Arabic Southpaws

I'm a southpaw, a lefty, and other such euphamisms for those naturally inclined towards the right side of the brain. Now, while life is more or less the same for us folk, it does pose a few problems, where handedness can be a disadvantage. For instance, when I was growing up, it was next to impossible to get musical instruments designed for the left hand, and even tougher to find a teacher willling to teach you the wrong way around.
One of the lesser, played down hassles of being a lefty is writing the roman anglo saxon, or even devnagiri script. You see, it's just not designed for lefty's, it's written from left to right, which is something which got me thinking.
See, there exists an entire script subset that writes from right to left. Aramic, Arabic, and Hebrew and their derivatives, which all must share a common background are all written the opposite way around. This lead me to think, why such a thing would have happened, and I also thought about what people would have been writing with in those days, rudimentary ink pens prone to much blottage.

Taking all these factors into account, I came up with a theory of language. Now, when someone is coming up with a script, or pretty much anything in human society, it's more or less an individual effort, or a maximum of two or three. The whole world did not get together to decide how to invent a lightbulb, Edison took care of that quite nicely. All original ideas basically come from a select number of people, and all advancements to those ideas are done by the masses.
Therefore, even the scripts we use to write with, and how we choose to write them would have devoloped from a few ancient smartareses, and not the medivial lexicological committee of the fifth Ataturk.
To simply for both myself, and dear readers, let us consider that two bright chaps, one we shall call Huhn, and the other Torr, living in two sepate localities realised that it would be a mighty bright idea to invent a way to save all the fascinating things that were being said all over the place. A couple of them might even have wanted to write magnificent histories of times immemorial, and we shall call these two the "Early Bloggers".
Now, here's the clincher, one was left handed, and the other right handed. The Lefty, lets say Huhn, picks up crude writing instrument, dips it in ink, and starts writing from the right side, so that his hand won't smudge the text he's already finished. After he's done, he shows everyone, "See! Arabic/Hebrew!", and everyone goes, damn, that's not a bad idea. So they all try to copy him, and most are right handed, and have a jolly stupid time doing so, because they keep smudging the text, and thus calligraphy was invented.
A similiar sort of story happened with Torr, who was clearly right handed, and started writing the other way around. Everyone again decided to follow in the way of this divine genius, and all was well. Thus my theory safely concludes that Arabic scholars were left handed, and Roman ones were right handed. That's just the way things go.
This is why I love the keyboard, it does away with the whole lefty righty problem of text, on the otherhand, my fountain pen thourorly messes everything I write up. Which is already messed up as it is, for to see what I am writing, I must hold my pen at an odd angle, starting somewhere at 180 degrees to the paper.
Take Da Vinci, for instance, and his "secret" mirror handwriting. Now, a man who had to write so much, and with them horrible blotty ink pens, would cleary want to write from right to left, him being left handed, and thus the only reason he wrote in mirror was for pure convinience sake, not to keep his ideas a mystery for the world at large.

In conclusion, as I have said before, thank god for the keyboard, and other detro-leavo neutral devices. Thank god for two shift keys, and thank god for a mouse that's not ergonomically designed not to fit into my left hand.

Arrival Lounge

Yesterday,and what extended into what is commonly known as today, I went to Indira Gandhi International's arrival lounge, for the umpteenth time in my life, to pick up my NRI Cousin returning from foren.

See, I visit the airport quite a lot. My father is a frequent business traveler, and of late, my Bua has become quite jet-bound too. Added to this is the fact that our house is the ubiquitous "family house", and thus still serves as a semi focal point for a now far and disbanded joint family, when it decides to return from the four corners of India and the globe. The arrival lounge, thus, is quite a familiar place for me, and I've seen in not change (because the IGI is a disastrously badly managed airport) for the past god knows how many years. The only change I saw this time was a new Cafe Coffee Day counter, which was actually seeing business, unlike all the other shoddy, terrible quality kiosks.

The Arrival Lounge has by necessity, had to provide many options for entertainment, as my father holds records for spending time in baggage check and customs, records which he consistently breaks every so often. Thus, I've usually had a lot of waiting around to do, and in the absence of any real entertainment, you have to make your own. So I stroll about the lounge, and watch things. Arrival lounges are strangely enough, remarkably interesting places for people with a keen eye for interest, and unless you're stuck in one place, you'll miss a lot.

The first thing that you can do, if you are male that is, is check out females. Airports are quite a high density zone for babes, both desi and vilayati. Somehow, though, I only ever see them for the first half hour of waiting, and then all I get is fat ones, but you can't have everything, can you. Now, this may sound like an incredibly perverse, "female objectifying" thing to do, and well, it is, but quite frankly, I don't give a stuff. It's fun entertainment for anyone with as many y chormosomes as me. Anyhow, at last visit, I was not disappointed, no not at all. Most noted was PYT attempting to explain to lost dad how to operate cellphone. Now, this is not to say age of dad has anything to do with him being lost, I would have been just as lost as the poor man, but a far more receptive student, I would say.

Anyhow, we move on. Next come the Tibetan Buddhists. Now, if you frequent the airport, you will see a remarkable amount of Tibetan Buddhists arriving from all over the world, pretty much all the time. They're even more jet set than Sardars, and that is saying a lot. They come in droves, traveling in groups of ten and over, and you always see them with their nice jolly smiles, and shaven heads.

Next, we move to the people you think you know, but can't say for sure, so you eye them every once in a while, till they think you're a little bit nuts. You of course, don't really know them, otherwise they themselves would have said hi, but such is the nature of things in arrival lounge dynamics.

Then, every so often, there are people you actually do know(Or pretend you know, at any rate) and run into in an Arrival Lounge, and this actually happened yesterday. You know the incredibly stupid way of starting conversations with someone you bump into at the movies "So what are you doing here?", well that was topped by conversation starter at arrival lounge.
Sample this. I run into, or rather 11thie-broad-who's-name-I-forgot-but-by-description-V-assures me-is-Anandita runs into me at the Airport.

11thie Broad: "Hi! So are you waiting for someone"
How is one supposed to respond to this? Sarcasm inevitably takes over.
Me: "No, I'm here for the enjoyable night time experience"
I then proceed on in my walk, expecting her to walk alongside, because well, I do expect these kind of things, when she come up with another gem.
11thie Broad: "Slow down, I can't keep up with you, my butt is hurting, man."

Yeah, that was about it for me. Conversation was just bound to go downhill from there.
But anyhow, it just objectifies the point of how Arrival Lounges are fun an interesting places, where one can in fact while away time while waiting for baggage to arrive. And if absolutely nothing else strikes your fancy, you can always watch the many happy reunions of families reunited with long gone relatives, or cute kids sitting on their luggage trolleys, or other wonderful sights and sounds of the Indira Gandhi International, possibly the only thing with her name that can bring joy to anyone.

Tears of Joy?

Have you ever laughed till tears came out? Till recently, I had not done so very often, but off late, even smaller level laughing has triggered it off. Two incidents make recall in my head today, which objectify this.
The first, I have already elaborated on, in a previous post, the incident of the tenthie who made his father his neighbour. When I told my parents the story on the dinner table, that got me to laugh to tears.
Short Diversion: I think one of the foundations of healthy families is dinner table conversation. There are a lot of people I know who simply will avoid sitting down on the dinner table at night, and let me tell you, they're all screwed up. So chuck the TV dinner, or the "Lets eat individually, and not together", because if you want a healthy family dynamic, you're simply going to have to eat together, and have a polite dinner time conversation as well.

The second time was a bit stranger, because it wasn't even one of those uproariously funny moments. I was watching the other day, one of my favourite movies, Finding Forrester, which for information, stars Sean Connery and and Rob Brown. It's about writing, which is something I really love, and thus the movie, which itself is good, pretty much hooks me.
Anyhow, it had reached the bit where the lead character, Rob Brown, is bajaoing the mean ol' proffesor, in a very non-obviously funny way, and I found it very amusing. I laughed again, and as I said, tears welled out.
Now, I always thought this was a very strange concept, tears while laughing, it seemed a bit off. Out of place, one would say. Tears are normally meant for sadder times, or when you get up in the morning(I have a lot of morning tears). But as with many things, my opinions are reforming themselves. Here's the way I now see it, tears are some sort of emotional trigger, and most of the time, we have terrible lives, where the majority of our stronger emotions are those of sadness, rather than joy. Hence, we cry. However, if you can have as powerful happy emotions as your sad ones, while laughing for instance, you will again be motivated to shed tears. How it works in general, I still know not. People react in different ways. When I'm angry, it can be spotted a mile away, as my ears go crimson red. But the tears thing seems to be a very common emotional trigger.
Here's the observable difference between happy tears and sad ones. When you cry at times of distress, one observes that you will also sniffle, and make other rude and disgusting noises, which prove to the world that being sad is just a simple waste of time. On the other hand, tears of happiness sort of come in a rush, and then dissapear just as fast, and the only noise you shall be observed to make is of course your laugh, which may or may not be a good thing.
I hope it is.

Next time I feel like writing, it might be about the judgement of beauty, which the abscence of anything material in life, abstract posts seem to take over.

Practi Kal

As the title suggests, I have my first (of two) board practical tomorrow, the subject being physics.
As the title doesn't suggest, I'm decently prepared, and have stopped worrying about the possible consequences, for in the words of another "These things are rigged".

Wonderful perspective it puts on life, doesn't it?

As the last...brief...post might suggest, I've been in a good mood. If I wanted to tell you why, I would have written about it already. But I haven't. So guess what?I'm not going to tell, nyah nyah.
Here's the thing with getting back in a good mood, it sets off a chain reaction. You work better when you're happy, and you start getting things done. When you get things done, this gets you into a better mood. The days pass nicer, and you've got a silly inexplicable smile on your face instead of Board Related Maudlinity(Even if it's not a word, I don't give a pair of dingo's kidneys). Contrary to a previous comment, I'm not in fact, in a Happy Happy Joy Joy mood, though not merely elated either. Searching far and beyond for an apt word to describe current emotion, one recalled the feelings of a matress named Zem (well, it would be hard for it not to be named Zem), who was quite Floopy. Thus, I globber on floopily, in this post.

Ah, here's everyone's favourite question these days: "What else?"
It has a terrible answer too. Nothing! It's the beggining of the month, and there's literally not much to do. I'll while away the next fifty days in seemingly large amounts of nothingness, till a whole lot of doing nothing is finally over.

Unfortunately, I have no fresh Sasta For the Day, but I'm sure that will make enough of you deleriously happy. Which you should be. Because it's a beautiful world, P.K Purvis.
Or whoever you are.

And I think to Myself

What a wonderful world....

In The End

Yesterday's farewell was best summarised by the one track we managed to headbang to before the decided to shoo us away. By some stroke of genius, they picked a song that summarized most people's life story over the last three months.
It goes something like this.

I tried so hard and got so far, but in the end, it doesn't even matter.

But seriously, every line seemed to be speaking out to us, and a large motley crew dressed in Sari's Suits and Sherwanis (oh, and the odd Dhoti Kurta was well) screaming out the lyrics with feeling and credibility really makes sense. While In The End happened to be a song about jilted love, it sort of spoke to us about our last few months, probably because of the repetitive jilts we have been getting, from every possible angle. The nice chart paper board where we could write our "Final Words" had a few gems as well. Still unable to get over an Almost Famous fixation, I had to write that my last words were, well, "I am GOLDEN GOD!"
And I am, too. Oh, and some smart fellow came up with the bright idea of labelling the batch of 2006 as Munnabhai, MMS, but I'm sure he wouldn't like the recognition for that invention...

I put my trust in you, pushed as far as I can go...

Yeah, well, we did. And in the end, it doesn't really matter ,does it?
Ah, on a personal front, the nice dinner we had planned after the school's farewell sorta fell apart, for reasons that interesting as they are should not be mentioned in public. Lets just say I have a few grouses, and as much as I'd like to, I prefer to keep my private battles off a public forum.

Time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings

My time at school is up, all further visits are prefunctory, or for the pure fun of it. Whatever happens, I no longer go back as a student, but as an alumni. The next two months are going to go slowly, but at the same time will fly by before I know it. Life will alternate between being busy, and being unimaginably dull, and it's going to test me good.

Things aren't the way they were before
You wouldn't even recognize me anymore

In some ways, you wouldn't. In some ways ,I'm struggling to retain my Elated monicker, and till now, I've still mostly won the fight. But every so often, I have to vent out a lotta frustapa on Blah!, to keep the rest of me sane.
How could I leave without offering my two bits of advice. You see, unlike many of my friends, born and bred dipsites, I've left a place before. The questions on everyone's mind is always what happens next. A lot worry, what will happen to our friendships? Will they survive the test of time? Would you still hang out with the same people after six months in college, before coming home from break?
Well, lemme tell you straight off. Three things are going to happen.
There's going to be a group, larger for some, almost nonexistent for others, that distance, time apart and fate crushing opportunity will be unable to break apart. Who are these chosen few? Ah, there's the catch. Only time will tell.
The next group is the one that stings the most. The chaps who just fade away. Often, they'll be people you considered your busom buddies, and quite often, they'll end up being the busiest.
The third and final group is the most exciting. The suprise packages. Aquintances that you thought you'd never think of again, but will end up becoming inseperable friends of yours. Well, at least till the next big hurdle comes along.

So who'll fit in who, in my life? I'd love to say I don't have a clue, but someone who's life and existence is run by his stomach generally has pretty accurate gut feelings.
Do you get to know what those are?
Fat chance.
It'll all come back to me In The End.

Reflections on a Republic

Happy Republic Day, everyone.

Every year, on the 26th of January, my country celebrates Republic Day. Most of us see it as a holiday, and an excuse for a bloated and unnesecary parade, which slows down life in Delhi, but as with many things, it started out meaning something.
In many ways it is more important than our very independance, because today marks the anniversary of the adoption of our constitution, that basically laid out what as a country we wished to do now that we were independant. In many ways, that constitution has been forgotten. In many ways, the consitution itself needs to be updated, adapted to our new world, but it's basic features are still sacrosanct, and ensure that we live on, despite our feudal politicians and corrupt beaurocracy.

The question is, and the question that must keep being asked is, do we have our fundamental freedoms intact? Do we have freedom of speech, of expression? Do we have equal opportunity? Do we even come close?
Lets take things one at a time.
Freedom of Speech
Well, yes and no. I'm writing this blog, you see, and on it I can openly abuse politicians, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the Bajrang Dal, with no fear of retaliation, or censorship. Whereas the law can do little to restrict my freedom of speech, life however is not that easy. The constitution cannot change society, and a divide of generations is still struggling to figure out what is open and acceptable in our world, and what is not. Luckily, I myself don't hold too many views, or lead a lifestyle against too many of societal norms, but for everyone who does, India still poses a great risk of freedom.
The second problem to our freedom of Speech are the politicians, who see it wholly appropriate to decide for me and you what is acceptable, and what is not. It is my opinion that free market policy should reign even in society, and barriers and norms will set themselves in much the same way that demand and supply do, as per the wants of the people.
All said and done, we must be thankful that our basic freedom of speech and expression can simply not be curtailed, if we are loud and vociferous enough. What is needed thus is not a change in law or constitution, or even as I myself would so much enjoy, a mass genocide of Politicians and Religious Leaders, but a personality change amongst ourselves, from timid Indians, to sure and confident ones.

Equal Opportunity
Equal opportunity will always remain a Utopian concept. People, by nature, are not equal. A genius, no matter what his social background, is going to have more opportunity of educational success than I am, even though I may come from a better economic background. I cannot make it to IIT, I have limitations.
On the same front, I can however study abroad, which is an opportunity simply not availible to many people in this country.
I think what is important is not ensuring equal opportunity in this country, but ensuring opportunity itself. Quotas need to go, completely. They are anti-opportunity, as the only people who take advantage of them are those who have already got their breaks. Quotas still present after over fifteen years have simpy not worked, and need to be rethinked. However, all the Politicians seem to want to do is increase quotas, to increase their votes. But as I said, when there is freedom of opportunity in the country, when it's not a disadvantage to be a Hockey Player, or a Musician, or Plumber, it won't matter who goes to IIT, who goes to Medical College, and who goes to Delhi University.

Right to Say No
The right to say no, after a public interest litigation, again one of those things that proves that democracy and our freedoms are and will remain intact, is set to be passed in the country. When I become a voter, I will have the opportunity to cast a negative ballot, to put in democratic system what I put in writing, that none of the candidates brought before us are fit, that we wish none of them, no party to get our vote.
My question is this. If a situation arises in a constituency where the absolute majority lies with the negative vote, should any MLA be elected? Is it right to represent a constituency where the majority do not wish to be represented?
Allow them to rule themselves, I say, give the money grant alloted to the politicians to the people, and see what will come of it. Then our democracy will be complete. When we have the right to rule ourselves.

Well, as Gump says, That's all I've got to say about that.

PS: Bhavya's brilliant Observation for the day: If references are given by referees, who give Testimonials?

Tennis Heroes

My Preboards, corr. bless their soul, are over. It is now a month and a bit before my boards begin, which is an insanely large amount of time, and I am bored to death, sick to death, and generally have been pushed to death by studying.
So I've taken a short haitus, before revision classes start at my Tuition Center, and till then, I have found ample entertainment in the Australian Open grand slam. After the praccis got over this Saturday, I spent a wonderful Sunday morning watching two exceptional matches, exceptional for entirely different reasons.

The first was between the man to whom the blog title generally speaks of, Andre Agassi, and a young Swede named First Name I can't Pronounce of Spell Properly Johannson. The match was incredible, it was amazing, it was good enough that I have run out of adjectives to describe it. It was your classic experience versus youth, David versus Goliath type thing, and unlike what generally happens in real life, Agassi one.
The Swede had the biggest serve I have seen in a long time. It was just sheer power, harder hit than even Roddick's gunshots. He hit, in total, an incredible 51 aces, and an even higher number of straight winners, and Agassi still managed to take it in four sets, after loosing the first in the tiebreaker. There were games where Agassi could actually not get a touch on the ball, because four straight aces ensured that he had no chance. The beauty of the game was Agassi's patience, and skill. If a first serve was missed, Agassi won the point on second serve. If the first serve was anywhere within a 3 meter radius of his body, he somehow managed to return it. It was just an incredible game.
It's made even more incredible by the fact that this man is 34. He's in wonderful shape, nobody his age plays competitive tennis at the kind of intensity and level he does. I salute the man, for his skill, his perseverance, and his mental strength.
Oh, and he's funny too. His interviews are great to watch. After his fourth round victory, when asked how he felt about facing Roger Federer next, his response was quick and kurt.
"Roger Who?"
You gotta love the man.
Oh, the next match was also excellent, because it had Maria Sharapova.
You really gotta love her.

Shortlisted

Ah, the big news for today, and it's nice to have some good news after a long time. I have been shortlisted by Singapore Management University, and my interview will be next month. This basically means they're happy with my acads, extra-curriculars and SAT Scores, and are ready to see if I'm a well rounded type of guy.
This is a lot of good news, because the way I see it, I've just cleared my weakest side.
So yes, I'm feeling happier and more secure at the moment, which I haven't felt for sometime, so basically: YAY!
Anyhow, on to less important things. I had something to write about yesterday, and I shall finish writing about it today.

Hedonism Redefined

I am a hedonist, that is, I see the purpose of my life(aside from the long term, biological purpose of creating new life) as having a whole lot of fun. I'm absolutely commited to my own happiness, and quite frankly don't care if everything else goes to bally hell to achieve it. A year and a half ago, I took a desicion (yes, I've spelled it incorrectly for the thousandth time, give me a break, I don't know how to spell words with e's, c's and s's all in combination) not to do Engineering, because, well, I'd seen my brother go through it, and I was sure that this was not something I could handle for the next six years of my life. It would have made me really unhappy, as I would have struggled and struggled my way through it, and never really done well enough. I don't enjoy that, no I don't, so I decided to drop the whole idea.
But here's the deal. Hedonism isn't only about the short run, you have to ensure your happiness over as long a period of time as you can. Thus, if I wanted to hang out with my brother while he was here, which admittedly would have been great fun, I didn't, delaying that pleasure for the pleasure of not having to fail in the Preboards.
Of course, this wasn't a great desicion, because my studying didn't seem to have any relavence to my actual result, but that's another story. The point has been made. It is important sometimes to sacrifice a moments joy for a larger moments pleasure, and it is important at other times to see if you're really sacrificing a lot of time and effort for something that's not going to make you particularly happy at the end of it.

Well, I must now sacrifice the pleasure of listening to very good music, playing freecell, and writing, to go study for my Practeecals. Lets hope that at least pays off, otherwise I might just switch to a complete Hedonist, living only for the moment.

Oh, it slipped my mind.
Sasta for the Day: What do you call the study of systematically tallying where snake bites occur on the human body?



A Poison Distrubution

And yes, I'm making these up on my own now.

No Rest for the Wicked

One set of exams finishes, and the next one will begin. There really is no rest for the wicked, half a days break I shall take today, and then it will be back to the grind, with preboard practicals, and then board practicals, and then something resembling life.

But anyhow, enough of the morose nature of things. On to nicer stuff. During the preboards, right at the beggining in fact, I had thought of an idea for another short story, proving to me once and foremost that bad timing is sort of inbuilt into my subconcious. It annoyed me to no end that here I had a perfectly good story(which all of you are going to pan, because it's not like the other stuff I usually write), and I couldn't write it for another week. Well, the week got over, and I finally got the time, first before the english paper, and then after the english paper, and I finished my little story off.
Now, I wanted to segregate my stories from Blah!, inasmuch as this is my journal, and that is my creative work, and the twain had been meeting a bit too much. So I created another blog, where I don't have to force journal readers to pore over my longish shortish stories, to see whether they like em or not, but the interested one's can hit the nice little hyperlink on this little bit of text I just typed out, and go read it. It's a nice new thing called Card Player, and it's about a game called The Three Card Monte.

Today's Random Observation of Brilliance: If the Ancient Mariner (The one with the Rime) had a blog, everyone would be forced to read it! Also, he'd have his story told to a much larger audience, and he'd be all happy about it too.

I had something I wished to write about, but I've now written a lot today, so I thinks I shall save it for laters. Time is no longer of the essence.
Till then, do have a look at my story, if ya like.
I would most definitely like. I'm paranoid about comments about my writing, even if you are going to pan it.

The Travails of Thinking

I reread The Complete Murphy's Law recently, and let me tell you it's just about the perfect book you can read during class 12 preboards. It makes life seem a little bit more normal, there's nothing like hearing that everything is supposed to be going to go wrong anyway, to make you feel better about the fact that everything is, in fact, going wrong.
But then I refer largerly to my Maths Paper, which was, in another man's words, an Unmitigated Disaster.
Anyway, to the point.
I've talked about this before, but then, it's quite a bit to talk about, and not easily covered in a day long essay. But here's the deal. When you have nothing to do, the only thing you have left to do is Think. Thinking is basically the root cause of all Man's problems in life, because, were he not to think, he would never imagine that he had problems in the first place. But then, you cannot not think, because then you deny yourself humanity, and turn into an oyster, or potato, or any such life form. So here's what human beings did, they reached a compromise. Man say, Yea as you are my father and holy son, and other biblical and profound sounding stuff, You will proceed to think only for a limited amount of the day, and spend the rest doing seemingly important things. You will play sports, you will blog, you will watch TV, and you will chat with friends, but thinking you shall keep to a god holy minimum.
But this all goes haywire when most of the above options are denied to you, and all that is left to do is think.
Here's another associated evil. You can think about
a)The Present: This you cannot actually do most of the time, and especially cannot do when your present involves thinking. You can't technically think about thinking, because that sort of thing is liable to drive you nuts, but proof that this has already not happened is, quite frankly, flimsy.
b) The Past : I have serious mental barriers set up so that I don't think about my past, for reasons I cannot remember because I have serious mental barriers preventing me from doing so.
c) The Future : Now here's the most dangerous thing to actually think about, and in my case, the only thing I actually can. You have three kinds of thoughts, in this regard. Really Short Term Future Planning, commonly known as, "What shall I have for dinner", or ,"Oh, there's a decent movie coming tonight.
Then you have Short Term Future Planning, which is currently along the lines of "How should I party after these wretched Boards are over?" or "where the hell can I learn how to cook in the holidays" and towards the latter bit "Where on earth am I going to be going to college to, and what will it be like?"
Then you have long term future planning, which is really quite rare, and involves things like "How screwed up are my kids going to be, really?"
Here's the deal, now. The future can either not be according to your expectations, in which case you shall be deeply dissapointed, and pissed that you spent time thinking about a perfect world that panned out.
Alternatively, the future can be completely wonderful, but not according to your expectations, because what the future never is, or well, never has turned out to be, is what you expect it to be.
Now, as per the ranting, I'm going to be doing quite a bit of that for at least a month and a half more, so I'll just have to deal with it.

Sasta for the day: What do you call a Sardar who's obssesed with PN Junction Diodes?




Bia Singh.

Forgive them lord, they know not what they do.

The Chemistry of Lohri

Yesterday was quite an interesting day. I spent the better part of the day preparing for chem, which ensured that I passed in today's paper, and the night was devoted to one of those yearly festival thingummies that comes around every 13th of January, namely Lohri/Lodi(No, not Behn Di, as Manav would have you believe).
Now, I would have myself believe that everyone knows about Lohri, but this is a great bout of cultural hooliganism. And yes, I really felt like using that word. Anyhow, the point is, not too many people outside of Punjab and Delhi really know what it's all about, so here's my pint sized take.
Lohri is basically a harvest festival, it has a lead up of a few days, and is finally celebrated on the 13th of January every year. It's traditionally supposed to be the time of change, when the winter makes it's last hurrah, and from now on, sunny days shine ahead. I hope this is true, and judging by the warm sun this afternoon, things are indeed looking up.
The days before Lohri are traditionally spent in what is basically the Punjabi equivalent of Carolling (for lack of a better analogy). Kids usually go around houses, collecting whatever there is to offer, and singing songs in a sort of annoying way to get what they actually want. Money.
Anyhow, such things are not very common these days in mixed society, but as Papa said, the mohal (atmosphere) was there when they lived in Daryajang, which is pretty much the textbook definition of Humble beginnings in Delhi. I'm sure there are enough Lohri singers still around in more Punjabi dominated areas of Delhi, but I lived in a pretty mixed colony.
Anyhow, we move on. On Lohri night, a bonfire is lit in the house, or as the case sensibly is, just outside the house. Obtained for stoking the fire are the essentials, good wood, and the non essentials, Gajak, Moongphali (peanuts), popcorn (admittedly, a recent addition to Lohri tradition), chikki, and other sweetened and fattening things that burn well, both inside and outside one's stomach. Then one sits around the fire, with one's family and near friends, in our case we invited our neighbours and family friends, and generally enjoy the nice fire, and good food. Then, Bua gets into a fun mood, and takes it upon herself to sing one of the afore mentioned Lohri Songs. I have, incredibly, found this on the net, and will reproduce it in entirity.

Sunder mundriye Ho
Tera kaun bachera Ho
Dhulla bhatti wala Ho
Dulle dhi vaiahi Ho
Ser Shakar Pai Ho
Kudi de boje pai Ho
Kudi da lal pataka Ho
Kudi da salu pata Ho
Salu kaun samete Ho
Chacha gal dese Ho
Chache churi kuti Ho
Jimindara luti Ho
Jimindara sado Ho
Gin gin paule lao Ho
Ik paula reh gaya
Sepai fadh kei lai gaya
Sepai ne mari it

Now, if after hearing this, your family is still not amneable to the old time money minding carollers, you are then universally shunned, and they will loudly yell infront of your house
--"Hookah hookah hookah, Ai Ghaar Pukha"
Which translates into this house is a bunch of hungry misers.
The whole thing concludes with a nice dinner, and for me, a good nights sleep before the chem paper. Well, at least this year it did.
This is one of my favourite festivals, actually, and it's a shame it's not really well known outside our little land. I'd spread it, if I had the time, but I'm afraid for the moment, I've just run out.

Two down, Three to Go

I wish I had six preboards, or six subjects, or whatever the right word for this is. That way, I could loudly claim that I've reached midway through my exams, and I could have done this consistently over this year, which has seen me doing pretty much nothing but give exams.
I'm quoting Keerthi now. I have also started writing exams just so that they get over. I no longer see a point to them, an objective, a test, whatever they're supposed to be, it's not reaching me. They just have to be written, so that they get over.
So I had economics today, which went remarkably well, considering I had decided not to study at all for half the course. Even stranger is how this was the exact part of the course I did remarkably well in. This is all fitting into my great theory that studying has nothing to do with your actual marks.
I was much impressed by the tenthie sitting next to me in today's paper, which is the entire reason I'm writing, actually. It showed me that the future of my school is secure, and if you think I'm being pragmatic, I'm not.
Here's what happened. The chap had not studied much for his german paper, and his last question was a ten mark essay type thing. Now, he had come prepared with all of one essay, About my Father, or whatever that translates into german as. This one, unfortunately didn't come, something he was banking on, and instead he had to write "About my Neighbour". This chap was understandably distressed, but the quick thinking and arrogance that forms the backbone of DPS surged in his veins. He waits for Gurpreet (The German Teacher) to arrive, and then asks him, in all honesty "Sir, can my father be my neighbour?"
Flummoxed by such incredible logic, Gurpreet said, write whatever you wan't we'll see later, so the fellow happily goes about writing an essay which would have started as "My neighbour is my father", followed by the rest of the father essay. At this point I was literally laughing my head off, which is not very advisable if you're giving a paper. Following this, I shook the guys hand, and if I could, I would have congratulated him, but you really shouldn't talk during a paper.
There should be awards for creative thinking during exams, but no, this is something our society doesn't really reward. Ah, well, such is life.

Preboards and Why Modernites are Completely Useless

Preboards started today. My lack of serious caring about them has lead to a relaxed attitude, which means I don't panic when I get into the exam room.
This means that I did today's paper almost in entirity, managed a couple of questions which I thought I had forgotten how to do, and generally didn't make an ass of myself.
But then, it's Physics, and one really doesn't know how many marks this wonderful attitude is going to transform into.

Modernites, whom I have always looked down upon (this is a school that had the audacity to turn admission down to me, not once, but TWICE) really have no lives. I have always believed this, and the world does nothing but to strengthen this great view of mine. But what really gets your goat is when They try to borrow yours! Karan pointed this blog out to me (god knows how he found it) and it's really kind of disgusting. You really have to lack a life to copy from one who is giving board exams.
They say imitation is the best form of flattery, but it really depends on who's doing the imitating.
Jeez!

Bhai Aaya

It's been a long time, hasn't it? Well, I've been very busy, very busy indeed, doing a lot of maths, and some physics, and here lies the problem. I'm writing right now, which is easily interpreted as "I've run out of study steam", and it's very very hard to keep a level of intensity going. Preboards are now all of three days away, and I just hope I get back into the groove this afternoon. Anyhow, a quick(could it be anything else) recap of my super exciting life since the new years.
My brother came home on the third-fourth(whatever you call the twilightzone of midnight), and in the three days that he's been here, I've actually had a very productive study time, largely due to the fact that I beat it from home, and studied at my tuition center. But then, the maths course got over, and you just can't put the same amount of time into any other subject as you can while doing maths sums.
On the distraction and "lets give the child a life" front, my brother got home CD's full of movies, songs and Music Videos. Of these the finest must be Manamadarasa.
Now, those closer, dearer and more able to tolerate me will have experienced in the past the sheer badness of Tamil Pop Music, as the last great gem my brother sent me, and continuously sang all the time was this wonderful little ditty known as "O Podu" ,which he later translated as "Give it, give it, stick it, stick it, Fuck You."
Let me assure you that the only thing worse than Tamil Pop, is Tamil Pop videos. Manamadarasa in particular, which is said to be a superhit, and what all the cool dudes at IIM B dance to(or attempt to dance to) is their champion, and I have seen it.
How do I describe this? The video opens with a very long drawn out Maaaaaaaaaaaanamaadaraaaaaasa, followed by, for some odd reason, Horses Neighing. Then the guy comes in to dance with the Not-So-Fat Tam female. The dancing is of a quality seldom seen, even in our age of remixed disasters. Imagine Govinda. Imagine Prabhudeva. Imagine they had a live in relationship relationship as life partners in Chennai, and through the marvels of genetic engineering, produced offspring. This offspring took to a career of dance, and subjected us to the Jhatkas and Pelvic Thursts of Govinda, at the speed and sheer agility of Prabhudeva. Such is the lead of Manamadarasa(Which is by the way translated into "God of Sex" or something like that). This is what comes out of erstwhile the most conservative society of India, the Tam-Brams.
Well, don't believe a word of it. These Tams are crazy.

Bad Timing

The Western World, and thus pretty much our world's new years is simply at the wrong time. This year, it's especially at the wrong time, in about a hundred different ways. I just wish we could all celebrate the new years like it was meant to be done, on Diwali, but such is life.
Here's why 31st December is Bad Timing.
Because over One Lakh people have died, and god knows how many more have been affected by the Tsunami. But then, that's hardly the year's fault.
Because it's cold, very cold, there's a wind blowing, and it's miserable. This is the time of the year's fault. They could have chosen November, or perhaps March, like the Chinese, but no, it had to be January.
Because I have preboards in a week and a half, and it's impossible to study properly in this kind of weather, hell, it's hard enough to type.
Because I'm feeling miserable, as I usually do at this fantastic time of the year.
I just wish it would get warmer, I wish these three months of my life could dissapear quickly, but I've got a feeling they're going to be long, protracted and hard to bear.
There's nothing to learn anymore, no competitions, no excitement in life, no interaction, all there is is questions and answers, questions you'd rather not ask, and answers you can't remember to give.
Ugh.
It's been a rollercoaster year, with it's major major share of ups and downs. I lost a bet at the beggining of the year, or maybe, I won it. Who knows. In February, I had the time of my life in Kanpur, in March, I outdid myself in my class 11 finals, in April, I learnt what a terror class 12 was going to be, through the summer I got further convinced of the fact. I had my last few hurrahs in August, September and October, with the end of my competitive life in school, and November December passed by in a flood of memories.
Anyhow, resolutions are all nonsense, no one ever follows them, so I thought I'd come up with a list of things to do for the next year instead. It's divided into the likely, and the damn near impossible, so I don't have to cry about not achieving half of them. They're not stated in any particular order of sanity, though they do have a common theme running through them. If you can aid me in achieving any of the Damn Near Impossible ones, contact me whenever. Especially if you got a clue about the Book or Ice Cream.

Likely

1. Gaining Ten Kilos(I needs the weight)
   
2. Becoming a Part Time Quizmaster
3. Going to College!
4. Having a milky coffee
5. Learning how to drive

Damn Near Impossible things to Do

1. Gaining two inches(In height, you sickos)
   
2. Getting a book published
3. Going backpacking around Europe
4. Having Sugarplum Ice Cream
5. Learning how to Skydive

Remember, impossible is just a word.
Happy Old Year, everybody, and besta luck tomorrow onwards. I'd give the season's greetings too, but lets face it, tis not the season to be jolly.
In the immortal words of my brother. I Hate Winter.

Old School New School

At the end of my school life, it's easy to just look at all the wonderful years, and think about what a perfect life I've had.
Well, it's been built on a hell of a foundation. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I have a great way of treating things I don't like, am uncomfortable with, or that have in some way caused some mental trauma to me. I bury them. Forget bury, I erase them completely out of my active mind, if they dare pop up, I just send them right back where they belong, my subconcious. Some of these are the kind of things you'd never get to read on this blog, and some are the kind of things I don't even tell my friends. Some things are best left erased.
But like a google cache, memories just don't delete themselves, they stay on indefinitely, till the cache gets bloated enough. Of the memories that come back are my ten years at Shri Ram, often cross referenced in my blog as "The Freakin' Hellhole I had to spend time in before I joined DPS".
Well, even I must admit that this was an overstatement, which is due to the exceptional time and experiences I've had at RKP, which my old school could not have provided me. Freakin' Hellhole may be pushing things too far, but it was certainly a place I was simply not comfortable with.
Here's a warning to everyone who's gone on about the advantages of small schools, and small classes, and all that Jazz: it comes with it's associated disadvantages, and some of those are more than I could handle. First, because things are small, (and because it was, quite frankly, a posh school), there were only one or two types of people there. There was, as The Lost Highway mentions, a great need of everyone to fit in to one mould, one style. If you were different, your life wasn't going to be made very easy, and that was always made quite clear to me, during my stay. I still recall(and possess) my Class 8 report card which had this thing called "My Page", which was generally bullshitting and drawing nonsense on a sheet, and I had suggested in it that we all just write in each others, like a yearbook, so we have better memories when reading it that the silly things we could draw at the time.
When I got my report card back, I had a long note in it from the Headmistress, about how I was arrogant, and very eloquently mentioned, in not so many words, how my opinions meant diddly squat.
It was after this incident that I really knew I wasn't going to fit into TSRS any longer. Then, of course, there were other things that happened in class 8, but like I said, not everything goes on this blog.
Generally, this was the attitude difference in Old School-New School. In TSRS, it had always been you can't, in DPS it has always been you can. In TSRS, you were congratulated for coming third, and then you abused the winners, especially if they were DPS. In RKP, you are asked why you didn't win, even if you came second. But here's the brilliant thing, when you're in RKP, you walk in expecting to win. In old school, I can't ever remember making as close friends in 10 years, as 3 years in DPS. There was just generally no one to talk to, about most things. My only friend actually left in TSRS, Vinay, was in fact a new admission in 8th. I still remember I used to make really good friends with all new admissions, in retrospect probably with the hope that they would be unlike most of my old time schoolmates. In DPS, you could conduct whole conversations with people without swearing at them, for absolutely no rhyme or reason. The few MSN chat convos I've had with old school waale has involved them compulsively abusing. In DPS, your seniors keep coming back, and helped you out, in TSRS, they all became Jholawallas and started running funny youth organisations, that tried to help you out.
So after I really settled into RKP, all these things seemed very very glaring, and old school became the afore mentioned hellhole. But, like I said, it was an overstatement. My childhood years couldn't have been better at any other school, the juniors are taken great care of at TSRS. There's something else nice I had to say, but I think I've forgotten it now.
All in all, I'm really happy old school is old school, and my school is mine. In which other institution could you win a trip to Thailand, go to IIT Kanpur, work your way so hard just to break it to inter school level, meet entire Large Groups with similiar interests and mindsets, and actually truly understand the meaning of Big.
To the disbelievers, to the rumour mongers, the media, to everyone who told me before I joined, and after I joined that I was crazy for leaving old school for new school, I'd like to provide a great big bad raspberry.
Fbbbdtththtthhtththth.
Now I'm done with that.

I did have one rather interesting conversation today, with PC, where he claims that ALL women, with only rare exception, are just out to find decent malleable "Raw Material" in guys, so they can mould them into what they find appropriate, thus the more malleable a guy, the more popular he would be.
Can all my female readers please comment, and tell him what a load of tosh he's on about?

Happy Bloggiversary

A year ago, Mundane Musings on Mannerisms came into being, which after a brief interlude of being really very dull, turned into Blah!
But you know that already. What you don't know is how much this blog means to me now, and how over the last one year, through the joys of class 11, the disasters of class 12, my creation has kept me both sane, and many a times, very happy as well.
Of course, there are the obligatory thank yous.
Well, thank's to me, obviously. I do write this thing, y'know.
Thank's to DPS, where I had my last working day yesterday, and left without so much as a whimper or cry. I think it'll take a couple of days for it to set into everyones system, that we're no longer going to meet each morning at the F Block Square, and our school days are officially numbered. The point of thanking the Alma Mater has been for the wealth it has given me to write about, be it my experiences, my competitions, and of course, my friends.
Thanks to them to, all my friends, some more than others. But we don't take names now, do we?
I promised something special this post, I'm sorry I have nothing much to offer. It's been a tough week, and my medicines are killing me.
The nice photo's you'll see underneath are from the last day, which was basically a gigantic photo taking session. It's wonderful to know that I've been a part of what I believe to be one of the finest batches of my school, in recent times. I can only recall batch of 2003 to be any better, and they were really stud. Like I've said, we'll answer Delhi's wonderful and prosaic media in six months time, the only way we know how.
A year out, school out, Life in general looking down and out, and one is tempted to sit back, and relax a little, or at least lie back and take a nap. But this isn't the end, of Blah!, of school, of life, it's only the beggining. There's nothing more I'd like than to just stop now, and enjoy the view, remember all the wonderful times. But in the words of Robert Frost

These Woods are lovely, Dark and Deep
But I have Promises to keep
And Miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep

Good Morning, everybody. We're starting up a brand new day.

We found out "What was the last topic!"

All the lads of XII-N

It doesn't get Verse than This

The test series have been going remarkably terribly, just as expected, so I've got better things to do than talk about them.
I will just make an addendum to previous posts, and tell you all that I do have ulcers after all, because the test for H. Pilori randomly decided to turn positive after 36 hours.
Anyhow, I did manage to have a bit of fun this week, in the form of my english paper. Repeating my class 7 performance, but oh so much better, I wrote some of my answers in verse. I however majorly improved upon this, by writing my long 150 word answer entirely in rhyme. Herewith, I shall reproduce my efforts. It's not "geek rap", like Bhaiyyas, but lets face it, I don't do rap.

Q. What was Lord Chesterfield's advice to his son. Discuss any five points in detail.

Ans.

After Lord Chesterfield's work was done
He sat down to write to his son
He said, son my advice please heed
Do not talk often without need
Inssecantly, it is very rude
To talk without break for food
In mixed company, said the Lord
Provoke not arguments if you're bored
And if the company is at your throat
Lighten the mood with a light joke
Speak not, he said, of yourself
Pride and vanity you must shelf
To leave your audience spellbound, and in trance
Talk with grace and countenance
If your words are good, people will still grumble
If you speak them with a smirk or mumble
The Lord also advised never to use
Even one small word of abuse
If for your reputation you care
Take great measures not to swear
Finally, Lord Chesterfield said to his son
Do not ever mimick, or poke fun
For those who's company you may adore
Will then to you shut the door.

I got six on seven, because Ms. Prema Pandey didn't see fit to give me full. Ms. Takru, who is far more enthusiastic about these things, said I should have got eight.
Many people asked me why me, or my brother chose to do such things. Well, the answer's pretty simple.
Because we can.

This and That

After doing a whole lot of organic chemstry, your mind tends to get a bit wobbly, and randomly starts spewing out terrible organic jokes, such as Madam Sodium Aldehyde, and hexanitrosobenzene being the world's best contraceptive(draw the structure and figure it out), and the like. Rather than go nuts, I thought I'd write a short blog entry, on...this and that.
I read a nice article in one of those education dailies about how English Literature was an important course material for all students, as it tought them not just the language, but how to read between the lines, which is an important skill needed pretty much all the time in everyday life, and could well be lost. It was written by some proffesor at Singapore Management University, an institution I incidently have my eyes on.

Happy days are seemingly not going to be here again for some time now. School's pretty much out, and till the boards are over, and come april, I'm going to be living in some collegeless, school-less limbo, which will mostly involve giving exams. Blah!

Anniversary is coming, namely my Bloggiversary(I love that word, rolls off the tongue, so much more fun than simply saying Anniversary). It's been almost a year since Mundane Musings started, and since that woebegotten time, my blog morphed into Blah!, has turned into Delhi's top resource for Gol Gappas, a major promoter for Rabbi, and has got the thumbs up from every single Ego Surfer with the name Bhavya, who googled in search for glory, and only found my blog. Incidently, one even mailed me at Gmail to admonish me for having the same name, dissallowing the same from getting their own first name at gmail dot com. For all this, I'd like to thank me, and tell the rest of you to Jaast. Or I could be sweet and say thanks for all the comments. I'm still planning out what to do for the 24th December entry, and with the paucity of ideas at the moment, it might turn out to be pretty sad.

Vrinda gave me my bit of advice for today, which shall commit to the annals of Captain Obvious'(another one of my alter egos) great words of wisdom. Here it is: Don't ever walk four kilometers wearing heels. Now, while I myself will never wear heels(I hope not, at least), I realisse that a decently sized demographic of readership is female, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Karan and Mnav have been known to crossdress, so it's great advice for all of ya, please follow it.

Dyspepsia

Yesterday, I had yet another one of my major stomach attacks(notice how I'm no longer calling them ulcers), and a repeat check up with Doctor Bhalla was immediately ordered. Coupled with this, I had also managed to sprain my back yesterday, in circumstances that are well...to embarrasing to mention on this blog. You can ask all you like, I still won't tell you.
Anyhow, on with it. This lack of physical motion, and extreme pain I was in yesterday lead me not to study at all for the Maths test series, so it was much relief that my appointment was at one o clock, and thus meant that I could not go and give the dangnammy test after all. But, on the other hand, it was a doctors appointment, and I am not particularly keen on those. I have a paranoid dislike of hospitals, clinics or anything else that smells of Phenol, and I especially don't like visiting them when I am the patient. Anyhow, so we arrive at 2, sharp, and wait for a right hour till three before I'm given a look see. So the Doc re-examines me, after seven eight months, or whenver the last time I visited was. I forget these things, I have a terrible memory, as I found out today; in completely unrelated circumstances.
Anyhow,I must continue. I was rediagnosed with Peptic Ulcers, as I showed all the symptoms of them, but the Doc wasn't very convinced this time,so decided to have a look see, in the very literal sense. In the interim, he prescribed me some hundred medines for the next one month, which I am supposed to have before, on or after my meals, depending which one it actually is. The whole thing is a darn sight too confusing for such a simple mind as mine, and I hope either of my parents, who have experience with this entire medication business, will help me in adhering to the regimen.
Furthermore, I was ordered to get and Endoscopy done, which is a big fancy medical term for shoving a camera tube down your mouth. The above mentioned thing was at six, at Panscheel Park, which gave me just enough time to scoot back from Noida Medical Center, reach home, and do nothing for an hour.
I reach the place promptly at five to six, and with all the filling of the forms, and putting on weird kurta-smock, it's a good fifteen mins before the doc arrives. He then explains the procedure very nicely, which I shall put into non-medical terms for your benefit.
"Right, what I'm going to do is shove this thing down your throat. When I so "when", swallow this pipe, and It'll slide right down. Actually, it won't, haha, I'm kidding, but count to a hundred, and it'll be over, Promise."
He then told me that if I wanted, I could be sedated, or as he put it "Knocked Out". I said no thank you, I wasn't going to have any more drugs shoved into me, and I quite enjoy the experience of being able to feel my whole body, unconciousness doesn't become me. The smock like kurta however, does, or at least my father claims so.
Anyhow, right at the moment the tube's going in, my Bua decides to pop in, so I have now three family members in room with me, for some odd reason. I thought this was a bit too much, so I shoo'ed them all out, parental concern is all very well, but I'd rather not have my entire family collected around going ooh and aah while viewing the contents of my belly. Honestly, it's a challenge to get the three of them on the dinner table at the same time, but Endoscopy, sure they'll all show up at once.
Anyhow, the tube goes in, I swallow, and it's in my throat. Now, the last thing your throat wants at this moment is a tube down it, so it immediately decides to try to vomit it out. Except, there's one small problem with all this. The tube CANNOT be vomited out, as it's pretty much gone in all the way to your stomach, and is now taking pleasant shots of your Ileum, duodenum, and tumdiddlydum(Fine, I invented the last one).
Ah, so right at the moment the picture taking begins, Doc Bhalla calls in Bua, as a fellow medical persona, for a nice insight of the life and times of Bhavya's Stomach lining. "See!" he excitedly claims, "the remanents of the Kadi Chawal you ate for lunch. Now we will take a look at the region where the H Pilori usually lies. Oooooh, it's healthy pink, but very inflammed."
After what seemed like an eternity of poking and prodding, he decides it's time to take his sample, so snip goes some knife like thing, and that's that. The tube is retracted, and I'm finally allowed to vomit out, except I have nothing to be ejected. It's a real dissapointment, I'll have you know.
So, once it's done, I'm offered the VCR of the live coverage of my innards. After having one look at the replay, I politely decline, telling the man that the last thing I want to do on a lazy sunday afternoon is take a look at that again. In hindsight, the video might make a very interesting present to anyone who wants to know the inner me. But, the opportunity is lost, now.
So, after taking the sample, and the good look around, it turns out that I don't have peptic ulcers, just Dyspesia, which means my stomach produces more acid than a seventies Hippie convention, and this acid manages to corrode my stomach every so often. The upside of all this is that instead of a hundred medicines, I now only have to have 98.
Anyhow, I return home, and the local anesthetic that was applied to my throat wears off, and I find out how much having a large tube down your food pipe can hurt. Additionally, there's a bit of my stomach that is missing, and without the numbing effects of an analgesic, that becomes quite noticeable.
But anyhow, all is, finally, well and life will go on. Even if I am on pills for the next six months, and on what the Doc likes to call "SOS Drugs" for pretty much the rest of my life.
His parting shot was, "What you need is not medication, but meditation."
Well, nyem ho ho renge kyoh to all of you, then.

In the End

Today was my last day of regular(or in my case, highly irregular) classes at the Alma Mater. The official last day is tomorrow, but that shall be enjoyed exclusively by the hostelers, and of course, Manisha Roy Choudhary, who wants full attendance for the gazillionth year running.
I'm going to miss a lot. I'm going to miss my character of a class and physics teacher, Subhodh Kumar. We had a bet running what he would say once he had finished the course, as for the last year, he had entered our class and without said, started off by banging the duster on the desk and screaming in his highly nasal tone "What was the last TOPICCCCCCCCCCCCC!"
But yesterday, there was actually the last topic. Just to prove to us that there was no escape from him, he then said, "Now we will do Numericals".
I'm going to miss getting disdainful stares from my English teacher, Ms. Prema Pandey, for spending the majority of her class trying to solve the daily crossword, while simultaneously doing whatever written work was provided to me, so that I had the excuse of having done my work. I also considered handing over Maria to her, for the next generations of Dipsites to use, but she said she'd take it once I pass out, once and for all. It's nice that even though she doesn't believe in the good and holy powers of Maria, she'll willing to ensure that she continues as the team's lucky mascot.
I'm going to miss my Eco Teacher, Dr. Amrita Dutt, and her habitual story telling sessions in class. Here is a teacher who admonishes cheaters by lecturing them with the poetry of Harivansh Rai Bachan, here is a teacher who tells us of the good old days of "Brahmaputra House"; here is a teacher you do not mess with.
I'm even going to miss our maths teacher, V.K Sauron, and his wild and forceful gesticulations, that the front benchers sitting directly infront of me had to swerve and duck to avoid, lest they have their heads chopped off by his flaying arm.
Enough of that. I did, however, have a very productive last day, where I finished not one, but two college applications, and along with Akshay, succeeding in troubling the Counsellor to such a markedly high extent that she finally gave up, and did our work. We did, at one point in the day, go as far as to offer her a loose bribe(to work on the school magazine for her) for now and forever.
Finally, she called us shameless and worse names, said she'd never seen a batch like ours, and managed to finish off our work. I then took of with Akshay for office(he was heading home to Hauz Khas), where I promptly submitted my forms for couriering.
So, that was that, and I've got two forms off today, and I'm feeling highly pleased about life in general.
Now, nothing stands before us and the test series, except our sheer will to bunk. It will test us greatly, and I'm sure that in the end, the holy forces of bunking will win over, at least when it comes to physics.

On a completely unrelated story, but for the simple fact that hazaar people seem to be coming to blah! in search of the link to download bulla ki jaana from the net, for free, I thought I might as well tell the lot of you to go to this site called Cool Goose, sign up there, go to the music section, and download the thing for free. If you like me enjoyed the song enough, you won't mind the five mins that you'll have to take out of your life to get all this sign up work done. Besides, the sites got enough other decent free music for you download hungry lot, so go forth and multiply, or something else important that's written in the bible.
That is all.

Neither Here Nor There

UPENN Early Decision deferred. Polite way of telling me to fugg off :P
Well, I've learned to take a hint.
As the Beatles say,
la la la la life goes on

Anyhow, since I now have quite a few applications to fill, and of course the bugging matter of test series to give, and what not, forgive me my daily trespasses, as I bid adieu to regular blogging.
Do check in every once in a while, I don't plan to die.
And, of course, there's the small matter of my bloggiversary later this month.
As the wise one says, It's all good.

The Cookie Told Me So

It was my moment of glory; I had reached the peak of Mt. Kailash, the unconquerable mountain. As the thin mountain air filled my lungs, and permeated every part of my being, I could remember feeling a great connection with some greater existence. A feeling of pride welled up in me, and for a moment, warmed my frostbitten body. It was right at that moment that I slipped, and fell to an untimely death. As I fell, I felt shocked at how fleeting that moment of glory had been.

It had been one of the best few months of my entire life; however, it hadn?t started off that great. Life was generally tough for an out of work Mountain Climber, and to top it all, I was depressed, both emotionally and financially. My personal life was in shambles, and I felt the proverbial walls caving in on me. It was at that time that I decided to seek my most reliable coping mechanism: Food. I didn?t have a lot of money in my pocket, so I didn?t have too many options before me. The quickest and cheapest was a Chinese place down the road, and I decided that it would do quite nicely.

It was a seedy place, lacking any class or refinement; not that those things weighed heavily on my mind at the time. The food and service, however, still did and no matter how depressed you are a bad meal and an abusive waiter can and will make it worse. Needless to say, I had the happiest moment of the day when my check arrived, along with the complementary fortune cookie. The waiter made hopeless advances for a tip he was never going to get and I shooed him off with much disdain and ate my cookie. The fortune read, ?You will find happiness with a new love?, and I chuckled. It was a gloomy laugh, and got caught in my throat on the way up, and it took a tear from my eye to wash it down. I walked out of the restaurant, cursing my luck.

A couple of days of later, I bumped into an old college friend. She was the sporty type, and as I recalled, we used to enjoy the occasional game of tennis back in the Alma Mater. She was going through a tough time as well, and our mutual predicament led to an affinity for one other. As it tends to happen, one thing led to another, and before we knew it, we were going out for dinner the next Saturday.

It was a chilly evening, and I remember that I didn?t particularly care at the time. We wandered down that same street, and with all the reputable establishments either shut, or way to expensive for us, we wandered into the seedy Chinese place. The food was still awful, and my waiter was the same gentleman, which was unfortunate, since I hadn?t tipped the chap the time before. But these minor details didn?t bother me that day, nothing much did, and even the god-awful food couldn?t dent my spirits. The bill arrived, along with a fuming waiter. I?m sure he had already spat into my plate a couple of times. I tipped him whatever little I had, which included a pack of breath mints, and made my peace. The complementary fortune cookies were brought to us. I opened mine. It read, ?You will reach new heights in your career.? I gave a wry smile as we left the establishment.

The next week, I got my first big break. There was an expedition leading for Everest, to commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of Hillary?s climb. One of the members had met with an unfortunate accident, and I had been offered his place. It was my first climb in months, and I eagerly took the opportunity. I left for Nepal the next month, after intensive training and acclimatization. On the flight, my mind could not help but wander to thoughts of fortune cookies. The hand of god seemed to be behind my latest run of luck, and manifested itself in the form of fortune cookies. But I was not a god-fearing person, and didn?t think the good Lord?s mysterious ways covered bad eating joints and the vagaries of a novelty food. I brushed the cookies of as a coincidence, after all, some fortunes had to come true. It was just a matter of probability.

It was a long and hard climb, and we had met with many an obstacle. A snowstorm midway up had nearly killed us all, and it was thanks to my perseverance that we got out of there alive. We eventually reached the peak, a triumphant group that joined an elite few to climb that mountain.

When I reached base camp, She was there waiting for me. It was one of the happiest times of my life, at least the happiest I could remember. We spent another two weeks in Kathmandu, walking the streets and visiting the sites. The Buddhist temples had a certain charm about them. A week later, we stumbled into a Szechwan restaurant, and obliged ourselves. Chinese food was high on our priority list, and the Szechwan style was our mutual favourite. For a change, the food was excellent, and the waiter was an all-knowing type, who gave the noble air of a man borne to serve. With his divine advice of the chef?s best dishes, we navigated our way through some fantastic cuisine. The bill, fortunately, was not equally fantastic, and a healthy tip awaited our Jeevesque waiter. The complementary fortune cookies were next, along with a few pieces of candied ginger. The ginger was very nice, and it cleared my ailing throat. After I sang a brief ditty to test my newfound bono vox, we ate our cookies. She opened hers. It read, ?Faith can move mountains?. We had a little laugh about it, and I indiscreetly ate mine. With uncharacteristic nonchalance, I crumpled my fortune in my hand and dropped it in the confines of my pockets.

The next few days were lovely. On our last scheduled day in Kathmandu, I received a call from the Royal Mountaineers. They were organising a first expedition to challenge Mount Kailash, and after my recent showing at Everest, I was offered to lead the expedition. It would be a tough climb, near impossible, but I felt great faith that I could conquer the mountain. I had never felt surer about anything in my entire life. As I walked down the dusty street, feeling like a million dollars, a crumpled piece of paper dropped out of my coat pocket. It folded out on the street, and simply read, ?Pride comes before a fall.?

I love the ending.

Aged Father Day

Happy birthday Papa! Papa turns a year-older-than-the-age-of-mother-that-shall-not-be-mentioned today. He's taken today to prove a point that he still is, in fact, the nuttiest Khanna of them all, and promises to buy himself a Motorcycle. Mother, Bua and I cringe at the thought of father riding around town on a bike, putting life and limb in danger. But, such is the nature of things. I got papa a double CD collection of what were most of his favourite Guru Dutt songs, and he was much pleased.

On Slams

Like I said, I've got a lot of these things to fill up, and quite frankly, I have no idea how to do so. The first problem is that I can't write properly, so I've decided to fill in the slam sheets into my Now Working Printer, and do it the old fashioned way, print em out. Typing is far easier than writing, in my humble opinion, which explains why there is an average sized book now available in almost a year of Blah!

Priya March

Our school has imposed upon us a pre-preboard test series, which in theory is "compulsory". Well, lets see about that ,shall we. I think its unrealistic to expect us to give tests for which we are hazaar unprepared, at short notice of course and revision, when our very year is winding down. To top it all off, they're going to shove us into the sports complex on the last day. Hrrmph. Well, I think I'll give the test-before-last, and scoot off for a movie post-exam.
Now, there used to be this grand dam ol' tradition in our school called "The Priya March", which involved the passing out batch going in mass for a movie to Priya. Now, when any batch does things en masse, things tend to get a bit rowdy, and Priya March quickly became an expression of general discontent at the end of 12 years of schooling, much to the dread of poor Vasant Lok Shopkeepers, and Madam Principal. The marching bit was removed completely, and last I heard they used trucks as means of transport to Priya.
However, this I firmly believe was not the spirit of the thing. The spirit of the thing is to celebrate your last ever day with your entire batch, and bloody well see a movie before you spend the next 3 months jailed at home, studying for preboards, competition exams, and what not else.
Thus, accompained or not, on the last test day, I'm Marching to Priya, not in a big ol' truck, but on my two feet, and I damn well will watch a movie. Anybody who feels like joining me is free to, just remember to pay fer yer own ticket. Additionally, I will be "marching", so kindly remember to be like fox, and speak only of this great plan "Chor Nazar Se!"

Rabbi

There's a new Punjabi Rock/folk artist on the block, and unlike loud blaring Bhangra, this is very good stuff. The artist is Rabbi, and he's come out with a single entitled "Bulla Ki Jana", with a nice acoustic guitar interpretation of a sufi poem by Baba Bulleh Shah(more "soulfull" versions of which Ma listens to, by a Sufiana Artist named Abida Parveen.) It's a great single, in my opinion, and is already picking up on the charts. The singer, Rabbi, has a great voice, and the guitar chords are simple, yet poignant. It's one of the few things I've heard on TV and had an instant desire to download, and so I did. It's apparently availible for free, legit, on a site which I shall not reveal as yet. Anyhow, it's now hitched onto my Pod, so all is good.

Cookies

After my flashback this weekend, I dug up my story "The Cookie Told me So", and reread it. While the idea is brilliant, it's clearly written by a child in class 10. Now, I'd love to edit it, so I will. There are a few dialogues that need tightning, a few phrases that need fixing, but all in all, I still think its a great story. The ending still gets me.
Ho hum. Seventy Two hours.

Vegetable Satay

Last evening, I accompanied my parents to Dilli Haat, because, well, I had to. The last thing I wanted to do on an evening with chill winds was go to Dilli Haat, where the chill winds are free to bite me, but then, such is life.
Dilli Haat however has a food stall, which isn't that bad. The Kashmiri, Wazwan, is quite good, in fact, and there are pockets of decent stuff here and there. But in general, you get pretty shabby stuff. It is however, the breeding ground for some of the worst english menus our fair mother earth has seen. In some of the north eastern joints, they haven't even spelled Menu right, and it is a matter of great relief they got their state names right.
The insane spellings however have resulted in general hilarity, on occasions. My parents, for instance, went to the Mizo place a few months back, in hopes of trying something new. They saw, to their amazement, a dish called Vegetable Satay. Now, much intrigued by how one could get Satay to be vegetarian, wise parents immediately ordered, so that they could find out. Theories on the same abounded, would it be soybean based? Maybe they managed to skewer some Gobi.
What they got was something alltogether different. A plate full of assorted veggies, lightly stir fried, in a hint of a sauce. It was, in a simple word, sauted veggies.
Dissapointment abounds, doesn't it?
Speaking of dissapointments, Microsoft launched "Spaces", their own blogging utility. Much intrigued by what they could turn out, I tried it out, and it's, in a simple word, crap. In true microsoft spirit, it's a utility that simply cannot be customized. Additionally, like some many other things MS is famous for, it has about one thousand features that distract from the actual purpose of the thing, A BLOG! For the actually blogging, there is no aid whatsoever. There is no WYSIWYG editor to speak of, and they promise to delete certain HTML tags you may like to place in your blog. These people are simply not going to be able to compete with Google and Blogger.
But, such is life.
Did I mention this is the two hundredth post on blah!?
Well, I did now.
My printer works, thank the good lord.

My Slam Book

Now, I've had this problem, which is also faced by a sizeable portion of male populace in class 12 of school. It's the end of the year, and you're
a)Expected to fill up "Slam Books", and Slam sheets.
b)You're also expected to have one yourself

Now, the problem is, I and so many other people are simply terrible with the whole colored sheets, drawing and writing sweet things type of stuff. Unfortunately, we're simply not designed to be very good at all this, and thus it creates a big problem. What I, and a few other people are good at, is typing things out, cos lets face it, we live in a digital age.
So why not a digital Slam Book?
Enter Bhavya's Slam Blog
This way, all of ye who hate to write, can type. All of ye short of words, can just drop a few lines, and all of ye who get mental asphyxia at the site of colored sheets of paper, can simply type out on email what it is ye want to say.
If anyone is interested, please leave a yell in the comments space/contact me at school/somehow reach me, and I'll give you the email adress to which to write it. Just remember to leave your names, and contact information in the mail, and as much hypertext as your minds can make up.

Aged Brother Day

Happy Budday Bhaiyya! My Yai Yai Yum Bangaloore brother turns 22 today, and for reasons that you only realise after living with him all your life, he still doesn't have a girlfriend, and the only girl he's interested in is suspect, and may not be interested in guys at all. Besides, she's a minor.
The point being, have a good year, and do crazy wild things, and generally have a blast. When you get more free, towards the end, when you've got your bigass job placement and all, get some Coorgi Babes, otherwise, I may have to start www.iimmatrimonials.com

Anyhow, that is that with the bigass birthday presents. Anyhow, we move on to more important things in life. Actually, we don't because nothing much else is happening in life. This was typified by a visit to Prateek's place, which has officially become the dullest house in the entire world. There are no books, no television, and his greatest entertainment options include wall staring. He even conned me into playing a game of Ludo(which I lost to Vidz). This is basically a sad life, and confirmed what I believed some three years ago, that class 12 is possible the saddest time of your school life.
Anyhow, all is not disastrous. In the Mock Test I gave, for LST, which I did believe was, to use Manu's catchphrase, an unmitigated disaster, turned out not to be. Somehow, I managed to get a All India Rank of 20. This amazed me completely, especially since I had by the grace of a mouse, marked some answers with the completely wrong answer. Also, I knew nothing about the negative marking system, and randomly ticked whenever I felt like it.
You know, life is unfair. For my halfyearlies, I worked my butt off. I studied five straight days of mathematics, and finished a register and a half in that short period of time. For all my efforts, I got a measly 68. On the other hand, this LST thing, which I'm not even serious about, and didn't study for at all, I manage to get an All India Rank. Ditto with my SAT 2 results.
In simple and unadultrated terms.
Blah!

Aged Mother Day

Today was me mum's budday! Yes, my mother turned some-age-I-shall-not-mention today, and I did my best to ensure she had a nice fun day. For a birthday present, I procured three of her favourite movies in a VCD collection, and it was indeed, much appreciated.
In return, one got to eat at a remarkable but underrrated chinese retraunt at Ansal Plaza, named The Oriental Bloom.
Now, even by my standards, this blog has focussed on food too much, so I shall not mention in great detail that the food was great. I will instead tell you the some of the special circumstances that this restraunt has involved in time immemorial.
Time immemorial, I must point out, is class 10, the last time we were patrons at the joint. Now,this place does the full chinese restraunt experience, which means they're nice enough to give you tea on the house, chopsticks to use(yes, I can use them), and the final touch, Fortune Cookies to end your meal.
Now, I was very impressed with the whole fortune cookie thing in class 10, it was the first time I had been to a place that actually gave them. I was so impressed, in fact, that a week or so later, during a Creative Writing Competition in class 10, I wrote an entire story revolving around a guy who's life was being determined by fortune cookies and chinese food. Hey, you can't blame me for at least trying to keep food out of this entry. Anyhow, after writing the damn thing, I was Hazaar sure I would win the contest, because, hey, it was an incredibly creative, dark piece of writing. Thus, I felt no qualms about saying so to all and sundry. Now, all and sundry of course included one particular person, who was meeting me for the first time, but due to my general brash and stupid nature, I kept a wonderful record of making the worst possible first impression with said person. I later found this out a year and a half later, when it came up in another completely unrelated conversation. I came second in the competition, by the way, and no prizes for guessing who upped me to first. This had led to its own great series of events, as it became a matter of interest to me to find out more about someone who could have beaten me at that event, because they must have written a bloody exceptional piece to do so.
While I never got to read the piece, it became quite clear in a short period of time that the author was exceptional enough to up it, and more. Thus, I wrote a whole story about fortune cookies influencing the life a poor gormless soul, and it seems that everything I write as well, now comes back to bite me in the ass, as I don't think that more influence has ever happened due to the opening of one tiny fortune cookie.
Well, the one I had today promised me that " Your attention will be deeply returned".
On about three or four different levels, I'm hoping this one comes true.
(crosses fingers for PENN)
If any of you leave best of luck comments, I'll kill you all.
I don't think anyone else ever has done more to discourage commenting on his blog, yet you keep at it. I thank you, kind readers.
Two more minutes, and I'll have to write a happy birthday blog for my brother.

Rules, Zindagi ka Superhit Formula

Yesterday, I had a couple of nice chats. The first was with Sonali, a name which is strangely not mentioned very often in my humble(Hahahahahaha) journal. That conversation devolved very quickly, and thus had to be sidetracked with what is known as Polite Conversation by the rest of the world, as is understood as anything but by me. What transpired, after a lot of details that I shall not bore you with, is that I have been pronounced as "one of them", and was berated for having lost my general sarcasm and cynicism about the way things are. This, I do not appreciate, for as far as I know, I'm still as sarcastic as ever, and I hope my blog is fine testament to that. Let us just say that the discussion was a biased one, where the opportunity for cynicism simply did not present itself. Such is the nature of things.
The second discussion was far more interesting. See, every so often, I have a chat with PC, where we chuck all the dramatic details of existence, and just discuss life and living in general. Now, this is an exceedingly strange thing to happen between us, for although we share much in common, including general mindsets towards having vindictive fun, we have completely disparate moral and ethical views on life. So this discussion came up today, when I told him that Law was probably a bad option for me, due to my complete inability to lie.
Actually, I'll amend that. I don't have an inability to lie, in fact, I used to be exceedingly good at it, till the age of 6, I was a pathalogical liar. Then, I just stopped. Completely. I used to suffer from a major lack of credibility, so I just laid down one of my first rules to myself, "I shall not lie". Now PC doubted that one can set rules in life, to which you are unbending to. So to drive home the point, I asked him if he would hit a girl. He said under no condition, and I said exactly. There's no great logical reason that you shouldn't, just as there is no great logical reason that I shouldn't ever lie, its just what you feel is right. Thus, you set a rule for yourself, which you try your hardest not to break, and will only break under extreme conditions.
However, both me and PC are yet to come up with an extreme enough condition to hit a girl, and the situations I suggested kinda fell short. Which brings us to the point that some things can be so exceedingly ingrained in you, that you simply will not bend to them. This was the point I had started out to prove in the first place, and I was damn miffed that I had got it across.
At this point, of course, I had to go for dinner, as I have mentioned previously, one of my deep set rules is, nothing, oh nothing will disturb me during my meals.
Oh, and Blah!'s subtitle just might turn into "Life and Times of an Indian Foodie" for this winter.

Winter Delights

Winter seemingly is here, and its the best kind, where it is winter not so much in temprature, (which I dislike), but in choice of fruits vegatables and food items(which I love).
All those lovely things you have to give up over the summer, Imma having all of them.
For those of you woebegotten lot, who know not of the pleasures of the palate availible in these wonderful months, let me go through a quick run through.
Matar! Peas, wonderfully sweet and succulent ones, the kind that you really love having in a wonderful variety of ways(my favourites being with Paneer or Mushrooms).
Then, the aftermath of diwali is a bhandaar of dry fruits lying around the house, all of which, in the abscence of my brother, it is my sole responsibility to finish. Thus, I chow down on Kaju, Pista, Badaam, and all three together in those wunnerful laccha mixtures.
Ah, but it doesn't stop there. For winter has also brought with it weddings, which, while usually are a pain in the ass, have resulted in me getting two whole box ful of Pinnis!
A pinni is about as punjabi a sweet can get. The whole thing is basically, Dal, Ghee and Sugar, and to add to its great nutritive value, nuts are generously thrown in on the top. It 's the perfect meal, if you may, and I indulge in as many as my currently overburderned stomach will allow.
Ah, but it doesn't end there. There's Keanu ka juice, freshly squeezed, with lovely Keanu's from Punjab, which came along with the wedding stuff(long story).
But the best is still to come. Next week, when the good carrots arrive, then true bliss shall be attained for Herr. Elated One.
I shall have Gajar ka Halwa. Oh yes, I shall have Gajar ka Halwa.

The Future

I hate thinking about the future, I try to avoid it as much as possible. I realised a bit of time ago that its the most dangerous thing you can do, starting thinking about what ifs, and how would that be. But, its getting harder and harder to do that, when the immediate future, just the next month, could change so much in your life.
Take, for example, the fact that a mere twelve days from now, I could be admitted to my dream college, and just as likely, I could not. That will affect a lot of my future, at least the next four years, and will immediately affect my next month. If things don't go through as I'd like them to, I'm going to be a very busy man, running around getting the rest of my applications off. On the other hand, if they do...
Its hard not to think about stuff like that, let me tell you. You try your hardest to put it out of your mind, but there are constant reminders. There are interviews, there are schoolmates, there are Parents, Relatives and a hundred other random wishers.
Then, there's the whole families birthday coming up. That's the great thing about the rest of my family, they all decided to be born at round about the same time, and left me stranded in September. Ma starts off the celebrations on the third, immediately followed by my brother, on the 4th of December, which one also finds out is the date TheBOFi shall land back in Delhi. A couple of days later, well three to be exact, comes Father's birthday, on the 7th.
So I have to think about that to, but that, gladly is out of the way. I took the opportunity of the house being devoid of parental activity to go to GPM for a shopping buzz, and picked up budday presents for one and all. One less thing to think about.
Then, of course, there are more obvious things to think about, such as "Am I going to Flunk my last Monday Test Ever?" Or, Did they have to make the last one's syllabus Chemistry's worst ever chapter(It doesn't help when your chem teacher claims that it's a really easy course, "Bas rattna hi toh hai").
I just wish these next twelve days would finish, really fast. I'd pray for a quiz or two to come my way, or at least a debate. I need something to distract me, and sitting at the desk to study only makes you think more.
Today, I went shopping, and did ENGLISH WORK! Incredible, you can't think while writing down answers for chapters, at least, I can't. So today went off fine. P-Block was the afternoon entertainment, and again...ugh.
So I thought I'd write about it instead. Better than nothing.
I plan to write a rough guide to DPS, but don't know when I'll get down to that. There are certain traditions, legends, stories and tips that my batch fears will not be passed down, what with the current scenario. To ensure continuity, I thought I'd just write it down, and give it to one and all who were interested.
Anyhow, such is my life.
Oh, another big announcement, if ye are going to comment, which I'm told ye enjoy doing, please do it to the comment link to the left and not the one on the right.
Remember, zort spelled backwards is troz.

It's A Royal Shame

You work hard to create a reputation for yourself, your institution. When you walk into other schools for competitions, you're respected, sometimes hated. The tag of DPS R. K Puram bodes well for you, and the confidence it gives ensures that you keep the winning spirit. It's a beneficial cycle. But no, all that is rudely done away with the actions of three wonderful students of a 5000 strong institution.
What do they contribute? What great achievers, aside from a dedicated few, do you get out of our commerce batches? What purpose do they serve, aside from getting drunk at farm parties, and fighting for no particular reasons with each other? But draw the line, please, inside the bounds of our school. But no; as I mentioned, thanks to three wonderful people, not only has much lunch been ruined, but so has my alma mater's reputation, and standing.
What stings the most is not the fact that wonderful people from all over delhi have lost faith in the name of DPS, but our very own principal has lost faith in her own students, and sees fit to send us all letters telling us she's "concerned about our morals". For what? What actions of our batch point to this? None, just the lack of faith provided in plenty to us by the three.
I haven't been upset about much in my years at RKP, but this upsets me. The letter we recieved upsets me. The lack of faith in us upsets me, and the fact that it may even affect any more college interviews I give, just because there is now an undeniable prejudice of every single person in Delhi about the school, that upsets me.
The yellow journalism exhibited by NDTV upsets me, but not so much. I have a very low opinion of those jhola wearing, commie sympathising pseudo intellectual journo's anyhow, so their attention craving actions hardly surprise me, and thus cannot upset me that much.
The fact that commentors ask for links to this wretched thing upsets me. I'd ask you all to stop reading my journal, whoever came in hopes for that. Me and Karan stand united in this, we're not either interested in scandals, or debasement, or rumour mongering, and we simply don't care what constitutes as fun entertainment in anyone's mind. We shall not encourage the debasement of our school, in any way or means. I'm open to poking fun at it, but lets draw the line, shall we? People like Arjun, who think this whole matter is a whole lot of fun, can, in the words of Sir Altitude, "Go Boil Their Heads".
Interestingly, I found out the etymology (how I love doing that) for the phrase "Go Boil Your Head". It is apparently a South Pacific Island insult. Here's where it comes from. See, basically the islanders considered the head sacred, and cooked food pretty much the opposite of that. I guess they liked their veggies in nice salads, as cooking anything made it umm...well...unsacred. So the phrase, "go boil your head" in the local tongue is possibly the worst possible insult you can give. Maanick Nangia, thus, shouldn't go visiting Fiji or Tongo or any such place any time soon, as his propensity for the phrase may get him into a lot of trouble.
My first mock test for Law Entrances is tomorrow. I'm horrificly prepared for it, as I had all of two days notice. Yet, a lot of it is english, easy maths, GK, and logical reasoning. Nothing a good quizzer shouldn't be able to handle. Let us see.
On unrelated, yet happy news, my last and final monday test is, well, on Monday! wOOt! No more monday tests, ever!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. I think the spirit of the festival is one of the wonderful things American culture actually has to offer, yet it seems to be the one thing they have failed to export. Instead, we get McDonalds. Blah!