read.

Advancement of Theories

Madam, to celebrate the wonderful occasion of no longer being sweet, or sixteen, decided to provide a lot of us lunch today, at a place called Delhi o Delhi.

Let me first tell you, that aside from Gol Gappas, there wasn't particularly much Delhi about the place. The food, though was quite decent, though I was much dissapointed with the dessert selection. Its simply not decent, if there isn't anything Chocolate provided.

Lunch, as Douglas Adams has pointed out, provides a window where time stands still, and all great thinking can take place. As I recall, the Great Lunching Friars of some planet were exceptionally adept at having lunch at nice places, and the Editors of The Hitchhikers Guide were famed for their long extensive lunch breaks.
Anyhow, back to the point. Here are some of the great theories that were propogated, by me or others.

1. The Final Urinal Theory: When in a mens rest room, and when alone, or with one/two other people, you will naturally gravitate towards the last urinal, that is, the one next to the wall. Why? So far no logical conclusion has been found for this common phenomenon.
   Also, please note, that this is not an infallible theory. There always exists exceptions to this rule.
   
2. The Decent Guy Theory: This theory, stated by Saudamini(No, she's not as fat or large as a hundred Damini's, that's just her name), states that if there exists a sweet and decent guy, he is either a)Gay or b) Taken. This great thought was used to prove that Karan cannot be a sweet and decent guy, as he is neither Gay, nor taken. Strangely enough, there were no other sweet and/or decent guys present at the table. Such is life...
3. The Seventeen Year Old Axiom: When you are seventeen, there are few other topics that are as interesting as Sex. It doesn't matter who you are, what you think of yourself, but in a group of a people, you will talk/joke/bitch about topics relating to sex.This is an axiom, it has no exceptions. If you think it does, jaaaaaaaast.

Its also incredible the number of terrible stories we guys have to tell. Honestly, its a good thing this blog doesn't resort to gossiping.
Oh, we saw the return the The Mini, on DaMini, herself. Would admittedly have been a sight, if it was on someone with decent legs, but, such is the nature of things.

Independance Day tomorrow, and all that. I shall, as the expression goes, Go Fly A Kite.(Or attempt to, atleast)

Happy Birthday Damini!

DPS Dopieta, and Friday the Thirteenth

For the uninformed, a Dopieta is a Ferrari 1-2. A DPS Dopieta is a DPS RKP 1-2, which happened todays, at The Father Agnels Jubilee Quiz. The 1 was us, Me PC and Manny, or as we style ourselves, The Factory Products. The 2 was Anurag, Akash and Avik, or as they styled themselves, V.O.D.K.A(Vengance of Dada Ki Army).
The quizmaster was Joy Bhattacharya, and we were really looking foward to the quiz, as he in, In my Humble Opinion, one of the best quizmasters around. His questions are excellent, quite workable, and occasionally very very fun.
It was a wonderful quiz, where we overcame terrible luck on the directs, by picking up hazaar passes. We won on second last question types, on last round, in what was a very exciting, very close quiz, in a three way fight between us, V.O.D.K.A, and St. Columbas. St. Columbas team name was "Return of the Goat", which they explained was because they, umm... loved goats. Yeah, I know its an all boys school, but jeez guys, keep some standards!
Oh, yeah, did I fail to mention that MIS were somewhere 30 points behind?
Anyhows, to make you feel jealous, and hate me, allow me to gloat about my winnings.

1. Rs. 1500 in the shiniest, most crisp note availible. You gotta love the smell of new money
2. A pair of hideous sunglasses, which, the kindest have said makes me look like Keanu Reeves, from matrix, the biased have said make me look Jazzy, and the downright honest have said make me look like a joke. Regardless, we had great fun parading around the school in our new aquissitions, and pretending to be all dude like. The most brilliant moment must have been walking into Prema Pandey's 11-C english class, the three of us in disgusting Goggles, with big winners grins on our faces. The bio section was suitably amused.
3. An Allen Solly T-Shirt, which is a wee bit too big for me. Lets just say XL is not my size. PC was happy though, first time he got a shirt his size, XXL.
   
4. A packet of Crayons(Why??), a classic book(haaai...) and a Pen Type Thing.
5. Glory and Prestige, and general confidence.
   
6. We broke the Shreyas Curse, i.e, whenever up against an MIS team, that contains Shreyas K. Reddy, whether or not he answers questions, we enevitably lose.
   

Anyhow, that is all I have to say about that. But hey, this post isn't nearly over.
Today's friday the thirteenth, and Madam's Birthday. Lets all wish her happy budday, and I hope she reads the lovely card I've made for her, which I've posted here for her and you to see.
Today, I've been told, is also World Left-Handers Day, so wish me, please. Pip Pip to all the other Southpaws out there, too.
Khabbon ki Jai Ho.

Back with a Bang

Right, so I've been ranting about my poor showing at pretty much everything this year, and how I had to go fix that, before I got passed off for a useless bum.
Basically, I pretty much did.

I went for The Mothers International School Extempore Speaking competition todays, along with Aditi Misra, a non-deranged-eleventhie. It was quite a wonderful event, 17 schools, a good number, and more to note, 17 noteworthy schools, none of the riff raff. The event was the conclusion to their Birth Centenary of their Founder's(I forget the poor chaps name) celebration, so it might get, to borrow a term, more footage in the papers sometime.

Anyhow, like Karan has mentioned, MIS is quite a wonderful school. They're organised, the events are on time, and there is no bakwas speechofying, that is the bane of most events. In addition, they get major bonus points for not yelling "DPS Sucks", as is common custom in most of Delhi's schools. This is probably because they know they're a damn good school too, and don't have such an inferiority complex, that most other schools hand over to their students. Eaps was there, and so were a couple of very good speakers from Springdales, though one of them, Ashish, kinda got way way too dramatic. He sure had the audience with him, but in retrospect, I don't think singing "Kya Aap Close Up Kartein Hain" in an extemp is the best way to go about things. There was also weird, emotionally disturbed woman from Sanskriti, who kept yelling at the top of her lungs about how all men were bastards, and had done bad things to Women. I don't think anyone in their right minds would dare do bad things to her, they might end up suffering from loss of hearing, as a result.

Anyhow, to the event. Half an hour for preparation, after topics were given, which was basically 20 minutes, but good enough. Topics were decided by a draw of lots, and there were plenty of topics to go around, so no two speakers got the same topic, as has happened in previous extemp events I've been for.
My topic was, "Peer Pressure: To Do, or not to Do". Initially a little flummoxed(yeah, I know I've spelled it wrong, so jaast) with the grammar of the topic, I just wrote what came to my mind. Ten minutes later, I had something resembling a draft, which I then extended, put in a few fancy shmancy quotes, like "Burn your own Demons", and concluded. It was a nice, well written thing, and I got down to practicing it for time. Good thing I did that, because when speaking, I knew exactly how long I was going to take.
Fine, I'll get to the point at long last. I spoke damn well today, modulation was right, no stuttering, and it was well written(which is always the least of my worries). As a result, and boy I've taken a long time in getting to this, I Won! Woo Hoo! Best speaker: Me, and Best Team, DPS, R.K.Puram. I picked up a Midlands Gift Voucher for Rs. 400, which means Damini is getting a nice birthday present after all, and very nice looking trophy cup too, all big and shiny, and laters, I found out, it's returned to DPS after a sabbatical of a year. Apparently, my...ahem, predecessor wasn't able to pick it up last year.

So I'm back, and I've earned back my tie again(long story), and all is well under the wide good sun. I might even end up enjoying a dinner at my house tonight, well, I'd always enjoy the dinner, the company, rather.
Ah, its good to be back in the winning ways. Lets hope it carries on to tomorrows, at the Fragnels Quiz.

EDIT:

Well, today's just been getting better and better. After school, I went for my tuition class, which passed by quite puickly, for a change. I step outside, and its nice and drizzly, the perfect kind of rain for taking a long walk in, as nothing gets exceptionally wet. Plus, the sun was out a bit, so there was the wonderful contrast.
So, from class, I walked to Sonali's, picked her up(not literally, this time), and dragged her along to midlands with me, where I shopped for budday present for Madam, and picked up a nice short story collection of Ray Bradbury for myself. Only, this is midlands, so I got two books, one of them giftwrapped, gave a voucher for 400, and still got 25 bucks back.
You know, talking and meeting friends after a long time is a really great mood upper. First Eaps, and then Sonali, its been a perfect day.
So, then I drop her back home, and proceed to GPM for my haircut. After which, I decide to treat myself with remaining 25 bucks to Gol Gappas at evergreen, and a AAA battery.(My rechargables had run out of juice)

You know how they say "In short measures life may perfect be"? Well, I've just had a whole day, that was pretty close to perfect. So up his, whoever the poet was, he doesn't know what the ruddy hell he was talking about.

Just a little Patience

Every family carries a few sayings, wise saws that you hear enough times to get ingrained into your psyche, though not heard often enough to make you resent them. My family has enough, but a particular favourite of mine, and my father's, is this 'un.

"The Vulture is a Patient Bird"

While this doesn't sound exceedinly profound, its one of the best lessons I've learnt. What is basically means is that, like the vulture, if you're patient, and stick around, you can pick off things that hastier creatures of habit will definitely miss.
Basically, when you feel that people around you are getting ahead really fast, and that you should jump into the fray, to grab that quick advantage, just remember the value of patience. Plan ahead, way ahead, and be ready to pick off the scraps.

I was asked today, if it ever gets one down that the rats in the rat race seem to be getting ahead, and that a lot of times, a lot of fakers and Peter Keatings(Go read Fountainhead) get all the glory. Who cares? The Vulture is a patient bird, and whatever goes around, without any fail, comes around. Its the whole circle of life type thing, central to Buddhist Philosophy, and Disney Animated Movies.
I talk too much, me sign off now. Besides, its nice and raining. Should go for a stroll.

Ugh

Yeah, we came fifth in the finals. Me don't really want to write about it, majorly bummed right now, and probably will be for a day, at least. Luck, it simply ran out, questions, they simply didn't come our way, and all our directs got passed out. Blah!
Attempts at cheering me up will not be appreciated. Efforts to abuse me will also not be appreciated.
I'm going to study now, I haven't done that for some time. Also, my marks, like I had said, have indeed picked up, with a current 90% aggregate in my second Monday Test Series, so lets go with what works when this clearly is not.
Who knows, I've got a couple of extempore's and debates coming up...somethings gotta start going my way.

Columban Open, Day 1

What a day. What a terribly screwed up day. Wheras yesterday showed how luck tells in a quiz, today showed what happens when you're having a really really bad day. My team, Hum Do Hamare Do completely zonked out after a solid written prelim round, and answered very very few things. A prefixed "S" is all that separated us from Rape at the Columban, but through some miracle of nature, we just managed to qualify. It didn't help that we were in the group of death, and the day of death at Columban, with pretty much every single established team,(aside from Saint Columbas) having their draw today.

I'd love to write more about this, I'll give a decent edited report tomorrow, but buh bye for now.

History Repeats Itself

I went for HT Pace today, and like the title suggests, I came third for the second year in a row. I really hate this quiz, its too easy, its even easier than University Challenge, and its too gimmicky, but what more can you expect from Siddharth Basu.
Congratulations, firstly, to Shakey, for getting Delhi Runner up, and of course, National Winner of the quiz.
I also have got yet another flat screen TV, 15 incher, this time, so if anyone wants to but it, please drop a line. I'm willing to go under MRP for the thinggumy, its Samsung CTV and all that. Me want to sell, and buy myself and iPod with the proceeds.

Anyhow, back to the point. Let me Describe the HT PACE Inquizsitive quiz.
We show up, obviously early, so walk around Talkatora Audi, waiting for teams to show up. Only, this isn't a quiz, its a "Mega Event", so not only do 5000 participants from schools as vague as Little Flower Sr. Secondary School show up, they also bring 1000 person cheering squads, so they have a shot at winning the Best Cheering Squad prize. Someone needs to remind the organisers, that this is, in fact, a quiz.
So, the whole audi is packed with huge cheering squads, some with drums, and usual riff raff nonsense, who are shouting at the top of their lungs, so us poor quizzers can't really hear a thing. Next, for the next one hour, before his hairlessness Sid Basu decides to arrive, we have to listen to Ma Tujhe Salaam, by A.R Rahman continously, OVER AND OVER AGAIN! For crissake, you'd think they'd change the song, maybe, but no, for two years, and probably all the years we didn't take part, its been the same damn thing.

Finally, after ages of waiting, the prelims begin. Sheets are distrubuted, and we find that the Prelims are all of 15 minutes long, with 25 questions. That, of course, is not the worst of it. The quality of the questions was so shabby, they actually asked who the columnist of Rude Food was. Qualifying score was, get this, 21 on 25. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how terribly simple the questions were, so the first miracle of the day was that we actually qualified, as several quizzing stalwarts, such as MIS, and Saint Francis De Sales failed to do so.

The main round, to make things worse, was almost all on the buzzer, with negatives. This made guessing a virtual impossibility, as no one wanted to risk points. Not that it was really important, what it came down to was fastest finger first for a majority of the questions, as pretty much all teams on stage knew the answers.

Well, we had the fastest fingers for the first 5 rounds, and were leading, but lost our touch in the final buzzer round, and hit a couple of negatives, and end result, came third.
Blah! St. Columba's came first, and Springdales DK came second, and qualified for the national finals.
Now, don't begin to think that National means representative of our great nation. National means whichever town HT has a prescence in, which includes Lucknow, Jaipur, Bhopal, and that true bastion of quizzing genius, Chandigarh. If the Delhi teams did not beat them, they should have felt ashamed of themselves, these were terrible terrible teams. Thus, St. Columba's deserves a kick in the groin for coming 5th, and not taking second place. Kudos to Shakey, and Springdales for taking advantage of the situation, and picking up a nice DVD home theatre as the first prize.

Well, all done with the quiz, we return to the debacle in the auditorium. They had a chief guest, of course, Veeru had showed up, and this drove paagal vela audience even more into a frenzy, and they begged and pleaded with us quizzers, who were close to him, to get them autographs, and the like. He's a sweet chap, Sehwag, doesn't say much, though, kinda overawed with everything. At any rate, he signed the T Shirts we got for the quiz, so we were nice and pleased.
The highlight of the quiz came right at the end, when they were announcing the prize for "best cheering squad". Now, there is this silly ass girls convent, called St. Thomas School, who send a 3000 girl cheering squad for each one of these big show events. They have huge banners, and shout themselves silly, which is really stupid, as their teams have never once managed to qualify for any quiz in Delhi. But they pride themselves on their amazing cheering capabilities, and get very hyper about it. So, the announcer dude(who Basu's wife was flirting majorly with), calls out the winners, as Saint (and at hearing St. 3000 girls of STS start squealing their heads of, and start of in insane victory dance) George's School! St. George's now go wild with excitement, while the girls from STS finally realise they haven't actually one, and the collective look on their faces was priceless. Imagine having the one thing you thought you were good at taken away from you. They looked like a boy who's puppy had died. Hehe.

Right, enough of that. There are more important things to move onto.

Happy Birthday Eaps!

Vinay Eapen, or the Mad Mallu Maniac, or the Government Servant Lackey, or simply one of my best buddies, celebrates his heppy budday today. Gawd bless him, spending it in school with a bunch of Shriramites, but hey, it'll be the last of its kind, so all the best to ya, Eaps.

Right, must now prep for Columban. Clash of the Titans begins tomorrow, DPS vs MIS, for the umpteenth time. Lets see who comes out tops in the Quaters and Semis.

My friends get up to the strangest things...
Can someone please explain what Manav is...doing to Shravan?

It is Such Lovely Weather

There is rain today.
There is no sun today.
It is such lovely weather, we will have fun together.
There is rain today, there is no sun today,
It is such lovely weather.
So come, come, come to me my Love
Come to me my Love
It is such lovely weather, we will have fun together.

Finally got to sing that song after around 11 months of waiting.
It is such lovely weather! And its going to rain tomorrow as well, if these big bad clouds are anything to go by. WooHoo!
I might add to this post laters...just might.

August the First

Hey, guess what? Its friendship day, or so my newspapers say. By complete coincidence, two of me best mates are coming for dinner tonights, Manav and PC, along with respective family.
Other good things happen too, India actually giving Lanka a good pasting. Methinks Sachin should just take up legspin now, what, with 28 hundreds and all, he should aim for 200 weekats. Needless to say, he is playing the good creekat.
Yeah, enough making fun of Ranjit Fernando.
Yesterday, I saw the most amazing thing on the telly, Crocodile Hunter, the movie.
If you are not familiar with Croc Hunter, his name is Steve Irwin, and he is as mad a nutter as ever existed in this fine world. This is a man who named his daughter after his favourite dog and crocodile, this is a man who met his wife in a zoo.
But he crossed all sane limits in this movie(which, by the way, also had a really really insane plot, something about the FBI tracking down a satellite beacon that had been swallowed by a crocodile on re-entry into the earth's atmosphere, kudos to the chap who came up with that).
Sample this. He sits, and literally plays, with world's deadliest snake for five minutes, all the while explaining how you should definitely not try this at home, because the venom from one bite could kill 150000 rats. The snake, meanwhile, is desparately trying to bite the chap, so it can go on its merry way. He is, of course, taking this as an opportunity to sing love songs to the snake, complimenting its beauty and grace.
You simply have to admire the man.

Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man 2

Yeah, yeah, I got around to seeing Spidey 2 todays. Want a review? There are better ones availible on The Movie Blog, so I'll just shut up, and say that I enjoyed the movie, even though others thought it was too senti, and not enough kickass action. It was more of a movie about Peter Parker than Spidey, and how he has to come to terms with his own life.
The ending, however, is kinda corny, and we were as a result making lots of sarky comments to the same. We first confused it with Kal Ho Na Ho, and later realised it was actually more of a Dil Chahta Hai.

Anyhow, thanks to Copal for somehow managing to get us together for movie, and providing us very decent lunch afterwords. If I can procure some of the nicer diggie photo's of the event, including very...suggestive ones, I might put them on blog. Only time will tell.

Karan, meanwhile, has been reading and blogging on one of my fav things in science, quantum physics, and more particularly, Schroedinger's Cat. Do check out his blog, the link is on the sidebar. I also reccomend you all read Carl Sagan's Cosmos, and a couple of other books by the same.
Also reminded me of a good joke. Unfortunately, those of you using internet explorer, and not mozilla, will not get it.
In fact, those of you who do not know about Schroedinger's cat will also not get it, so go read Karan's blog first.
Anyhow...
Schroedinger's cat is not dead.

March finally Passed

Yeah, so we had our big fat DPS investiture today, over halfway through our term. Its basically a big old excuse to get Salman Khurshid and Narender Kumar over, for some odd reason, because, quite frankly, we're a little sick of them. Fine, President and Chairman, DPS society and all, but for crissake! They're here all the time!

Anyhow, it lead me to make quite a few discoveries. Lets list them out.

1. Doing things I despise hurts my essense. Meaning: I got acidity the night before, and the day of march past, and it went away right after the whole rigmarole.
   
2. When a hell of a lot of people are made to dress up in a manner that reaches the broader limits of audacity, the whole looks a lot better than the individual. Meaning: 100 twits marching looking like a bunch of deranged politicians look a lot better than just me dressed up like deranged politician.
3. Minus the tiranga sash, and Nehru (may he live a thousand lives as a Chinese Massuese in one of their industrial hamlets) Topi, I look quite decent in simple kurta pyjama.
   
4. I still have the amazing gift of saying the wrong thing, very loudly, at the wrong time.
   
5. Oh, unrelated, but at tuition today, I formulated my great law of mathematics. "Two rights will eventually lead you back to the same thing". This law was first postulated for Componendo-Dividendo, which, by the way, if you do twice to the same expression ,you end up with the original expression. Now, this is just a one step deal. In integration, you can go five six steps, do a lot of work, and still end up with what you started with. Its incredible.

I'm pretty sure I made a few more, but I can't recall right now. All in all, after the conclusion of horridness in the morning, it ended up being quite a nice day.

That is all.

IQuiz, bey!

Todays, we organised, conducted, generally had good time at the very first standalone interschool quiz at DPS, R.K. Puram, IQuiz, 2004.
The event, itself, could not have gone off better. Everything just clicked. More schools turned up that had confirmed with us, people who said they wouldn't did, and we got 24 schools, which is really impressive.
First and foremost, me would take opportunity to thank Bongo, and Jayant, for their excellent and high quality of questions, which were appreciated by everyone present. Next, one would thank Beta Manau, and Sud, for working damn hard over last few days, when disaster struck, with invitatations, and everyone who worked their butts off today, whether at regdesk, food, scoring, whatever. Brilliantly organised event, and kudos all around.

The winners, of course ,were MIS, who were on really good form today, and made us realise tha we're going to have to do a lot of work if we're to win Columban. Also found out that we are in the same pool as them, so its going to be competition right from the quaters.

On related MIS story, yesterday I was randomly told by Aditya Syag, and Chuhi that some random person in MIS, who's elder brother was an ex-dipsite, randomly now wants to beat me up. This all seemed to random, and methinks he has the wrong guy. Still, me will keep wary and watchful glances next time I enter MIS....
hehe.
This is a very arbit world we live in.

Happy Birthday Copal!

Copal Dahling turns 17 todays. Thats Kilograms, not years, by the way. She's putting on a bit of weight. Might have something to do with the 6 pieces of cake we force fed her todays.
Anyhow, she got nice budday present from Vrinda, which brings me to more interesting topic than this staid, and oft repeated one, which will continue time and time again. Well, once a year, at any rates.
You see, the budday present in question was wrapped in this wonderful thing called

Bubble Wrap!

Bubble wrap is one of mankinds greatest inventions. Besides being a great cushioning agent, it's also one of the most fun things on the planet, ranking right up there with Shiny Stuff, and elephant jokes. There is just this overwhelming desire to pop the damn things, and me and PC's enthusiasm for the same even spread to those who would like to believe themselves to be mature young adults, who do not indulge in childish activities.
(Oh, we also fought for Bubble Wrap, with usual loud grunting, but I won this time)
Back to the point. Popping the bubbles besides from being hypnotically fun, is also therapetic, and I had a wonderful day as a result, with big old smile on my face.
They should keep huge sheets of bubble wrap in classrooms, so whenever you've had a bit of a rough time, you can tear off a piece, and pop away.

No need to go down...Stairs!

Ah, what a wonderful day it was. Aside from the joke of rainfall that we recieved, which is, quite frankly, Indradev's way of saying "Nyah Nyah, suckers", and the horrendous march past practice, it was everything Mondays generally aren't.
First, I had a decent Physics Monday test, in which I may get 23, if I'm lucky. Thats on 25, so me understandably happy.
Then, during end of MT, one finds out that our class has finally been shifted to first floor of F Block, ending our days of misery on the third floor.
Now, it used to be fine and all when we were in 11th, and had lots of company up on third floor, but in 12th, all other sections are posted either on first, or second floors of E or F block. We've been up all alone, and its been terrible. Aside from the ignominity of having the climb three goddamn flights of stairs just to reach ones class, and various trips up and down for reaching any other class, the third floor is amazingly hot, compared to closer to ground level classes. Also now poor Copal dear no longer has to go down...stairs.

I've got into a good bit of trouble, apparently, with some Bewnis from Humanities, as they have taken some strange offence to being called the Dregs. Firstly, I cannot take credit for coining the phrase, "Dregs of Humanities"(though I wish I could). The phrase itself was coined by one Manav Kapur, and has merely been adopted by us for describing the general breed of a DPS humanities student. One must say that it is quite a clever pun. Anyhow, the Bewnis have responded with an even cleverer come back of their own. They're calling us, (dramatic pause) The Dregs of Science!
Well, creative they are not, but hey, lets give them five on five for effort. They've even made noises about setting up a hate blog dedicated to flaming me. Wow. I feel honoured.

Switch topic.
Our class has outdone itself, for our class assembly, we have chosen the topic "Monsoon", and me expected to deliver speech on the same. Gaah. Methinks I shall narrate story of Indra's thousand eyes, just to smite the bugger, and prevent getting Tamatars thrown at me.

School Love Part Deux

You absolutely have to love our school. This is typo on English Monday test, of all things. Hehe.

Top Dog

Ah, being male brings with it great struggles for power and dominance. Sure, it helps if you're six foot something, and 90 kilos, but even us little folk indulge in the fight for being Top Dog.

See picture below, on previous post. This is whom my fight for Top Dog position usually occurs with, PC. What do we fight for? Sadly, the cool things aren't really acceptable in our society anymore. We can't go at each other for the right to mate with the most desired female, because then most desired female would turn her nose at both of us, and go off with the sweet sensitive underdog. We can't fight for territory, because we don't really have any, and we can't fight for status and respect, because we already have that. Well, we did, that is, before you started reading this post.

Because this is what we fight for. The right to play with assorted objects, ranging from stress-busters (the things you sqeeze in your hand), to assorted soft toys/shiny things/generally Archies Gallery Nonsense brought by our female friends to school.
The fights themselves are spectucular displays. We both grab onto required object, get a decent grip, and then start yelling Nyah! Nyah! at each other, till one of us gives up, or looses grip. Winner gets the spoils for all of five minutes, after which, this process will repeat, and the chap who lost the last time will inevitably win the next. This will be followed by further Nyahing, and will end up in more simple grunts.

See what we poor menfolk of the 21st century have to resort to. Ah, for the times where you could bonk each other on the heads with large battering clubs. Where have those golden days gone?

DPS is a funny funny place. Now, I ask you, could the two gents above ever be considered even moderately attractice(two gents being me and PC)?

Lets face it, PC looks like an overgrown kid, and I just look fast asleep. In any other school of Delhi, we'd be cast aside as evil gargoyles, not fit to be included in decent conversation. Except we're in DPS, and in DPS, people, and more specifically, members of the opposite sex, are insane.

This is why PC has a couple of Dregs (of Humanities) staring and following his ass around, and loudly commenting on it. This is why stranger, nuttier eleventhies seem to think I'm an acceptable pass for someone you can have a crush on.

This is why I love my school. There's hope for the least of us. Well, almost, hehe.

Constants

Me and Vrinda(Vrinda and I, for the pedants) were looking for constants in life, to cheer us up, as well, things aren't that constant right now. You know how they say everything changes, and the only constant is change? Well, they're mostly right, because we came up with pretty much squat. The only few constants we could find weren't anything to take much light from. Examples of this include Abhishek Raman's stupidity, which is a constant value close to the speed of light(3X10^8), and the fact that Manav will inevitably do something at the wrong time.
Other examples were far more depressing, and included Safdarjung Enclave's staid and boring Central Market, whose most remarkable development in 16 years of my life has been the change of the major provision store's name from Machanda's, to Citi-Store(Yay...).

On the other hand , there are these insane amounts of constants in physics and chemistry, which are highly bugging, as they have large decimal place multipliers accompaning them. Ten raised to the power of nineteen is a bit much for life.

But then, change can be good too, I would pretty much like change right now, rather than continue with current scenario types. Its a constant fight, me thinks.

Did they get you to trade, cold comfort for change?

Sums it up pretty well, I think. Except that our constants aren't much comfort right now.
So I think I'll take change this once. May interesting things start happening to me.

Writing is quite thereputic in times like these, though, so there are probably going to be a profusion of blog entries over the next two weeks, at least till the Columban, where I'm doing pretty much jack all aside from hitting my books(in frustration, of course).

Ah, I think I have found in this keyboard a vent for all pent up frustapa, and thingummys.

Good, good.

Captain Stupidity and Unstereotypical Quizzers

Firstly, on Captain Stupidity, Sourav Ganguly. This man loves to experiment. Now, experimenting when the chips are down is a great thing, and I approve, but what in gods name is the point of sending in Parthiv Patel to open the innings when you have not one, not two, but THREE of the worlds top openers in your squad.
Then, of course, there was his dismissal, you have to love that.
Ganguly is the only player in our team who doesn't perform consistently, and the only reason he has a place in the side is because he's captain, and we kind of keep winning, no ruddy thanks to him.
Secondly, me all braced for maths monday test, and pray for no silly mistakes come tomorrow.

Ah, thirdly, a topic that my brother was going to take on, but didn't, so I thought I'd offer my two cents on the matter.
See, here's the thing. Quizzers in our fair country, and specifically, in a very Punjabi Dominated Delhi, are almost exclusively Bangaali, South Indian(specifically Tams, but not always), and occasionally, Biharis. One thing quizzer's are not, is Punjabi. (Another thing quizzers are not is girls, but that is a completely separate and unfortunate story in itself)
So this is the strange bit, DPS's school team, which I am a part of, is completely Punjabi, if one includes Anurag, who is pretty much Punjabi, owing to the abscence of a great Multani community. And like my brother, we also get quite lost in a group dominated by Bangaali quizzers, and Bangaali quizmasters. There are all sorts of questions in there that simply cannot be answered unless you are Bangaali, or in love with Bengal.
Along with this, we get pretty funny stares a lot of the time, well I do, because quizzers generally aren't used to the kind of brashness and lack of social decorum that Punjabiyat provides you. Quizmasters, especially, are quite taken aback, but hey, thats my fault.
On top of this, Punjabis are openly perverted, and this gives us an edge. As a team, we can answer every single dirty question that comes our way, to the surprise of the quizmasters who set them in thinking no acche bacche kids are going to be able to answer this. A typical example of this happened at Kanpur, where the QM was very very surprised that a bunch of school kids knew that J'Lo and Brad Pitt's asses in Madame Tussade's had been made sqeezable(don't ask me why).

Hehe, so such is the nature of things in our little world.

Match is looking in doom like situation right now, and me needs good nights sleep types. If miracles happen, I shall know in the morn.

Point of Minima

Yesterday has been officially identified by me as the point of local
minima in my existential curve(Oh, by the way, I've been doing a lot of
maths today). From here on, things can only pretty much look up, and
guess what? They did.

I had a wonderful day. Fine, it wansn't wonderful in my happy happy joy
joy sense, but when you've been having a hard time, you take what you
get. Firstly, after ages, I got all of 7 and a half hours of sleep, and
woke up at a reasonably decent 5 30(as opposed to 4 AM). At this bright
and early hour, I discovered that Karate Kid was showing, and watched
it after ages. Reminded me what I needed to know, baby, "Must have
Balance"!

Around sevenish, I sat down to study, and finished tangents and
normals. Then I had a wonderful breakfast, with eggs, sesame toasted
bread, Gouda Cheese, and of course my favorite juicy, luscious pears.

After breakfast, me sent off application for Correspondance course for
Law Entrance. Then got down to doing Increasing/decreasing functions.
Finished that too. Then had tuition class, where did more work. For the
first time in months, I have actually been motivated to work, and have
thus done a good job of it. One hopes rich dividends will result, will
wait and see.

Then the most amazing thing happened. After a seemingly neverending
drought, Lord Indra finally decided enough was enough, and bestowed us
with some rain, right when my class ended. This gave me wonderful
opportunity to get drenched, while Abeer Chuha ranted and complained
about how his mobile phone was going to get zonked.

Returned home, and did YET MORE MATHS!(Maxima/Minima, by the way) I
don't think I've ever done this much work for monday test. Well, enough of this, I tell you another fun story.

Lord of the Flies

This season is also a time when flies abound all over the place, and
are wont to buzz around and irritate you. Last year, I discovered my
hidden superpower. I am, in addition to a lot of other titles, Lord of
the Flies!

Flies don't bother me once I tell them the buzz off. When I tell them
to bugger off, they go fly up other guys pants. They generally don't
bother me, once I tell them so, and will seemingly buzz around anyone
or anything else, to others irritation.
Now, people didn't believe me last year, but since it has continued
this year, they're starting to think there's something to it. Jezebels
such as Copal, and Damini now admit that it seems to work. Let that be
a point to all disbelievers, beware the awesome might of The Lord of
the Flies!

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.