Golu rolls on

And that's all I want Santa

2008-12-24T13:05:00.000-08:00

People often come up with different terms for periods of lull. Bears are believed to be hibernating. Graduate students work away furiously to make the world a better place. Me ... I decided to sit back with my hands behind my head, look at the world around me, take a deep breath and then just sigh! Just when I was enjoying my moment of calm, I was interrupted by that one person I have so come to love to hate - RAJ.

So he messaged me yesterday about this new movie 'Rab ne bana di jodi' which seems to have created quite the rage in India. A hard hitting movie that apparently portrays all the dark realities of this unforgiving thing called life and delivers one tight resounding slap in the face of all atheists and non-believers of God and Flea - it informs us that we would know we have found our respective soulmates if we see GOD in them. But Raj wasn't perturbed by that fact. He was more disturbed by the fact that the movie's male lead has an uber-cool alter-ego called Raj who really is not cool. Poor Raj feels that this hasn't done his image any good and wishes to sue the movie for copying a lot of his trademark pickup lines like 'Raj....Naam to suna hoga'. Somewhere deep down, I do sympathise for poor Raj. But just when I was about to put my hand around him and tell him that life is indeed a bitch, he mentioned that he was piqued by some other point.

Apparently, when the heroine is asked what it is that a girl looks for in a guy, she quips quite innocently, 'Ek ladki bas itna chahti hai ki koi ladka usse itna pyaar kare, jitna kisi ne kisi se nahin kiya hoga...bas'. At this juncture I insisted on taking the proverbial pause and exclaim WHAT THE F**K? How is the damn 'bas' even justified. By the very definition of the task, it is something that has not been done before and in all probability due to the sheer impossibility of the task. Yet the damn thing is so easily trivialised. Since Xmas is here, here goes my request to Santa 'Dear Santa ji....main aisi ladki chahta hoon jo bas Katrina Kaif aur Priyanka Chopra se zyada maal ho...bas'.

Good to go: A prelude to the importance of statistics

2007-11-01T21:32:00.000-07:00

Very rarely does it happen, that I get to sit down in silence, stare into the darkness, collect my thoughts and smile to myself. Quite rare indeed, that these events happen at the same time by some random chance. However, as I type these words, I sit with a smile that could put the Cheshire cat to shame. The confused reader sports a quizzical look and poses a very innocent question in its most concise form - WHY ? Since, I love an element of mystery, I shall choose not to divulge my reasons and shall simply smile back in reply.

While the confused reader has definitely added frustration to the ongoing emotions, I would like to pre-empt the reader from developing such negative thoughts and give out some info. It so happens that an incident I had foreseen NEVER to take place, is becoming more and more probable to occur. While the darned element of mystery is still screaming out to me that I seal my lips, I have to say that this is something I cannot keep to myself. That stupid sonofagun Raj has somehow surfaced after a long period of dormant activity. I have been in touch with him for the last week or so and I am still amazed as to how he can still keep going stronger than ever before. Let alone stronger, I think his mental powers have begun to desert him and he is getting thicker by the day. I promise the faithful reader that there will be more blog entries dedicated to Raj, in spite of all the resistance put up by him.

Most importantly, I (also) smile because somewhere between being enamored by amazing wine and women, there are a bunch of drunken Frenchmen (and women) who would love listening to the axeman of FFF perform "Dooba Dooba". Here's to a hopeful reunion of FFF and a hopeful revival of this blog.

Perms for Shanti

2007-03-07T16:34:00.000-08:00

[Please insert your favourite heavy metal riff here]. I would highly recommend Megadeth's She Wolf for that riff, but then I won't judge you for choosing something else. I am sure you can picture the scene of all the arena lights dimming away and the spotlight slowly making its way towards a guy relentlessly riffing in a corner. But before you move ahead, please stop and give TAV and Sumanth 2 kicks in the nuts each, as the b@st@rds completely ruined my plan to use this particular scenario for a comeback post (if it were to ever happen). Well the comeback post has happened, but the damn novelty is lost. Anyways, I throw my wristband towards Zubin. Sorry Sumanth! Since I don't use a pick you will have to just make do with my re-entry.

Although it was quite boring to not blog, I do quite curse myself for starting blogging again. Must find a new identity to blog as. Anyways what brings me back is a brilliant piece of conversation that I was lucky enough to witness last weekend over dinner with 2 fellow musicians. For the sake of anonymity, I shall refer to them as the beast and the sophie.

Beast: So when do you actually say that a guy and girl are boyfriend and girlfriend ?
Golu: [waiting to see what sophie has to say]
Sophie: [after a moment's pause and trying to be a bit indirect] I guess when they express interest in each other to have some sort of physical relationship ... you know make out and stuff.
Golu: [nodding in agreement] Yes! Otherwise to me it would seem like just a normal friendship.
Beast: OK! So now tell me what is this "make out". I have never quite got this concept.
Sophie: Well make out is simple kissing and stuff. The things that American kids do in school because they are not allowed to have sex. [Pausing to sip on his drink] Actually, it is also what most of the Indian youth does, because they are not allowed to have sex.

some time passes

Golu: some juicy gossip ... and so he got a girlfriend over the weekend.
Beast: OK! So does that mean they had sex or made out over the weekend?
Sophie & Golu: [in unison] NOOOOO!

Sophie and Golu look at each other wondering how they can explain it to the beast.

Sophie: Abey, it is like chmod !!!

THAT right there is the mark of a brilliant man. Call me a geek, a dork or whatever you want, but you HAVE to admit that no one could have put it in better words than Sophie's. If you did not get that joke, I extend my sincere apologies. However, I shall not ruin that amazing joke by elaborating on its meaning.

Geek log zindabad !!!

I would like to take this opportunity to ...

2007-02-20T14:46:00.000-08:00

... take the words of the great Layne Staley, mince them a bit and declare that my blog has faced the path of time. Yes! You've guessed it right. This will be my last post on "Golu rolls on." I have no particular reason to stop blogging here other than the fact that I just don't feel like blogging anymore. It's just like the moment when Forrest stops running. I feel that I have written about most of the things I felt about dearly, expressed myself as much as I would have liked to publicly and now there is nothing more for me to say.

Needless to say, it was fun writing the entries of the blog and I would like to thank all the faithful readers who showered their appreciations. I found it quite satisfying that when I penned my personal experiences as fictional stories, more often than not, people empathised with me and shared my point of view. I, however, would like to clarify a misnomer raised by a good friend [actually 4 good friends] today, and one that has been raised many a times in the past. NO NO NO, I am not that desperate. Sigh! What ever happened to humour license ? [or whatever is the humour equivalent to poetic license !]

Personally, I would have liked to stop at #50, but I guess 47 will do. I am considering co-blogging with Ro on a separate tangent altogether, but that is just an idea at the moment. I guess that will have a totally different reader base, merely to ensure a lack of bias while reading. Till then it is tatax! Also ... you guys out there who do continue to blog, please do so regularly. I still need to do something in my free time, and what better way to spend it than random commenting.

Is Tyler my bad dream? Or am I Tyler's?

2007-02-11T20:20:00.000-08:00

While the innocent reader of this blog begins to believe that he/she is in a perpetual state of deja vu, I would like to take this moment and announce that the intention of this blog is in no way to stress upon my misadventures with the fairer kind. While this announcement is sincere in its mission statement, I can see people like Ro mocking me by making statements such as "Oh! But that would mean the entire world Golu." Very funny! I wonder how it's working out for such people ... being clever that is ?

I hope that people have caught most of the hints I dropped along the way as to what this particular entry is aimed at. For people who still have not been able to figure out (Read: Zubin), this entry is dedicated to schizophrenia. Of late, I have come to be quite convinced of the fact that I am schizophrenic. I really have two personalities. The first one being Golu, who is a happy go lucky and talkative character with a wide smile perpetually across his face. Golu loves to hang out with his friends, watch movies, listen to funk, play his guitar, etc. If you get the picture I've tried to sketch, Golu is all for fun and frolic. However, there is a darker side to Golu and that is my second personality, who surprisingly is also named Golu. While most of you are laughing at my lack of creativity to come up with different names of my personalities, I would like to consider it as a mark of brilliance that the two personalities can switch between each other and yet not let the others know. Now Golu from Darksville is a very morose character who does not trust his surroundings. He begins to question everything around him and begins to doubt the best of his friends. Let alone having a sense of humour, Golu finds pleasure in sulking and being morose. A little bit like John Nash in the movie, Golu feels that the world is against him and he is the only one who can see through the conspiracy. He is however brought back to reality through some trout-slapping by his friends Ro and Renta. The most striking feature however is that Golu has the capability to come up with the crappiest mushy songs which do later provide a source of entertainment to the light-hearted Golu.

Having formulated such a nice theory, I decided to discuss its details with my good friend Ro. After he had finished his daily duties of Technical Support where most of the answers are usually "Yes Ma'am, restart the program and it will work.", Ro finally agreed to listen to what I had to say. I believe that the only thing I told him was that I am schizophrenic and he immediately refuted my statement. I do have to say that although I had begin to doubt Ro's intellectual capabilities since the time he joined Technical Support, his systematic and logical argument against my statement proved yet again why he is one of my closest friends. In fact, I think that his argument could be a great contribution to the medical community and help a lot of people save money wasted on their shrinks just to find out that they are OK. Readers, hold on to your seats as I unveil to you one of the best arguments I have ever heard (with absolutely no sarcasm, mind you!) [please insert your favourite drum roll here] "Gudda Dheeraj. You can't be schizophrenic. You are not that cool!" Now, while you are thinking how I get amused at the very smallest of things, I would request you to hold on. It doesn't end here. I began to narrate my theory to another friend B. Again, I had just uttered the first line of my theory and he immediately seemed to jump up in joy. He said, "I always knew you were schizophrenic. You were too big to be just one person." As a wise person once said, proximity does breed familiarity.

Now the funny part is that the story doesn't end here. I came back home not too sure whether my theory was false or not. So there I was on my couch, watching television and reading my favourite blogs, when the doorbell rang. My roommate got up to answer the door and all I heard was a series of 'Hi's. Forcing myself out of the nice snug position I had rolled myself into, I leaned forward to look at the door. Now don't get me wrong or start judging me, but I found before me a girl who was definitely the cutest of the lot I had seen that day. Now I do realise that this blog might have an increasing number of readers, but to expect someone so cute show up at my place on a Friday night is a bit disconcerting. So there was my chance to score with a cute girl and convert my dreams into reality. I began to search for something clever to say, something that would make me an instant hit. This would be my moment of victory to which I could look back and draw inspiration later. As the seconds hand inched forward, the words finally hit me and I spoke. "ermm Hi!"

Cute Girl: Hi
Me: Hi
Cute Girl: Hi! I am looking for Tyler.
Me: I am Jack's total awe for Golu's theory on schizophrenia. Excuse me ?
Cute Girl: Tyler stays here right ?
Me: I am Jack's irritation at being named Golu and not Tyler Durden. Errm no.
Cute Girl: [visibly embarassed] I am so sorry but I must be in the wrong house.
Me: I am Jack's extreme sorrow. Yeah I guess you are looking for the house next door.
Cute Girl: I'm sorry for the trouble. Bye.
Me: I am still Jack's extreme sorrow.

I am still waiting in hope that she was looking for Golu and not Tyler Durden. But something tells me that she won't be back. I know that, because Tyler knows that. Till then I will have to find a way to cope with my alter-ego and make sure that he doesn't get the best of me.

That is what girls like ra !

2007-02-07T13:02:00.000-08:00

My good friend, winner of a student best paper award and most importantly, the awesome vocalist Zubin asked me a question today Why have u stopped blogging bey? While the untrained eye of a dilligent worker might perceive that as an innocent question backed by a sincere concern, the question is quite rhetorical to the stereotypical graduate student. I was doing what I get paid for. Developing state of the art computer vision algorithms for segmenting extremely complex dynamic scenes. Don't you let the smile creep onto your face as I am not being sarcastic. As comical as it seems, I have been quite busy with work lately.

OK If my advisor accidentally strayed onto my blog, he would have hopefully read the first part and gone away. SUCCESS ! HURRAH!

Sigh! The misery of a graduate student. Don't get me wrong. I do like what I am doing and thoroughly enjoy it. I really do. But it is cruel to expect 100% efficiency. I honestly believe that achievable efficiency levels are somewhere between 0 and 50%. People who disagree with me can rest be assured that they should learn to relax a bit. HOWEVER, the state of affairs has been pretty sad lately. Sro having become a corporate bitch, hardly signs on to his messenger. This means a solid hour is erased from my time allocated for discussing the deep fundaes of life (mostly related to why the two of us are single). To add to my woes, YouTube seems to be working slow since the time it has been acquired by Google. Consequently, I am forced to drum my fingers on the table and watch the tracker bar crawl every millimetre, while I wait with bated breath to see why Mallika's new year dance created such a big stir. While you begin to sympathize for me, hold your horses. It doesn't end here. My system administrator seems to have blocked Yahoo! games. Just when I was beginning to kick major ass at pool and wordracer, I am robbed of my training tools. How am I expected to beat Renta at these games, if I don't get to have a proper training routine. Sigh! Woe is me.

Long gone are those days, when I would have a random MATLAB window open along with 3 vague plots. I crave for all those music videos that I could stream on YouTube. I miss the the adrenalin rush when I had to move faster than light and use alt+tab to switch to a pdf of the latest journal before my advisor made his way to my cubicle. I am finally working sincerely! I just gulped down a lot of air as I read the last few lines (all of this is being written in office hours, mind you!).

However, all is not lost. There is still hope for me to revert to ye good old idler. I have been seeking out new ways to entertain myself, although they are nowhere close to being good substitutes of the above mentioned. I love Google for some reason. I really do. But of late they have made some annoying changes, the biggest one being the introduction of the "who viewed me" feature in Orkut. WTF? I mean seriously WTF? In an ideal world, you would like to see who all have viewed you but would definitely not let the others know that you have been leching at their profile. Severely crippled by this new feature, I derive 5 minutes of entertainment from browsing through profiles of random people who visited my profile. I think God is playing a cruel joke on me. How is it possible that ALL the cute girls that visit my profile are committed? Not that I have a good chance of getting to them, but atleast give me an outside chance for crying out loud :( My good friend Sro however comes back to the rescue. Given his busy schedule, he does take out some time to contact me everyday. He gives me a call when he is ordering food at restaurants so that he doesn't look silly sitting alone at the table and also messages me on Gtalk during his break. Apart from discussing our new found love for females with nose piercings and establishing that any girl who doesn't appreciate Master of Puppets is a certain no-no, my friend, countryman and fellow Ro has come up with an absolutely brilliant section of daily chat: Introspective question of the day. If any snooty corporate like Duh who laughs at the supposedly dull lives of graduate students while all his time is spent filling numerous Excel sheets, beautifying Powerpoint presentations and tricking friends to take a loan from his company, dare point a finger and tell me how sad I am to enjoy such things. BEWARE! Well I really can't do much more than that ... but come on, have a heart ! So coming back to this brilliant concept, It essentially involves a question that has 2 possible answers such as choosing the red pill or blue pill, and we go about discussing our rationale behind the answer. A typical answer is something as follows.

Ro: Rei Golu. Today's introspective question for the day.
Dheeraj: Wait ra! My advisor is around.
<5>
Dheeraj: Ok shoot!
Ro: Do you believe in free will ?
Dheeraj: Please use small words.
Ro: Do you believe that you control your surroundings or is everything governed by destiny ?
Dheeraj: I think it is a linear combination of the two. However, I would tend towards being responsible for my own mess.
Ro: That means if you were Neo, you would taken the red pill?
Dheeraj: Actually let me put it in perspective as to what I mean.
Ro: Ok fine.
Dheeraj: I am single by choice. You are destined to be single.

We then laugh our heads off to such silly jokes and spend the next 10 minutes discussing how humorous we are and lamenting that we are single because the girls cannot comprehend our brilliant sense of humour. After having fakely convinced ourselves, we get back to work. As a rotund wise person once said "Sigh! the small things that make me happy."

On a closing note, I shall sign off with some deep fundaes on life by a good friend Sumanth. For the sake of completeness I would like to add that he is not single or as he very coolly tried to put it once for me "committed". I could continue to rant as to how devastated I was when I found out that he had a girlfriend but I shall not digress. Coming back to the story which almost re-affirmed my belief that girls do not tend to choose sane guys for boyfriends. It so happened that Sumanth came down to Baltimore for Christmas. He was accompanied by 2 female friends. There was a male friend too, but I don't deem it fit to include his character sketch for this story. The inquisitive person I am, I seemed to have asked Sumanth if one of them was single. I am very careful in the usage of the word "seemed" as I do not recall doing so. However, the naive person that he is, I do not think that Sumanth would have made it up. Now picture the scene with a lame Golu (did I mention that I had a surgery for a torn ligament in my knee ?) who is piss drunk and busy making merry with his good ol' friends Zubin, Ro, Viral and Prade. At this time Sumanth found it apt to mention to one of his lady companions "Do you know that Golu asked me yesterday on the phone if you are single?" Have you ever wondered what a person would look like if he was sniped on his balls? I can quite confidently say that I sported that look, whatever it is.

This was a situation tailor made for my my good friend Raj, but here I was being embarassed in front of all my friends. A few reference to each other's mothers were made and the event was covered up quickly. The next day, I had Sumanth tied to a chair after having beaten him up black and blue and shone a bright light down his disfigured face. "Why did you tell her that? Are you a ch**t?". Ideally, that is what I would have liked to do. However, what I did was pose the question in a very tame fashion over chat. Pat came the reply "You idiot, you don't know anything. That is what girls like ra!" At this point, I would like to take a break from writing this blog, run towards the horizon, hold my hands towards high heaven and scream in shock and disbelief "KEH DO KI YEH JHOOT HAI!". If what Sumanth says is the truth, may lightning strike me down.

5 minutes later, I find myself intact (well my knee doesn't count). There is God after all. I shudder when I think of what would have happened had I taken Sumanth's words for real. It sends shivers down my spine when I imagine a scene of me telling a girl "Hi I would like to take you home and ... " THWACK. BUT common sense prevails. I live on in hope of greener pastures filled with amazing beer, kick ass music and sundar & susheel girls. Till then, I will have to make do with the beer.

May I take your order please !

2006-12-28T21:51:00.000-08:00

Any ordinary person would have heard the regular background noise of constant punching of keys, mouse clicks, beeps from the CPU and the occasional chatter. But, he had lost all sensation. The only sound that he heard right now was that in his head. He had never heard anything so horrifying to date and had broken into cold sweat. The noise kept replaying relentlessly in his head, 5 words followed bythe telephone's click. Doomsday was not a concept after all. It had arrived. Nervously, he looked around to see if anyone had overheard his telephonic conversation. No one could know! He adjusted his shirt's collar, wiped the sweat off his brow and made his way to the HR to mention that he was taking the day off.

Two hours later, he was at his favourite spot. He always came here to wash away his worries. The sun, sea and sand seemed to cheer him up. Not to mention, the pretty girls bouncing around in skimpy swimsuits. Today even they could not cheer him up. Feeling his heart sink at a tremendous rate, he took out his cellphone and punched in some numbers. The phone rang at the other end but he got no answer. He tried again but in vain. All was lost. He wanted to cry. He wanted to drive his convertible into the water and never return. He buried his face in his arms. Then the phone rang.

"Rei Kapil l@nj@kodaka! You called ?" Kapil's face lit up immediately. At this point of time, I would like to inform the readers that Gulty also-not-known-as Kapil was quite the cheerful person. Cheerful in fact was an understatement. The fact that his 32 teeth were always glaring at you could drive you up the wall. But you had to give it to the person. He could be in extremely deep shit, be it in matters of academics, work or love, but the damn smile persisted. He was probably created to compensate for people like me who spend most of the time sulking over nothing. I guess that's what makes him such a good friend. Without further ado, I shall get back to the actual story. Given the fact that Gulty was always happy, I was a bit surprised to discover a sadness in his voice. I began to interrogate him with the ulterior motive that I might have some fresh news to gossip about. "Golu ga! Over ra my life. For the first time in my life, I am extremely scared." More than sympathizing for Gulty, I began to become more and more curious as to what the f@ck was wrong with him. "Gulty, Come on ra. Tell me what happened." In a very deep and morose tone he said that he had got a call from back home in Warangal. He claimed that he heard those 5 words that he dreaded a lot.

"Your cousin is getting married." Now any normal person would be happy to get such news. It means that you get to go on a vacation, meet relatives, eat good food and search for possible cute girls to hit on. The normal person that I am, I was even more bewildered by the entire situation. "Are you on crack? Picchekinda? (Are u mad ?) What is there to dread in that?". All I got was silence in return. "Rei do you know the consequence of all this? It means that I am up next in my family for marriage. I am not ready for marriage ra. I don't what to get married. I have never fallen in love also." Slapping my head, I realised I was treading on familiar ground. Gulty and his fundaes about love. I tried convincing him that nothing of the sort was going to happen. "Ni aiyya! You don't know. When I go back for my cousin's marriage, my parents will show me some 10 females' photos and I will have to get married. I am feeling scared at the very thought of going back." At this point, I realised that his fears were justified and tried to allay them. "So why are you afraid of getting married anyway?"

"It's not about being afraid ra. This is not how things should happen." I totally agreed with him. I began telling him about how I had sworn to my parents that I would NEVER EVER have an arranged marriage. "No ra! You have other issues Golu. I am talking about something else." I am Jack's confused state of mind. "See! The world has a totally wrong concept of how things should happen. Ch@@ts like you think that one should first meet a girl, fall in love, get married and then have sex." Isn't it funny how people think they know you in and out? "But that is all fucked up ra! I am going to tell you the most important funda of life. First you have lots of sex. Then you get disgusted by it and begin to crave true love. So you finally seek the damsel of your dreams and get married to her. THAT my friend is the correct order." Now it really makes me curious as to how one can get disgusted of sex, and I mean REALLY REALLY curious. But that is a secondary issue. I spoke for almost an hour with Gulty and finally hung up with a smile on my face.

Sigh! The small things that can scare a person so easily. Kya shaadi barbaadi hai ?

Golu has layers !!!

2006-11-20T22:27:00.000-08:00

Finally I get to post after a long long time. Well this is not really a post, but just a shameless advertisement of a video I recently recorded. Of late, I have really been hooked onto the song "Hallelujah". I've been trying to get online a recording of me playing this song for quite some time now.

The song was initially sung by Leonard Cohen and later covered by Jeff Buckley with a guitar version and Rufus Wainwright with a piano version(which also features in the movie Shrek). These versions are entirely different and yet so cool. So here is yet another cover of the song by me, but I've revamped the song. As is evident in the video, I [intentionally] ended up playing at quite a fast pace and changed the melody of the song a bit.

I also added 3 verses to the song, which go something like this:

Now I search that secret chord
that I could play and win your heart
But everything I play is noise to ya
If you hear between the notes,
or read beyond the clever quotes,
blind and its a silent Hallelujah

I know you're not some fancy prize
I don't need you before my eyes
Then why do I feel lost without ya
It's not a game I like to play
I need to live another day,
live to draw from you the Hallelujah

I know that I have been a fool
and not played by the rule
Hate begets hate, but not so love
They say that man errs and learns,
repents while he tosses and turns
In the dark he learns of Hallelujah

Ok I swear I can sing better than I did in the video :)

Is it worth it ?

2006-09-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

"The mind, my friend, is believed to be a funny thing. It can help one reduce a problem into mere nothingness or help ... if you may, create a problem out of nothing. That brings us to an important question. Is belief in something ... a problem or is it nothing? Is belief a creation by humans to drive them towards a goal or to repel them from the so called sins? Or is belief just a false projection by mankind to make a place for themselves in society? The answer to this question really does not matter because not every person has the same belief. What does matter, however, is that you listen to your heart and not your mind. The mind can play funny games, while your heart knows exactly what it wants."

"That's easy for you to say. You are handsome and smart. You could get any girl you wanted. Things would come to you in a golden platter. What would you ever know about rejection ?"

"In your own words, that's easy for you to say. If you think that you are not handsome or not smart, then maybe there is a plausible explanation for a girl not liking you. But if you are as handsome and smart as me, or as you would like to believe, then there is no scope for rejection. I am sure you would more than agree with me. But there my friend ... right there ... is where we differ in our beliefs. If it happened to you, it would be a normal reaction. If it happened to me, THAT would be rejection. But aah ... the female psyche is a bit more involved than that. "

"Well go on Socrates. Do feel free to enlighten me."

"You see in the old days ... and when I mean the old days, I mean right after the big bang and the T-rex, ... man was a hunter. They never had pubs to go hang out and get chilled beer served to them. They never had sports bars to go check out the latest ball game. They never had multiplexes to go and entertain themselves. They had just two basic needs: food and sex. The food they got from hunting and the sex ... well I hope I don't need to explain that to you. Now don't get me wrong, I am not a male chauvinist or any nonsense of that sort. I respect women and more than sure do love them. My point is that women realized that all they needed to do to survive was gather the attention of men and they then would have juicy chicken wings delivered right to their doorstep. Now down the years, man has evolved into a supposedly wiser and more mature version. However, the women selectively chose not to shed this feature of theirs during evolution. Even today, they always gather the attention of men who in turn provide them with the basic necessities of life that they call love and we call money. So if a guy appreciates a girl's attention, it indicates his interest in her, but if a girl appreciates a guy's attention, it indicates nothing more than the fact that the sun rises in the east. Put in plain and simple words, girls like attention, irrespective of whether she likes the guy or not. OK! Get that stupid confused look of your face. I am getting to my point. Even if I am so irresistible, there are 100 other guys with more or less the same characteristics who are probably willing to give the girl more attention, and that my friend is really the crux of survival of the fittest."

"Dude! I started off thinking that you were drunk when I initially spoke to you. But I guess you are just deranged. Quite contrary to your words, you are a male chauvinistic pig and have some of the weirdest opinions I have ever heard of. Trust me when I say, you need some mental help."

"Well, whether I need help is just a matter of one's belief. However, there is no question in the fact that you need help. A guy who goes out to end his life just because he cannot come to terms with the fact that a girl does not want to date him, DOES have some fucking issues in his life."

It was 7 in the evening and the sun had just begun to set. The chirping of the birds filled the silence in the park. The occasional breeze rustled the leaves, but apart from that there was no movement. David sat on the bench, frozen in that pose for about an hour, enjoying the tranquility of the environment. He wanted some time off from the shrieks, from the struggling, from the pain. He wanted some time off from what was ironically known as civilization. He needed to cool off. He would have fallen asleep on that bench, if Mark had not walked in. There were a million other places that Mark could have gone to, but unfortunately for him and for David, he chose this park. Perhaps, he too was looking for some solace.

"Mind if I sit next to you ?"

David just gave him a cold stare. If choosing the same park was not bad enough, this dark stubby man now wanted to sit right next to him.

"Sure! This bench isn't mine. It's a different question whether I would have said no, if this belonged to me. However, since it does not, I shall leave those technicalities untouched and therefore not have any particular opinion regarding you sitting on this bench."

Mark hesitated before sitting down on the bench. He dusted the leaves off the bench as David carefully watched each move of his. Mark made himself comfortable and emulated David. He too began to stare into oblivion. Silence took over for the next 20 minutes or so.

"Would you care for a cigarette?"

"No thanks. I quit."

David just smiled. "Well, so did I." With a dab on the pack, he flipped out a cig and popped it into his mouth. He searched his pockets for a light but couldn't find any. "Excuse me. Would you have a lighter or matches on you?" Mark promptly fished out a lighter and handed it to David. Having lit his cigarette, David took a puff and the feeling of relief swept across his face. He looked up at the sky as he continued puffing.

"I thought you quit?"

"I did."

"Then what's the lighter for ?"

"Excuse me, but could you please spare me the interrogation. I somehow am not in the best of moods and rather be left alone. I came here expecting not to be disturbed."

"Sorry mate. The word's taken. My lips are zipped ... well except for when I need to puff."

Nothing was said for the next 2 minutes.

"I think you should know that next time you want a peaceful surrounding, you should choose a better, or as people would put it, a safer place. This is not the best of neighborhoods and there have been a series of murders in the last 2 months. You don't want to come here to catch a small nap and end up being put to sleep."

"Well I actually do know that. That's part of the entire plan of coming here. Part of me inside is dead now and the rest wants to follow suit. I really have no drive to go on. I did come here hoping that the serial killer, if he does exist, comes and gets me."

David's cigarette fell out of his mouth, onto his jeans and tumbled down into his shoes. He immediately got up and danced around trying to get the cigarette out, while it burnt a hole on his left foot.

"Dude! Are you fucking crazy? If you said that to freak me out, you sure did succeed. Nobody wants to die really. It's all just a gimmick to gain sympathy. People go to the theatres when they are sad, or they go indulge themselves in a lot of beer or ice-cream or sex. No one sets out wanting to be killed. But that look in your eye, it tells me that you are not lying. What's the matter? Why do you want to take such a drastic step? "

Mark said nothing. His eyes began to well up. He swallowed hard trying his best not to cry. His cheeks went a deep red and he began to breathe heavily. Then a tear trickled down his face and he was back to normal.

"Did you get kicked out of work? Did some lousy fart get promoted above you? Are you neck deep in some kind of loan from some gangster? Did your girlfriend dump you? ..... Aaah, your girlfriend dumped you. Man, these wise words come from an experienced man. Women are not worth the time and worrying. Well they are definitely not worth your life !!"

"She is not my girl friend."

"Ah! So it gets better. You are sad because some random blue eyed blonde refused to respond to your smile, or are you sad because some chick gave you her number which really just led to the electricity department."

"No, it's nothing like that. She is a good friend of mine, probably one of the closest, if not the closest. Unfortunately for me, she does not want to take it to the next level. Initially, I could not deal with it, especially because she denied that there was any plausible reason we could not see each other. If you ask me, we were already dating ... without benefits. That's probably the saddest relationship status, worse than being single. But later on..."

"Hey! Fuck you man. Being single is not sad. I like being single. I like it much better than having to worry all the time whether I've cut my finger nails or whether someone is watching me pick my nose. I know it sounds gross, but I like to have these liberties and I like living that way. In any case, if this friend of yours has made it clear that she is not interested, then just fucking move on. It's a huge ball park out there and guess what? The tickets are still up for sale."

"You were saying something about later on."

"Well I was fine with the fact that she didn't want to date. I even kept myself a little aloof with the intention that maybe it would help me get over here. But then, its just those small little things that she did, that just kept me going on and on. Somewhere, I hoped that maybe it would work out in the future. Shawshank Redemption may be a nice movie, but the message sure is screwed up. Hope, is a fucked up thing. Hope is just a euphemism for 'I know it's never going to happen, but let me at least wish that it happens so that I can lament later for not having succeeded and then wallow in self pity.' Hope, my friend, is one of the most fucked up things. Everytime I convinced myself that there was nothing, she would have a new trick up her sleeve. I hate these fucking mind games. "

"The mind, my friend, is believed to be a funny thing."

So Mark and David continued their conversation as David tried to convince Mark that love was overrated. David tried to explain that one could love his parents who brought him up, his uncle who used to bring him candy as a kid, his pet dog who used to greet him when he came back home, his best friend with who he first peeped into the girls bathroom. But with girls, the equation was totally different. It wasn't love, it was some weird thing, where a man ceased to act as himself. David liked to maintain that everything was driven by lust, but Mark believed otherwise. He thought that love did exist.

"Well , if you are so adamant that there is actually something like love, love actually...hahaha that's a nice one ... then why do you want to die. Don't you want to experience this oh-so-fucking-ethereal feeling before you really pop the gun. Well, I think that there is more to your story. I am sure that your feelings for her were bottling up, but such reactions always have a trigger. Tell me what it was in your case? "

"You are right, my feelings for her were more than bottling up. In fact you could bring all the bottles in the world and it would not be enough." Mark paused and gazed at the ground. Another tear made its way next to his shoe. "It happened today. This entire week went by uneventful. We had planned to go out and catch this concert in town. I had really been looking forward to this. She called up 4 hours before the concert and said she wouldn't be able to make it and asked me to take my brother along. I ordinarily would not have reacted this way, but somehow I knew right from the morning that she didn't want to go. Well she could have put it in plain words for me right away, rather than waiting till the last moment. What is worse is that I am sure she lied to me about her plans. It kills me inside to think that she is seeing someone else. Only god knows how many times I've woken up in cold sweat from nightmares of her dating this guy I really hate from the bottom of my heart. I can't really stand this state of affairs any more. I am emotionally drained and feel that I deserve more than just being casually swept under the mat and being brought out when needed."

"... and so you thought it would be convenient to go kill yourself. I think this girl of yours is lucky that she isn't dating you. Why would anyone want to be with an emotional volcano who wants to end his life just because his girlfriend never made it to a concert."

"You don't understand what ... "

"Of course, I don't understand. There is nothing to understand. It is not rocket science, it should come natural to all of us. Guy likes girl. Girl says no. Guy moves on. It's not Guy cries and dies. "

"But, WHY wont she date me. She doesn't seem to have any visible problems with doing so. What is stopping her?"

David fished 2 cigs from his pack. He lit both of them and gave Mark one. Mark felt the colour in his face come back as he took the first puff. It helped calm him down.

"As I told you earlier it's not about what is stopping her. A wise man once said - Behind every successful man is a woman. So the moral of the story is to be successful. Just do what you do best and you'll surely find a girl. You have to move on. You can't cry for the rest of your life. Your tears might distort your vision and prevent you from seeing the girl you ought to be looking at. Life is too short to be wasted on menial issues such as rejection. If it's not happening, it was never meant to be and will never be. "

Mark took a deep drag. He was visible much more relieved now. His tears had dried up leaving two lines on his face. He was breathing normally and just staring into the open. He had calmed down. He shook David's hand.

"Thanks a lot. I guess you have put it in perspective for me. I know what you are talking about and need to find a way to deal with it. It's not going to be easy, but I guess you are right, my life is to valuable to fret about such things. I think I should just be happy for her that she has found someone of her choice and should go along my way."

"Woah! I never said anything about being happy for others. Let me give you another piece of advice. The concept fo being happy for others is bullshit. If a person X feels happy for person Y, he is either jealous or really doesn't care. In either case, the happiness is all a bunch of crap. People can't be happy for themselves, why would they be happy for others ? But I do agree that you should live life king size for yourself. As long as you are happy, its all that matters. So get out of this place, go have a ball of a time and stop sulking. There are lots of great things in store for you. In any case, if you ever feel like dying again, you know that you can always walk back to this place."

Both of them broke out into laughter. Mark felt much better and the laughing helped him. But amidst this merriness, he suddenly felt himself choking. David had one arm around his neck and a revolver pointed straight at his forehead.

"I wasn't joking when I said that you could come here if you wanted to die."

Mark's joy had been shortlived. He again broke out into tears. This time it was much more profusely. The fact that he was being strangled didn't improve the situation. He tried to struggle for his breath, but the gun staring at his face discouraged him from any heroic acts. He slowly began to give in. He fought to get words out of his mouth.

"You son of a bitch. Why didn't you kill me much earlier. Why don't you just shoot me now. Make it easy for me. Why did you have to give me this entire bullshit talk on wanting to live."

With one jerk, David pulled Mark off the bench. He was now sprawling on the ground. He kicked Mark in his stomach, who in turn cried out in agony. All that came out was a muffled whimper as he tried to regain his breath. David caught him by his hair and knelt next to him, the gun still pointed at him.

"What is the fun in killing someone who wants to die. I would just be helping you, serving your cause. The pleasure is in seeing the struggle, the fight against death, the desire to live. You pathetic bastards always talk about wanting to die but the moment death knocks on your door, you run out of the backdoor. Well, this time the grim reaper has his scythe up your ass and you are just going to get fucked if you try and run away. Time to say goodbye to this cruel world"

Mark closed his eyes as he heard the cocking of the gun. He was going to die in a few seconds. It all ended right here, right now. His head suddenly fell to the ground. Maybe he had been hit. He didn't feel any pain. He wondered how much time it would take to set in. Maybe the bullet had numbed his senses. Was that possible? How did it matter anymore, he was dying. He opened his eyes to look at the world around him one last time. He saw David above him, carefully placing the revolver in his jacket. David had a menacing and yet kind smile on his face. Mark tried to crawl away from him. He tried to locate where he had been hit. He had not been shot. David had let him go.

"The mind, my friend, is a very funny thing. While the same damn thing wanted you dead 1 hour ago, the same thing made you fight for your life. Contrary to what I said earlier, there is one belief that probably all of us agree on and it is that life is not worth giving up for any damn thing in this world. Next time, when you are dejected, you may feel depressed but you will not want to end your life, because you have seen what it is like to be so close to death. I am letting you go because I know where you are coming from and I've been there myself. Maybe, you do deserve a second chance. However, if I have not driven home the message, feel free to pay me a visit in this park and I would be more than glad to finish my job."

Mark let out a loud shout. It wasn't a shout for help. It was a shout of relief, a shout in frustration, a shout to celebrate that he was alive. David walked away from him, zipping up his jacket as he tucked the revolver. He needed to find some place peaceful. He needed some time off from the shrieks, from the struggling, from the pain.

Ha ha ! Charade you are

2006-08-19T22:39:00.000-07:00

"Could I get a Vodka on the rocks. No ice"

"Excuse me"

"A Vodka on the rocks. No ice please"

"Erm..sure! But you do know right ... that it is the ice that makes up the rocks"

"As far as I remember your job profile reads serve not sermon. So if you could just give me what I ordered, I believe both of us would be happy."

"I'm sorry pal, but I just thought I should let you know that."

"Well, for starters I think I should let you know that I am not your pal. I very well know what Vodka on the rocks is supposed to be, but I can't help it if you pathetic examples for life forms are programmed to understand 'water, no ice' and not understand 'water, without ice'. So if I have asked you for Vodka on the rocks, no ice... I want pure unadulterated Vodka in my glass without any ice, without any damn colourful umbrella and most fucking definitely without any rocks. So could I get what I ordered for, or do I need to go through the entire speech again before you could understand me ?"

"Here you go! I hope you choke on your own puke. Drink up because I am making sure you don't enter this place again."

He sipped on his Vodka as he savored every drop of it trickling down his neck. He knew that this was his last drink at "Ale and Hearty". George supported himself, while he turned around to have a look at the place. It was filled with females, mostly underaged bimbos with fake IDs and fake cups, over-aged women with low cut tops trying to attract anything that moved. "Screw them", he muttered under his breath as he took another diabetic helping of his Vodka. George tried to remember when he had begun hating women.

"Maybe it's when my class teacher caned me for not having done my homework. But then, I guess I should hate mom which God knows is definitely not true. So am I a women hater? Well I also hate children, men, animals ... so I probably hate everyone. Yeah I guess that's it."

That was exactly it. George had a problem with everything. He was always that bully of the class, that irritating colleague, that unfriendly neighbour ... always the odd one out. Given a gun, he was quite capable of shooting his own reflection in the mirror, not to mention the rest of the world.

George removed his wallet and flipped out what seemed to be a crummy piece of paper. It was a photograph of his mother. She had been his only friend and only parent after his father became a war casualty. It's not that she didn't give him his share of scolding and spanking. He knew that deep down inside that stern figure, was a loving person who just wanted the best for him. Yeah! I really love mama.

"Excuse me! Could you please pass me the napkins?" George turned to the direction from which he thought that he had heard the voice. He saw a stunning woman who he hoped would not hate. She seemed to be in her mid twenties, maybe a year or two older than him. She had a figure to kill for, dark beads for eyes and free flowing hair. George thought that the Vodka had finally hit him hard. "Excuse me! The napkins please."

"Here you go." George threw the napkins across the bar to the lady and got back to working on his Vodka. He wondered why he had conducted himself in such a rude way. Rudeness, he thought had just become second nature. He turned around to lech at the bombshell. It wasn't hard for her to notice that his eyes were all over her, but since she was used to getting such kind of attention, she conveniently ignored him.

"Excuse me, how would you like to buy me a drink?"

"Pardon me!"

"I asked you if you would like to buy me a drink. Actually screw that! Please buy me a drink."

"I'm sorry I am not sure if I understood you correctly."

"I asked you to buy me a drink. What's so difficult to understand in that?"

"Ha! Now I've seen it all. You first gawk at me like I'm some prize exhibit and then you go ahead and pull this stunt with what I believe is the worst come on I have ever had. What's next? Are you going to ask me to take you back to my place?"

"The truth is that the prick who calls himslef the bartender has sworn not to cater to me anymore, so I need someone else to get me the drinks. It's not like the drinks are going to be on you. I'll pay. I am not trying to make a move for crying out loud. I, however, would not mind you taking me back to your place."

George was answered with a cold stare. The stare lasted for about 5 seconds. George just stared back hoping that she would get him his drink. The lady called out to the bartender. "One Vodka on the rocks please." George wanted to tell her that he didn't want the ice, but he didn't want to go through the entire episode again. He smiled as she nudged the glass towards him. "Here! You don't need to pay me. I'm sorry I lost it earlier. Bad day."

"Hi, I'm George. My friends call me Roger ... and you are ?" She gave an extremely doubtful look at his extended hand and finally decided to take it. "Hi George! I'm Martha."

"I've never seen you at this place. Are you new in town ?"

"Has it ever occured to you that there are other places where people can go drink. Now that I come to think of it, I am quite happy that I never visited this place earlier."

"Well, I guess I can take the hint that you are not in the mood for a conversation."

George went back to working on his Vodka. He realised that the ice helped in cooling down the burning sensation in his throat. So generations of people weren't fools after all to dunk ice cubes in liquor. Maybe he should not have argued with the bartender. Maybe he should have just taken the piece of information, irrelevant though. Maybe he should have...

"I'm sorry for being so rude earlier. It's just that I have had a bad day."

"Join the club. Drink up and drown your sorrows."

George thought to himself ... "3 or maybe 4 drinks, before I take her back home."

"So do you want to talk about it. I know I am no close friend, but hey if you need to let anything it out, you just need to shout across the bar."

Martha just replied with a subdued thank you and a smile. George re-evaluated his thoughts - 2 drinks.

"I'm actually a writer. I've written this new book called 'Retracing my steps: Heaven or Hell'. It's a book about a person who is in the final moments of his life and goes down memory lane trying to delineate the high and low moments of his life. Personally, I thought it was a brilliant piece of work. Well, I guess it's only natural for me to think that way. I've been hunting high and low for a publishing house that would go ahead and release the book. So far all I have got is frustration, snickers and the invitation to an editor's lodge outside town. I sometimes feel let down and just want to give up. "

"Ah! Well I can call you an artist then. Well no offence, but this question comes from one artist to another - why would you be so obsessed about making your creative work public. Well I guess there is no harm in getting the publicity and the extra penny in your pocket, but isn't your work really just aimed to express yourself. So if you are able to express your feelings or say ... your thoughts or your message for world peace in words and are happy with your work, why bother about others reading it. It's not like the others might necessarily appreciate it. I mean are you sure you can deal with failure? I am sure it is not as pretty a picture as is usually painted. How would you feel if you found out that people were using your book for wiping their asses rather than reading."

"Wow! Talk about having a cheer-up talk. Whose side are you on anyway ? Anyway, being honest, I really don't care a damn about the money or the publicity. NO! I AM BEING HONEST. The very thought that there are people out there with my book in their hands and thinking to themselves - This girl has sure got the right idea. That is what keeps me going. It's not about reaching out to the general public, it is about reaching out to the people out there who are just like you. When I write, I write about my life ... well it might be through the medium of an old fart, but then somewhere maybe I do feel like an old fart. I want to use my work to reach out to people who have the same stories to share, the same experiences. The very fact that someone out there identifies with you, the very fact that someone is going to enjoy my work because it is really about his or her life, the very fact that that person could not have put it in better words - is enough to make me happy. "

"I'd bet that if you sent this speech out to a local newspaper, you would reach out to a lot of frustrated artists like you, and also get a bit of money in the process."

"It might seem funny to you now, but trust me someday, maybe years, decades from now, you will realise how true each one of my words was."

"Well may be I will or maybe I won't. But then I guess there is no use in idling away the present thinking about the future. So why don't we have a good time while we are here and leave the philosophical thinking to the drunk guy next to me."

So George and Martha chatted away for 3 hours and 8 drinks. Funnily he had taken a liking for her as a person. He thought that he connected with her at some high mental level. He wasn't thinking anymore of taking her back home. Honestly, he lost hope after her 4th drink. While she sat there talking excitedly, George thought to himself, "This is the girl I want to spend my life with."

As the bar closed down, George and Martha stood outside the "Ale and hearty" about to bid farewell.

"Martha, I must admit I really liked your company. I would like to meet you again. Can you give me your number. I really have a good feeling about this."

"As much as I hate to admit it Roger, I too enjoyed the evening. But the sad part, well sad for you ... is that I have a fiance who I have great affection for. So, I guess this IS goodbye. I am sure you'll definitely find someone much better than me. Plus... this is just a silly crush you have."

"Well...the silly crush as you call it..was good while it lasted. I shall cherish this evening for long."

They parted ways to go back home. 5 minutes later, Martha heard George shouting out her name running towards her.

"Alright you must think I am insane. I am not trying to act like an obsessed lover or something, but could I have a copy of your book if you have one on you."

Martha smiled and fished out a set of stapled papers. "I hope you like it." With a kiss on his cheek, she disappeared into the darkness.

That night was probably the longest in George's life. He stayed up reading Martha's book till he completed it. He was already very surprised as to how right she had been about people being able to identify themselves with her work. Every page seemed to be out of a day or a year of his life. He further surprised himself when he laughed out or sniffled while reading the book. He agreed that it was quite a work of art. It was the closing lines of the book, however, that hit him the hardest.

"In this sea of madness, I did swim,
catering to every fancy and whim,
As I near the end of this painful strife,
I ponder and wonder to myself
Am I dying or have I lived my life."

George was lost for words as he put down the paper pile next to him. He lay down in the grass outside his house staring at the sun with a weird smile on his face. Martha's work had not gone in vain. It had made a huge impact on him. He sat there wondering as to how many frustrated and sad youth there were like him in the world. He wanted to reach out to them. He too wanted to let them know that they were not the only unfortunate ones. He wanted them to know that there were people like him who were undergoing the exact same feelings at this very moment.

After his mind had been flooded with such ideas, George got up and made his way to his room. He searched for the songs that he had written long ago and thrown into the dark corners of his closet. He found a dusty mass of crumpled papers lying underneath his woolens. He arranged the papers as neatly as he could and took the first one that came to his hand and placed the rest on his table. Strumming his bass guitar, George tried to fit a tune to the song as he spoke out the words Daddy's flown across the ocean.

[Decades later]

Person on TV: So Roger, we hear that the song "Wish you were here" on the new album is dedicated to Syd Barrett.
George: [pausing and smiling] Yes!

--
ps: I am sorry if I offended any ardent fans out there, but I just wanted to give a fictional take on the entire thing. I don't think it really came out as I wanted it to to be, but then if I could do so .... I would have been writing my own book :)

We're blood brothers ?

2006-07-07T09:37:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to my roommate Harsh 'Nano' Aggarwal, who can go to the extent of defying extremely simple logic sometimes just to prove a point. Here goes an incident as narrated to me by Panda when Harsh and he went to take a drug and alcohol test for the Maryland driving license. For people who are thinking the test is a thingie where one goes and pees in a cup, the test is really a set of 20 questions that one has to answer in order to show that he/she is aware of the nuances of drinking and drug abuse.

So one apparently has to read some online course (which I myself have been postponing for the last month ...erm make that 3 months) before going for the test. Panda and Nano got bored mid way and went to the testing centre directly. Now the chaps out there maintain a record about who has gone through the test online. Since Panda and I had taken the test a year back (and like fools didn't take the actual driving license test), Panda's name featured in the records. But since fate is not without its sense of irony, Nano did not have his name in the records. What followed was an amazing conversation between Nano (N) and the testing guy (T).

T: It says here that you have not read the online course.
N: No No. I gave the test.
T: Well, if you would have read the course, your name would feature here.
N: Actually the reason is there was some problem with my account. So I read the first half of the course in one account and the second half in another account.
T: Why did you do that?
N: I forgot the username for the first account
T: But ... the username is just your name. (i.e. Harsh Aggarwal)
N: Oh! Actually I now remember what happened. I read half of the course and then second time it was not letting me log back in. So that's why I had to open a second login. [at this point of the story I already think Nano is God for such a story]
T: Alright. So can you tell me what the second login was ?
N: Actually, I have forgotten that login also.
T: (STILL not disgusted / irritated) OK! Can you try to remember what it would be ?
N: I used my brother's name.
T: So what is his name ?
N: I can't remember it now because I think I put in his nickname. [Now I am convinced that Nano is greater than God]
T: OK! Let us go through the list (drawing out a list on the computer in front of him).
N: (looking into the list hoping for a ray of light): There...there. That's my brother. Piyush Aggarwal. Yes, now I remember that I used his real name and not his nickname.
T: Well, It is good that we located your assumed name. However, you need to complete the course on your name before we can issue a certificate.
N: Sigh! OK.

I urge...nay... request all you readers that wherever you are ... please get off your chair, kneel on the floor and (NO... not that you pervert) bow down to Harsh 'Nano' Aggarwal, the God of Fart.

Raj returns!

2006-06-30T23:36:00.000-07:00

Just when I was about to dive into the mouth of madness, unable to think of something interesting to blog about, I ran into my good old friend Raj online. It was good to hear from him after ages. While we have not been in touch with each other, the idiot has apparently been lurking on my Orkut account. He complained that I "shot into stardom" for writing about his antics and was quite upset that people are crediting that incident to me :) Given the fact that he found one of the scrappers very cute, it didn't do any good to my situation. However, a chat with Raj can never fall short of being extremely entertaining. So ... although I promised him I wouldn't write about it on my blog, I just CANNOT resist writing about this incident that he told me about. So here goes nothing. You do realize that this could very well be my last post ... or well until Raj gets his hands on my chubby neck.

Drums rolling
Bugles blowing
Scantily dressed girls making way as the camera zooms in

Raj returns! (which would actually do much better at the box office as compared to that poor excuse for a movie: Superman returns. I could actually go on and on about how pathetic that movie is but I need to stop here because the bracketed part has totally overshot the size of the title.)

So it was the typical setting for yet another one of those incidents that would happen to Raj. A dark night without a star in the sky, a slight drizzle and a steady wind. A few readers out there would tend to believe that I am just pulling stories out of my ass but trust me it doesn't happen in the movies only. So anyway without more digression let me get back to my story. So Raj apparently was making his way back home and was waiting at the CST local train station with his friends .... to take the train obviously. So Raj and his friends got onto the crowded train and darted for the first empty spot they found. 10 minutes later Raj was trying to get cozy in the little space he had next to the window and catch some sleep as he was to get off at Thane about an hour later. Little did the poor (I don't know why I sympathize with the bastard) chap know what fate had in store for him.

"Aren't you Rajesh Padgaonkar?". Raj claims that those words came from one of the sweetest voices he had ever heard. But then given his track record of being single for 23 years, I guess he would find any girl's voice sweet. I know that I should not be the one to make such a comment but then that would make for another story. So getting back to the story, Raj turned around to find one of the most beautiful girls he had seen that day. She seemed to be a college student as Raj the sleuth deduced so from the books he saw in her hand. On the fairer side, she seemed to be in her early 20s, 21 to be precise according to Raj. Wearing a light green T-shirt that read "Born to be wild", blue jeans, Kolhapuri chappals and very sweet earrings, Raj claimed that her dimples with her sweet smile were the icing on the cake. His reply to her answer was just an empty stare with his mouth wide open How the f@ck would you even know me ? "Excuse me, but you are Rajesh right? "

After Rajesh had finished admiring her brush her curly hair across her face and tuck them behind her ear, he managed to find the courage. "Yes. I am Rajesh. My friends call me Raj but Rajesh is alright. I sometimes do not respond to Rajesh because now I am so used to being called Raj. But it is ok you can call me Rajesh. But how do u know my name?" Now you know why I don't sympathize with the ass. There you have a cute girl talking to you and THIS is how you start a conversation ?? She smiled making her dimples more clearly visible. "I guess I'll just call you Raj. Short and sweet. Hi! I am Anita. I am a 2nd year commerce student". After 10 minutes of getting to know each other, Raj realized his question hadn't been answered. "Anita ... You never told me how you knew my name?"

Is the moon made of cheese? Does Count Dracula exist? Will Ro ever get a babe? WHO THE F*CK gives a damn about the answer to these questions. The world will still go on. People will continue to lead their normal lives. The idiot could have just carried on with the conversation they were having. You don't need to know the answer to every damn question in your birdbrain mind. I mean whatever happened to the phrase curiosity killed the cat. So anyway since time cannot be turned back, he had already popped the question and was waiting with bated breath to hear her answer. "Well this might seem to flatter you, but actually I first heard about you from my friends last year at a college festival. A few of them saw you in a dance event and found you quite cute. Some of them apparently spoke to you and found you quite humorous. I would not be wrong if I said that you are quite popular among my friends circle. In fact I have your name tattooed on my butt"

Can I have a look at it? Is my name spelt right? I think these would be good questions to pose, but the idiot just kept staring into open space. I think for the first 10 seconds he was quite pleased with that idea but then he broke into cold sweat ... the end of Raj as we know it. He gave her a very feeble smile. "Hehe... that is a nice joke." She stared at him seriously. "No what makes you think I am joking. I really do have your name tattooed across my butt." Raj said that he apparently wanted to just jump off the moving train. "Please don't joke with me like that. Tell me who told you to say this to me. I am sure it was Vikram. That bastard always does stuff like this to me." Raj turned around frantically to search for his friends in the train and finally located them sleeping in their seats. He went up to them, "Abey, which one of you asked that girl out there to joke around with me ?" After a few references to each others' mothers and sisters, Raj realized that his friends were clean. Letting them return to their sweet dreams, Raj made his way back to sit next to Anita. "OK! Now I am really getting freaked out. Please tell me why are you joking like this? "

Anita began giggling and suddenly made a frowny face. "You ARE funny. However, you have upset me. Why don't you believe that I have your name tattooed? Now the first thing that I do after going home is to erase it." Raj just gave her a smile and the conversation ended right there. She of course did bid him farewell before she got off but that was it. Not a single word was spoken in the meantime. Yet another story which could have had a happy ending ended in a ... not so happy ending. Raj claims that if I were in his place I also would have had reacted the same way. HELL NO! If I were lucky enough that such things happened to me, I wouldn't be single and I most definitely wouldn't be sitting up at 3am on a Friday night blogging due to the lack of better things to do. Anyways I shall keep my eyes open for such chances and grab the first one that comes my way. Till then I have to just sit and rue my luck, while asses like Raj keep getting such opportunities.

ps: After a long and fruitful discussion with Panda last night, we came to the conclusion that Superman is CKD.

In the summer time ...

2006-06-07T20:21:00.000-07:00

... when the weather is fine You could stretch right up and touch the sky Now when the weather is fine You got women, you got women, on your mind

So said Shaggy chacha. However, I have different things on my mind (well women are on my mind always). I plan to improve my bass playing skills, get some quality research done and more importantly LOSE WEIGHT. I started my weight loss campaign 4 days ago and stepping onto the damn weighing machine to see myself lose at least a gram but no luck so far. Sigh! I guess its going to be one looooong summer. Yesterday, my roommate Harsh 'Nano' Agarwal was telling me about the concept of a runner's high. Apparently once a person runs about 14 miles, the body has burnt all the glucose and the begins to produce some enzymes/hormones (whatever .... I always sucked at bio) that make you feel happy and that is enough to get you through 3 more miles. This concept is known as the runner's high. Round about the end of 17 miles, the runner's high comes to an end and since the body has burnt all the glucose the runner suddenly feels screwed and this is apparently called hitting the wall. So basically when a person practises for a marathon or such event, he/she basically trains the body to 'push' the limits of the wall. In my opinion I think the concepts may be right but the numbers are not. Its all relative. I am beginning to feel the runner's high at 0.6 miles and am very emphatically crashing into a wall after a total of 1 mile. You can pretty much describe the feeling as the one Juggernaut experienced in X3 during the climax.

All this set aside, I also hope to return to blogging more actively and hope that lots of exciting things happen to me this summer, so that I get more fuel to blog. A few updates on the concerts that I haven't blogged about so far. I saw David Gilmour live and the experience was OUT OF THIS WORLD. I also saw Pearl Jam last week (for the 2nd time). The sound system SUCKED big time, but I still had a ball of a time. I've managed to get tickets to the RHCP concert in October and so I shall be watching them for the 2nd time. I totally enjoyed the first concert and hope that this one will kick more ass. I liked their new album 'Stadium Arcadium', but Pearl Jam's new self titled album is slowly taking over my listening time :).

So keep watching this space and I shall blog soon. If you are still reading this blog, I thank you for remaining faithful

Dude! Get a life...don't you have anything else to read ??

California...Rest in peace

2006-04-04T09:38:00.000-07:00

Yippee!!! The Red Hot Chili Peppers finally released the single "Dani California" from their to-be-released album "STADIUM ARCADIUM". I would like to thank Udit for forwarding the link to the video for the same.

I listened to the song last night and was frankly quite disappointed. But today morning, I finally put on my headphones and listened to the song. Needless to say, that is the only thing that I have been listening to so far. I have also pre-ordered the album from ITunes, because there is a pre-sale for their concert tickets that one can take part in on pre-ordering on ITunes. I have my fingers crossed and hope that Dani California does represent the general level of compositions in the entire album. However, I should say I would definitely like to see them play some music like their earlier albums. They lack that funky sound that is very characteristic of their earlier albums :(

Well before I sign off, I would like to announce that I shall be watching David Gilmour live tomorrow in New York City. He is currently promoting his new album "On an Island". So keep watching this space for a review of the concert !

So much for that!

2006-03-20T08:06:00.000-08:00

Sigh! With a heavy heart, I post that we didn't make it to the battle of the bands. However as the ending lines of our original "Dreams are killers go".

I'm looking forward 
to a sequel to this life
walkthrough open fields
with my head help up high
I will play the strings
and I will fix the tune
I will rise and dream again 

Till then I have to chill maadi.

And you thought it happened only in movies ?

2006-03-19T20:22:00.000-08:00

How many times has it ever happened to you that you remember laughing like mad in some movie's cheesy scene, only to realise later that you were in a similar situation in reality. Well, I know that my roommates do criticise me that I tend to think a lot that my life is a musical and that I can relate each and every second of my life to some movie always. However, I still like to maintain that the parallels I draw are always well justified. Here are some realizations/observations I have had/made of late :

1. Shah Rukh Khan is not AS cheesy as I used to think he used to be. Yes yes! If cheesy lines were drugs, he would have overdosed a long time back on them. However, after a few personal experiences and ones that my compatriots have had, I am not so sure that those lines are as cheesy compared to ones that I have heard being said. I myself have said stuff which would most definitely put SRK to shame. I guess love actually is all around :P. I would have loved to discuss the lines, but I would be disrespecting lots of sentiments if I went ahead. Bottomline: Somewhere deep down inside we are all cheesy at some level : whether you like it or not!

2. SOUNDTRACKS: Ok as weird as this sounds, I believe that I am actually leading a filmi life and that I can associate a soundtrack to each part of my life :O. So, everyday I listen to music on my ipod while walking to my lab. Most of the times, I can feel myself walking a different walk according to the music I listen, the weather and my general mood. WTF? I can swear that sometimes the wind blows in co-ordination with the drum rolls in the songs I listen to.

3. Have you watched movies in which an average guy dreams of making it big, then somewhere loses focus midway and finally realises towards the end that he has been screwing up big time. Well I just lived it last week. Initially I just wanted to jam with Zubin for some time. Then I became so obsessed with Battle of the bands, that I totally stopped enjoying the music jams like I should have and was bent on achieving perfection. After some self reflection, I apologised to Zubin and I do believe I told him, "Abey f@ck it. I don't care now whether we qualify or not for the battle. Let's jesht play the music as we like it and not pressurise ourselves"

I could go on and on, talking about stuff like this, but I shall choose to stop here. TRUST ME! ALL MOVIES HAVE SOME ELEMENT OF TRUTH SOMEWHERE (ok not Vin Diesel's movies). As the little kid says in Angels in the outfield - It could happen.

Finally, I have been totally hooked on to Dave Matthew's Band's rendition of "All along the watchtower". After listening to Hendrix's rendition, this one is such a cool change. I was very tempted to try this cover. In fact, I ever cover this song, I shall make sure that it is a medley with Led Zep's "Stairway to heaven", because both the songs have exactly the same riffs for the chorus !!! I am not sure if people have actually done it a lot like La Bamba/ Twist and shout, but I think it would be a cool experiment.

Music for music's sake

2006-03-17T09:44:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time there were 2 bandmates, Golu and Zubin. They led the average rockstar life, i.e. graduate students by day and rockers by night. One day, the dynamic duo decided that they had been playing covers for quite some time and that it definitely was time to transcend to the next level. Well, the real reason as to why Golu wanted to do that was his realization that he always screwed up in covers. If he was to play his own originals, no one could accuse him of playing the wrong bass lines. So Golu and Zubin hunted high and low for a launchpad for their musical skills. Lo and behold, they found Battle of the bands at Johns Hopkins University. Given the fact that the winners would play at JHU's Spring fair '06, Golu got really excited and started day dreaming about all the laurels they were going to win. In the meanwhile, Zubin clipped Golu's wings, reminding him that their immediate aim was to first come up with decent originals and then focus on playing tight.

The duo realised that there was a definite need for percussion and so Golu spoke to Supi, his fellow drummer from 40Hz, who readily agreed to play with them. However, the real punch was added when Zubin insisted that we have Nirveek, tabla player for 40Hz also play along with them. So the dynamic duo had now grown to a queer quartet. Queer, I say, because they had different music tastes and influences, and here they were meeting to make originals without any previous jams. Anyways, since Zubin and Golu had already been working on some stuff, they decided to build on the existing work just to save time.

After 2 voyages made by Zubin to Baltimore, on March 13th the band thought that they were getting close to the final versions of the songs they wanted to play. In the mean while, Sandeep Sarat, an ardent Iron Maiden fan and fellow music enthusiast, informed Golu that they were apparently screwed. All competing bands had to turn in demos by March 8th. WTF???? There had been no notices on campus and the quintessential Golu immediately surfaced, with nervousness writ all over his face. He immediately went into a frenzy and insisted that they record whatever they had. They continued recording till 12 in the night, when Supi insisted they stop, lest the neighbours call the cops. A dejected Golu and fatigued Zubin made their way back home while Golu kept ranting about what all they should record and submit. He had totally forgotten about the Nonlinear systems midterm he had in a day. Zubin suggested that Golu concentrate on his midterm and that he would take care of the recordings.

So after what could almost be classified as a sleepless night, Golu slowly made his way to class. He looked at his watch and saw that he was 10 minutes late already. Just then lady luck contacted Golu's cell in the form of Supi. THE DEADLINE HAD BEEN EXTENDED TO 17TH. Hurrah! I swear I remember Golu wanted to jump in joy, but he wisely decided not to do so after thinking about the weak foundations of the department building. He studied for the midterm the entire day and at 9 pm darted off for Supi's basement to record the demo numbers. A decent session helped the band record 4 songs for the demo :

1) And nothing else: A song Zubin had written in IIT which was sort of a dedication to his band Fuel For Fantasy. mp3
2) Dreams are killers: The history of this song is pretty cool. Or at least I definitely think so. While working on their originals, Golu told Zubin that they should definitely put in a line "Dreams are killers" in one of their originals. Zubin said that he had been working on a song long time back that deals with the thoughts that go on in a person's head while he is jumping off a building. So there they had one more original mp3
3) Funky Chicken Triple Part II: This song was more of a dedication to one of the funkiest guitarists Golu and Zubin had every seen G. This song essentially built on a bass line Golu had come up with sometime back. mp3
4) Soul to squeeze: With Golu around, it was quite difficult to play a cover and not have the Red Hot Chili Peppers feature. So he decided, that this would make a nice cover to play. mp3

With the demos submitted, the only thing left to do was name the band. After a lot of contemplation, Golu and Zubin decided on "The Tiktoks", plainly because Mauktik a.k.a Tiktok was quite pained when we suggested that we should name the band after him. I also find it quite necessary and important to mention that on the same weekend, one of Supi's friend, Rajiv happened to be in the neighbourhood for a conference. The Tiktoks jammed with him and it was an amazing experience. I would not say that the jam was consistently good, but it definitely had its high points. With Zubin and Rajiv soloing in turns, it was great fun.

So now after a music high, I have been scouting a lot for the next musical purchase to be made. I was very keen on purchasing an acoustic-electric 6 string. However the following 2 bass guitars have totally swept me off my feet. I guess I am not yet ready for these amazing pieces as yet, but someday I assure you that you can find me slapping these guitars. The bass guitars in the order that I want to purchase are

The Music Man's Sting Ray:

The quintessential Modulus Flea signature bass:

Ro, you promised me that you would buy me one of the 2 when u get a job. So get off your lazy ass, send out that resume and get a high paying job fast.

All in the family

2006-03-06T20:06:00.001-08:00

Scene 0
Date: 3rd March, 2006
Time: 10:00 pm
Location: St. Paul Street, Baltimore.
Description of the scene: Golu goes out with 2 friends, with the intention of getting some dinner.

Scene 1
Date: 4th March, 2006
Time: 2:00 am
Location: St. Paul Street, Baltimore
Description of the scene: Golu leaves the restaurant after having some interesting men to men talks over some refreshing beer.

Scene 2
Date: 4th March, 2006
Time: 2:05 am
Location: St. Paul Street, Baltimore
Description of the scene: Golu makes his way back home singing "Nothingman" at the top of his lungs, while he slowly sinks in his own past.

Enter actor 1 [walking towards Golu] : Hey man! What's with all these girls man? Why don't they talk to us black dudes?
Golu [totally taken aback]: Hmmm! Yeah!

Tareekh pe tareekh

2006-02-13T10:07:00.000-08:00

So it's that time of the year again, when I flip the calendar to 14th February and realise that it is JUST 14th February to me. Well I used to think that probably I am the only sad person around, but after a few responses I got from the people around me, I feel much better :) It felt nice to know that there are loads and loads of people around me who also just consider it as Feb 14th. I asked a few random people what they were going to do on Tuesday (purposely avoiding the use of 2/14 and Valentine's day to see if they even realised it was right around the corner) and this is what they had to say.

Me: So what big plans do u have for Tuesday ?
Guy1: You mean about the homework. I'll only start it in the afternoon.

Me: So what are you doing on Tuesday ?
Guy2: Is there a cricket match on Tuesday also ?

Me: So what are u doing on Tuesday ?
Girl1: I don't know! Why what's on Tuesday ?
Me: COME ON! You don't know what is on Tuesday ?
Girl1: F@CK! (calming down) Wait! The conference deadline is on Friday. WHAT is on Tuesday ?

(So by now, my roommates have already noticed me going crazy asking people this question)
Me: So what are you doing on Tuesday ?
Roommate1: I am going to ask you out.
Me: You are useless... (looking at Roommate2) what abt you ?
Roommate2: Main tujhe puppy doonga!

But here comes the best of them all. As usual my good friend Ro had to provide the entertainment.

Me: So Ro what are you doing on Tuesday ?
Ro: I'll have some wine, get myself a good dinner and then [censored in Ro's own interest].
Me: Yuckax! I hate it.
Ro: What the wine or being single ?
Me: Both! Ro I want a babe ra!!!!
Ro: Ok you are not tricking me into sympathising for you, becoming gay and finally going out with you

Anyways to all you lucky/unlucky people celebrating Valentine's day with ur bf/gf or neighbour's wife/husband HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY. As for the others ENJOY MAADI :p

Ishq-Vishq Pyaar-Vyaar

2006-02-07T22:01:00.001-08:00

I was so damn tempted to slip in L@#@! Lasun :D. Anyway first of all..YOPPPY NEW YEAR to all of you. I just got back from an amazing 5 week holiday in India. I got back to find myself tagged by Kate about something where one is supposed to describe 8 qualities of his/her perfect lover. In such matters, given my amazing track record , I don't think that I should stress on perfection in particular. Anyway here goes

8 qualities of my perfect female a.k.a Why I can claim to still be single !

1. She should NOT be the girly girly kind. By the girly girly kind I mean she should not be the kind who sits home on weekends watching Legally Blonde for the 23rd time in a pink coloured gown while she curls her hair in curlers and wonders for an hour to decide which shade of pink she should paint her nails. I am sure you get the idea.

2. She should NOT be the kind who talks in that sing-song high pitch tone. Well this kind is pretty much eliminated by (1), but one has to be careful. Please speak normally!!!

3. She should have a great and mean sense of humour. Of course...teasing me about my obesity is a sensitive issue :). I would like someone who always has a cheerful atmo around her.

4. She should DEFINITELY like music and movies. I dont think it is necessary/right to impose any conditions on the type of stuff she likes. YES! Britney Spears is definitely out. Along the same lines, I would prefer if she can play some musical instrument too (rythm or percussion to be more precise) so that we can jam along. If she plays the bass, she should not play better than me. (That goes for any male too ... I don't want to get kicked out of my band because my friend took the spot :D).

5. She should be sufficiently geeky/nerdy. She should be the kind who appreciates the brilliance of the chap who comes up with a joke such as "Why is 6 afraid of 7 ?". She should be comfortable with computers and like playing FPS. She should know/like/love linear algebra.

6. She should not be a smoker because I am allergic to ash. She should not also be a druggie. I have no problems with her drinking unless that she is a beer addict and doesn't regularly work out. I am looking for my perfect female and not a competitor for my paunch:P

7. She should have tanned skin say like Salma Hayek... neither fair nor dark.

8. She should have amazing hair. Hmmm!! That coming from a guy who is going to go totally bald by the time he graduates, is obviously funny... but then I am allowed my 8 points. By amazing I mean more or less the following
(a) Long hair - free flowing hair, i.e. no fancy hairdo please
(b) Medium length - The hair should be kinda curly ... like Priety Zinta in DCH :D
(c) Short hair - No fancy stuff again. Well the hairdos are in my head but I don't know how to describe them :D
(d) Bald - Depends on how many of the other points are satisfied (Sinhead O' Connor was hot!!)

WOW!!! Now that I have put it all down, I am a bit confused. I just wrote whatever came to my mind. Anyways any interested girls, please note that the above qualities are just guiding beacons and whether you are perfect or not: the final decision rests with me. So in case you think you have a chance, please do not feel shy to drop in a message :P

YESSSS!!!

2005-12-29T07:30:00.000-08:00

Times have changed and times are strange
Here I come, but I ain't the same
Mama, I'm coming home

(snip)

I've seen your face a hundred times
Everyday we've been apart
I don't care about the sunshine, yeah
'Cause Mama, Mama, I'm coming home
I'm coming home

If only Ozzy had added Papa into that :D! Anyways I am finally going home after 1.5 years. Am so damn excited. So I guess I shall not be blogging much from my dialup at home :D (not that I've been blogging here a lot). But shall have loads to write about once I am back.

Till then Happy New Year and Happy .

Enjoy maadi.

ps: I hope my mom lets me into the house after all the weight I've put on :(

What's in a name ?

2005-12-08T10:38:00.000-08:00

This is going to be one of my shortest posts ever. Not that I can't think of writing something huge (well that too), but at this moment I am almost in tears laughing at a god video my labmate Avinash showed me. This is a video about posers like S. Ro who go around calling themselves Sam Etaro. I am sure after watching this video, he will curtail the use of that alter ego.

Along more serious lines.... please please please watch this videos Apparently Tams can appreciate it even more because the language used is really cool :).

Enjoy maadi.... because we all are jesht like that.

Does it ring a bell ?

2005-12-07T12:01:00.000-08:00

After my previous post on games we played as kids, I thought that I would do a follow-up with another set of activities from our childhood. However, this time the activities that I am going to talk about are probably the most brainless things we've ever done as kids in school. Yes this is something very specific (if not entirely) to school, because that's where you would have a bell ring every 40 minutes or every hour. I guess by now most of you have an idea what I am talking about. YES YES! I am talking about those mindless games such as statue, Thumbs up and Jolly. So here comes yet another long description of such ermmmmm... thingies that I shall from now on refer to as Bell games. Some people might find it an overkill. But then, I am jobless for half an hour before I return to analysing geodesics for differential geometry homework.

Introduction:A bell game by definition requires two players, no more no less. If two people wanted to play a bell game, they had to cross their pinkies and take the name of the game, just like saying "cuttif" The idea of such games is that whenever the school bell rings, there is a sort of a race between the two and the loser gets screwed at the end. It is sort of a real life Spy vs. Spy, except that this can involve real violence. So lets go ahead and look at all the bell games where the points dont matter.

Section I: The more popular bell games
Statue: This is possibly the most common bell game known to all bacchalog. Very simple and non-violent or you think so. In this game, whenever the bell rang, both the players would immediatey look at each other, point their index fingers at each other and go (NO! Not expelliarmus) STATUE! The one who said "statue" last would be forced to stay in the position until the other said "down" or "over". If the kid in the statue mode moved before this, the other player was allowed to hit him once. Now people who have never had the pleasure of being part of this amazing game are wondering what was so interesting. Well, I think it is fun to see someone stand as a statue while the rest of the class came and tried to make the statue move and ultimately get beaten up. However, as we go ahead, its role will become even more prominent.

Mafai: Also pronounced as Moffai, this is easily the most violent bell game amongst kids. If your parents thought WWF was having an adverse affect on you then its probably because they saw you play Mafai. Basically as soon as the bell went off, either player could allow the other to hit...no sorry... thrash/bludgeon/murder him, until he said mafai. This is one place where the saying 'The more the merrier', definitely doesn't hold. If you were playing Mafai with lots of people, it was better for your life that you sat far away from all of them, or atleast behind them. I clearly remember, in fact I can see those scenes right now when kids used to cry because their backs were treated like landing pads for blows and the others continued hitting because the cries somehow muffled up the 'mafai's. In our school the guys who would get picked on the most, were forced to play mafai so that it gave others a legal right to torture them every hour.

A variation of this game was the bad word mafai, where if you abused someone and didn't say mafai, people were allowed to beat you up. This variation was actually nice because it helped you curb your abusive lingo. However, the goddest loophole in this was when Maddim's class came up with the theory that if someone abused Anjan (the bakra of their class), he didn't have to say "mafai" because it wasn't really abusing and Anjan really embodied all those abuses in reality. Man! Some of us were really mean as kids.

Thumbs up: Thumbs up was just a modification of Mafai. It was probably done by some kid like Ro trying to seek attention and thought he would become famous as the inventor of this game. Anyway, so the novelty in this game was that you had to show your thumb to the other person and say "Thumbs up" if you valued your dear life. In Mafai it was alright to say the magic word and keep quiet. Thumbs up sometimes was more dangerous because if the bell rang and you were talking to the teacher, people would wait till the teacher left and start beating up the kid. Notice that in mafai you can say a zillion mafais in desperation and survive. However, in Thumbs up, it is definitely not easy to keep giving a thumbs up when you are being beaten up.

Now I am sure most of you have heard of survival of the fittest. Well in school with such booby traps waiting around the corner, the best thing to do was to be smart rather than fit. So all smart kids took the smart way out - Play mafai/thumbs up + statue with someone. Before the person could beat you up for not saying "mafai", you could stop him by saying "statue". But then again Game Theory wasn't developed for no reason. If you had statue and mafai with lots of people, it was HELL. You had to plan out as to how many statues and mafai you had to yell to minimize your pain. It was amazing to watch the way the entire class was filled with shouts of mafais and statues and thumbs ups when the bell rang. It was even more fun to see the teacher totally taken aback as to what is happening.

Jolly: This game was not violent but could hurt you monetarily. It cannot be classified as a bell game, because it was not event-driven by a bell, but more human-driven as to whenever the players felt like doing so. In this game the players would decide on a certain amout of money, usually Rs. 5-10 and play the game. Basically either of the players could come and tell the other "Jolly" and expect a dot on the (ermm HOW DO I DESCRIBE IT), meat portion of his right palm, i.e. the bottom left part of the hand. If he didn't have the dot, he would be given 10s counted as Tick tick 1, Tick tick 2...Tick tick 10( which usually got over in 3s) to get a damn dot onto his hand. It could me made with a pen, pencil or even throwing colors/mud onto the hand. At the end of the 10s, you HAD to have a dot on your right hand. This game was fun because it meant living life dangerously in a different sense from the above. You never knew when people would spring upon you saying Jolly. The worst place to hear Jolly was during assembly or in the lunch hall, because it was very difficult to run around for a pen then.

Section II: The less popular bell games
In this part I shall describe games that I am pretty sure were played only in our school because they were more specific to some fundaes developed.

Tipu Sultan: This was a really hilarious game. In this game, the magic word was "Tipu Sultan". The loser would be expected to go around with the continuous hand gestures for the "adabarze miyaa" or "salaam saab". In school it used to give one the happiness that they were being saluted. I remember one girl who once cried because the other children said that she was a servant for doing so :)). This was however another game that rather not be played with Statue. SO you do realise the importance of Statue, don't you.

Ambdekar: Remember Anjan from earlier. So it was rumoured that when he walked it seemed that he was skipping. In addition to that he lived in a colony called Ambedkarnagar. So when the bell rang and you were the last in saying "Ambedkar" you had to go around in a cyclic manner first skipping 2 times and then standing and shouting "Jai Ambedkar". This game was fun because no matter whether you won or lost, Anjan would get pained. I do realise it sounds and WAS silly. But it really was good time pass.

Cheap Kishore: Yet another game to pick on a poor kid. There was this chap called Kishore in Ro's class and Maddim's class used to tease him calling him "Cheap Kishore". The kid later became senti for no reason and started beating up people for calling him so. This obviously gave Maddim's class a new idea. They invented the game Cheap Kishore. If you didn't say "Cheap Kishore" before the other player, you had to go upto this kid Kishore and call him "Cheap Kishore". I remember it finally ended with him calling his dad to talk to the school principal about such serious matters.

Well that's all I can remember for now. But now that I think of it, we have been SOOOOOOO mean as kids :D

All work and no play...

2005-12-05T10:01:00.000-08:00

makes Golu a fat boy. If someone were to see me they would think that I never played in my entire life! However, I didn't have such a deprived childhood. A discussion with my friends last night took us down memory lane to re-visit all the games we played as kids. The excitement on our faces said it all regarding the fun we had playing those games. Some of us (read Ro) claim to be all mature and grown-up now, but deep down inside I am sure that all of us would still like to go back those good old days and play chor-police or lock and key. So here goes the list of games that we could recollect with a short description of each and their variations. But before going ahead I think it is very important to define a denner, a term that will be used a lot.

Denner: The person who basically is screwed for that round of the game being played. His/her role in different games will be clearly explained in the following.

Chor - Police: A game that has the simplest of rules and is very enjoyable. I am sure the game was invented by some parents like mine, who just wanted to ensure that their kid ran around getting exercise. It essentially has the denner playing the police and has to chase the other kids who are supposed to be the thieves. A variation of this game involve multiple denners, i.e. the concept of a police squad chasing a gang of thieves. As mentioned this game is very easy to play and has probably been the launchpad for many athletes. More often than not the fat/slow kids would end up getting suckered in this game.

Cut the cake: This is yet another chasing game, where the poor denner is forced to run after kids laughing their hearts out. The interesting thing about this game is that the denner targets a person to run after and keeps chasing him/her disregarding the other kids. However, if someone runs between the denner and the person being chased, i.e cuts the cake, the denner has a new target. This game can be very frustrating for the denner since the kids can all stand while the denner is chasing someone and then go and cut the cake when the target is tired. If the denner tried taking rest, all the kids would start running in circles confusing the denner and he would be forced to sit out for one game.

Help: I personally never played this game, but it was brought up yesterday. This game HAD to involve an even number of players: the denner + an odd number of players. The denner as usual had to go around chasing people. The denner could not tag people in pairs and hence the concept of even number of players. This always ensured that the denner had someone to chase. Since I never played this game, I cannot comment on its highlights, but I sure do think it is an awesome game.

Lock and key: This is also a chasing game and is apparently known by other names such as vish-amrit and poison-medicine . In this game the denner would go about tagging the other kids and every time he/she tagged someone he/she had to say the words 'lock', 'vish' or 'poison' depending on the variation. The tagged person had to then stand at that place where the tag happened until someone came to the rescue tagging him/her and saying 'key', 'amrut' or 'medicine ' accordingly. This was a game which did require some amount of thinking on the denner's part rather than just running around. It was important to lure the kids near the ones that were locked and then tag them. If kids were locked far apart it made it all the more difficult to ensure that they stayed that way.

I spy: Also known as hide and seek and mispronounced as ice pice and ice boys in Gultland, I don't think this game really needs an explanation. As the name suggests, the denner had to count till 100 giving the others time to hide and had to go seek the others after the count. Ro could not play this game till the 8th class, because that's when he really could count past 99. Although a very common game, I do believe that it had a lot of variations. The most standard one was where the denner would start from a particular place and go around finding people. The denner had to run back to this place in order to declared that he/she had found someone. If people had to make the denner out they also had to go to this place and shout andabuddi or dappa or out (or that's what we used to say in Gultland). While this game was still not in the favour of the denner, some kids came up with concepts that sort of favoured the denner. The denner could spy someone without going back to the initial counting place and if the other kids had to make the denner out, they had to come and tag the denner on the back before they were spotted. This sometimes resulted in kids murdering the back of the denner, to settle old scores.

Land, water, sea, ocean and mud: This is a game which I think required the least amount of physical effort, but at the same time was one that involved maximum injuries. This was one game where no one had a problem being the denner. The kids would stand on a flight of steps, with the steps being named land, water, sea, ocean and mud, the top most one being land and the last one being mud. Mud usually would be where the flight ended, the reason for which will become obvious as I explain further. All the kids would start off standing on land. The denner would then call out locations where he wanted them to jump to and hence the most difficult transitions would usually be land->ocean, ocean->land and mud->water. Land->mud wasn't very difficult because you had to just jump the entire damn distance. Land->ocean was difficult because you had to gauge your jump to ensure your inertia didn't take you onto mud. I believe it is quite easy to see why ocean->land and mud->water were quite difficult to scale. I remember denners asking for a transition from land->land, because they wanted to prove that they are not being mean. GOD save such people!! If you ask me I would be the denner through out and just murder the lot.

Hopscotch: This game is probably played all over the world in different variations. In Gultland, it was known as Rocket or Tokkudapilla. I am sure many guys reading this are going, "Oh! Come on. That was a girl's game and I never played it". Dudes!!! You don't know what you missed out on. I remember in school in first and second class, the lunch break would have swarms of kids drawing rockets all over the playground and searching for nice stones to throw while playing it. Technically, the game could involve any number of players but 2-4 was a
preferred healthy number. The idea was to throw a stone onto one of the blocks of a BIG blocky shape, hop across all the blocks while avoiding the one where the stone was, and finally pick up the stone on one's way back. Now that I think of it, it was more like a monopoly or business, because you could buy/own blocks and that meant people couldn't throw their stone in them or hop through them. I still remember how everyone used to have lucky stones that they used to bring in their bag. What is worse is that everyone used to kiss these stones before throwing them.

Dog and the bone: This again is a very popular and well known game. I do not know of any variation of the same. The kids would distribute themselves into 2 teams, that were usually of equal strength. They would then allocate themselves numbers from 1 to the maximum strength of either team. Someone (usually a parent of some kid) would call out a number and a person with that number would come forward from each team and walk(or rather run) to the centre where a bone was placed. Each kid would then try to pick up the bone and run back to his/her respective team without being tagged by the other. What always amazed me about this game is that if a guy was interested in a girl from the other team, he would tell his team that he will go whenever her number is called out. HOW THE F@CK DID THAT EVER HELP??? I also remember girls being embarassed if someone they were linked with in school/colony/apartment came from the other team in their turn. Sigh! Kids will be kids.

Seven stones: Also known as lingocha in Gultland and langori in Ghatland, this was one of the games that didn't involve a denner. The kids distributed themselves into 2 teams say A and B. Now the rules of this game aren't very simple as the ones mentioned above. The 2 teams would stand at a distance with seven stones placed midway and piled one over the other. Team A would be given a ball and had 3 chances to hit the stones and topple the pile. If it failed to do so, team B would get the ball. If team A managed to hit the pile but team B caught the ball before it bounced on the ground, the ball would again be passed onto team B. If team B didn't catch the ball then their aim was to stop team A from re-piling the stones. To stop team A from doing so, team B would try to hit the other team members with the ball. Team A members had to avoid contact with the ball, however they could use their knuckles to ward it off. If team A managed to re-pile the stones without any of its members getting hit, they would again get to strike the stones, else the ball was passed onto team B. I think this was a good game from the point of view that it incorporated team spirit in its truest sense and help develop great skills like an excellent aim and erm... erm... excellent aim.

Maarampeeti: Easily one of the most violent games every known to childrenkind. The idea was that there would be a tennis ball and people had to hit each other with that ball. Sounds simple! Doesn't it? This however, could involve a lot of politics. I am sure in every group there was always one kid who would get picked on. Maarampeeti was the most legal and politically correct way of murdering him (never remember girls playing maarampeeti). More often than not, at least one kid would cry before the game got over. Of course as you got older, you learnt to endure the pain, but when you are in 3rd or 4th it was very painful.

Leg touch: Another game that seemed violent, but really what it did was train the players for martial arts. The denner basically had to make someone out by touching their foot with his (Again I don't remember any girl playing this). Ok NO! I do know touching sounds very yuckax, but it was more of a kicking action, where the denner would throw his foot out at every possible part of the others' foot while they took support on the tables and chairs to walk across the walls (Ha! ..and you thought Neo was cool in Matrix). An immensely enjoyable game, it was banned in our school and if any teacher saw you playing it, you were doomed.

NCC: This game stands for National Chappal Chor and I don't remember ANYONE but a particular section in my 4th class playing this game. However, I think it most definitely deserves a mention. I remember dying laughing when I saw them play this. The denner had to remove one of his school shoes while the entire class would kick it around in the mud shouting NCC (should be NSC no ?) while the poor unsuspecting soul tried to get it back. You became denner without even realising it. During lunch break some poor chap's shoe would be removed and that provided entertainment for an hour.

I could go on for ever talking about playing marbles and spinning car tyres (Yes! I have done it all), so I guess I shall stop here as I need to go back to project work. I think I shall end this post with 2 of the top mindless things that I would have ever done in my childhood gaming history.

(ek) So I am sure everyone remembers how the denner used to be selected. There would usually be something called felix, filix, philips or filips. I have NO idea as to what the correct spelling or pronounciation is. It was the part where one kid would go about reciting a rhyme while moving his/her finger from one to another with every syllable or word. The kid at whom the finger was pointing at the end of the rhyme would be the denner. So here are 2 rhymes that were famous in my school.

This one was more universal:
In pin, septi pin (though it is safety, most Gults pronounced it septi :D)
In pin, out
Out goes the septi pin
In pin, out

However this one was my favourite:
Dee da dumma dakka
Lollypoppa chikkipappa
Ram bam bo
Idli bidle boo
Is that you

To date, I don't know what it means, but I totally love it :)

(do) The grand final: Something that I am not really proud of :P Do you remember those crazy games girls used to play, where they just used to keep chanting some silly rhyme over and over again while clapping hands. Sigh! Unfortunately when I was in the first and second, the only company that I had in my colony were girls.(Damn! What I wouldn't do for that right now). So, as fate should have it, I have had my share of stupid clapping games. Before anyone raises any objection to calling these games stupid, HELLOOOOO!! What purpose do they even serve? Anyway one of the MOST brainless ones that I can remember from the top of my head right now is

Thanks to Ro who corrected me. I had got part of this rhyme wrong.

do n=1,number_of_players
Player n: Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?
Player n+1: Number (n+2) stole the cookie from the cookie jar!
Player n+2: Who me?
Player n+1: Yes you!
Player n+2: Cudnt be!
Player n+1: Then who?
end do

...and the damn saga continues

Sigh! I SOOOOOOO wish I could play these games again (ok not the clapping kind) :(.

Hum bhi agar bacche hote :(((((((((((((((

Padhna likhna seekho

2005-11-29T08:00:00.000-08:00

I realise that word verification is quite a nice way to stop general spams. But when you have verifications of this sort, WHO THE HELL ARE U TRYING TO STOP?

Some guesses as to what the last 2 characters are:
1. c h
2. d h
3. d n
4. c l n ???

Blame it on the roman

2005-11-21T11:41:00.000-08:00

I was chatting with ro today and told him about a comment I made on someone's blog. He insisted that I post a copy of the same on my blog. So here goes nothing! If you don't like it, please beat up ro for giving such useless advice and then give me a painful kick for accepting it. So the person posted these lines on her blog.

"Oh! she made you smile,
like you would when sunshine fell in your eyes ."

I don't know what got into me, but I thought that the following lines would really fit in well (I know words could be changed to improve readability [like that is the only problem!], but I thought that I should present it in its original form).

I wish she had just stopped at that,
not bring down the very sun itself.
For when you shield your eyes
waiting for the storm to pass,
I realise that it isn't love...
it is you who is blind

It's not just the sound of music

2005-10-24T05:41:00.000-07:00

So, for the umpteenth time in my life, I am going through that phase where I sit down and appreciate every small detail of the songs that I listen to. It's not like I don't appreciate songs at other times, but I would like to put it this way that when I'm not in this appreciation mode I don't analyze the song in great depth. Every time I get into this mode, I feel like crap for not having realized what my bandmates from FFF always tried to unsuccessfully get across to me.

For starters, if there are people out there who don't believe that a song's lyrics are not important, errmmm... I think it's time you changed your opinion. I'm not saying that a song can be good and still have crappy lyrics (Ok! Anybody who criticizes the Red Hot Chili Peppers DIES!! Their lyrics DO make sense, it's just that you can't understand them :P ) . If a song has good lyrics, more often than not you will appreciate the song more. I would like to mention one particular song Nothingman by Pearl Jam. The song has killer lyrics. As I told someone DO NOT listen to it when you are depressed because it will bring you down in one swoop. I used to like this song before, but the other day I was really senti because I missed jamming with FFF. I was listening to nothingman and started singing along and at some lines, I felt I could really relate to the song. I think that makes my disclaimer about the senti moods tested and proved :) Bottomline: It is obvious that there are millions of bands out there who have great music if not better than the so called pro bands, but I think it is the lyrics that really make the difference.

Now coming to the music. Everyone usually tends to go around saying that XYZ has a god bassist, ABC has a god drummer and blah blah blah. I am not saying that I am not guilty of it. In fact, I am pretty sure that all of us are guilty of that. Well!! Guilty is a pretty harsh term to use. But, I am slowly coming to believe that more than the technical excellence of a musician, I would rather appreciate his/her music for what it is. I strongly believe that it is the final output that matters. Well take Greenday for example. I am not sure how many people will say that their songs are difficult to play or that they really came up with innovative chord sequences. Again I am basing my views on the few singles that I've heard. At the end of the day, I still love listening to Greenday, because the final sound of the band is a killer. I have seen some bands that come with the guitarist mindlessly playing a lead as though following a random dot generator on the fretboard, the drummer literally raping every part of every skin of the drum kit with all his might and the vocalist trying real hard to go very high or just growl till the throws up. I have just one question: WTF? It is nice to be technically good, but the final output should be nice to the ears. Now in this case, beauty does lie in the beholder's ear but just a thought I felt should voice.

With this note, I would encourage people to listen to Pearl Jam. Just give it a try. The band has really got me captivated for the last 2 weeks or so. If you are looking for technical excellence, good lyrics, good final sound...this is one stop you don't want to go past. I have been hooked to their albums Ten, Vitalogy and Vs for the last few days and would recommend any first time listener also to try out these albums (though, given the readers of this blog, I doubt if anyone has heard less of Pearl Jam than me).

...and so ends yet another arbit post

More confessions !

2005-10-23T05:52:00.000-07:00

In the space of 10 days, I got to read 2 nice posts about the lives of engineering graduate students, on blogs that I frequent regularly: Ro and Kate. Being the rotund form that I am, I felt that this entire "Analysis of academic life " episode needs an all round treatment. This inspired me to come up with a very probably and possible account of

CONFESSIONS OF A PROFESSOR IN AN ENGINEERING GRADUATE SCHOOL

Dear Laptop,
It's 12 in the night and I have a splitting headache. I want to have a drink, watch some movies from the Carry on series and relax. I wish I could go back to those good old days of my youth, where I could stay awake late, get up late, go to work late or even better not go to work at all. But..Sigh! Such are not the luxuries of a professor like me. As I type these characters, my heart weeps as I recollect the horrendous day I had today and live practically everyday.

0800 Wake up and get ready in an hour. Have no time to sit down and enjoy a coffee while reading the newspaper or solving the daily crossword. Stuff the newspaper into bag along with the millions of other grant proposals and journal drafts.

0910 Shit! 10 minutes late. Ok...Get into the car fast and drive like the wind. Car keys...Left them on the table.

0915 Shit! Shit! Shit! Am 15 minutes late. Have a faculty meeting in 15 minutes. Need to get there soon. I have been late for the last 5 meetings in a row.

0940 Make that 6!!! Smile apologetically at the other faculty as I walk in. Make a longer smile at the Chair of the department. Ermm he doesn't seem to impressed. It's OK. He'll get over it.

1000 Look at watch. Is it just me or do I see everything moving slowly in black and white. Renovation of the restrooms? Student lounge? FOOSBALL TABLE? WTF???? Where am I? Is this what faculty meetings are for? Sammeta passes a chit to me - "BORING". I more than agree.

1030 Am desperately praying that lightning strikes me down right NOW. Ok the chair is watching me. Nod head as if listening attentively. Hurrah!!! Food is here!!! Ramkumar makes comment about the food not being suitable for that timing of the day. HEY! It's free. Just shut the f@ck up and take what's given to you.

1100 THERE IS A GOD!! I survived the meeting. Sammeta and I exchange good mornings and yawns, while Ramkumar goes on sucking up to the chair talking about how he thinks a change in our classroom teaching methods would affect the economy of the nation. Sammeta and I nod in confusion and walk away.

1115 Ah!!! After a nice chat with Sammeta about how the Kings thrashed the Lakers in last night's game (even though neither of us has watched the game), sit down to check mail. MAKE YOURSELF LONGER, LOSE WEIGHT IN 30 DAYS, GET TICKETS TO THE NEXT BRITNEY SPEARS CONCERT, FIND PARTNERS IN YOUR AREA, FACULTY MEETING TOMORROW, MAKE YOURSELF EVEN LONGER, MEETING WITH DEPARTMENT CHAIR. Delete delete delete. REQUEST FOR GRADUATE STUDENT POSITION. Sucker! Let's read this mail.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Dr. Singaraju,
I am Zubin Jacob, a senior year student in the Electrical Engineering Department of the Goregaon Technological University, which is one of the most reputed universities in India and also the world. I am currently ranked 14th in an extremely competitive batch. I am extremely interested in you research and feel that your research interests match mine. I am more than confident that I can contribute actively to your research. Please check my resume attached and let me know of any open positions.

Hoping for a positive reply
Zubin.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Get onto Google. Search "Goregaon Technological University". Sorry no search results found. DELETE.

1145 Finish reading mails and replying to the important ones such as poker night on Friday. Close the office door and pull out newspaper. Page 8! Heaven. Black and white never seemed so colourful to me. Today's crossword is difficult just like yesterday and the day before.... and oh yeah last week also. 4 down: Excitingly easy to use (6). Message Sammeta on messenger. Nah! He is also not sure of that one. Ok! Try the other ones.

1200 Yippeee lunch time! Have really been working hard the whole day. Pick up Sammeta and Ramkumar for lunch. Drop into lab and show face to the graduate students. Look stern and make sure that they see that you are serious. Ok get out fast before you burst out laughing, looking at their worried faces.

1250 Wonderful lunch! Always great to get a chicken sub with cheese and check out cute girls. What???? Ok we are all beginning to gray and are getting paunches. But we are still young at heart. Ok need to rush back. Have class at 1.

1300 How did I even get myself stuck with such people. "No Saurav, I am glad you liked the book but you can't put down 42 as the solution to every problem. " "Vikram. When I ask you to find the resistance, I mean of the electrical kind and not go form anti-professor cults." AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

1400 Away..shoo shoo... Class is over. Don't pester me. Ok! Remember to fail annoying kid with spiked hair. See Sammeta walk out of his class. I can see the desperation on his face as annoying students murder him with their questions. "Yes Harsh, For the last time....I know that you love the environment, but I don't see any alternative other than paper to turn in your homework on". We make our way back to our offices through the sea of pain and frustration. Walk in to our respective labs on the way and remind graduate students that they have meeting in half hour. Give angry look at student playing Halo online.

1405 Halo does rock!! Should be little more lenient with students. Not while playing though! DIE DIE DIE!!! Hey I am not that bad.

1430 Excuse me Dheeraj! We have a meeting now. Shut the laptop immediately. Look serious. Discuss research with student.

1445 Wow! This kid is either an excellent liar or probably I need to be working more. "I am sorry what was that term??"

1500 OK!!! I get the point. You have been working. Leave now. You've worked enough. Get a life dude. Don't work so much. "Great job Golu. So I have been working on this grant proposal and I am searching for a word that means 'excitingly easy to use'. Hmm no not that!! I mean it is a good suggestion, but since it has a word limit need a 6 letter word. EXCELLENT! Ok please leave me now. I have work to do. Report to me in 3 days on the progress."

1600 Complete crossword with help from Sammeta and Ramkumar. I am sure Ramkumar's student is the smartest of the lot. He always solves more clues than us.

1700 Man!! This research proposal really burnt me out. Should get some coffee. I could really do with the break.

1730 Shit! Haven't worked much in the day. I am not going to get my tenure fast this way. Need to work now.

1900 Golu comes in to ask a doubt. GO HOME! I can also go home without any guilty conscience.

2100 I am ready to drop dead. But need to get this idea formulated right. Ramkumar is leaving already ?? The b@st@rd doesn't even work and just because he sucks up to the chair, hard working people like Sammeta and me never get recognized.

2200 This really sucks. From tomorrow I am not going to play Halo, or maybe just one game...but that's IT. Hmmm..Back to research!! Dr. Saini is right. Most of these theorems are useless and get famous because of the cool unpronounceable names of the people who came up with these theorems.

2340 Ok that's enough. I will go mad. I swear I saw some undergrads take a picture of me and run away. I am going back home.

PRESENT I have a splitting headache. I want to have a drink, watch some movies from the Carry on series and relax. Man I am about to fall asleep any minute, but I don't want to :((

Dr. Singarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

What happened next!!!

2005-10-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

continued from here

I came. I saw. I found.
Did my rewards want to be found?
King of the world. Ruler of the masses.
But what is it that rules my soul?

I sit here alone. My silence shouting inside.
Ah! I am Caesar. I should not be sad!
Sadness? I smile. A word unknown to me
for I know not what happiness is.

Salty tears trickle down my face.
My friends forever!
What would I have done without you?
What wouldn't I do to part with you?

But I am still the mighty Caesar
Fight I must!
Fight to live another day
Live to fight another day

Bring on the nobelmen

2005-10-19T22:31:00.000-07:00

For some reason, the way my life has been going on for the last few months, my brain is going to get murdered with the number of dates etched onto it. Another landmark date in my life October 19th, 2005. So the question arises what is so great about this date ?? Some other rock concert? Some girl noticed me? Nah! It was just dinner at my labmate's place. This post promises to be very dull(boring?) but I am sure you will appreciate that it is the geek inside me who desperately wants to write this blog. So anyway getting back to the story, Yasmin called Alvina(another labmate of mine) and me over for dinner as she had friends out of town visiting. So Ro asks me what is so great about having dinner with my labmates and 4 other grad students? Well one highlight was definitely the great chicken pulao that I got to eat but the real and true highlight was (if I may be allowed to use the word) the guest of honour David Mumford.

Now if the uninterested reader has not bothered to visit Mumford's page PLEASE DO. At first you might wonder WTF is Golu ranting about so much? Isn't this guy just another one of those math professors doing research in some mathematical field that I had no idea existed? Well you are close! He is not just 'another math professor'. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1974. Mathworld describes the Fields Medal as "The Fields Medals are commonly regarded as mathematics' closest analog to the Nobel Prize (which does not exist in mathematics), and are awarded every four years by the International Mathematical Union to one or more outstanding researchers. "Fields Medals" are more properly known by their official name, "International medals for outstanding discoveries in mathematics." So now you know what I am so excited/thrilled about.

However, the best part is that it is not this award that impressed me the most. The man is humility personified. No suggestion at all that he even does math, let alone being a math God. I think it is just a characteristic of great people. (Well people who achieve a lot and show off should be kicked in their b@lls!!) Without flooding you with any further such opinions, let me get back to ranting about my appreciation of David Mumford. Now if I were to read his website, I would have expected him to be a person who eats, drinks and lives math. Well he probably does!! But I was simply blown away by the variety of subjects he could talk upon. He spoke about books, classical music, Feng shui, animal behaviour and (this is my favourite part) Rasam :D. In fact his knowledge about India was quite decent. If you go through his resume you will notice that he has been a visiting professor at TIFR. He also told me this when we were discussing the educational system in India as compared to that in the US. Anyways, in short, if you ask me to summarise the entire meeting, I feel that there was this aura of brilliance around him and you feel it when you are just looking at him.

It goes without saying that such a great man has a very great lab. It would definitely be wrong if I didn't mention that it was really nice to talk to his students who were amazing company. In fact one of them had come very close to becoming a professional musician. If you ask me I think mathematicians (or probably pure scientists ??) are way cooler than engineers :) I shall end this blog with a statement by one of Mumford's students. After Mumford left, his student Sergey said, "Do you guys write a diary or something? If you do..go and write down TODAY I HAD DINNER WITH DAVID MUMFORD. Do you realise he is bigger than a Nobel laureate. Well after you write that, do mention that he had a cool Russian student. Actually there was a cool Russian student and then David Mumford also was there :D". I guess Serge got his wish!

Corny math joke that I read online and totally lhaued: All your Bayes are belong to us !!!

While people rest on the weekends...

2005-10-13T12:39:00.000-07:00

Golu works away in a dark corner of this world trying to come up with stuff to entertain audience, be it music, writing or dramatics. I know this sounds very far fetched :) Well it actually is. Anyway the point of this post is to advertise 2 of my latest efforts.

The first one is a song that I came up with: Revenge of the funk. It is a 1:53 minute song. Unlike my previous attempt to make a funky cover of Knocking on heaven's door, I decided to play out the entire rhythm and bass lines rather than just record a sample and loop it. I think this song has better continuity and I tried to keep all the riffs at a very simple level. I think the final product came out well. As I told Panda, I have finally managed to come up with a song that I can listen to over and over again. You can get the mp3 version of the song from here. People interested in writing lyrics are free to do so. You can either post lyrics in the comments or mail me directly. If I like them, (Yeah! I know that I am a prick for not appreciating your efforts) I will sing (Ahem! I can sing too ...sometimes... but I can really suck) and put up a recording on the net.

Now coming to the dramatics part. On Sept 30th - Oct 1st, there was a movie making competition held at the 2005 fall festival of JHU. One of my friends Kitti also not known as Krishnakumar Ramamurthi, a photography enthusiast and a very talented musician, told me about the competition. He was obviously very interested in this competition and it didn't take me much convincing to join in. My roommate Harsh Agarwal was also very enthusiastic about this. So the competition rules were simple. Every team would be given cameras, lighting systems and audio recording systems for 24 hours. The teams were required to make a 3-5 minute movie based on a theme that would be given at the start of the 24 hours and the use of 2 specific props. Just before the competition began we managed to rope in another of my roommates Mauktik Kulkarni. We got the theme 'The meaning of life' and a Jack-o-lantern and Furby as props. Madness followed in the next 24 hours. Needless to say, if I am posting about the movie we actually won the competition (well came joint 1st out of 5 teams :P) . Anyway I shall first give you the link for the movie before I start doling out spoilers for the movie. This is the link for all the entries to the competition. Our movie is called The poker jokers. You will require quicktime to watch the movie and it is just a streaming feed, so there is no hassle of downloading any huge file. (IN SHORT: WATCH THE DAMN MOVIE)

Sigh! If you lazy people (read Sro) have not watched the movie, you disappoint me :(. Anyway I shall try to keep this description at a very basic level, so that people who couldn't/didn't/will never watch the movie understand what I am talking about. So essentially the movie is about 3 guys who are playing poker. These 3 guys are dead and are essentially the 3 previous lives (incarnations ??) of a particular individual. The three lives have been marked by totally different lifestyles, namely, a sober rich businessman, a hyperactive rock enthusiast and a dejected beggar. These 3 people sit at the poker table discussing the gambles they made or didn't make and how they died. The main idea that we wanted to portray was that life is a gamble. The movie ends with a person who is seen now and then in the entire movie serving the poker players. He is asked to join in but he refuses saying that it is too early in the morning and would do so sometime later. This signifies the current life of the individual, when he feels he doesn't want to gamble so early and end up losing his life.

Trust me it takes a shitload of effort to make a 3-5 minute clip. Let me take you through the entire process. We got the theme, the props and all the equipment at around 6 o clock. We had thought of a few backup stories but realized that we couldn't fit any to the given theme. So Kitti insisted that we go for dinner to a place which would be conducive for creativity. Despite the hearty laughs we had at that statement, I should say it was an excellent call. In the space of half hour we came up with 5 different stories and finally decided on this one. We then immediately drove to my place to pick a potential wardrobe for me, as to what clothes I would have to wear. After a lot of delay on my part and abuses from Kitti we left for his place. Now I think it is important to mention that if Kitti and I ever work together again, someone is definitely going to lose a limb. Kitti believes I am immature because I keep smiling all the time and I believe he gets too uptight about the smallest of all details.

11 pm! We had all the clothes, the liquor and other accessories required for shooting. NO POKER TABLE TOP. Tiktok (Mauktik) and I drove around searching like mad for a poker table top. After a half search in Giants, Superfresh and CVS that ended in vain, we decided we had to make it to Walmart. Kitti was fuming. He said that we ditch going to Walmart or that 2 people stay back to script while the others went and bought the stuff. Since no one wanted to be left out, we all set off for Walmart, with Harsh having his laptop so that we could script on the way. Ideas began to flow well and we had the basic skeleton of the dialogues and the screenplay. 11:30 and we are about to reach Walmart when Panda began to call me. We had got strict instructions from Kitti that we wouldn't answer any call. We had practically sold our soul to the devil. Since Panda has been with me for 4 years, part of my smartness rubbed off on him. He called Kitti. Now Kevin Spacey was very right in The Usual Suspects when he said The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he never existed. Kitti promptly answered his phone only to listen to Panda tell him that I have a vague story but I am not sure how you will implement it. I swear if Panda was with us and he had said that, he wouldn't be alive today. Anyway we soon reached Walmart and found the poker table tops.

I don't like it. I swear I wanted to pound Kitti right there but the man had a point. Tiktok and I bought the table top and poker chips anyway since we had long been planning to buy one for the house. Kitti bought a nice tablecloth that he rightly decided would look nice on camera. In the meanwhile I got a call from my labmate Yasmin who gave me a sound scolding. YOU LEFT A MESSAGE SAYING CALL ME UP AS LATE AS IT GETS ...FOR A DAMN TABLE TOP. DO YOU KNOW HOW WORRIED I WAS? After I had finished apologising profusely we got back at 12:30. We were up till 4 o clock scripting. We finally decided that we had a decent script and since we needed a dark setting we had to finish shooting before sunrise.

This was the trickiest part. I'm sure that if you have watched the video you will more than agree. Kitti had to make sure that there was perfect blackout when he moved behind chairs. I had to shoot the scenes for a particular identity all at once and this meant having to make sure that what we had was fine...becuase I obviously couldn't grow back facial hair in 15 minutes. Poor Harsh had to sit at the table while he played one of the poker players and hold the lights at a very awkward angle. Tiktok was going to drop dead asleep any moment. Harsh and Tiktok had to stuff their clothes from inside to appear as blubbery as me from the back. It was difficult to make Tiktok look dark so we didn't even bother doing that. To add to that, Kitti asked me to smoke a cig. When I said that I was allergic to ash, he scolded me Over! Finished! Your acting career will go down the drain. Then after a lot of scolding I decided to just bring it close to my mouth but not puff (as is quite evident in the movie). Man, I had such a difficult time convincing my sister that I didn't puff it. Anyways we managed to complete shooting the entire thing in 2 hours and ended at just about sunrise. This was actually perfect for our closing shot.

We decided to take a 2 hour break after breakfast and ended up starting work after 3.5 hours. We finished the editing and by then it was around 4 o clock. We didn't know how to use the Furby toy, so we conveniently decided to use it for our opening scene. Then what followed was easily the most excruciating part of the process - dubbing. Since Kitti had not recorded with sound, dubbing was painful because I had conveniently modified the dialogues while acting. Man I know really appreciate the jobs of those lip readers. After 1 hour of sweat, abuses from Kitti and a huge effort from my side to not sound kiddish or sing-song, Mauktik, Kitti and I finished editing. Harsh in the meanwhile had finished the titling of the movie. Kitti also came up with some piano piece on the spot to fill in for the silent parts. We rushed back to the digital media centre and inserted the audio. The final piece was done by 6:15 ...15 minutes past the mark, but they had no problem with it.

Phew! A job well done. I think at the end of it, the only thing that could do with major improvement was the dubbing and adjustment of sound levels. Kitti has already added some funky music, and I think the final version will be ready soon. Other than that, I am quite proud of the effort that we guys put in. There wasn't a single moment when anyone was just sitting idle and this really makes me admire the professional movie makers who deliver such outstanding stuff. What amazes me though is why people take such pains to dish out horrible movies at the same time. I shall soon be following up a blog upon what a horrible move Chocolate is. Till then here is a salute to all the people who keep working hard to entertain audiences.

Aaj hamara Golu engineer ban gaya hai

2005-10-10T11:27:00.000-07:00

The day my parents got that dream, was the day when my dream of having a remote chance of getting a girlfriend was crumpled, burnt and conveniently swept under the carpet. Well 'getting a girlfriend' sounds very crude as I re-read that sentence, but I hope you people get the gist. Sigh! I was just sitting and pondering the other day about the last few years. If I remember correctly, it all began from my 11th grade, when with full enthu I decided to get into Ramaiah, a centre that coached students for IIT JEE. I still remember the day when we went for counseling (warning??) and my father asked if there was any particular dress code at the centre. I believe the exact reply was "We do not want the students to wear anything that will attract the opposite sex". Rahul and Rohit will more than agree with me when I talk about how strict it was there. It was the closest thing in real life that comes close to Gurukul from Mohabattein. Anyway the point is not about dressing smart here but the point is that we 'were not supposed to get attracted to the opposite sex'. When we were at Ratna Junior College, the girls would be let off early and all our windows and doors would be closed so that we couldn't see the girls. SIGH! I think its in the genes. Apparently in my dad's college in Vijaywada, they were not allowed to turn back and look at girls. Every wrong turn would be slapped with a fine.

Anyways I managed to get a rank in JEE and decided to take up IIT Bombay with an idea that I would be heading for greener pastures and that we would score with chicks. But as Ro puts it very nicely on his homepage, we ended up doing nothing. Well I cannot speak for Ro, but I am sure he didn't do anything either. Well some people must be going aah! IIT doesn't have many hot girls. Please note that this blog is not dedicated to interaction with girls and is very clear in its mission statement to describe my lack of success with girls. Hence the reference to attraction. I am a very firm advocate of the fact that physical attraction is NOT AT ALL important (though apparently someone was overheard saying "Yeah I don't think Dheeraj is even allowed to talk about searching for someone physical attractive"). OK before I proceed, I don't want anyone telling me that I am not ugly and that I am cute and nonsense like that. All you guys out there have just been trying to be nice and I've had enough. If any girl thinks I'm cute she better post so only if she is interested in being asked out :P. Now getting back onto track, its not whether IIT had hot females or not, it just had less females. With the boy: girl ratio being 20:1, no girl in her sane mind would go out with me. If you want to refute this statement, please read what I wrote 2 sentences earlier. Now some person like Duh would step in and say why did you restrict your scope to IIT females only. My close friends would know that I didn't and I was more than unsuccessful, which actually inspired me to write Love Actually. Anyway that accounts for the next 4 pathetic years of my life. The ONLY interesting thing that ever happened was a married aunty hitting on me at Chaos 04. Only God, Duh and Ro know how scandalized I was at that point of time.

Anyway I made my way back home to Hyderabad for the summers before I left for the US. I was determined that I would work my blubber off and move from the obese category to the pre-obese category. It is not very encouraging when your parents express their confidence in you. One morning I woke up to find my parents having an argument. My mom said that I was to marry a Punjabi and my dad insisted that I marry a nice Telugu Brahmin girl. I was quite touched by the fact that they were concerned about my future. When I thanked them and said that I would find my own spouse my mom told me straight on my face "Chee! tujhse kaunsi bandi pasand karegi". Sigh! I don't know how an arranged marriage is going to fix this problem, but I didn't even bother to think of questioning my mom. Finally one day my dad decided to defend me and went, "Come on ji. He may be a bit overweight, but he is well educated and is nice to talk to". I was like "Great going Pa. You forgot that I am good at dumb charades and can pass off as a bassist but what you said will do". But my mom hit the nail on its head when she asked him if he would agree if such a match was proposed for my sister. SILENCE! My dad went back to sipping his coffee and reading the newspaper. My mom went back to the kitchen. I'm just sitting in my chair pondering WOW! My parents really love me. Well I'm sure they do BUT FOR CRYING OUT LOUD DO NOT HAVE SUCH DISCUSSIONS IN FRONT OF ME.

I've just completed 1 year in the US. No luck! Zilch! Nothing! Nada! Kuch bhi nahin! However, I feel that compared to the previous 6 years, it is now or never. You ask me why I am acting so despo? Well its actually because I read a comment on someone's blog the other day that read You want socially stunted? Try dating an IITian. Those guys have "Celibacy" written on their foreheads in lipstick. Not that I am really bothered about what this guy said, I could show you zillions of other colleges with socially stunted guys, but I was like what the hell is wrong with me. It is this introspection that inspired this blog. Anyway, I have decided that by Sept 5, 2006 I will have a girlfriend. NOOOOO! I am not going to try and forcibly find girlfriends. Lets just say I am waiting for the right moment :P

Mera number kab aayega :(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((

Cant find a better man!

2005-10-06T22:54:00.000-07:00

October 3rd, 2005! Another date that will be etched in my memory for long. Well if it doesn't I can always refer to this posting anyway, because I just realised I don't remember the date when I went for RHCP. So with my hunger for funk being satisfied to a certain extent, I decided to move onto grunge next....and without a shout of a doubt Pearl Jam is the best stop for that.

Well now that I think of it, the tickets for the concert were very difficult to get. Pearl Jam was to perform 2 nights at the Borgata, where I saw RHCP perform. But the tickets got sold out in like less than a minute. When Rabbi, Zubin and I found out that PJ was going to perform in Phili we were determined to make it. So the day sales started we were all waiting ready to click away. Chaos is the only word I can think of to describe those 5 minutes. Zubin, Rabbi and I were messaging each other like crazy cursing at Ticketmaster and asking each other if someone had luck getting tickets. Then Rabbi got in and had 3 tickets when Zubin went ahead to prove that he is god. He messaged me saying that he got tickets for $10 each and was very happy. He realized his screw-up when I asked him to check if he was buying parking tickets. He said "Abey main socha PJ itna cool hai..ki parking lot main baja raha hoga". Anyway I am thankful that Rabbi was also at it that day, else I would get to Zubin before his advisor.

The gig was to take place on 3rd October at the Wachovia Sports Centre, Philadelphia. I took a train to Phili and met Rabbi and Zubin at the train station. We reached the venue and were totally blown off by the atmo there. While RHCP had young crowd in Mohawks, PJ was the total opposite. There was the young crowd of course, but then most of the people seemed to be in their mid 20s to mid 30s. Cars blasting PJ and Alice in Chains, people guzzling down beer cans, guys playing football...the scene was totally different. So we got in the arena and promptly bought ourselves t-shirts :).

At 7 sharp, this all-girl band called Sleater Kinney opened for Pearl Jam and they played for an hour or so, with Vedder and the band making guest appearances in one or 2 songs. The opening act was nothing great, although I will admit I found the drummer cute and good at drumming. The guitarist reminded me of G for some reason. Probably it was the way she kept playing in full enthu, totally cut off from her surroundings. At this time the arena was about 25% full. Zubin kept pointing out to vacant areas and paining that we should go down (Oh! Did I mention that we had one of the farthest possible seats :) ). However, we got binocs to see the band more clearly from where we were sitting. So, I thought that this was a cool concept. You pay these dudes $5 and they come and activate these binoculars attached to ur seat. Anyway during the break we kept ourselves entertained as we saw 2 chaps having a fight which ended with one guy having his shirt torn and being pummelled like mad. Its quite funny, because in that 10s the entire arena knew EXACTLY where the fight was happening and everyone cheered as one of those guys slipped while being walked out by the security.

8 o clock! Lights out! 100% occupancy! Zubin feels bad...but not for long! Vedder starts off saying "This concert is for Champu who unfortunately will never get to watch us". After the crowd had finished clapping for Vedder's love for Champu, Vedder broke into a song which I unfortunately didn't know and still don't. Now that was a problem, I either didn't know some of their songs or I didn't know their names. So, this post will contain the review of songs that I knew :D PJ began their 3rd song and I go Phew! There's a song I know.Well actually I didn't know the name but had heard it alright :D. Zubin was quick in pointing out that the song was 'Given to fly'. Then they played 'Green disease' and 2 more random songs which I don't remember and then they played 'Once'. Now one might think that I was getting pained because I prolly didn't know the songs. BUT I have to say Vedder is god. (It really doesn't matter what I have to say). People like Champu will kick me in the balls for not talking about the entire band. But if you ask me PJ is 80% Vedder. Agreed the guitaring and all that is god (Oh! I don't think highly of their bassist), but Vedder really makes that difference. MAN! Can he belt out a song!!! I remember turning to Zubin and asking him "Abey agar tu TAV (the awesome vocalist) hai, to Vedder kya hai". Zubin just smiled, put his hand around me and said "Bh0s@d!ke woh GOD hai". That really sums up the concert in 4 words. Of course I don't want to take it away from the band. BTW, I had heard people say that PJ has sobered down on stage and they are old and crap like that. Such guys can stick their fingers up their ass. The band was overflowing with energy on the stage...especially McCready.

Anyway back to the set list. 'Even flow'! You would have thought that they were playing at 10 times the speed of the song on the album. The coolest part I thought was in the lead when McCready held the guitar behind his neck and played the entire lead like that (Yes, I know that even Chandresh of Freedom could do that). But this song really got me going. Then one or 2 more songs that I didn't know, followed, to bring me down back to the ground. Then the band went off stage and came back. It was just Vedder on stage and he had a guitar in his hand. He started Waiting... Watching the clock. Zubin just jumped up in madness. 'Better man'! I have heard the song earlier, but when Zubin told me Vedder had written that song about his dad, it helped me appreciate the song even more. It is an awessssssssome sight to see an entire basketball arena sing along with a band. They couldn't have got a better song than 'Nothing man' to follow up. It happens to be one of my personal favourites (of the 20 odd songs that i know :D).

They had an awesome set list that contained songs of the likes of 'Not for you', an OST from big fish, 'Brain of JFK', 'Spin the black circle' and 'Go', with lots of filler songs that Zubin and I couldn't identify. THEN came the real high point. 'Alive'! Sigh! that song always reminds me of AD2004. Zubin and I sang the entire song with our hands around each other. I'm sure that all the people around us thought we were gay...but then atleast I can blame my being single on that :D. In fact in the interlude, i.e. the part that goes "Is Something wrong, she said", I told Zubin that this is the part where Sid/G play a wrong chord :)) The 3-5 minute lead that followed was god! Amazing! Out of this world! This reminds me there was this jam between McCready and the pianist for like 5 min...that too was amazzzzzzzzzzing. Anyway at the end of Alive, people who have seen the Milan concert will remember that Vedder goes something like 'hee hee hee' (no not laughing) at the final lead. This time the entire arena went about doing that before Vedder could even start. The audience really makes up for half the fun. As Vedder rightly put it when the band first came out onto the stage "Have you guys been waiting a long time for us. Well we too have been waiting a long time for you guys."

Anyways after Alive, Vedder goes around thanking the crowd and says the guys who are behind us are not getting a good view. Then he went towards them and sang 'Last Kiss'. They followed it up with 'Do the evolution'. By this time they had peacefully played some 25 odd songs and it was around 10:30. I had a train ticket worth $47, back to baltimore and the train was at 11:33. After a lot of contemplation I decided to leave at 10:50 because I would have probably hit traffic and missed the train. I managed to catch 'Do the evolution' on my way out.

I got to the station at 11:10 and called up Ro. It is quite funny because the entire last half hour and screwed up my mood and I told Ro that I didn't enjoy the concert. The b@st@rd goes "I'm happy you didn't enjoy so much. That is why you shouldn't go to concerts without me". When I told him that I left before the concert got over and they hadn't played 'Black' or 'Jeremy', he quickly retorted "Arey obviously they'll play these songs in the end. I'm positive". I was just about to start sulking when Zubin and Rabbi also reached the station. So apparently I missed just 2 songs...'Rocking in the free world' and 'Yellow ledbetter'. Zubin says they were god songs...but I think I'll live. HOWEVER, THE F@#$ING TRAIN WAS 40 MIN LATE. So I couldn't catch the ending of the concert AND I had to wait at the station for almost a fricking hour.

All the same it hit me the NEXT day as to what a god concert it was. These chaps are amazing live performers and Vedder really knows how to get the crowd involved. I feel bad that I didn't know around 30-40% of the songs and couldn't appreciate the concert as much as it should have been, but I sure had a helluva experience. So far I have been to 3 concerts... Knopfler was in a opera theatre, RHCP was free standing and PJ was in a basketball arena as I mentioned. The atmo in PJ was definitely a kick ass one (though RHCP still remains closer to my heart). Zubin and I have decided that if Pearl Jam ever comes anywhere near to the East coast again, WE ARE GOING. Bottom line is that Vedder is god and that PJ can't find a better man :)

FFF ki Jai ho

Get the funk out

2005-09-24T01:07:00.000-07:00

This is what happens on a Friday night if
1) You don't have a girlfriend to spend some intimate moments with.
2) You don't really have friends who are eager to watch a movie in the theatres.
3) You fight to complete 'hum tum' but start getting bored mid-way, just because you are feeling depressed about 1.
4) You think you are India's answer to Flea and Steve Harris.
5) You don't realize that 4 is totally wrong and that you are just a fat blob with extremely small fingers.

ANYWAY! I had always had this burning desire to make my own funky version of the song that has probably been covered/abused by as many artists as possible. Yes! I am talking about 'knocking on heaven's door'. So I picked up my guitar and my processor with great enthu to use all the cool effects possible. One effect that is similar to the one in Greenday's 'Boulevard of broken dreams' really got me going. As you shall see (IF you do listen to my song), either my processor seems to suck or probably I still am not comfortable with the muting of an electric guitar's strings or more definitely both of these statements are true. I ended up getting an amazing buzz in the recording. Oh! I haven't talked about my state of art recording facility, have I? I plug in the cheapest cord available at Radioshack from the guitar to my laptop and record without any clue whatsoever as to what I'm playing is correct or not, merely thanks to the fact that I can't hear myself. So there you have a fat blob with extremely small fingers who doesn't know how to play a guitar properly trying to come up with what could be one of the most heard funk song of all times, without listening to it himself.

Sigh! Fate..it seems is not without its sense of irony. After 2 hours of fight and an exhaustive search through all the presets of my processor I finally came up with phunky version of KOHD. Now when I listen to the song, it doesn't sound funky because the pace somehow is slower than the actual version. However, I do seriously champion the fact that the song would sound better when played live, so that the bends and sustains come out good and there is a continuity in the song.

If you have read the entire gory description above and still are such a big fan of my musical talents, you can download the song in mp3 format from here.

Moral of the story: Just shut up and complete Harry Potter rather than doing such useless stuff. If people could make songs overnight just like that, then I would be Flea, Ro would be Lars Ulrich and Duh would be...well no Duh really sings pathetically and he shall remain Duh forever :)

Veni! Vidi! So WTF next?

2005-09-19T22:51:00.000-07:00

I came. I saw. I searched.

Long has been my quest.
A quest for close ones.
Ones of the same temperament.

I came. I saw. I found.

Close ones I did find.
We swore to see eternity together.
All I have to say today is 'Et tu Brutus'.

I came. I saw. I bled.

The foe in need was my friend indeed.
I rode away wounded. Defeated.
Caesar they called me! Or was it loser ?

I came. I saw. I learnt.

A soldier doesn't weep.
So say my fellow warriors.
Fierce fighters, yet source of my peace.

I came. I saw. I realised.

We wined. We dined.
We listened to the finest of music.
We let the world know of our authority.

I came. I saw. We conquered.

I ride on greener pastures
I ride with my head held high.
Let it be know that I am still Caesar.

I came. I saw. I still search.

They most definitely are the funky monks

2005-08-24T08:32:00.000-07:00

21st August, 2005 will be a day I shall never ever forget. That was the day I got to see the high priests of funk music, the funky monks themselves THE RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS. The show happened at the Borgata, Atlantic City. The following is not at all organised properly, nor has it been checked for typos (mainly due to the fact that I should be studying for my Ph.D. qualifiers which happen in less than a week). I would suggest you read on just for the pure love for RHCP :)

For starters Zubin (vocalist, FFF), Supi (drummer, 40Hz) and I (freelance bassist kicked out by FFF) reached the venue at 7 pm for the show that was scheduled to start at 8. My heart sank as I saw the infinitely long line. As usual, I first blamed Zubin that it was his fault that we came late and that we wouldn't get a nice place and we kept ourselves busy by arguing for the rest of our wait. I was finding it difficult to control myself as we clearly could hear the sound check outside the event centre. At 7:50 they FINALLY started entry and we were soon in. When we walked(ran) in we saw that we would get to stand 10 rows away from the stage and we were like "Maaki choot yeh to bahut hai". However, thanks to some pushing from yours truly we managed to move forward like say 5-6 rows away from the stage. We were more or less between the centre and the left part of the stage (our left). The arrangement seemed pretty much the same like in all their concert videos and that meant one thing ... FLEA WOULD BE RIGHT IN FRONT OF US.

8:20 and no RHCP on stage. The crowd kept cheering everytime a roadie crew member walked on to the stage to adjust some equipment. While we listened to the shady pop/hip-hop songs being played on the audio system, I explained to one auntyji that Zubin and I were in a band in India and we had once played a RHCP medley. She was like "You guys owe them. It is great to know the Chili Peppers have fans so far away." She had watched them 6 yrs earlier when her daughter was 10. Her daughter was now obviously older and 'maal'er and making out with her boyfriend, but for a change I wasn't staring there for obvious reasons. Suddenly at 8:30 the lights went off. Junta went maddddddddd.

John Frusciante walked out from the right wearing a shirt that reminded me of G for some reason. It was a checked red and yellow one. Chad Smith was wearing a blue sleeveless shirt and a black cap like in the Minor thing video available on IITB music servers. If there is a God, we all saw him walk out in briefs onto the stage with a bass guitar strapped around his neck. I killed myself shouting as he walked onto the stage. The guy I most definitely idolized and most unsuccessfully tried to copy was less than 10ft away from me. He asked me if I wanted to play instead of him, but I said, "Na! I didn't pay $100 to listen to myself." Then Anthony walked out wearing a black 3/4ths and a formal shirt. They were just standing there and then I go 'Abey fuck Zubin....Flea kuch nahin pehna neeche :OOOO". Zubin then goes "Oh nahin woh undi pehna hai. Mujhe bhi laga nanga hai but main jhukke dekha." Sigh! I always doubted his orientation...Zubin's that is. The only expression I can think of to summarise the rest of the show was/is/will be FUCK.

One strum of the guitar to check its tone and Zubin's guess was right that they would start with "By the way". They then followed it up with "Scar tissue". In these songs Frusciante was in full enthu dancing around like he did in 'RHCP: Live at Slane Castle". Then they played some song from their new unreleased album which was very nice. Silence ... and then Anthony suddenly went "how lonnnnnnnnnnnng how loong" (i.e. 'otherside' for the uninformed). This is when I called up ro and asked him to listen to them playing and then promptly hung up after 2 minutes because i was going mad jumping around. BEHENCHOD RHCP bolke.

I tried hard to remember the exact song list but am not sure if I remember everything in the correct order (and u thought this was one day I would always remember). They then played "throw away your television", "soul to squeeze", "right on time", "parallel universe", "don't forget me" and a new song (not in this order). Anthony then asked Flea to make a speech and he went something like:
"we all come from big cities
we all have itty bitty titties
we also have a small bellybutton
I have a rocket, but dont eat mutton"

Then of alllllllll the songs in the world they played "get uppa get on uppa " ...James Brown's "Sex Machine" :DDDDDDD. It was GODDDDDDDDDDDDDD..they jammed on it for 10 minutes. Then Flea walked up to the mic. "This next song is from an album that is yet to be released ... oh wait! we already released it". What followed was a 3-5 minute jam between Flea and Frusciante which as I correctly guessed led to "Californication". For more info on such jams you can watch the clip of "Californication: live" on Launchcast videos . So when they started jamming I thought it would be something like the 1 minute jam at Slane Castle but FUCK they went on playing, ending at some extremely high speed. Anyway, the moral that we took from this song is that GODS also hug on stage :D. When the lead was to be played, I think Flea played the bass line for the alternative lead. So Frusciante said no no no ...and then they all stopped for a split second and started correct. Well u see to me its just a minor thing :D

And then they play "tananananaan tatatatateeeeeeeeeeeeeeun". Yes behenchod CANT STOP... fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk kya bajaye behenchod. (for ppl who dont know me/papa/ ppl who cant stand abuses.. I'm sorry! However, I'm sure that the ppl who know me well can surely vouch for the fact that this is only a substandard way of expressing my enthusiasm :P). Abey i was ready to die at that time. Losing my virginity wasnt even a priority at that point of time(and I am happy that it was just restricted to that point of time). Then the band bid farewell and walked off the stage.

Now i shall interrupt this review to tell you guys that SOME girls can really be bitches. I am not a MCP or a woman-hater (well I was upto some time ago, but not anymore. That is a different story anyway!), BUTTTTTTTTTTT this really got me pissed off. In what follows, reader's discretion is requested as the author has expressed severely graphic scenes. There are these girls who come from the back and rub themselves all over you so that you feel uncomfortable and make way. Yeah yeah someone is going to stand up and say may be some girl liked me or maybe there wasn't much place and I was over reacting. OKKKKKKKK first of all I don't even come close to cute/attractive/good looking/human, plus even if some girl lost her brain headbanging, there can't be 10 of them in a span of 100 minutes can they. They tried hard and hard..but uh uh I wasn't going to fall for it. You can groove all you want but FUCK OFF you cant get ahead of me. Hey! I am not a bad chap. 2 cute females asked me if they could move ahead as they couldn't see and I let them :P Actually one of them sang "can't stop" along with me. She put her hand around me and we sang in max enthu :D. Anyway my funda was straight and I must have been encountered by atleast 10 females, but sadly for them they were forced to take a detour :D. You did read till here even though you knew it was a graphic scene. PERVERT!

As expected, the band came back on. Actually it was just Flea and Frusciante. Flea played the trumpet and Frusciante the bass. BOSS!!!! It was a god jam. It wasn't a funky piece but it sure grooved like hell. Then after the jam Frusciante picked up his guitar, sat down on the stage and started "under the bridge"... HEAVEN. You could see people waving around lighters in the air and singing along. It was too much. After that some panga happened. The roadie crew was trying to put some earphone system on Anthony after this song but the chap kept taking till eternity to do it. Anthony got angry and just pulled that wires off himself, threw it away and glared at the roadie chap. At that point I became senti and felt that such phunky people should not react like that. Then they finally played "Give it away" and I think the concert ended on that note. I must have lost a pound jumping on "Give it away".

We then walked out with our ears ringing and from what will definitely be one of the top 3 concerts of my life to come (if not the best). FUCKKKKKKKKK what entertainers!!!! There was so much energy there and people singing along in all their songs. Man it was an amazing atmo. Grooving to that bass, jumping around, seeing the occasional crowd surfer, waiting for that amazing roll from Chad. If I ranked Knopfler's concert as 8/10, the geek in me would rate this concert tan(x) as x-> (pi/2)-. When we left the room, I tried to get hold of one of the signs that read "No moshing or crowd surfing", but they shooed me awa :( We then got out all wet (from jumping arnd...geez) and took a local bus to get dinner and the bus was playing best of dire straits. So we listened to sultans, walk of life, twisting by the pool and other such golden numbers.

Man!! This is one of most disorganised posts I have ever made but that's just because I was so damn excited when I really wrote this review for FFF. The bottomline is

RHCP ROCKS! GET TO WATCH THEM IF YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY! I WOULD PAY DOUBLE THE PRICE TO GO WATCH THEM AGAIN! TAKE A GIRL WITH YOU TO CONCERTS SO THAT IT IS EASIER TO MOVE AHEAD

FFF ki jai ho

Amar Akbar Anthony

2005-07-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

Raj looked out of the window waiting for Rohit's car to pull up in front of the house. He had called him 10 minutes back and the idiot was still not here. He slid the bag off his shoulders and placed it on the bed carefully. He opened it and his eyes gleamed staring at the booty. With such a loot I need not break in to any other house soon. This should last for a month at least. He turned on the radio as waited for Rohit. Hmmm! Nice reception. Should I take it? Well I think I should leave the guy his radio if I am stealing his discman and computer. He zipped the bag and lay down on the bed as he stared at the ceiling. Ah! I love this lifestyle. Work!!! Ha.. That's for losers! Just then he heard something downstairs. Raj's ears immediately went up like a dog's and he became alert. There was definitely someone downstairs. He smoothly put his hands through the knapsack's flaps and looked out the window. Rohit wasn't here yet and it was quite a fall from the 2nd floor. There was no way he could think of taking this route. I have to get out of the front door! He gulped and slowly crept out of the room.

He made his way like a cat on padded paws down the winding stairs, peeping now and then to see if he could get a look at who it was or rather how many people were there really. Raj was a bit confused. He had been watching this house for the last 3 days and there wasn't a sign of life in the morning. Rohit had told him that 3 students stayed in the house and they only came back home in the night. It was 1 in the afternoon now. He made his way to the ground floor. He couldn't see anyone in sight. All he saw was the front door. He began to make a dash for it, when a young man probably in his early 20s came out of the toilet. Raj was shocked. His caper was blown. That's it! He would now go to jail and would end up becoming the bitch of some bald muscleman with a weird moustache and an even weirder name like Mogasingh. Raj took a few short paces back towards the steps. "Hi, I am sorry for scaring you like this. My name is Akbar. I am Saurav's friend and am just visiting. He told me that I could come to his place and he would come over later. He might have forgotten to inform you guys about me coming over."

Think Raj think fast! This loser thinks you actually stay in this house. Just play along and get out at the first possible instant. "Oh! He did mention that you were going to come. It's just that I would have expected you to ring the bell and come in. Hi! I am Amar." Akbar, in the meanwhile had made himself comfortable on a couch. "Yeah! I guess I am at fault. But you know, the door was open and I HAD to use the loo urgently." He ended his words with an echoing laughter and began to sip on some juice that was lying on the table in front of him. Raj just gave out a stifled laugh. Rohit, you idiot! You are ALWAYS late. I am sure you saw some hot chick on the way and are busy leching at her. "Well Akbar, why don't you make yourself feel at home. I need to be at school by 2 and I think I should be leaving now. I will catch up with you at dinner"

Akbar looked at his watch and gave a puzzled look. "It's just one 'o' clock. I thought your school was just a 10 minute walk away? Well that's what Saurav told me at least." Raj's heart missed a beat. He wanted to get out as fast as possible. "Yeah! That is true, but I have some other work on the way. I need to go to the library to drop something off." As he flipped through the pages of some sports magazine, Akbar looked up at Raj with a smile on his face that immediately seemed to irritate him for some reason. "Important stuff eih??? Man your bag does look heavy. Looks like someone is very serious about his studies!" Raj was trying his best to control himself from beating Akbar up. "Well...If you need to go..You need to go. However, can you do me a small help before you leave. I would like to freshen up a bit and catch a quick nap before Saurav gets back. Can you show me a bathroom where I could have a wash. Also, which one is Saurav's room. I can probably laze around in his room till he gets back"

Raj felt himself losing his lips as he bit them in tension. He had cleaned 2 rooms and had not touched one, because his knapsack was full by then. He decided to dump Akbar there and leave while he was bathing. This was an excellent chance. "Sure thing! Come I'll show you his room." They both made their way upstairs as Raj led the way to Saurav's room. "Alright Akbar! I guess you can find whatever you want in this room. As I had said earlier, just feel at home." Just then, the two of them heard a sound downstairs. It was the sound of the creaking of the floor board ... the sound of someone walking downstairs. Now I am most definitely going to meet Mogasingh. Akbar said,"Aah Amar! I guess that your other roommate is back. Let's go down and meet him." Raj tried to stop him from going down. "Are you sure? He has just come back from school and must be tired. You too are tired. Why don't you freshen up and then meet him." Akbar, however seemed to be persistent. "Oh come on! That can always wait. I don't want him to have the same reaction as you did when you saw me". He then again smiled that extremely irritating smile of his. They walked downstairs, with Akbar leading the way this time. Raj had not got off the stairs, when Akbar stopped him and moved back onto the flight. The next words that came out of his mouth sent a shiver up Raj's spine. "Thief! There is a thief in the house."

Raj opened his mouth but words didn't seem to come out. He somehow managed to mumble something. "I ..erm... don't understand..erm..who?...what?...thief..where?" Akbar indicated him to be silent or atleast keep his voice down. "There is a thief in your kitchen. He seems to be a low level one. He is putting all your expensive cutlery into a bag. Do you have a cell. Let's call the police" Raj froze in his place. "P.p.p.police!!! Why do we need to call them? Let's just wait for 10 minutes and the thief will go away on his own. Our cutlery is not that expensive anyway...and we were planning to buy new ones on the weekend. So it is fine." Akbar gave him a glare straight in his face. "Have you gone mad. There is a god damned thief in your house. Ok! Here is the plan. He seems to be alone. Let's overpower the bastard and then we can call the police. Otherwise there is a chance that he might escape before the cops get here." Before Raj could even say yes, Akbar was creeping his way to the kitchen. Raj didn't know why he was doing so, but he found himself following Akbar into the kitchen.

Akbar was soon one up on the thief. "Caught you..you son of a bitch! This was a bad day you chose to rob this house. A real bad day". Before Raj could even throw in a blow, the thief was lying unconscious on the floor. "Shit! Did you kill him?". Raj was sweating profusely. He was a petty thief and had never seen a murder in his whole life. He was scared. Akbar laughed at him. "No! Don't worry he is just unconscious. It is something we learnt in NCC as kids. Ok! Find a rope somewhere and lets tie him to a chair." In about ten minutes the thief had been tied to a pole in the basement, with some packing tape as that was all Raj could locate immediately. "Ah! There he is coming to!" Akbar gave one huge slap across his face. "How dare you try to rob this house. I should kill you for this. Thieves like you shouldn't be spared." Raj wanted to flee immediately. The chap was bleeding below his right eye and he had sharp cut. He slowly muttered " Who are you guys". Akbar was quick to retort "This is Amar, a resident of this house and I am Akbar his friend. Who are you? What is your name? Are you working alone or do you have a gang waiting outside?" The thief gave a stifled laugh and said, "Me.. My name is Anthony. I wo..." Before, he could even complete his sentence Akbar gave him another blow. "Don't you act funny with us. Do you think we are comedians. Shit! Now I cut myself. Amar, just make sure that this chap doesn't try any hanky panky. I'll go and wash my hand."

Raj was scared. Akbar had gone up to wash his hands. There was a person who was bleeding in front of him and definitely needed medical attention. Rohit THIS IS ALL BECAUSE OF YOU NOT SHOWING UP ON TIME. The thief looked at Raj and gave a very wicked smile. "You lying son of a bitch. You don't stay in this house. I have been keeping watch over this place for like 2 weeks. So what is your story?" Raj immediately ran towards him and covered his mouth with his hand. "Ok! Just keep quiet. Yes! I don't stay in this house and I am also a thief just like you. The only difference is that I am smarter and I don't get caught like you. Here is the deal. I'll get you out of here if you play along with me. Let's think of some way to get this Akbar chap out of the way." The thief mumbled something and then Raj realized he obviously couldn't speak with Raj's hands covering his mouth. He removed his hold letting the chap breathe and speak. "Ok! Fine, but get me out of here soon. Anyway who is this Akbar chap?. He said he is your friend." "Well I just met him an hour ago. He is a friend of a guy who stays here..Saurav. He thought I was his roommate and I played along."

'Anthony' burst out into something that sounded like a demonic laughter. Raj immediately burst out "What? You think that's funny. Look at yourself. If you were even half as smart as me this would not have happened." 'Anthony' now had tears in his eyes. "You idiot! I have been keeping a watch on this house for 2 weeks. 3 GIRLS stay in this house and I am pretty sure there is no Saurav in this house." Raj felt the ground below his feet give way. His world was beginning to collapse. His head felt light suddenly. He immediately dashed out of the basement making his way to the living room. The front door was open. His bag was gone ... and so was Anthony's. Raj fell to his feet, the laughter from the basement still echoing in his ears.

The sun is the same in the relative way

2005-07-13T12:52:00.000-07:00

...but my blog's link is going to change in a few days. Apparently it is being blocked by IIT because of the 'xxx' in the link :) So hope that you see this message before I change the feed to golax.blogspot.com from golaxxx.blogspot.com because chances are you probably you will not get to see it then :D

I know im guilty of not having blogged for quite some time ... but saala nothing interesting is striking me. Have one or two ideas in my head ... just need to put them down properly :) I am pretty damn sure that I'll do so by next week. (No not like I was damn sure the last time :) )

Oh yes, another reason is that I found out that my dad has stumbled upon this blog :D so that sorts of reduces one dimension of creativity ;) So I have to be more careful while blogging :)

Before I sign off, I would like to add that US is a crazy country. Bloddddy hell, Pearl Jam's concert tickets got sold out online in TWENTY F!@KING SECONDS. The tickets are now being sold on ebay for $300 more than the actual price :(

Return of golax

2005-06-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

OK Junta, I am back from a 10 day amazzzzzzzzzing trip to San Diego and LA. I had gone for a conference and that sort of explains why I haven't been blogging for the last 2-3 weeks. Ok before people like Sro ask why 2-3 weeks when I went for 10 days, its because I was preparing for the conference. Oh by the way, for people from IITB, I happened to meet Sumantra at the conference :D. Anyways all that put aside, I shall get back to blogging in full enthu soon.

ps: Please do not go to Cali. You will feel depressed when you go back home. TRUST ME.

Confessions of a desperate mind : Lift karade

2005-06-15T23:36:00.000-07:00

Raj. Under ordinary circumstances, you would think that a person with such a name would be someone with a nice build, around 6 feet tall, Greek-god-like-features and an obvious lady killer. Raj DID more or less fit the description. A nice build in the tummy region, around 5 foot 8 and ... well close to 2 out of 4 is not that bad. His balding head was smooth as his paunch and 22 year old Raj looked like someone in his early 30s. I guess that's what happens when one keeps studying all day and the only form of sport/game he ever indulges in is chess or carroms. To add to that he was a total geek and without any effort made sure that the others realized it too. Yeah that was good old Raj for you.

He was 22 years old and let alone a relationship, his batchmates never even teased him with any girl. Nah! NOOOOOOOOOO one in her in sane or even insane mind is going to fall for you. Poor Raj! He really was a desperate guy. Well you might stop me and ask me as to why I have to talk about such a character. For starters, he is a very good friend. BUT, the main thing is that over dinner last week, he happened to narrate a few stories, all ending with me shocked and shouting WHAT THE FUCK ??? So that's why I decided to share a few of these episodes with you and get your ideas as to whether you guys think the same. To avoid any strokes, I shall take you through the stories one by one. So here goes one of the tales that he told me.

Raj admits being a very desperate person and this desperation results in him drooling over almost every female he comes across. One of these poor victims happened to be Pooja, a HOT (I mean really really hot) chick in his apartments. Every time he met her, he would try to catch her attention and try to get her interested in him. He honestly believed that she was beginning to like him, but the truth was she could hardly even remember his name.

Just like all over-dramatized stories, this one happened on a rainy night. Raj was coming back home from the library. He was taking the elevator to his apartment, when he saw Pooja enter the gate of the building. She was wet, she was hot, she was cute, she was the love of his life. He held the elevator door open. He held it open for all the 5 minutes, waiting as she took her own sweet time to dry her air, check her mail and finally make it to the elevator. Hi Pooja. His bubbling enthusiasm was rewarded with a very cold Hi. Raj could have jumped with joy. She said HIIIIIIIIIIII to me. Too maaaaaaaaaaach!. Come on Raj! Control yourself. He punched the button for the 6th floor. Can you also press the button for the ... Not giving her a chance to complete, Raj promptly punched the panel for the 9th floor and showed her all of his 32 teeth. 9th no? Of course I know. You don't have to tell me.

The elevator began to move. Raj wanted to make the best of those 10 seconds he had with her. He wanted to call her over to his place for chai and samosa, but before he could even take her name ... Damn this power cut! SHIT! Raj wanted to tell Pooja that she looked more beautiful when she was angry, but given the circumstances, he thought it wasn't apt. Thank you God, Thank You! With this power cut you have brought brightness to my life. I walked into this elevator a virgin, but when I leave it, I shall be a new man. Thank you God. For the next 5 minutes, his mind was filled with all the cheesy porn flicks he had seen of late and was trying to decide on which pick up line to use. In the darkness, a sexy voice came from the other corner of the elevator. So are you a virgin?

Raj's books immediately fell to the ground. He was shocked. He didn't expect her to react like that? Why is she coming on to me? Why does she asking me such questions? There is something wrong. Raj think of something witty to say and get out of this. He just gave a laugh as he bent to pick up his books "No, I'm not a surgeon. I am still studying." What did you just say??? You loser, even YOU wouldn't smile let alone laugh at such a statement. "Excuse me ?" He immediately tried to cover up, mumbling something but no words came out of his mouth. "I asked you if you were a virgin? What's there to get so tensed about it?" Raj's heart was beating fast. He shivered in that corner of his elevator "Yyyyyyes. Why?" "Oh nothing, I always wondered how it would be like to make out with a virgin."

Raj told me that apparently he cried for 10 seconds. He said that they were tears of joy, but I know he was scared and wanted to get the hell out of there. He gulped, "So are yoooou gggoing to make out with .... me". He could smell her perfume more strongly as she moved closer to him in the elevator. He couldn't see much. "Yes. Any last wishes before the virgin sacrifice?" She giggled in a way he would have found cute at any point of time, but at that time he felt that she was standing there with a whip and intimidating him. Raj began to pray God please get me out of this. Please get the current up again. She whispered into his ears, "I know you look at me everyday. I have seen the look in your eyes. Now you can have me.". She began nibbling on his right ear.

Raj pushed her away. "Please don't say or do such things. I am not what you think I am. I come from a nice Brahmin family and I dont even consume alcohol or meat." Before he could say the next sentence, she put her finger on his lips and kissed it and said, "Oh don't worry. I haven't asked you to eat me as yet.". Raj began whimpering. "Please let me go. I pray to Hanuman everyday for my studies. He was a bachelor and if he sees me doing such things he will not bless me in my studies." Pooja 's hands had begun to move to the places where no woman had gone before. "Oh ! Don't worry about that. He can't see you when the lights are off". She was now on his neck. "Please Pooja, you are like my sister. How can you think of doing such things to your brother."

You should have seen the pride on his face when he told me about this statement. He felt like he was the wisest person on the face of Earth. I swear if we were not having dinner out at that time, I would have thrown my plate at him. "Abey, It worked like magic. She just moved away and didn't say a word for the next ten minutes till the current came back. Till date she hasn't talked to me since. Shit! Can you imagine the type of people this world is filled with. Chi chi chi!"

I have just three words to say to this WHAT THE FUCK? Why can't something like this every happen to me :( ?

Yincrease tha vaalume pleej

2005-06-10T11:55:00.000-07:00

2 hours before sound check. G sat in a corner of the room fiddling with one of the tuning pegs of his six string. He had snapped his E string 3 times in the last week, thanks to all the energy he put into his rhythm guitaring. From his lanky structure, people found it hard to believe that he could even put in enough power to gently strum the guitar and here he was snapping strings. He looked out the window and saw a youngster walk in the streets with a guitar gig bag strapped around his shoulders. He remembered himself walking around just like that around 6-7 years back. That was when he had begun playing the guitar. His instructor told him that he would never be able to play the guitar well and that he had pathetic finger movement for that. In two hours he was going to playing at a proper pro show.

"Abey G, what is the third note that I have to play in the chorus of 'Epiphany'. I can't get my finger on it now." G turned around to see a huge figure standing at the door - Golu. The nervousness on his face was evident. Well, he was nervous most of the time, but when it came to playing music he was extra nervous. He was a typical example of "Well, I stared playing the bass because it seemed easy and all the other spots were taken." Being the least skilled in the band, he did not want to make it evident. He would spend hours practising the bass lines and yet those stubby little fingers of his would let him down at the last moment. "Abey, can someone help me out with the timing of the chorus also, I seem to be having some last minute mix ups." Abey shit! I am sure I am going to screw up today and people are going to laugh at me.

"You are give up. When I told you to practice and do ponka ponka, you just sat like a stupid moron and now you are crying. Please go jump out of that window. Give up!" That was Viral in a nutshell for you. Half of the things he spoke would not have relevance to the topic of discussion and he made it a point to punctuate most of his sentences with 'give up'. He loved dissing Golu a lot. However, before G could even reach out for his plectrum, Viral was helping Golu out. After all, a drummer can never let his bassist down. Viral had been drumming for 4 years now. He was the one who had managed to get the band this gig. After about 10 minutes of 'give up's, Viral managed to get the idea across. "There keep playing to that four count in your head. That'll keep you going for the show."

As all this happened, Sid just sat on the bed, smiling at the ongoings. That's what he did most of the time - smile. The rest of the time, he played lead guitar for FFF. Sid was by far the most talented in the band. He had started off playing the piano as a child. He soon shifted his loyalties to the guitar after he drew inspiration from local marriage bands that he saw. However, that child had grown and the dream of emulating marriage bands was gone. He had transcended to higher forms of music. Little did he realize that some day he would inspire people to pick up the guitar and that youngsters would try to tab and perfect his solos. He gave a huge grin when he saw Golu's relieved face and promptly went back to practising his solos.

Everyone just kept quiet and fiddled around with their instruments or went through their songs in their heads. G then decided to break the silence with some words of wisdom. "Abey! How the F@CK can we go to play while we are sober. Viral, please do the honours and bring out the goodies. Let's see we have about an hour - hour and a half. We definitely have the time to down a bit." Golu got up to protest that if they were high they might screw up, but wisely decided not to act as a spoilsport. "You bring the stuff while I'll go call Zubin and ask him what he is upto." After Golu and Viral left the room, Sidney smiled at G "Kyon? All ready to crack the crowds with your Morello-like performance". That's when it really hit G that it wasn't just a small performance in front of about 20 people. This was big... no not just big... FUCKING BIG. FFF had talked about it for a long time and now it was all going to happen for real in less than two hours. Amidst the cigarette smoke surrounding G, Sidney could make out that he smiled back. "Haan bey! Aaj to m@@ ch@d ke rahenge."

Just then Golu came into the room with his fingers on his lip, signaling Sid and G to keep quiet. "I just spoke to Zubin and the idiot says he can't make it to Viral's place. He will meet us at the concert directly. I couldn't speak to him for long as he said he is in an auto and he couldn't hear me over its engine sound. Oh..the icing of the cake is that he wants us to print out the lyrics just in case he forgets something." Zubin was the vocalist of FFF. He was quite the character. He would not turn up for practice sessions and when he turned up he would either have lost his voice or not learnt the lyrics and he had a great knack of having the same problems whenever they performed. His lips would move but you couldn't hear what he was saying. The sight of his band mates looking at him in surprise as he made up his own lyrics during performances was one not to be missed. Here he was pulling off the same damn thing all over again. "OK let's not tell Viral about this right now, else he is going to be real pissed off." ..and so they didn't! They were soon making merry, on top of the world and were least bothered about their gig.

It was Viral who noticed the time. "Abey give up! It's time to go let's leave. Where is Zubin?" After a series of explanations and abuses they set off for the venue. "Bloody Zubin, tu give up hai! Why don't you sit in the same auto you came in and go jump off a bridge." Zubin just laughed back. He was never irritated by such comments. He wasn't known as 'the awesome vocalist' for nothing. "Ok guys, lets cut the crap. Let's decide on the order of our play list. What do you think we should start off with?...." They were soon engrossed discussing their song list,what encores they could possibly do and whether it was a good idea or not to play covers in case they had the time to do so. They were soon interrupted by the organizers. "OK guys, you are up next. Go kick some ass and make sure you have fun while you are out there." As they walked onto the stage to plug in their instruments, they could feel goosebumps all over. THIS WAS REALLY HAPPENING. THEY WERE PLAYING AS A GODDAMNED PRO BAND.

Zubin promptly walked up to the mic, "GOOD EVENING MUMBAI! DO YOU THINK YOU CAN HANDLE FFF?" As usual Golu wanted to step in and ask him to stop pulling such stunts. For a change Viral stopped him. "This is our time, enjoy the moment while you can." The crowd's enthusiastic response was just what was needed to really push FFF's adrenaline levels up. This was their time. The next three hours were just three hours of unadulterated music, fun and energy. It wasn't really the greatest performance but it surely ranked with the best ones as far as entertainment was concerned. G managed to snap three of his strings during the entire show and Viral broke two drumsticks. If that wasn't enough, Zubin made sure that the crowd noticed these things. "Yo Mumbai! That's called enthu man." Not to be left behind in enthu, he must have crowd surfed at least once 7-8 times in the entire show. For a change Sid wasn't his usual calm self. He too went up to the end of the stage and sat down playing his solos as the crowd reached out for him. While all this happened, Golu was happy looking at the entire sight and happy that he hadn't screwed up much. FFF had put up a good show and the crowd had loved them. Screw the crowds! They had had a ball of a time. Zubin couldn't have put it better "It is definitely fun playing for the crowds, but it is more fun playing with you guys."

In anticipation of FFF's reunion

Mera number kab aayega

2005-06-10T00:48:00.000-07:00

I dont know why at 3:50 am I remembered this incident. Maybe it is in desperation to think of something for a good blog. Anyways, now that I think of it maybe it isn't that humorous, but for all of you who know the characters involved, I'm sure you will appreciate it :P. It so happened one day CKD Ro and I were coming back after a tiring game of basketball.

Please do not crib about grammar. This is the way we speak really :D If you don't understand the lingo, sorry can't help it. I had to present the conversation in its actual form

Ro: Abey Golu, our lives are useless ra.
Golu: I agree your life is useless, but why drag me into it? I am happy. (lies lies lies...after all the nbd i took)
Ro: How can you be happy rey? You are 20 years old and you have not had a girl friend. Bloody losers like Heeralal and Duh have babes but we don't. (ok he didn't mention Duh, though I think it is only correct to include his name also)
Golu: It's ok le. I'm sure some day I'll crack babe
Ro: Ni gudda. Like that only keep sitting. Then the only crack you'll make is when your dad comes and puts a female in front of you, "Marry re bastard" bolke.
Golu: It's ok. I'll hit on your wife.
Ro: abbbbbbbbbbbbbba when will you take things seriously. I swear one day when you are dying a virgin you will remember this talk. (I'm sure you never thought I would remember it in this context. Btw alternate line of thought...shit if you die a virgin it is so painful)

(we get back to my room to watch a movie and sro keeps cribbing all the way)
Mithun:(knocking on the door) Abey koi hai kya ?
Golu: Nahin! Kat le
Mithun: Abey khol na, ek serious problem hai and I wanted to discuss with you
Golu: Abey fuck off. Come back later
Ro: This only rey. One insensitive bastard you are. Your wingie is saying he wants to talk to you and you are asking him to get lost. Like this you'll never get a babe. (opening door)
Golu: Kya hai jaldi bak aur kat le
Mithun(with a very sober face): Sro this fellow is a bastard. You are my true friend. You help me out.
Ro: Cheppa ra
Mithun: Abey it is a very serious problem. So basically there is this girl who I've been playing baseball with, but at the same time there is another girl who likes me. Now I know ki she won't be interested in sports so early. The first girl is going away in 2 months. So now im really confused as to which girl I should choose. Please help me rey

I still can't forget the scene when Ro picked up my chappal and ran after Mithun to beat him up. After about 5 min he came back and threw the chappal down in disgust.

Ro: Bloody bastards like this are also getting girlfriends and then cribbing which one to choose kathey. When will we get girlfriends? DHEERAJ WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN?

and the story continues to date

Episode 3: The revenge of ?

2005-06-07T22:19:00.000-07:00

STOP!!!: Dude if you've not read the blogs 'Love actually' and 'Mother, do you think...', do not even think of going ahead!!! - GOLAXXX

It was over a month now that Gordon had been coming to the park alone. He lodged himself on the same bench that he been sitting on for the last 3-4 years. He gave a sigh as he looked around himself. Nothing in the park had seemed to change over the few years. He still saw parents run after their little kids, keeping them out of trouble. He still saw dogs run around playfully, while their masters threw them sticks to fetch. He still saw teen couples coming to the park immediately after school, to avoid getting caught by their parents. The sight hadn't changed, well almost. He no more had Vivian sitting next to him, talking to him, teasing him, laughing at his jokes. It was just him. He moved his hand across the bench where Vivian would have usually sat and felt his heart go heavy.

"Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?" Gordon looked up to find a stunning woman, blonde hair, probably late 20s-early 30s. She was in a track suit and by the look on her face, she just wanted to rest after a tiring run. "Sure! I was about to leave anyway." "Damn! I never knew I was that scary that people just ran away at the very sight". She giggled to herself as she sat down and tied her shoelaces. Gordon didn't see that coming. He made an attempt to say something and all that came out was "No... I have to...someplace else...important". "Come on! I was just kidding. Go ahead. You have a nice day." Gordon couldn't help notice her smile. It reminded him a lot of Vivian. He managed to force a smile. "I'll see you around".

Another night passed by, another sleepless night. He slumped in his chair in his office the entire day. The park was the only place where Gordon felt at peace. He left work early that day. He usually took the subway to the park, but today he felt like walking. It was a pleasant day and the walk would probably do him good. He made his way to his favourite spot and settled down. The walk had tired him and he wanted to catch some sleep while he could. Just then he heard a familiar voice call out, "Alright, its time for you to run away". It was the same woman from the day before. He gave her a warm smile."No, it's OK. I have learnt to face my fears." Have you really Gordon ? She gave him a grin."So do you come here everyday?" "Well I try to make it everyday. This place is quite refreshing after a tiring day at work.". She sat down on the ground and began to stretch her muscles. "So where do you work?" "Well I'm a business analyst with the McMillan Foundation". Her eyebrows immediately went up, "Hey I know someone who works there." Gordon had heard that before. The McMillan Foundation was one of the most reputed firms around. "I'm sure you do. We have such a big workforce that every person in town would probably have a maximum of just 2 degrees of separation from every person at the Foundation." She looked at him very amused, "You are a funny guy". Gordon had heard that too before. "I'm sorry, but I don't think we have actually introduced ourselves. I'm Gordon and you are?" " Michelle, nice to meet you."

She reminded him of Vivian. He didn't know why. He didn't know how. But she just did! Gordon would look forward to going to the park everyday. Michelle was a new found friend whose company he treasured. They would talk for hours in the park. But Gordon felt sadder by the day that he was just trying to console himself by an image of Vivian. He had mentioned this to Michelle also once and she thought that he was crazy. "Hey! I have no issues with that. I couldn't care much what you think about me. But just give it a thought, is it really worth it? Why are you doing this to yourself? I mean dude if she loves someone else... at least by the things you have mentioned, it seems she likes this Nick character, then ... then let her be. Yeah it is a shame if he was your friend but you can't do anything about it. Can you?". Gordon pondered over these words for quite some time, but his sadness continued to grow. He however continued to meet Michelle everyday in the park, just to pour his heart out to her.

June 17th. Michelle came for her daily run to find Gordon sitting with a bottle of wine. As she approached him, she noticed that he had been drinking. "Have you finally lost it Gordon? If the copper catches you, you are going to have a tough time giving him an explanation... if you are in a state to give one that is." She snatched the bottle away from him in spite of his resistance to let the bottle go. "Jesus Christ, what's wrong with you? What happened?" Gordon broke down and began to cry like a baby, "It's all over Michelle. I heard it with my ears today finally. Vivian finally proposed to Nicholas." Michelle also fell silent. "Did she? Oh...and what was his reaction?" Gordon looked up with the look of a madman in his eye, "What the fuck do you think his reaction would be? He has probably been nailing her every night. What do you think his reaction would be?.... I don't know what to do. My entire world has fallen apart". He buried his head in her shoulder and continued crying. Michelle was no longer trying to console him. She just kept looking in a particular direction silently as he cried. After about 5 minutes, she stopped him. "Do you want to end this all ? Do you want to end your misery? Do you want to go back to living a happy life again? Stop crying and look at me. There's only one way out of this." Gordon had stopped crying. He just gave the intermittent sniffs, but he was listening. Michelle suddenly seemed different to him. There was a definite change in her tone. Her faced seemed harsh ... sad ... different. "Just get rid of the two. That's it! You will never every have to worry about feeling bad when you see them together. The best way to deal with a problem is to eliminate it Gordon." "Oh my god, Michelle do you have any idea what you are asking me to do?" "YES, I DO! I'm sick and tired of listening to your bawling day in and day out. Do you think I don't have my own set of problems to worry about? Do you see me crying? You should be ashamed of yourself. What sort of a man are you, who can't fight for his love." "But..but.but.. Michelle...." "This conversation is OVER Gordon. Either follow my advice or do NOT raise this topic again. " She got up and began to walk away. "Think over my words Gordon, its now or never."

*

June 19th. Nathan walked to his car and in the distance he could hear a television set. Good evening. Welcome to Channel 9. This is Catherine Albright. In a series of gruesome incidents today, a 28 year old employee of the McMillan foundation, Gordon murdered 2 people and ..... Stephanie Michelle Smith had a queer look in her eyes. She took another puff. "Men! They'll believe any bullshit given to them

Just another brick in the wall!

2005-06-06T20:23:00.000-07:00

continued from here

Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. Nathan did not feel cold any more. He removed his jacket and placed it neatly on his chair. He wanted to kick himself for taking up this contract. Under ordinary circumstances, he would have just blown her head off and walked out, but there was something weird about all this. All the same, he still kept the gun pointed at her. He did not want her to think that he was shaken up, or even worse scared.

"Don't be scared", she muffled as she downed the mashed potatoes. "I don't plan to kill you. At least not for now!" Nathan wanted to just sit down and start bawling. You idiot! Get a grip. YOU are the one with the gun in your hand. Take control of the situation or... you are fucked! "What makes you think I'm scared. Do you know who you are looking at? You are looking right in the face of death. If it's anyone who should be scared. It should be you." That should do it. Silence enveloped the room. The two looked each other straight in the eye. Stephanie finally broke the silence, "Ha! That is so outright cheesy. But at least you are better than Nicholas. That prick couldn't retaliate even if his life depended on it. All he has to say is that he'll take it to the courts." She got up to put her plate in the dishwasher. "I like you. You seem to be a nice guy, well better than the previous losers. Though I can't say much about your talking skills. Oh! That's interesting ... a ring! I never knew professional killers get married and have kids. I thought that they were usually people with dark childhoods, scars on their faces and lived in basements with creepy items in their room". Nathan could not take this anymore. "I've had enough. Now just shut the hell up, be a good bitch and do as I say or get ready to say hello to Mr. Bang Bang here"

She stared at him coldly in the eye. "You think you are smart. You think the previous guys didn't have guns. Do you think my husband hired pickpockets from the subways to come and kill me with bloody pocket knives. Well you better put Mr. Bang Bang away dickhead or else you look at that...". She pointed at what seemed to be a small hole in the top of the wall. "That my dear friend is a security camera. You can shoot me and get the hell out, but the cops WILL hunt you down and throw you into the damn jail. For a change, YOU can be somebody's good bitch and say hello to their Mr. 'bang bang' every night". Nathan froze as he stared at the wall. "You...You are lying. That's just a fucking hole in the wall. Nicholas told me you had no security systems."

"Nicholas? What the hell would he know? The bastard isn't at home most of the time. He is out either getting drunk or making merry with that little slut. If he expects me to sit home in this lousy good for nothing neighbourhood without any security, well he is sadly mistaken....and I'm sorry for you because you are going to wind up dead for no fault of yours". Nathan whimpered, "But I thought you weren't going to kill me." What the fuck are you saying Nathan. YOU are the professional killer, you asshole, not this bimbo. "Well I changed my plan. Perhaps I do want to kill you. You were doing just fine until you mentioned Nick's name. The last thing that I want to hear right now is his name."

Nathan had not even realized that he had lowered his gun. "But.. but why do you hate his guts so much?". "WHY? You ask me why? How would you expect a woman to react if her husband went around sleeping with every damn bitch he met at his workplace? How would you expect someone to react if she got beaten black and blue by her drunk husband? HOW WOULD YOU EXPECT SOMEONE LIKE THAT... SOMEONE LIKE ME TO REACT?" Silence. "That should be easy for you to answer. You would just kill him, wouldn't you. Ever since he sent the first guy after me, I've been thinking the exact same way." She lit herself a cigarette and took a deep puff. "The poor bastard! He was so fat, it took him 2 minutes to get the gun out of his jacket. 2 minutes...that's a helluva lot of time, don't you think. Well its enough to get a knife through someone's balls." Nathan could feel the cold blade of a knife go right through his balls that very moment. "Since that day, the bloody coward hasn't come back home. He tried to get me killed again, not once but 4 times. But this time I was prepared. And if that wasn't enough he had to send you over." She raised her hand towards Nathan pointing at him, her cig elegantly poised between her fingers, "If he expects me to go down without a fight and just give up this house and my life.... HE IS GOING DOWN WITH ME....I'll make sure he does."

Nathan spoke in a hushed tone, "Alright you know what? This was all a bad idea..a bad bad idea. Why don't we make a deal? I walk away, you don't give the cops the tape and we all get back to our own lives. We forget that this ever happened. I mean, look at this way, if I'm going to go to jail I might as well pop your guts on the way. So just think straight and do the right thing. I'll give you my gun's magazine and you give me the tape. A fair deal, scouts honour." He was finally thinking straight. I can't let this bitch get the better of me. She can't kill me. Who the hell is she trying to bluff to? But then I can't afford going to jail. I can't do this to Carol. If the tapes have got me on them, there isn't any way out. She'll never give me the security code. I'll just get the tape and get the hell out of here. "You know what? In fact I'll do you a favour. I'll kill Nicholas for you. Just give me the goddamned tape so that I can leave."

The only sound that came for the next 2 minutes was the tap dripping. Nathan had finally got the better of her. The roles had been reversed. He had the upper hand now. She got up from her chair, "Give me the magazine." "The tape first!" She sat down and folded her hands. "Go ahead, shoot me then." He smoothly slid the magazine out of the gun and threw it across the table. "Hold on, I'll just be back." She disappeared into her room and came out with a small black cassette. Nathan looked at her with suspicion,"Is this the right one?" "Yes! It is." He took the jacket from the chair and wore it. It was cold. He hid the gun and the tape in its jacket. "You are one helluva female. I don't know what Nick doesn't see in you?" He walked towards the door and as he was about to leave the house she said, "Don't do it. Don't kill him. You don't need to. Leave that to me."

A nod of the head and he was out of the house. He took out the cassette and removed the tape. He lit the tape and lit himself a cigarette with that. "So much for that", he said to himself as he threw the burning tape into the trash. He started walking towards his car and Stephanie watched him through her window as she sat on her couch. She switched on the television, her eyes still fixed on Nathan. Good evening. Welcome to Channel 9. This is Catherine Albright. In a series of gruesome incidents today, a 28 year old employee of the McMillan foundation, Gordon murdered 2 people and ..... Stephanie had a queer look in her eyes as she saw Nathan drive away. She took another puff. "Men! They'll believe any bullshit given to them"

Mother, do you think they'll break my balls ?

2005-06-05T11:51:00.000-07:00

I suggest you read the blog 'love actually' before you read any further! - GOLAXXX

The drizzle had slowly turned into a steady rain. Nathan looked at his watch uneasily. 7 o clock. He slid his jacket's sleeve back over the watch and took a deep breath. He had been waiting 3 long hours. He sighed again and began drumming his fingers on the cold metal of the steering wheel. Aaaaall righty then Boston! Do you think you can handle the sensational new single of Ashlee Simpson? Well hold onto your breath because the next track is a song from her new album Sunshine and Cows. CLICK! "Damn! I don't understand how people can even bear her songs. The chick is not even close to cute. Bunch of losers!" Today the United States and Russian governments signed an agreement that Israel should not have nuclear weapons. CLICK! "Pricks! yeah that's what the world is filled with. A bunch of insensitive cold pricks. Who the fuck are you to make decisions about others lives?" Nathan could have almost broken the radio in anger. He finally found a station that played nice country music. Finally! Something that he could listen to. He fidgeted uneasily for 5 minutes in the seat. His right leg was asleep from the long wait. He rolled down the windows of his black mustang and adjusted the rear view mirror to get a clearer view of the house. He had not seen any signs of her in the last half hour. We now interrupt this transmission to inform you about a gruesome murder that has just taken place. A woman and her lover... "HOW FUCKED UP CAN THIS WORLD GET? Damn! I miss my disc player. At least I don't have to put up with this crap. I'm stuck on a crazy planet filled with crazy cuckoos. Deranged lovers and petty thieves...that's exactly what the doctor ordered, didn't he? What are the chances that a third rate crook would steal a cd player from a hitman's car? Really? I feel sorry for that guy's ass when I catch him."

Nathan lit himself a cigarette. The rain had begun to pick up and there was a slight chill in the air. He pulled out a brown cover from the glove box and emptied its contents onto his lap. He picked up the photograph and looked at it. It was the photograph of a woman in her early 30s and was marked in bold letters STEPHANIE SMITH: CONTRACT TO BE COMPLETED BY JULY 19TH. She looked very young for her age and there was this aura of smartness that seemed to surround her. Nathan wondered why her husband wanted her dead. "I know so many guys who would kill to have someone like her." He then chuckled to himself, "But then most of the guys I know, know nothing else but killing !". Nathan had almost had a change of heart when he saw her gardening about an hour ago. She was a fine lady, looked better than she did in the photograph. He wondered what looked more beautiful? Stephanie or her garden? "Since when did I become so fucking poetic", he laughed to himself. "I should not mix pleasure with my profession though. Lady, it's a shame that I have to kill you". However, he continued to admire her through his mirror as she lovingly tended to her garden.

7:30. I guess it's ok now to move in for the kill. Nathan picked up his phone and punched in a few numbers. "Hey honey, I'll be home in an hour. I had to wait for this consignment to be dispatched. I'm sorry, you know how things are with the firm. Yes, one hour for sure. Love you too. Bye". 2 years since they had got married and probably 4 years since they had begun dating. Carol had no clue to date what he really did for a living. Nathan removed his gun from the glove box and began to screw on the silencer. He gently slipped it into his jacket and got out of the car. He threw the cigarette onto the ground and extinguished it in a swift movement of his foot. He brushed his hair back as he began to walk towards her house in the rain. He stopped for a minute in front of a car parked outside her house and looked at himself in its window. "Hmm... I think I could do with a change in my hair style. Have had this for too long.". He continued for the back door. This was an easy job. He would drown her in the bathtub and make it look like a suicide. Yeah! The cops wouldn't buy it, but then what could they do? He placed his hand inside his jacket to recheck. The gun was only to scare her.

He was soon inside the house. He could smell dinner being cooked and it smelled good. Maybe I could call Carol and tell her I'm bringing home food! He moved in stealthy movements making sure he did not make a sound. He saw her in the kitchen. Damn! You are pretty. He thought to himself whether he should just strangle her and take her to the tub or just show her the gun and lead the horse to the water. Nah! it's not worth the trouble carrying her. He stepped into the dining space and waited for her to turn around from her cooking. He gently removed the gun from his jacket in order to avoid any hasty movements. It took a minute for Stephanie to turn. "OK lady. Let's do this nice and easy. Don't try to run or scream or any other such foolish thing. Just do things the way I say and you won't get hurt. Errrm ignore the last part."

Stephanie just stood there and smiled back. She didn't seem ruffled one bit. She turned back lifted the pot on the stove and walked towards the dining table. "So would you like to join me for dinner". Nathan had never seen anything like this before. I'm here to kill her and the stupid bitch wants me to sit down with her and have a cup of coffee?? "Lady, I don't know what's going on in that stupid mind of yours, but in case you haven't realized I'm here...". "To kill me", completed Stephanie, "Yeah! I know that scum of a husband Nick sent you here." Nathan couldn't believe what he was hearing. He had never seen anything like this before. For the first time in 6 years had he come across such a case. He had seen people crying like babies, people who just went silent, people who fainted, people who began to laugh ... but this... this was nothing like that. She just seemed to continue with what she was doing as if Nathan was a kid who had just come from a game of soccer and she wanted him to wash his hands and come for dinner. "OK no more jokes, I don't have time to waste. Let's get this done quickly...." "So do you like your food spicy or mild?" she asked him innocently. This was enough to tip Nathan over the edge and he roared,"SHUT THE FUCK UP...I'VE HAD ENOUGH. DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DEALING WITH?"

Stephanie just sat down to have her chicken and mashed potatoes. She took a bite and stared at him. "You think you are great, huh! You walk around with a gun to kill a lady and you think you are Rambo? Well, you know what I think? You have balls the size of peas trying to pull off something like that". Nathan was shocked. He couldn't believe a word of what he was hearing. "Well Mr. I-think-I'm-cool-in-a-leather-jacket, let me tell you something. You are not the first one. Nicholas has sent 5 more before you to take care of me." Nathan was listening now. He was no more in control of the situation. He moved towards the dining table and sat down, the gun still pointed at her. In a nervous voice he said, "Can you pass the chicken please?". He had no clue about what was happening. He dug into the chicken and swallowed it with great difficulty. "So if there were 5 more earlier, what happened..". "To me? Well I'm alive, hale and hearty, unless you believe in ghosts" and she erupted into loud laughter. Nathan had begun to sweat. He was not sure about what he believed in and what he did not. "And if you are wondering what happened to those 5 losers, well all I have to say is that I made sure they serve as good manure for my garden. I think my garden seems to have come out just fine. Don't you think so?"

Nathan could feel his balls in his mouth. He wanted to throw up? What had he gotten himself into? He had seen crap like this only in psychopathic movies like Hannibal. This was going to be one long night.

to be continued

The four layer pyramidal theory

2005-06-04T07:38:00.000-07:00

I have successfully managed to psyche myself out after the last post. I don't know where that came from :) but I still liked writing it. Maybe, I never realized this part of me as I was busy playing comic roles all the time :) Anyway, today I shall discuss a scientific theory that has been in the news a lot recently and has caught the attention of the people due to its wide ranging applications to the human society. The theory of course is being challenged by many, but the propounder of the theory, Dr. Prasad continues to champion the cause and validity of the theory. I personally think that the theory rocks! Without any further ado, I shall get down to the first manuscript of the theory that I got my hands on today.

International Journal of Male Studies
Special edition, June 2005

The Four Layer Pyramidal Theory
Stratification of males in our society
Author: Dr. S. D. Prasad

Abstract: Man has walked on the face of this earth for a very long time. However, in recent times, we see many men letting women walk over them and dancing to their tunes to get a piece of the action. In this paper, I present a method of classification that groups today's male society into different sections based on the levels that they can stoop to. The performance of the method is tested on real and synthetic data.

I. Introduction: In this section, I will first discuss the previous work that has been done in the area of stratification of the male society to give the reader a proper background. I will then give an intuition as to what parameters should rightly be used to develop a principled theory for stratification.

Adam committed the original sin in the Garden of Eden when he listened to Eve and went for the apple. Ravan's craving for Sita caused a rift between India and Sri Lanka, thus preventing the formation of what could have been an excellent cricket team. Paris's love for Helen ended in the death of his brother Hector. Peter's uncle was killed as he waited for Peter, who was trying to earn money to impress Mary Jane. John Holmes had a painful death trying to please most of the female population. These are just a few examples of males who have suffered or caused others to suffer because of their dedication to females. Uptil now, they were either described as skirt-chasers or normal guys. But it is obvious that such form of binary grading is really not true, as the situation in which each person acted was different, hence resulting in very objective views. Thus, it motivates us or at least me to come up with a new scheme that is more universally accepted by people. The method should depend on what the true motives of the person are and at the same time make a note of any considerable change in behaviour. In this paper, I propose a theory which does exactly the same. In section II, I have clearly outlined the theory and I present results of the same in section III.

II. Formulation of the theory: In this section, I will try to communicate to the reader proper guidelines for stratifying the male society and will also present appropriate examples of the same. I strongly believe that the male society can be divided into 4 levels as follows

a) Base level or level 0: This section of males is characterized by the fact that their nature is not altered in the presence of females and they are least bothered in them. The reader should not misinterpret this as the level 0 members of being gay or woman haters. It is just that they treat them on par with other guys. They are strong believers, "OK! If you demand equality you'll get it all right". The members of this section are characterized by a lack of relationship history and yet are not desperate to be in one. They are satisfied watching movies, gaming or playing sports. Note that they do have female friends, but to them they are just friends and the female part doesn't count. A prime example of this class is Arunoday Thammineni. He hails from a backward part of India where the chance of finding good looking girls is probably negative. Inspite of such a deprived childhood, he manages to behave normally with females and it is very difficult to find any change in behaviour in and out of the company of females.

b) Kewl deeyoods: This section of males is very funny. At least I, personally am very amused by this group and I believe so will the readers. The defining characteristic of this section is that the members have given up any hope of getting a hot girlfriend as they have had the self realization of not being (i)hot, (ii)smart, and (iii) athletic. However, their quest to rule the world doesn't end here. They do realize that they can make up for the lack of the earlier mentioned qualities by using their (i)bikes, (ii)money, and (iii)contacts. Thus, they do end up hanging around with girls and that's just because they are being used. Kewl deeyoods really don't mind being used as long as the rest of the world thinks they are cool. An excellent example of this stratum is Abhishek Ramkumar. A wiz kid at academics, he is a good mix of beauty and brains. He can often be found walking back from the girls' homes late in the night and most people think that he is one of the hot studs on campus. But Abhishek's world would fall apart (not going into any details of his hand falling apart) if people would find out that he was just visiting to help the girls with their homework.

(c) Ch@@t ke deewane or CKDs: I find the attitude of this group very frustrating and irritating. However, I would not like to force my opinion on the reader and shall just describe the defining characteristics of this group. Members of this group really lead two lives. The crassest people one can possibly come across, they transform into suave, poetic and artistic personalities in front of females. They will ditch their friends at the very drop of a handkerchief of any female and will still not feel one bit guilty. The dynamics of CKDs with level 0 members are very rough and it has been noticed that these two classes view each other with great contempt and pity. The CKDs really can't get along with any other guys and getting a girlfriend is their sole aim in life. A life size paradigm of this section is Rohit Sammeta. Though, I wouldn't call him crass and that desperate (Ok!, I change my mind about the desperate part) he has been known to ditch his close friends many a time. The IITB male behaviour database has records of Rohit not walking across the road to wish a friend he had known for 12 years on his birthday, but he promptly walked 1 Km to wish a girl he had met less than 12 days ago. The database shows many such shameful records, but they are out of the scope of this paper.(for Rohit's own good)

(d) Viral: If one were asked to define what are the 3 most complex things in the world to understand, I would say (i)EM waves, (ii)Why girls find Karthik Ramkumar hot? and (iii) Aviral Saini. The first two do not fall under the jurisdiction of this paper and I shall focus my interest on the third answer, Aviral Saini or Viral, as he is fondly known by his friends. This section or rather person(considering the group has only 1 entity) is really a wierd combination of the earlier mentioned classes. He has never been in a relationship and that is VERY hard to digest considering the amount of time he spends with females. One may be narrowminded to assume that a person spending a lot of time with females should have a girlfriend. But a person who treats his female friends in the order of thousands of rupees and yet keeps a tab on the 2 vada pavs he bought his fellow bassist, is definitely showing some inclination towards the fairer sex. He was unanimously elected General Secretary of Hostel 11, IIT Bombay and is probably more popular than Brad Pitt among its inhabitants. STILL, he doesn't have even one girlfriend. He, however, does not neglect his male friends and hangs out with them too. When asked about the rationale behind his actions, he just replies Give Up. You can't stop the girls from the viral fever.

III. Experiments and results: I classified certain people into the categories mentioned in section II and asked an expert of behavioural studies, Golu (a research assistant in the Centre of Imaging Science) if he agreed with the classification. Our first test person was Dheeraj Singaraju. He was classified as level 0 by our theory. Golu agreed as he noted that Singaraju never displayed any change in his behavioural pattern in the presence or absence of the stimuli, which is female company in this case. Our 2nd test person was MV Niranjan and he was correctly classified as Kewl deeyood. MVN gracefully accepted this classification. The 3rd test person was Gurzada Pavankumar and the results are quite funny. We would expect him to be level 0, but the theory accounted for him being CKD as he preferred to go coach an entire class of girls for IIT JEE rather than hang out with Golu. I am trying to fix such errors at the moment. The final test person was Aviral Saini and by the hypothesis he was correctly classified as Viral.

We tested the method on various other people and the results were encouraging with a classification error of 2%

IV. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK
I strongly believe that this theory is a major step towards proper classification of males based on their attitude towards females. The theory as of now is not very comprehensive. However, a more principled stratification is yet unclear and this theory serves the purpose for the time being. The theory still does not have a clear cut classification method for anomalies like Karthik Ramkumar. Future work involves repair of these errors.

This work was funded by FFF and I am thankful to the organization for fuelling me.

Love actually

2005-06-03T21:58:00.000-07:00

Gordon lay back on the bed waiting for the sun rays to beat down on his face. It was a matter of minutes before the darkness would be gone. He wiped the sweat off his face and rushed his fingers through his dark hair. His hair was wet too. It had been one of those tough nights where he could not just sleep, but this one was just tougher than the previous ones. It was one of those nights that brought back horrendous memories, but he was sure that with the break of dawn he would leave it all behind him.

Until 2 months ago, he had been a happy person. He was your average working young man: 28 years old, not very tall and not very short, not handsome and not mirror cracking material either, reasonably smart, very jovial and a fun person to hang around with, working in a reputed firm that paid him enough to keep him more than happy... HE REALLY WAS THE AVERAGE GUY. He never expected to be in the position that he was in now.

They say that behind every man's success there is a woman. Well people forget to mention that behind every man's downfall too, there is a woman. In Gordon's case it was Vivian. She had joined the firm at the same time as Gordon 4 years ago. They had hit it off immediately. They weren't a couple but they enjoyed each other's company. Vivian liked the way Gordon made her laugh and to Gordon She was one of the very few women who I really knew! Yet there was something different about her than the others. He knew he did not love her or have any of those crappy mushy feelings but every morning he would look forward to meeting her, to have long talks with her in the park and hear her laugh and smell her perfume as the wind blowed. He could still feel the perfume go right through his nostrils to his brain to drive him crazy.

Gordon was sure he wasn't in love. He wasn't cut out for such stuff. He was born to sit in his office space for the entire day and then go back home to have cold beer and watch movies. Well that had nothing to do with being in love...but he was sure he wasn't. Every time his friends teased him, he would just turn them down with a laugh. But sometimes he would sit and ponder
Can it be that MAYBE I'm finally falling in love? If so many guys have pointed it out, maybe it really is obvious. I mean Viv has told me many times, "Gordon, you are one of the closest friends I have", "What's wrong with you? Why didn't you show up yesterday? I was so worried", "What do you think of my new hair style". He really liked all of her hair styles. He could still visualize how her hair had been this morning as he stared into the corner.

But then he would quickly correct himself that they were just good friends and that's the way it continued to be ... except for the last 6 months. Well you can't blame everything on women, can you? It all began, or for Gordon it all ended when Nick joined the firm 6 months ago. Nick and Gordon had gone to the same school and in fact Gordon had got him the job here. If Gordon was your average working young guy, so was Nick. There was nothing special about him. At least Gordon didn't find anything special but Vivian did. Gordon saw things change between Viv and him once Nick entered the scene. "Gordon, I'm sorry for not showing up for the movie last night but I was at Nick's place going through his pictures from college", "Oh sorry! Not tomorrow, I'm going shopping with Nick and his sister", "I went skiing with Nick yesterday. It was so much fun, you should have been there". Hell yeah! I should have been there. What the hell would I have done while you two lovebirds were busy with each other? Gordon hated Nick from the core of his heart. He had just stolen from him his best company. The sight of Nick and Vivian, next to each other made him furious.

He thought to himself, "Nick is my friend. Why is he doing this to me? Half the time he keeps teasing me about Viv being me girlfriend then why is he showing interest in her. Calm down Gordon! You are reading between the lines. They are your friends for crying out loud. Haven't you been hanging around with her for so long, it's just the same with those two. They aren't seeing each other. GET A GRIP DUDE." He would convince himself from time to time and managed to keep cool. But he didn't understand why he felt that way. He didn't love Vivian, then why was he feeling so jealous. She was just a good friend and he didn't have any other feelings for her or did he ? It wasn't even a matter of 2 months and Gordon had started getting disturbing dreams where he saw himself being isolated from the two. He would often wake up in cold sweat and... just stay awake. People at work had begun to notice a change in him. "It's some construction work behind my house that doesn't let me sleep". Yeah right! People were going to buy that. He just sat in his workspace looking at a picture he had next to his computer. Some people even suggested that he take a vacation, but Gordon insisted that he was fine. Gordon knew that things had changed and he didn't like the way things were now.

17th July. It was Vivian's birthday and Gordon was in a better mood that day. It was 6 pm and he took out one of his best shirts. Vivian had given it to him on his last birthday. He went out and bought a bottle of her favourite wine and chocolates and walked to Stephen's Square where every one had decided to meet up and then go out for dinner. He could see her stand at the corner of a building. He could recognize her from any distance and from any angle. Gordon thought of ways to surprise her as he to walked towards her. She didn't turn around and it looked as if she was looking in a particular direction. As he neared her, he saw that she was talking to someone. It was a voice that Gordon was familiar with. He had been hearing that voice for the last 6 months. "Vivian, I really don't know what to say". "You don't have to say anything Nick. I really cannot stand the thought of seeing you with some other girl. I really love you a lot". Gordon's world came crashing down that second. He felt his throat go dry, his breathing became harder and he felt as if he was being stabbed over and over again. He could not believe what his ears had just heard. He just turned around and walked away from the corner. It was all over. Now it was DEFINITELY over. His doubts had been confirmed and his worst fear had come true. The bottle of wine would serve him as a good companion in the night.

He picked up the bottle that lay next to his bed and took a sip. He looked at his watch Probably one more hour before sunrise. He felt the need to throw up and did so right next to his bed. Gordon realized the room was stinking. It reeked with the smell of sweat and puke. No, it was something else. Gordon had decided that he would end it all tonight. Tomorrow morning, I will start a new life and I shall have no reason to be bothered any more. He grabbed the bottle and threw it against the wall in frustration. "You stupid bitch, why did you have to do this to me. You knew I would fall in love with you, then why play around with my emotions? Wasn't I good enough for you? What did that prick have in him that you chose him over me. WHAT? TELL ME WHAT? " Obviously Vivian couldn't answer him. It is quite difficult to speak when your teeth have been knocked out with a hammer and you have a handkerchief drenched in blood in your mouth. "You know I loved you more than any other person, then why did you prefer Nick to me? aa aa aand Nick! He was my close friend. He knew I loved you then why did he do all this?" Obviously Nick couldn't answer him too. He just lay still, his throat slit wide open. Can't really speak when your vocal chords are gone, can you? "Don't feel scared Viv dear! I just went a bit overboard today. Tomorrow things will return to the way they used to be. I'm sorry if I hurt you. Come on it's ok if you hurt me, but it's not if I hurt you? That's not how lovers behave with each other? It's just a small scratch and the doctor can mend you tomorrow. Till then come here and sleep in my arms."

2 days later Vivian's neighbours called the cops because there was a horrible smell coming from her apartment. The newspapers described it as a visually and mentally disturbing scene. Even Satan himself would shudder at the very scene. Nicholas Smith had been brutally murdered while Vivian Andrew had bled to death. She lay in the arms of Gordon, whose death was still unexplained. He just sat there looking out of the window with a funny smile on his face.

I guess Hugh Grant was right. If we look around us we can see it in different forms. Love actually is all around us.

Of LaTeX and latex

2005-06-03T11:59:00.000-07:00

continued from here

I am sure most of us have played video games as kids and some of us still continue to do so. Do you remember the 6th(or I think so) level in Prince of Persia 1, where you have to keep running in order to get through the 4 gates which are closing down or the 5th level in Contra where u have to keep running to avoid the land slide. THAT was exactly how the group B12 felt at that moment. FBK continued banging away at the keyboard not really aware of what he was typing...for such problems please contact your nearest agent to get the part replaced. Realizing that he had 2 hours left to do practically nothing, FBK began to fool around with the LaTeX template. LaTeX can really be fun to use. Yes it is! You can call me a geek for that...but then so was FBK. He sat there adjusting the indentation and changing the style file, so that the project could appear longer without people making out any major changes. FBK did love LaTeX! He was almost done and just had to append the microcontroller code to the project...sigh! What was the use? The damn thing wasn't even working.

FBK smiled for probably the first time that day as he went through the code. Duh and Aruno's wise use of variable names like fuck1, fuck2, fuckyou1, uru, golu1 and duh1 brought a slight smile to that face of his. He felt his heart sink as he read Duh's commented line before the code for the rainfall level sensor Golu, I trust in you. Please make that sensor work. People say that your life flashes before your eyes when you are about to die. FBK was not sure whether he was going to die but he could see every second spent on the EDP in the last 4 months flash in front of his eyes. His reconstruction of the memories probably beat Lucas at his work on the star wars trilogy. FBK had to be strong as Viral had told him. He could not break down now giving his group mates an addition burden. FBK called Duh to change the variable names and Duh went "WTF cares about that now? Let me bother about the code working first. Anyway he is not going to type out the code from our reports and check if it is correct, so just use find and replace to change the variable names. We have more important things to worry about." Aruno took over helping out FBK as Duh went back to the system, the wires still in his hand. Aruno tried his best to console FBK "Life is fucking koohl ra? What is bloody EDP? If you cry for such small things, how will you ever do a PhD ?"....and then it happened

Vivek Vaid stepped in. If you have watched Happy Days you would well be aware as to how Fonzie could fix anything by just giving it his bang. Vivek Vaid was the Fonzie of our not-so-happy days. He had helped B12 fix their project at every damn step when they thought that there was no hope left. He was their personal Jesus. Vaid pointed out that they had connected some wires wrong. JEE 142, 162 and 169... the better half of the cream of the nation had tried every damn pseud thing except for check for wrong connections. After a few change in connections, they stood with bated breath and turned on the power source. The system sprang to life, LEDs began to glow and the computer showed some readings...who the hell cared if they were right or not ... they were back on track.

I remember FBK laugh his ass off at those Hindi movies that talked about 'khushi ke ansoo". But at that point of time, he told Aruno and Duh that he was going to get a samosa and ran down the corridor towards the SPANN lab and cried his heart out. I was there. I know. I saw it all and probably felt the thoughts running through his head. He let out all his frustration and depression and he could feel his head feel light. But he soon gathered himself and walked back to the lab. He walked the same way as Tom Cruise does in Top Gun after winning one of the dog fights. FBK had an air of victory... he didn't know why but he just did. He felt hungry now all of a sudden and decided to take his guide's advice. He picked up a samosa and took 2 for Aruno and Duh. They were not going down tonight!

In a matter of minutes they were all ready to give a demonstration to any damn person. They were least bothered about what questions were going to be asked, about what grade they were going to get, about how easy/difficult the others thought their project was. B12 was happy! They give an initial demonstration to the teaching assistants and worked on the minor modifications that they suggested for the final demonstration. 8:15 pm. 3 hours well past their actual demonstration time and Aruno had a train to catch at 10 pm. After a bit of rehearsing the powerpoint presentation and deciding upon which parts each one would speak, they called the graders for the final evaluation. This was it ... the blood and sweat spent in the entire semester would be rewarded now.

It all flowed perfectly as plan with Duh starting off giving an overall idea for the project and the motivation, and Aruno explaining the purpose of the different modules in the system. Enter FBK to explain the working of the sensors used in the module. Everything went well until FBK decided that such a project should not have such an uneventful presentation and was just waiting for an opportunity to do something radical. When the rainfall sensor was being explained, the grader raised a doubt, "So you have used a balloon to cover the plunger to avoid water drainage. It is not a robust design and the balloon will wear away easily". Before Duh and Aruno could even blink, FBK was answering him "Well yes we also obviously noted that problem. In fact we wanted to use latex for the purpose but we thought that it would look obscene for the demonstration". At this statement, Aruno and Duh had a look on their face a person has when he is kicked in the balls, one of the graders hid his face in his hands and began to laugh hysterically, while their guide just sat giving a mischievous smile. Aruno was in such a shock that he forgot what he was to talk about, but he soon got back into flow and delivered as expected. However, FBK wasn't done for the evening. He wasn't going to let his group rest in peace so easily. During the demo, the grader again raised a doubt, "You guys have used the pins used in watches as metal contacts. Is that really a good idea?". All FBK was missing was a cape and a stupid looking mask. "Well sir, you asked us to come up with a cheap and effective system. We felt that it was totally in the spirit of the project and we did take your words seriously, else we also know that it would be appropriate to use gold plated contacts". Silence enveloped that corner of the room. Aruno and Duh were really doing a good job of stopping themselves from strangling FBK. The grader finally broke the silence with a smile, "Yes, you are right! Good job" and those were the final words of our demo.

It was done? Who the fuck gives a damn about scaling Mt. Everest. B12 had completed a project successfully that groups had not been able to do in the previous 4 years. They were hugging each other and laughing and making fun of each other. They didn't bother about who was looking at them. It was pure bliss. Success sure tastes sweet. I could taste it as I saw them jump around in joy. As I watch these scenes flash in front of me, I cannot think of any better way to end this entry other than the picture below.

Why dont you have a samosa ?

2005-06-02T20:19:00.000-07:00

It was about 1 o' clock in the night. Almost everybody in IITB was doing stuff that they would usually do at 1 in the night....ALMOST. While people were enjoying themselves watching movies, cacking or making out, one fat black kid(FBK) sat in the corner of the Wadhwani Lab sulking. Most people would agree with me that FBK could often be found sulking, but this time he had a proper reason to do so(or again atleast I think so). There were less than 24 hours left for his lab group to give a project demo for the Electronic Design Lab and at that point of time they had practically close to nothing to show.

If he was not depressed enough, he had good friends who came up to him to motivate him and said stuff like "You better finish the project, I've heard that if you have a backlog you end up working for one more semester" or "Is that all you have got so far to show :O ". Needless to say, FBK was on the verge of crying when another of those good friends Viral said "Oye, calm down...dont cry". Don't you just hate those moments when people ask you not to cry and that is just enough to tip you off the edge and make you wail like a kid. WELL I MOST CERTAINLY DO! It took his labmate Aruno 5 minutes to calm him down "Ni amma, don't worry we will complete it ra. Just dont talk like this in front of Duh, he is also in nbd." (for the uninitiated, nbd = nervous breakdown, or in normal lingo 'stress', 'tension','phati hui hai') FBK then gathered himself and stopped crying...and then went back to his corner to sulk.

FBK had no clue as to how he could help. There apparently was some problem in the microcontroller code and he had not worked on that part in the entire project...so there was no way he could help out. "I made a program that simulated billiards in the first year, why didn't you let me code. WHY????" and then came the reply from inside "That's coz Duh and Aruno had better projects than you, you idiot". The only thing left to do was sit down and write the project report.

FBK sat staring at the guidelines.. Clearly list the methods how the user can verify if the system is working. He was tempted to write that the system was designed for people with a certain level of intellect. If someone couldn't figure out that wind speed sensor wasn't functioning properly because the wind vane was jammed, he had no fucking business to use our product. If someone couldn't figure out that the pH sensor wasn't working because the goddamned test tube containing the solution was broken, he would not be allowed in our product's showroom. Showroom ...sigh! Our guide had told us that apparently the European Union wanted to fund our project and immediately we saw ourselves becoming famous being credited for the next big discovery. Fame...yeah right! Clearly list what steps the user should take to repair any error in the system. WTF? there isn't any system, it's all one big error, nothing is working... NOTHING:((.

It was 2:30 in the afternoon and quite a few groups had done with their project demos. FBK watched with a heavy heart as groups left the lab with wide smiles on their face. That loser doesn't even know where the bloody power source is to be connected to his project and yet he gets away. If there was a viewer rating for the thoughts going on FBK's head, it would definitely read something like "For audience above 18 only. Catholics please avoid!" He could just reach out for a power source and hurl it at the next group that passed out. 3 more hours left for the final showdown. Still no luck!

FBK could see Duh and Aruno working like crazy. They had probably been working 25 hours in the last 24. He could however see some signs of defeat. There was a definite droop in Aruno's shoulders and Duh had been twisting a pair of wires for the last 15 minutes. The group had experienced a lot in the last 48 hours...Aruno was almost caught by the cops for his non Mumbai license plate, a fully soldered PCB had short circuited out of the blue, around 10 microcontrollers had conked out, probably 5 hours of sleep and yet....the project wasn't working. The damn thing had been working 2 hours earlier and suddenly it stopped working just like that! FBK continued to sulk and look depressed.

Thats when their guide walked upto FBK and asked him why he was so glum. After giving many suggestions to make the project work and finding that the resilient group had tried every damn thing on the face of this earth, he said "Well then why don't you have a samosa?"

to be continued

Sir Golu

2005-06-01T09:17:00.000-07:00

Well here goes nothing... my first attempt at blogging. I have to give it to G whose amazing blog really got me pumped up to blog. Not that I can write as well as him, but damn you feel like just picking up the keyboard (Sigh! gone are the days of pen and paper!) and typing out whatever u feel. Anywayz, I shall stop acting senti like Ro and will get down to my first post :)

I thought a lot (like it really is something that should be thought about ?) about what I should start off with and I finally decided on a poem that I had submitted for inter hostel creative writing. Sometimes when you are the literary secretary of a hostel that shows as much enthu for lit activities as for its mess food, you are forced to come up with such articles/poems in a matter of 10 minutes JUST to ensure that there is an entry from your hostel :). So here goes 'Sir Golu'. (or what i can remember/adapt of it)

Disclaimer: The conclusion of this poem is definitely not true!!!

SIR GOLU

There are umpteen stories about valiant famous knights
about their love, their courage, their heroics shown in fights
here comes one about Sir Golu, but it's one with a twist
its one with a happy ending and thats the very gist

A brave knight was Sir Golu, a handsome one he was
always kept slaying dragons and never did he pause
never ever again did a dragon show its face
so Golu promptly went back to play his bass
but this was all spoiled by that ONE call of distress
it was an easy one, HEY! RESCUE THE PRINCESS!

In search for adventure, off set Golu, on his noble steed
He was confident, determined. The princess had to be freed
But as it is well known, life and Golu are not fair
Golu's CKD steed ditched him halfway for a pretty mare
But Golu marched on, the sun shining down on his blade
He would not wait just because his best friend wanted to get laid

He reached the castle, but the task was only half done
he had to first slay some dragons, OMG there were 21!
3 hours of intense fighting and Golu could feel his heart in his throat
'I just escaped death', as he stared at the dead dragons in the moat
A cheerful knight was Sir Golu, he soon overcame his gloom
he dashed into the castle searching for the princess's room

He found the room but no cute damsel in distress
All he found was a muscled man in a pink coloured dress
The guy said, "I'm the princess under a terrible curse
I become a man by night and things could be worse
The prophecy says only true love can set me free,
please help me , a sexy hot princess I again want to be"

A fierce knight was Sir Golu, but also kind at heart
fate had brought him here, he had to play his part
he took a deep breath and as he closed his eyes
kissed the dude expecting a nice surprise
Shocking it is, many an eyebrow this will raise
but now u can tell everyone about the origin of gays

NOOOOOOOOOOOOO I AM MOST DEFINITELY NOT GAY