The way it is meant to be.

I finally spent Sankranti the way it is meant to be spent. Let’s forget the fact that I spent the early hours of the morning on a friend’s balcony having hookah (brilliant too, mind you). But “gool poli with toop” beats every other “poli” on earth. And I finally flew kites. In a desperate attempt to reach flat land where we wouldn’t have to fear going into free fall running kites, we climbed up a hill the way it is not meant to be climbed: up a valley on slippery mud, carrying kites on our heads the way ladies carry pots, occasionally stopping to remove thorns from our ankles, and using our butts as brakes :D. We prepared the kites for flight using twigs as pins, sewing thread as ‘manja’, a pair of keys as scissors, and we were ready. Getting kites up in the sky is a thrill I had long forgotten about. How high we got them was a dubious number. I claimed 200 meters, while one of my friends optimistically claimed it to be a kilometer.

If you didn’t know, getting the kite back down takes almost as much time as it takes to get it up there (if not more). More importantly, whatever goes up must come down. So don’t consider letting the kite wander into the yonder. In pitch black darkness, in a desperate attempt to get back down, we descended the hill the way it is not meant to be descended: down a valley on slippery mud, carrying kites on our heads the way ladies carry pots, occasionally stopping to remove thorns from our ankles, and using our butts as brakes :D.

Makar Sankranti: the way it is meant to be.

This is what we do.

A few things about Indians and engineers: well, my people.

I honestly think we are the most unruly people in the world when it comes to traffic sense.
On a jam packed road, trust an Indian to find space to wriggle through and gain 20 meters on the rest. Trust him to even look back and snigger at the patiently waiting rest.
Trust an Indian to honk his backside off at you to let him break a red signal. Don’t be surprised if he gives you a furious glare as he wheezes past.
The pedestrian crossings in India are meant solely for the amusement of the drivers. Just for fun, they’ll speed up at a zebra crossing just to scare the living wits out of the guy crossing the road. Surprisingly, a good-looking girl is subjected to worse (That’s a whole another topic, and I’ll write about that soon).
We don’t need fixed fuzzy anti-lock brakes in our vehicles. Hell, we don’t need brakes at all. Who wants to stop, right?
This is what we DO \m/.

Probably the only reason I’m writing about my species of engineers is because I watched 3 Idiots last night. Best movie ever, my foot. It’s alright. There’s a good idea they’re trying to propagate, but their way of putting it is ridiculous: sometimes floating on the boundaries of embarrassing. When I mention Aamir Khan and a Bachchan (any one of them) in the same sentence, you have to know something is wrong.
I’ll begin with the good parts though. The parts in the engineering college are presented brilliantly. The system is killing us (and unfortunately, not just figuratively). Even figuratively, it is MURDER. I hate the rat race just as much as I hate rats. Someone tells us there is a test, we scream “open book test” in the hope of duplicating what the book says. Someone tells us to give a presentation in class about something that is not in a book, we shy away in fear. We attend classes for attendance and we study to score. THIS IS WHAT WE DO \m/.
You know what we should do? Remain nonchalant at gunpoint. How hard is it?
The rest of the movie, though, left me wondering whether it was really an Aamir Khan movie or a Govinda comedy. The baby kicking, riding the bike into the hospital,…  Wait, I don’t want to mention the other instances. Why? Cuz this post is about WHAT WE DO \m/.

Sojourn.

Home seems like a sojourn. Too much traveling, and I’m not done yet! In the last month, I’ve driven through countless tiny, picturesque villages; stayed at the remotest of places in rural Maharashtra; frozen my backside off walking through chilly Mahabaleshwar in shorts (yeah, I thought I was too cool for warm clothes); taken a boat to Bombay; gotten stuck in a swamp in a lake; walked through a dense forest only to reach what definitely seemed like a haunted, broken taxi; and seen probably the quietest, cleanest beach ever. Now, with a runny nose (sounds like ‘dose’ when I say it with my cold), a sore throat, and a scruffy appearance, I’m off to Dubai for a conference.

Happy holidays!

Up there.

A couple of years ago, I wanted to convince people that my beliefs were right. Over the years, I’ve realized not just the futility of convincing, but also the fleeting nature of my own beliefs.

I’ve gone through an array of ideas about God, right from my childhood to now. When I was a kid, I prayed. But to be honest with you, I only prayed in my times of need: the morning of my exams, or when I really wanted something. I didn’t know who God was, where He was, or what He did: no one told me, and I didn’t really ask either.

Then I had this phase, when I was convinced there is no God. Yes, that was the time I considered myself to be an Atheist. What’s more, I had this incessant need to mock other people’s ideas, and persuade them to believe mine. In short, I acted like an ass. I didn’t realize it then though.

Today, in my everyday life, I don’t think about God. I don’t think about pleasing anyone up there, just so I can go to the ‘heavens’ that are decoratively written about. Equally, I’m not scared of going to ‘hell’. Whatever I do, I make sure I’m convinced I’m doing the right thing: morally. And in spite of that, if someone is judging me, so be it. I don’t want to live in the shackles of contrasting beliefs. I don’t want to convince anyone about what I think. I don’t know whether my beliefs (or lack thereof) about God are right or wrong, but you know what? I don’t want to know whether they are.

When I believed in God, it was for selfish reasons. When I didn’t believe in Him, it was probably just that I didn’t feel the need to. Today, when I neither believe nor not believe, I’m much more at peace: with myself and with society.

I wish we could rid ourselves of religion though: it controls, it narrows, and most of all, it incites. How about this? Irrespective of the background we’re born into, we should have the freedom to explore and follow the ideas that most attract us.

Imagine.

The geek in me.

Chrome for Mac is out, and it blows Firefox and Safari away. It feels, looks and behaves like OS X. I’ve been waiting for a reason to end my love-hate relationship with Firefox. Just found it. Poof! Also, I tried Google’s DNS servers. They work at breakneck speed. What the hell have they done?

Sometimes, just sometimes, the geek in me surfaces out of nowhere: I think it’s them blasted exams! Okay, I think I really need to go out \m/.

The world of the common people.

About 26/11, let me present a different view.

Remember July 11th, 2006? No?

Why do we have papers flashing the anniversary of 26/11 everywhere? Pictures on every front page. The news channels have their prime-time shows full of what the Taj is, one year on. Actually, my question is not so much why we have this, but why we didn’t have this reaction to the series of bomb blasts on Mumbai’s local trains, killing over 200. That, by the way, was July 11th, 2006.

I’ll tell you why. Because the Taj and the Oberoi hit India’s elite. And India’s elite are watching Barkha Dutt and Rajdeep Sardesai and their eight o’clock exclusive shows. Why was the carnage at CST covered so little on 26/11? The Aam Aadmi of India was affected by the CST massacre. He was affected by the trains not running and the BEST buses halted. On the other hand, the people hit by the Taj massacre were Page 3 celebrities.

I’m not saying anything, make your own conclusions.

Ultimate.

The last year. The last first semester. The last winter Preparatory Leave. The last Addiction. The last few 15 chapatis and kadhi pakodas of unlimited lunches for 30 bucks. The last days playing Uno in the canteen. The last few talks at the post box. The last crushes in college. The last late night chats at the basketball court. The last times being kicked out of class. Ultimate.

I cannot believe I’m almost out of here. It only seems yesterday that I joined PICT, at that time knowing people I could count on the fingers of one hand. From the whole mess of the rat race, this was the only college I wanted to get into. If I hadn’t, I was packing my bags. At times, I have wondered whether I had made the right decision by staying in India. Today, I know I did.

One semester to go. One semester to make it count. I want to leave college with my head held high, knowing I’ve gotten everything I ever wanted from college life.

In the meantime, this video is the one we took of the BE formation as organizers of Addiction 2008. It has a nice background music, and I’ve never figured out where it is from. If anyone knows, I’d really like to know!

Time’s a loaded gun.

Or is it?  A little too much time on my hands and I have time to:

1. Tag my music, so it gets submitted just right on last.fm

2. Set up a wi-fi printer and speakers.

3. Go to college on a bloody Sunday, and fall asleep on the last bench in 118. Multiple times.

4. Shave.

5. Make my own breakfast every morning. A three course meal.

6. Log on to Facebook to comment on people’s statuses.

7. Go back to learning figures of speech just for the heck of it.

Chee, maybe someday I’ll write about exactly what I think of the wretched Preparatory Leave.

Fleet Street.

I read this quote as someone’s status:

“Raj has temporarily stalled the 2012 plan. The MNS is not allowing a cyclone inside Maharashtra without a Marathi name.” :D

On a serious note, what is he doing? And why are we standing still and looking on as if it’s nothing? If anyone, absolutely anyone, can come up to me and give me a plausible reason to corroborate the implementation of his ideology, I’d like to know. What’s worse, I see a few of my friends: people I played cricket on the roads with, working for his cause. Stating that you can’t take an oath in the Assembly in Hindi. Saying it’s an insult to the “Marathi Manoos”. Can anyone sink any lower?

Who are they to represent the “Marathi Manoos”? And what the fuck is a “Marathi Manoos” anyway? By definition, I am one. It’s my native language. And I feel sick to the bones that you claim to represent my point of view.

Achtung, baby. These are grave times.

17,168.

I thought I was an atheist. Then I thought I was an agnostic. I forget that I’ve worshiped Sachin Tendulkar all along.

It was the same old one man show. In 1999 at Chennai, I remember I cried when he left the team 15 runs to get and they couldn’t. Last night, I heard the neighborhood moan and I felt the country cry.

Take a moment. Respect.