Unmitigated disasters

I have taken two major tests in the last two days, and as you can probably make out from the title, they were both unmitigated disasters. As you can also probably make out, if you have read my last entry, the phrase 'unmitigated disasters' is getting to become quite a personal favorite of mine.

The engineering drawing test, which I took yesterday evening was bad. I messed up one question, and couldn't complete the last question as I ran out of time. The ApMech test in the morning today was even worse. I had not slept even for a minute in the interval between the two tests, which was just about 14 hours, as I had the huge ApMech course to finish. And the buggers gave a hopelessly simple but ridiculously lengthy paper. In the end I couldn't even attempt 30 marks out of 120.

But I'm in my first semester at IIT right now. Something tells me that my tryst with 'Unmitigated Disasters' has just begun.

The first one...

This is going to be a short post.

I took my first major test today. Organic and Inorganic chemistry. It was, to put it quite simply, an unmitigated disaster. Not only did I not know half the answers, I messed up even the ones I did. This does not bode well for my chemistry grade.

In related, but happier news, it seems that my life has finally become chemistry free. Unless things go horribly wrong, today's was the last chemistry test I will be taking in a long long time. I do not have another chemistry course in the coming 4 years. So I am happy, considering I never did like chemistry much.

Just 3 more majors to go, and then life will once again become sunny and fun, atleast till the 9th.

Ze Pompous Grenouille

Yesterday, as I was coming out of the lecture theatre after my ApMech class, ecstatic that I had managed to survive the last class of the semester, I was abruptly accosted by ze pompous grenouille, just outside SCOOPS. The encounter was very short, but unusual. I will proceed to describe it in the following paragraphs.

A little bit of background information first. SCOOPS stands for Students' Co-operative Shop. This particular shop is situated just outside the academic block. So it was in front of SCOOPS that I met ze pompous grenouille. Ze pompous grenouille (Frog, for the French illiterate) happens to be a 2nd year student of Comp. Science and Engineering at IITD. I do not know his name. I, very frankly, think that I don't need to, as I find the little nick-name that I have coined for him quite sufficient. All I know is that he is from the same school as I am (DPS RK Puram), and is, thankfully, not from my hostel. His nick-name, I think, is very appropriate. He is very pompous, and he looks very much like Kermit the Frog.

Now it so happens that just the evening before, my hostel, Jwalamukhi, had won a prepared debate competition. The hostel team, for a change, had not included me. I must add that within a very short period of time, I have proved myself to be one of the better debaters in Jwalamukhi hostel. So, many felt that my not being there for the debate was a bit surprising. I, for reasons that shall not be mentioned here, was unable to participate in the competition. That Jwalamukhi won inspite of this handicap reflects admirably on Jwala's debating capabilities.

So I met ze pompous grenouille outside SCOOPS, and he said, "Congratulations. Your hostel team won the prepared debate competition yesterday." And then he added in a nasty afterthought, "WITHOUT YOU." Now, this I thought was a rude comment, but charitable that I am, especially when it comes to fellow Dipsites, I tried my best at continuing an amicable conversation. "Yes.", I said, "It is pleasing to know that my hostel is doing well without my aid. One might say that I have become redundant." This, I thought was a very satisfactory reply, without being an acerbic one. However Mr. Kermit refused to give up his acrid attack against me. "To become redundant", he replied with a crooked grin, "you have to be used in the first place."

I am, I believe, a tolerant man, as many of my friends and acquaintances would agree. However, to say that I was not hurt at these remarks would be to fudge reality. I was quite taken aback at these words, and becoming hotly indignant, I refuted his accusations. "I have participated in 3 inter-hostel debating events in the past two months, Raghav, and if you don't believe me, you can go and ask somebody who is more knowledgeable than you on such matters." To this he had no answer, and he stood looking at me nonplussed. He might have been at a loss for words. Or he might simply be confused that I was addressing him as Raghav, which, I admit, might not have been his name.

At this point, if I had said "Aha!!", and prodded him gently in the ribs, I believe my victory in this little duel would have been complete. But before I could contemplate any such action, ze pompous frog walked away, saying something about being late for class.

So, if any of you happen to come across a short guy in specs, who looks remarkably like a frog, I would request you to do the needful, that is, to prod him in the ribs, and exclaim "Aha!!" Such help from my readers would be well appreciated.

Before I wrap up this entry, I would like to inform my readers, that over the next one week, entries on this blog would be sporadic and irregular. The majors start day after tomorrow, and I have much to do in order to avoid F grades in a couple of courses. So I would hope that my readers would condone these shortcomings on my part. I would, of course, start posting regularly again on the 2nd, when my majors finish.

On poetry and redundancy

I came to IITD in the afternoon today, wearing a nice kurta, a pair of jeans, and having gelled my hair nicely together. In short, I thought I looked, if I may say so myself, rather natty in this unusual attire. Thinking so, I proudly walked into class, with my head held high. Imagine my feelings when I heard, instead of the applause and praise I had expected, laughs and giggles. As I stood there, I was aware that I was being called curious names by my friends, who are rather unused to seeing me dressed in such a way. One chap called me Netaji, while another addressed me as Devdas. One fellow went as far as to say that I looked like a poet.

Now I have nothing against poets per se. It's just that I don't happen to be one. I am no good at poetry. I can't write in verse. In other words, I do not have the ability to string together words into a poem that quite a few of my colleagues possess. I am but a novice when it comes to poetry. I am sure my readers get the gist of what I am saying.

That is not to say that I like the fact that I cannot write poetry. I detest my inability to express myself in verse. I also detest the fact that inspite of years of trying, the art of poetry still continues to elude me. I think myself to be an articulate young man. I have never as yet in my life felt what can be loosely described as 'being at a loss for words.' I can speak pretty well, and, subject to the tolerance of my audience, sing reasonably well. I find no reason why I should be so rudely barred from entering the world of poetry.

As I have touched on before, I have tried my hand at poetry. Not once, but many times have I made an effort to think like a poet. However, except for managing a few sets of disjoint rhyming sentences, I have not achieved much success. Allow me to present a few of my better compositions.

Going out on wintry mornings is bold,

If not careful, one might catch a cold.

Don't seem to fancy that? Try another one.

When traveling in an auto, I always take care,

That the driver never gets more than the appropriate fare.

Here's another one of my literary gems:

Here's the most obvious thing one ever thought,

I am me, and you are not.

See what I mean when I say I am not a poet. I am sure that I have managed to convince my readers about the verity of the fact that when it comes to poetry, I am not the person to consult. After posting this blog entry, I feel that my word on this matter will never be doubted. The bylanes of the city, I think, will be abuzz with whisperings, "Manu Saxena is not one of poetic disposition." I hope that my readers will realize that I am not a person with a poetic bent of mind, and when they hear something contrasting this fact, they will vehemently oppose it. I hope that my blog entry will encourage my readers to help me in dispelling queer notions about me currently prevalent in society.

With that hope, I bid all my readers a very pleasant adieu. For it is getting late, and I have Applied Mechanics to do.

The book quiz

I recently took a book quiz I spotted on a fellow blogger's blog. Here's what I found.



You're Alice's Adventures in Wonderland!
by Lewis Carroll
After stumbling down the wrong turn in life, you've had your mind opened to a number of strange and curious things. As life grows curiouser and curiouser, you have to ask yourself what's real and what's the picture of illusion. Little is coming to your aid in discerning fantasy from fact, but the line between them is so blurry that it's starting not to matter. Be careful around rabbit holes and those who smile too much, and just avoid hat shops altogether.

Take the Book Quiz at The Blue Pyramid

About a movie

Note to readers: Atypical entry follows. What you will see on this post is not my usual way of writing. I just happen to be uncharacteristically, and unexpectedly sad right now, and I feel that my sentiments, strong that they are, are bound to reflect in my otherwise cheerful writing style.

Before I begin, I must make an observation completely unrelated to this post as such. My engineering drawing teacher, Prof. BL Sachdeva, pronounces the English word 'must' like the Hindi word 'mast'. He is a wonderful teacher, but in his class, you often get to hear stuff like ,"Showing the hidden lines on this figure is a mast."

Now that I have gotten that out of the way, let me begin on the real reason I am writing this entry.

I went and saw the movie Veer-Zaara yesterday, at Chanakya. I do not know how I should begin describing the movie. All I know is that somehow, it profoundly affected me. It was very sad, and very long, and by the end, I was almost (but not quite) moved to tears. Me, Manu Saxena, who didn't shed a single tear when he left a wonderful school last year, and who didn't even feel sad when all about him people were bawling their hearts out, was touched by a Bollywood flick. I find that very strange. The movie just triggered off a set of complex reactions that left me sad and depressed, but happy at the same time. This has never happened to me before, and now that I am partially restored to sanity, I plan to go and see the movie again, and find out more about the complex set of emotions which so completely took hold of me yesterday.

On a more objective note, the movie is brilliantly made, but is not the bubbly, escapist fare that is usually seen in theatres nowadays. It has a gentleness, a purity associated with it, which is hard to find in contemporary movies. It is old-fashioned and charming. The music, which is a significant part of most Bollywood movies, is impeccable, and is hummable and touching at the same time. And Preity Zinta is looking very pretty. Just when I thought I was finally getting over her, she gives this amazing performance, and before I know it, I am completely in love with her, all over again.

But more about Preity Zinta some other time. Right now, I have to go and give a lab test. So I will bid adieu, and will highly recommend Veer-Zaara to all those who have the time and patience, things which are often in short supply these days, to go watch it.

As my ED professor would put it, "It is a mast-watch."

More on NCC

Not much more, I promise. Just check out this pic of me, in full NCC gear, showing off my newly learnt salute.

On NCC

NCC, as some of you might be knowing, stands for National Cadet Corps. How I got associated with NCC, is a long, and somewhat sad story.

At IITD, all first year students have to compulsarily do 100 hours of non-academic work. They have to choose one activity out of NCC, NSO (National sports Organization), and NSS (I don't know the full-form, but it has something to do with social service). The Dean, Student Affairs, IITD, seems to have this weird notion that doing 100 hours of this kind of weird work will help in the 'All round development of the students' personality.', and 'Balancing of academics and extra-curriculars.' In a way it does help in the balancing of acads and extra-curriculars. It manages to bring student grades down to match the dismally low level of non-academic activities at IITD.

Most sensible people take the easy way out, and opt for NSS. Lesser sensible people take up NSO. But I, like the IC I am, opted for NCC.

This decision was primarily because of a couple of my friends, and secondarily because I said to myself, in truly filmi stye: "Jab main fauji ban jaoonga, to college ki saaaaari ladkiyan mere peeche bhaagengi." At that particular point of time, I did not know that IITD was the kind of place where you didn't want 'college ki saari ladkiyan' running after you even in your worst nightmares.

A couple of introductions before we move on.

Aditya Bhatla: Aditya has been a good friend for the last two years, when we started going to VMC together. I knew him before that as well, since he also lives at AIIMS, but was never good friends with him. He passed out last year from Modern School, VV, and is now doing Electrical engineering at IITD. He also happens to be in the same hostel as me (He will kill me if I call him an IC on the Internet).

Aayush Nayyar: Ayush was also with me during VM. He is fat, funny, and is the only person I know who has a perfectly spherical head. Being with Ayush is wildly entertaining, but he can be bitingly sarcastic at times. He is currently doing a 5-year dual course in Comp. Science and engineering at IITD.

These were the two people then, who, along with me, decided to take up NCC. We realised our mistake as early as the first class, after which we took turns accusing each other of influencing each others' decisions. Whoever's fault it was, the end result of the whole thing is that every Saturday and Sunday, the three of us march up and down the hockey field in coarse policeman coloured uniforms, weird headgear (It's called a topi, and has to be worn with a tilt, with the emblem above your left eye), and shoes weighing 2 kg (each), for about 4 hours. Today we learnt how to do a U-turn while marching, and how to salute. The only consolation is that these NCC-walahs give us bloody good chai, and samosas, during a short 5-minute break.

With NCC over and majors only a week away, it is time for me to start on my maths tutorial sheets. In the words of Master Yoda, "Back to work, we must get."

The day that was

Yesterday happened to be quite and eventful day, and I am glad to say that things are finally looking up. I actually managed to understand some of the Maths being done in my lecture classes, and I am probably going for a movie on Sunday. On top of that, I am one thousand rupees richer than I was a couple of days back. And I found out that Brylcreem Extra Strong Hair Gel is much better suited to my hairstyle than the Brylcreem Wet Look Hair Gel that I used until now.

Thursday mornings do tend to go unusually well. This might have something to do with the fact that I get Thursday mornings off. Therefore, Thursday is the only day of the week, on which I can sleep late. So I got up as late as 9:30, followed by a nice and heavy breakfast consisting of gobi ke paranthe. In the middle of this wonderful breakfast, I suddenly realized that I had a Chemistry Practical quiz (Kyuj, in IIT lingo) in the evening at 5:30. This realization seemed to have a profound effect on me, and actually managed to get me studying, even though it was only for about an hour. I tried to cover as much as possible in this period, and by the end of this one hour, I was quite confident that I could survive the test after all (Turns out I was wrong, but that's a different story altogether). By this time it was about 12:00, so I read the newspaper and then started getting ready for my Applied Mechanics class at 2 in the afternoon. At about 1:15, I left home for college, Chemistry lab manual in hand, and iPod earphones plugged into my ears. The journey was a pleasant one, thanks to some songs I had leached from Karan day before yesterday.

A brief digression here to introduce my readers (if any), to Karan.

Karan Misra: Alpha-geek and blogger extraordinaire. He was the one who originally introduced me to the whole blogging concept. He, like me, happens to be an iPod owner. He lives in AIIMS Campus, and studies at DPS, RK Puram, which means that we live nearby, and, till last year, were in the same school. He is currently in class XII, and is the president of Exun, DPSRKP's computer club.

I reached college about five minutes before my ApMech class, and took a brief nap in the lecture theatre. All I remember from that particular lecture is how Trusses and Beams make life 'Veeery Simble.' After that I took a short walk to the SAC (Students' Activity Centre), and was pleasantly surprised to find a checque for Rs. 1000 awaiting me there. As I subsequently found out, it was the Ist prize checque for some quizzing event I had won during Rendezvous 2004. This made me very happy. The happiness, however, was short lived due to the Chemistry Quiz that has found a brief mention before in this particular post. The quiz was disastrous, for reasons that shall not be mentioned here. I would suffice by saying that how I got screwed in the quiz is a long and boring story, and a very unpleasant one at that.

I reached home at about 8:00, and was made acutely aware of how close the majors were, thanks to a reminder by my mother. So I studied a bit of Engineering Drawing (ED), the only interesting course I am doing this semester, before falling asleep listening to The Beatles. Inspite of the chemistry quiz debacle, I do remember being in a state of extreme happiness (probably due to a mixture of ED and The Beatles) before I fell asleep.

My happiness was further compounded by the fact that I was able to understand almost all of the topics done in the maths and chemistry lectures this morning. As a result, I am feeling almost ecstatic as I write this entry. Let's see if 4 hours of Mechanical drawing, followed by an hour of mathematics this afternoon can change my mood.

The life and times of Manu Saxena

The main purpose of this particular post, as the title very explicitly states, is to acquaint you with the life (and times) of Manu Saxena.

Manu Saxena happens to be a student of Mechanical engineering. He is currently doing his Ist semester at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, henceforth referred to as IITD. That does not imply that he is very intelligent, merely that he got very lucky during JEE-2004. This statement is further substantiated by the fact that Manu routinely gets screwed in most of the tests that he takes at IIT. As a matter of fact, he recently got completely screwed in the Chemistry Lab quiz that was held about an hour back.

Not only is Manu faring badly at academics, but his social life also seems to have taken a turn for the worse, ever since he joined IITD. This is because Manu does not feel very comfortable surrounded by the people who inhabit IITD. These people, known as IITans, are a truly amazing species. Most typical IITans are extremely intelligent people having dismal communication skills. However, their modest social skills are more than compensated by their almost superhuman capabilities when it comes to studying all night, solving vast amounts of mathematics questions, masturbating, and endlessly complaining about hostel food. Most typical IITans spend their time either a) studying or b) watching porn. However, some IITans do take a short break from these two activities to sleep. Since IITD is a residencial institute, the students sleep on campus (mostly in class). If students are unable to get the right amount of satisfactory sleep in class, some of them commit the blasphemy of taking short naps in the hostel. Most typical IITans can be classified as Biharis (people hailing from Bihar) or Maddus (people hailing from in and around Tamil Nadu), without much loss in generality. IITans live in residencial hostels named after mountain ranges (except the infamous Jwalamukhi hostel) and students are very loyal towards their hostels. Since Jwalamukhi hostel happens to be the only hostel in IITD which is not named after a mountain range, other hostels often make jokes at Jwala's expense. Jwala also happens to be the only hostel that has not once won the hostel cup in the last 16 years. All this has led to students from Jwala being called Institute chootiyas. Thus Manu is often addressed, by fellow IITans, as IC.

Manu Saxena lives in AIIMS Campus, and the people there are only a little less weird than the people at IITD. However the people at AIIMS (All India Institute for Medical Sciences) happen to be a more frustrated lot, possibly because of the endless years they spend studying.

Manu Saxena's life is therefore, unusual but dull. Most of his waking hours are spent eating, playing cricket and badminton, and chasing homework deadlines. Manu now rues the day when he decided to pursue engineering at IITD, rather that pursuing engineering abroad. But as has once been said, and often repeated, 'Everything happens for a reason.' Great things may yet come of this situation, like this blog.

We come to it at last...

Come to what?, is probably the question that leaps to mind. The answer to which I would now provide.

After much thought, followed by months of procrastination, I have finally decided to maintain a blog. So from now on, manusaxena.blogspot.com, will feature the latest events and incidents occurring in Manu Saxena's life. The reasons for my decision to finally maintain a blog are unusual, and I will state them here, lest my motives be questioned.

The semester will end in another couple of weeks, and the majors are just around the corner. In other words, it's finally study time, and life has become boring. No more outings with friends, no more bunking classes, and no more acts of random insanity that I usually indulge in. So, I thought, the best way to spend this time would be to sit at home (or college), and write about my dull and boring life, so that somebody else, with an evidently as boring life, can sit at home (or college), and read all about it.

I would like to let all those who are vela enough to be reading this, know, that comments, encouragements, and suggestions would be acknowledged, and in some cases, appreciated.

With all that cleared, it is time to begin. As stated earlier in the words of the wise wizard, Gandalf the White, we come to it at last...