What will they think of next?

I went for a picnic yesterday, with a few of my friends. A PICNIC, of all things. My afore-mentioned friends came up with this very strange idea of going for one, since it was nice weather. They thought it would be fun. I could think of atleast a dozen other ways to have fun in nice weather, but I somehow managed to get myself convinced by them that it would indeed be an interesting experience. So we went to this weird place called the 'Garden of Five Senses' in Saket.

Now, this 'Garden of Five Senses' happens to be a very strange place. They don't allow bats and balls inside the garden, so our plans of playing cricket or football were dashed at the entry itself. I did manage to smuggle in a Frisbee, but my stupid friends were never taught how to throw a Frisbee properly, and one of them, in a desperate effort to make the thing glide, threw it with such force that it crashed noisily against a tree-trunk and broke. I would not have been unduly worried about the incident under normal circumstances, but the Frisbee was my sister's, and she wasn't very happy when I handed her the pieces and said "Thank You." It appears that the Frisbee was given to her by a teacher, and hence had a lot of sentimental importance. Well, sentimental importance or not, there's not much that can be done about it now. I thought of gluing it together, but it is in about a thousand pieces (I'm not exaggerating), none any bigger than a square millimeter.

But the highlight of the day was a quote by Mr. Aseem Brahma. When presented with a birthday cake which he was supposed to cut (his birthday is on the 6th of January), he contentedly purred, "Oooh!!! That is sooo sweeeeet!!!" All of us who thought we knew Aseem well were highly surprised by this, because frankly speaking, this just isn't his style. Shouldn't be anybody's, if you ask me.

I went and saw Alexander today. I thought it was a pretty good movie. It's a grand movie, with visual magnificence that can only be experienced properly at a cinema hall. The fight scenes were very impressive. It is a well made movie. They have distorted the historical facts a bit, but it is definitely worth a watch. What I would like to say is that if you do decide to see the movie, visit a theatre. Don't try to see this movie on a small screen, because I am quite sure you won't enjoy it as much as you will on a large screen.

I wanted to write something about the year that is now on the verge on ending, but I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow, because I am in a hurry right now.

Till then, a Very Happy and Prosperous New Year to all.

Reunion Lunch

Our 'Class of 2004 Reunion Lunch' was held at school today. I met lots of people from school, some after a good seven or eight months.

How was the 'Reunion Lunch'? The reunion part was nice. It's a pity the same can't be said about the lunch, which had to be supplemented with a Chocolate Excess from Barista .

Why SRK rules Bollywood

As I probably pointed out in my last entry, I have been watching a lot of Hindi movies lately. With nothing better to do these holidays, I have been a regular visitor to the cinema halls of South Delhi. I have seen almost all the movies that have been released within the last month. And on top of that, I have been watching Bollywood movies on TV as well, something which I don't usually do. I do watch HBO and Star Movies regularly, but being as vela as I am right now, a couple of Hindi movie channels have also made a place for themselves on my favorite channels list. I believe I have never before in my life watched so many movies in such a short duration (about 10-15 movies in the last month). As a result, I have begun to consider myself quite an authority on the Indian Film Industry.

Have you ever wondered why all Shah Rukh Khan movies do so well. Why do all of his movies receive such grand openings? Why do people rush to cinema halls to watch his movies as soon as they are released? Why is Mr. Khan the undisputed king of Bollywood? Why do crappy films go on to become hits just because Mr. Khan is in them? (I was thinking of Main Hoon Naa... there.) Well, I have, and I have come up with the answer.

Mr. Khan is, undoubtedly, a very good actor. He could be a bit more versatile, but he exhibits all the qualities of a seasoned professional. An enormous screen presence, good body language, an expressive face, and a convincing genuineness are some of the characteristics that make him a good actor. However, what I refuse to believe is that he is the only good actor in our country. The assumption that he is the only good actor in Bollywood is absurd. Thus, there must be something else about him which appeals so much to the Indian audiences.

And there is. SRK is so popular today because of one primary reason. He is on top because he has the ability to draw out one very important feeling in the viewer. Sympathy.

Mr. Khan is the unrivalled King of Hindi cinema today because he has public sympathy on his side. He can draw huge crowds to the theatre because he can elicit sympathy, pity from them. It is this pity that forces the public to go and watch his movies. People flock to halls to see his films again and again, because they feel sorry for him.

Don't believe me. Here's the evidence. Let's look through some of the movies that SRK has acted in during the last 3-4 years, undoubtedly the best period of his career.

In Devdas, Bollywood killed SRK, after denying him his love, and forcing him to take up booze. Devdas got SRK the Filmfare award for Best Actor. In Kal Ho Naa Ho, he was given a weak heart, and his lady-love ended up marrying someone else. The movie ran for ages, and some of my friends actually saw it no less that 5 or 6 times. In Main Hoon Naa..., which I think is his worst movie till date, he portrayed the role of an illegitimate child, disowned by his family. The movie, needless to say, went on to become a hit. In Asoka, he was banished from his kingdom. The movie, although not a very big commercial success, still managed to make a profit, and got much critical acclaim. And finally, in Veer-Zaara, poor SRK singlehandedly faced the wrath of the entire Pakistani political aristocracy. He sacrificed his love and languished in jail for 22 years, never once betraying the trust that has been placed in him, unknowingly, by the person he loved. The film is still doing well, and tickets are still hard to get, even if you happen to visit a hall on a weekday afternoon. And no prizes for guessing who is going to take home the Filmfare award for Best Actor this year.

Therefore SRK is not just a good actor, but a shrewd tactician. He knows the factors that are working for him, and the factors working against him, and he chooses roles in such a way so as to educe empathy from the viewer. Most of his regular directors, like Karan Johar and the Chopras, know exactly what will work with SRK and what will not. Roles are now being written exclusively for him. His screen presence is growing. Something tells me that the SRK fever is not going to die for quite some time in the future as well. SRK is truly a star, and one of the most reliable stars that the Industry has seen.

What Mr. Khan needs to do now is to stick to what he does best. He is too established a star now to feel the need to experiment. Experimentation might produce some very good movies, but unless he does what he is best at, which is drawing compassion from the audience, big hits will probably elude him, a case in point being Swades. Swades is an excellent movie, but it is not doing too well at the box-office, further proof that unless SRK is given a raw deal in a movie, it is unlikely that the movie will do well.

Strange are the workings of Bollywood, and stranger still are the workings of an average Indian cinema-goer.

Kakkarrr!!!

Weird title. I know. But it is there for a reason.

At school, which I used to go to till about an year back, we had a very fixed and rigid routine each day. We had 9 periods a day, and each subject was assigned periods. There was hardly any room for flexibility, and bunking classes, although being a standard practice among students, could often lead to complications. The only time which we got free in school, and when we were not told what to do and what not to do, was a 15 minute break (or recess, as some people call it) that commenced each day at about 10:00 AM.

In class XI and XII, the guys from my particular section, including me, fell into a habit of playing 'Catch' during recess. So as soon as break started, most of the boys from the class assembled and we divided ourselves into two teams. These two teams, usually consisting of about 6-8 people each, then positioned themselves along opposite sides of the class-room (Yes, we played 'Catch' inside the class). About a dozen aluminum foil balls were quickly made after fishing into people's lunch-boxes, and once this was done, the play began. The object of the game, as you can probably guess from the name, was to catch the foil ball that was thrown at you by a member of the opposition. You were then supposed to return the ball, in such a way that the none of the members of the opposite team could catch it. At the end of the break, the team which had more dropped catches lost. Aluminum foil balls were used for two primary purposes. Firstly, because foil balls do not hurt too much when they hit you. Thus we employed foil balls out of pity on all the peaceful students who wanted to quietly sit in class and enjoy their food during break, and were occasionally unlucky enough to get caught in the cross-fire between the two warring parties. Secondly, because our class was on the 3rd floor, and while playing, balls used to routinely fly out of the windows. Foil balls, being plentiful and not as expensive as actual balls, served our purpose wonderfully.

Now, also in my section during class XI and XII was a poor guy whose name was Ankur Kakkar. He was a decent guy, but catching wasn't exactly his strong point. So he dropped, without fail, each and every catch that was thrown at him. This led to a great deal of agitation among his team-mates, and every time he dropped a catch, somebody or the other from his team came up with a comment like, "Kakkar!!! Yeh kya kar raha hain?", or, "Catch kar le Kakkar!!!" After some time, these cries of anguish, due to their occurrence with alarming regularity, were abbreviated to simply, "Kakkar!!!" So every time Ankur dropped a catch, cries of "Kakkar!!!" filled the class-room.

This happened for about a month, and then came the turning point, the day when the exclamation "Kakkar!!!" evolved from a simple reprimand to a universal exclamation of pain, anger and disgust.

On a Wednesday morning, at about 10:10 AM, which means about 10 minutes into our break, all of us were, as usual, playing our game. It was then that I threw the foil ball towards Mayank Gupta, a guy who was, on that particular day, in the opposite team. Mayank tried to catch the ball, but was unable to do so. The ball touched his fingertips, and then slowly rolled down to the floor, coming to a rest at his feet. Mayank slowly looked down at his feet, and calmly stared at the ball for a couple of seconds. Then he looked up abruptly, disgust evident on his face, and shouted loudly, "Kakkarrrrrr!!!!!"

After that, the exclamation came into wide usage and became a part of the lingo of class XI-G (which later became class XII-G). "Kakkar!!!" started being used left, right and centre. Every time someone erred, "Kakkar!!!" was the unanimous cry that came from all directions. And all dropped catches were blamed on Mr. Ankur Kakkar, even if he wasn't around.

I remembered this incident today when I met a few of my friends from class XII for lunch. It has been a long time, and I had almost forgotten about the roots of the exclamation which was so widely used by us in school. The incident was never brought up as such during lunch, but being with the same people who were with me at school brought back a lot of old memories, some which I didn't know I had retained in my mind. I met quite a few people after a very long time, as lots of these people are no longer in Delhi, and have come here only for the holidays. It was nice being in their company. I regret to say, however that Mr. Kakkar was not present.

A big co-incidence was the fact that 2 independent groups from my school were present at Basant Lok for lunch today. So I could meet the people from both of these groups, without having to go to two different places. I couldn't stay with either of the two groups for a long time though, as I had strict instructions to be back home by 3:30, to see-off my dad who flew to Zimbabwe today.

There was one group at McDonald's which consisted mostly of my friends from class XII-G, namely Aseem (now in Singapore), Mayank (IITD), Ketan (Purdue, USA), Rishi (DCE), Ritwik (Manipal), Saurabh (Roorkee), Sukanya (Mumbai), Vyoma (Jodhpur), and Shruti (Manipal).

The other group was having lunch at Punjabi by Nature, and was made up mostly of people who were not in my section in class XII, but are good friends nonetheless. Here, I saw Suhel (he's still in Delhi), Nitya (Mumbai), Nithya (Chicago), Anandita (don't know where she is), and Aliya (UPenn).

It was good to see so many people from school on the same day. I hopefully will be seeing them again on Tuesday, the 28th, when a 'Reunion Lunch' is being held at school. I think most of the people mentioned above will be coming to school then, with the exception of Nithya, who has Pooja at home, and will be unable to attend.

Moving on to other stuff, I saw most of Kal Ho Naa Ho on TV today. That brings the total number of Bollywood movies seen by me on TV during these holidays to 4. That's a pretty large number, considering I don't usually watch Hindi movies on TV. It is an indicator of how vela I have become in these holidays. But I liked most of what I saw of Kal Ho Naa Ho today. I think the first half, all of which I saw today, is pretty cool. I managed to sit through quite a bit of the second half as well, but only because of Preity Zinta.

Where would the world be without her??

What in the world is happening?

The number of people viewing my blog has been dismally low this past week. I don't know what is wrong. All I know is that it does not make me feel happy.

I started monitoring my daily blog hits on the 5th of December, which was about 3 weeks back. In the beginning, everything was pretty cool. I got an average of about 70-80 hits for the first five days, and the hits actually went above 100 on one of these days. From the sixth day onwards, I started getting more than 100 hits each day with amazing regularity and consistency. The numbers were growing each day, and my blog saw an overwhelming 167 viewers on the 15th of December, the maximum till date. The week around the 15th saw an average of about 150 visitors to my blog a day. But then came the downfall.

On the 19th of December, the hits came down, for the first time in 11 days, to below 100. I was saddened, but managed to persuade myself that it was just a temporary deviation from regularity. But the next day resulted in less than 100 hits as well. And slowly my worst fears were confirmed.

The number of hits on my blog has now gone above 100 only once in the last week. And yesterday, for the first time in the history of my blog, the hits count did not go above 50 (It was exactly 50).

I am devastated. I think I have a fair idea as to what seems to have changed in the past week, but I would not like that to be the reason for my decreased blog hits, because the unfortunate incident, which I think is the cause of all this, was brought up only once on this blog, and it is not what this blog is all about. The incident in question had generated a lot of public hysteria and frenzy. The internet was, for a brief period of time, abuzz with excitement about the incident, which resulted in people visiting sites with even the remotest associations with the incident in question. But public memory is short, and the incident is showing signs of slowly fading away from people's minds, and dying a natural death. My blog seems to be one of the first casualties. But as I said, that incident is not what my blog is all about. To be very frank, I don't miss the people who came here to find something related to that particular incident on this blog. It is just the declining numbers that worry me.

So read up, people. I have a reputation to maintain.

And a Merry Christmas to all.

Swades

By the time I finish writing this post, it's probably going to be tomorrow. So first of all, a Merry Christmas to all my readers.

As you can probably make out from the title, I went to see Swades today with a few friends. The few friends in question being Mr. Vaibhav Sahgal, Ms. Anuva Seth, Ms. Tara Kaul, and Ms. Anchika (I don't know her surname, and I hope I have not messed up her first name's spelling). As none of these people have actually been mentioned on my blog earlier, I would like to begin by giving all my readers a brief introduction to them, before launching into a lengthy description of what I liked about the movie and what I did not like about it.

Mr. Vaibhav Sahgal (aka Tutu) is crazy. He is absolutely and completely mad. He was with me in school. He was, I think, the President of the Debating Society at school, a post which is now held by Mr. Bhavya Khanna. Important in this context would be to mention the fact that Mr. Bhavya Khanna has a major khundak with Vaibhav, for reasons that are not known to me. Currently doing Engineering at Purdue, Tutu is also known for occasionally carrying two mobile phones (on such occasions he holds one mobile phone in each hand and says contentedly, "Aaj mere paas 2-2 mobile hain.", which explains the nickname), and his far from proficient singing skills. He was the lead singer for a band which was aptly titled Apocalypse. Apocalypse wasn't too good when it came to music, but when it came to soaring enthusiasm levels, Apocalypse towered over other bands. Too bad it isn't around any more. Tutu looks like a lizard with long hair.

Ms. Anuva Seth (aka Rocky) is smart and cool. She has weird hair and weird specs. One of my friends, Mr. Aditya Bhatla, thinks that she looks like Harry Potter. She is also from my school. She has a cellphone which has a land-line number, and unbelievably stupid games. She is currently doing Eco. at LSR.

Ms. Tara Kaul (aka Bunty) is short, and looks like a witch. A pleasant witch, I would like to add. She was one of the Presidents of the Students' Council while we were at school (I was the other one). She is now at LSR, and is, from what I hear, in the same class as Rocky, which means that she is also doing economics. She is the only person I know who has the dubious distinction of a)Missing her own Gold-Medal Ceremony at school and b)Falling in love with the eyes of an extremely respected member of our school faculty (If you had come here a bit earlier, you would have also found his name, which has now been removed on Ms. Kaul's insistence.). Also to be noted here is the fact that Bunty owns an iPod, which makes her a cool person. Point of clarification here. Ms. Kaul is NOT a witch. She merely looks like one.

Ms. Anchika (if somebody knows her surname, please do let me know) is somebody I got to know quite recently, in class XII. She is also from the same school as I am. My friend, Mr. Aditya Bhatla, thinks that she looks like Mr. Gheedia (1st year, Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi, aka Muski) in female form. As you can probably deduce, my friend Aditya is a wiseguy who has nothing better to do than to pass comments at other people's physical appearances.

So I went to see Swades, accompanied by the people described above. Did I like the movie? To be frank, I think I did. It is a lovely movie, very touching at times, and yet not too sentimental and rona-dhona types. It is long, and it is a bit documentaryish, but it is, at the end of the day, a good, entertaining commercial film with a relevant message behind it. It has its moments of romance, of emotion, of drama, and even of humor (though they are few and far in between).

The story is new, and the movie is well-made. Shah Rukh Khan has got a wonderful role, and he does full justice to it. Definitely one of his best performances till date. He is totally convincing as Mohan Bhargava, although he does look a bit out of place as the NASA project-manager. But he more than compensates with his flawless performance as a US-Returned Indian, in a small Indian village. He must also be commended on his choice of shirts in the film. Some of the shirts he is wearing are pretty cool.

The message behind the film is very relevant and very contemporary. Although I doubt the movie is going to result in NRIs flocking back to India in large numbers to help their homeland, it does make a very significant impact on the viewer. It might not result in an exodus, but it has a deep-seated sense of patriotism and self-reliance in it which people, both in India, and abroad, can learn from.

I would say, Swades is definitely worth a watch. I would recommend it to everybody. If not for anything else, then for the two very interesting observations I made during the movie:
1. Mr. Mohan Bhargava seems to be a Mac-lover. He is shown working on a Powerbook throughout the entire movie. So one gets the opportunity to look at the wonderful machine every 5 minutes or so.
2. Gayatri Joshi, who plays the female lead in the movie, is soooo pretty. She can't act, and is totally unconvincing as Geeta. But she is soooo pretty. She brought a smile to my face every time she came on screen. I was completely mesmerised by her beauty.

Look out Ms. Preity Zinta. Seems like you have some competition. Not in the acting department though.

I'm rich

I got my school security deposit fee back today. A princely sum of Rs. Seven Hundred and Fifty. I'm rich, atleast for the next 2-3 days. That is, if I discount the fact that I had to spend roughly double that amount to extricate the security money from the school authorities in the first place. I had to go to school once to enquire when the cheque will be available, then to submit an application, then again to fill a form, then again to check if the cheque had arrived from DPS, Vasant Vihar, and then once to actually collect the cheque. That's 30 rupees multiplied by two each visit, not to count the money I spent at the school canteen each time.

School was fun today. I met a few teachers, and surprisingly came across a few students from class XII as well. I say surprisingly because today was a holiday for all class XII students. 'Preparatory Leave' would be a more appropriate term, as they have an examination tomorrow. I met Mr. Karan Misra (Uncleji) who was looking worried but calm, as usual. He was busy doing something to his college applications, intermittently pointing out grammatical and pronunciation mistakes that people made within a 5 metre radius. I saw Mr. Bhavya Khanna, who was also involved in college applications. He did, however, take some time off from applications to count and put in order (page number-wise) around 20 photocopies of physics handouts, from the chapter 'Principles of Communication'. Also seen was Mr. Maanick Nangia, who was in school for no apparent reason, unless it was to get his grammatical and pronunciation mistakes pointed out by uncleji, or to constantly remind uncleji of his 'not so good' SAT II scores. But the person I was most surprised to see was Mr. R.R. Aniruddha (Aniruddha, not Anirudh).

For the uninitiated, Mr. R.R.A. was the Head Boy of DPS RK Puram last year, which would make him a batch-mate. He is now at Yale. He is a nice guy, but he always did have an arrogant air about him. He was, undoubtedly, an appropriate successor to Mr. Vidur Mahajan, our head boy last to last year. RRA was the kind of guy who was weird, proud, and just couldn't stop talking about himself (or others, for that matter). And if you thought RRA was annoying, believe me, you'll find RRA with an accent even more so.

After school, I decided to go for a short walk (partly because I was feeling like one, and partly because I didn't have any money for an auto). It came as no surprise to me that I, after wandering aimlessly for about three quarters of an hour, ended up at Reliance Web-World, near Priya. I found a few friends there, and we played Counter-Strike for a couple of hours or so. Then we sat at Barista for a while, before I started thinking of coming back home.

Overall, an excellent day. I only wish DPS RK Puram had given me cash. Then I wouldn't have had to borrow money from a friend to make my way back home.

Ocean's Twelve

I am going to keep this entry extremely short. I have not slept much in the last 50-60 hours, and as a result I am very tired. Therefore I am going to keep this entry very short.

I went and saw Ocean's 12 today. Good movie. Definitely a better watch than Musafir. But I thought the original was much better.

I had actually gone to watch Veer-Zaara (again, as I have watched it once before), but I didn't get tickets. I find this very weird. It's been six weeks since the movie was released, yet you cannot find 3 tickets to it at PVR, Saket, on a weekday afternoon.

What is this world coming to.

If I was organized, I'd be dangerous

I completely suck when it comes to planning. Well, not really planning, but executing my plans. I live a very disorganized life. I make meticulous plans, but what I eventually end up doing has nothing to do with the plans that I make. I live an anarchic life. My entire existence is based on chaos. Which sometimes leads me to wonder what I would have been able to achieve had I lived a more organized and well-executed life.

Perhaps a lot less.

25

I have a very good friend whose name is Jawahar Shah. Jawahar Shah is a very cool guy. He lives at AIIMS Campus and is in his 2nd year at college. His house is nearby, and whenever I am bored, all I need to do is give him a call, and find out if he's free, which he usually isn't. Although we don't talk too much these days, being busy in our own little lives, he was, until a few years back, one of my best friends. We did a lot of stuff together, and during our school summer vacations, we were virtually inseparable.

But this post is not about Jawahar Shah. This post is about Jawahar's cats.

Till some time back, Jawahar used to keep pet cats. He had just two or three to begin with, and they had really cool names. However, anyone who knows anything about cats, knows that cats multiply at rates that cannot be called 'slow' by any stretch of imagination. 'Rather fast' would be the more appropriate phrase. So Jawahar's pet cat family grew, and within an year, he had seven or eight cats.

Every time a new kitten was born, Jawahar had to rack his brains for a new name. Inspite of this, the names that he gave his cats and kittens were impeccable, flawless, with no scope for improvements. Each cat got a unique name, depending on its gender, behavior and defining physical characteristics. The family grew, and Jawahar spent days and nights thinking of cat names, always coming up with nothing but the best. Once, in an effort to find a more long term solution to the problem, he started naming all his cats after 'The Lion King' characters. So for an year, the problem was solved, and Simba, Mufasa,Timon, Pumba, and Nala ran free on the grounds of E-81, AIIMS Campus.

But a day came, when Jawahar ran out of names. Four years after he had started keeping pet cats, he had exactly 24 cats with perfectly suited names, but no new names. Jawahar tried his best to keep his cats from procreating, but his attempts were thwarted by Mother Nature. A 25th kitten was born. And it had to be named.

So Jawahar called it 25.

25 is now a healthy cat, and has grown to be extremely friendly and fun-loving. Even now, when I visit Jawahar's old home (he shifted a few years back), I make sure I meet 25, the golden-furred cat that still lives there.

You must be wondering why I told you this weird, seemingly purposeless story. But it has a purpose. There is a special reason I have recounted this particular event that took place in my life more than 5 years ago. And the reason is as follows.

This is my 25th post on this blog, and I thought it fitting to dedicate it to Jawahar, one of my best friends and the most powerful influence on me in my pre-teen years, and his cats, especially 25.

Opposing forces

Yesterday, during a conversation with The Elated Buddha (Mr. Bhavya Khanna for the uninitiated), I accidently stumbled onto a fundamental law that seems to govern our society. Well, atleast the male half of our society. Having formed a hypothesis yesterday, I assiduously set out to find solid proof in favour of the hypothesis. The findings, which I have just finished analyzing, prove beyond doubt the validity of my assumptions. My hypothesis, therefore, now becomes a theory. And I present it, for the first time, on this blog.

The theory, which shall be known as the 'Opposing Forces' theory states that all males in our society are divided into two groups, which differ significantly in their ideologies.

The first group, can be described as one consisting of Preity Zinta likers. This group has some characteristics that make it distinct from the other group. These characteristics enable the identification of this particular group easily without the overt use of the group defining question, which is "Do you like Preity Zinta?"

The second group, as some of you with more logically inclined intellects will have figured out by now, consists of Preity Zinta haters, or the Preity Zinta non-likers. This group is completely distinct from the group defined earlier. The intersection of these two sets is a null set. In other words, there are NO overlaps.

The Preity Zinta likers have certain distinguishing features. They differ markedly from the Preity Zinta non-likers on the following points.

Firstly, all Preity Zinta likers like Preity Zinta. They adore the characters that she portrays in her movies, and can't stop raving about her cute dimples. Some of the people present in this group think Preity Zinta to be very hot, and follow most of her films pretty religiously. The Preity Zinta haters, predictably, do not like Preity Zinta. They, like the Preity Zinta likers, have extreme views on the subject. One Preity Zinta hater whom I talked to recently went as far as to say, and I quote, "I feel like slapping her every time she comes on screen."

Secondly, all Preity Zinta lovers happen to be intelligent, sophisticated people, who are extremely successful in life, and are fun to talk to. They are excellent conversationalists, and can keep listeners engaged for hours. They also happen to be, in most cases, extremely talkative people. Preity Zinta non-likers, on the other hand, happen to be dull, boring people, whose IQ levels are usually dismally low.

Thirdly, and most importantly, the two groups respond completely differently when asked the following two questions:
1. What do you think about Kareena Kapoor?
2. What do you think about Aishwariya Rai?

Most Preity Zinta likers can't stand Kareena, and think Aish is too plastic and made-up. Most Preity Zinta haters, however, think that Kareena has a lot of 'Sex Appeal', and Aish is the epitome of beauty, whatever that means.

The most salient feature of the 'Opposing Forces' theory is that there are NO in-betweeners. None at all. In my search, I did not come across a single person who did not swear loyalty to one of the two groups. You either love Preity Zinta, or you hate her, but you cannot remain indifferent.

Another most surprising thing about the theory is that all people belonging to the two groups conform completely to the 3 characteristics that I have mentioned earlier. There are no aberrations. The two groups are rigid and have certain unwritten rules, that are not meant to be broken at any time, under any circumstances.

Reconciliation between the two groups, atleast under the given conditions, seems next to impossible. However, what I would like to point out here is that one need not pledge adherence to one of the groups permanantly. Converts do exist, although they are few in number. Another important feature is that most converts move from the second bloc (The PZ Haters) to the first one (The PZ Likers), with movement in the opposite direction being almost unheard of. The logical conclusion drawn from this particular statement is that as people grow intellectually, they begin to lean towards the PZ liking group. Something like the growth of wisdom teeth.

So go ahead people. Be afraid no more. Make your feelings on the subject known. Let the world know. Announce your allegiance today.

Preferably to the 1st group.

Internet banking

Internet banking is the worst thing ever conceived by man. I have spent almost two entire days trying to figure out how to pay my IIT semester fees on the net, and still have not managed to succeed.

The most interesting thing is that SBI, IIT sent me two sets of distinct user-ids and passwords. So at first, I spent about half an hour trying to figure out which one to use. I finally picked one, and tried it out. It worked, and showed me, to my satisfaction, that I had Rs. 18,000 in my account. Enough to pay my sem fees, with a decent amount left over, I thought. Then I tried to use the second set, and found to my surprise that over a matter of a couple of minutes, the money in my account had shrunk from 18,000 to 2,000. This, I thought was very curious, especially since both the user-ids and passwords were being used to access the same account number, which belonged to me. I still haven't been able to figure out how to remedy the situation. I have been rendered 16,000 bucks poorer because of some bug in the SBI site. Hai!!! main barbaad ho gaya.

I also got my learner's driving license yesterday. I went to the office of the South Delhi licensing officer, which is this crowded and disgustingly dirty place at Sheikh Sarai. To get my license, I had to take a test which had 20 questions, the pass marks being 12. At first I was pretty apprehensive, but when I actually got down to reading the questions, I was quite convinced that nobody could possibly get less than 12 on that particular test.

Allow me to present before you a couple of sample questions to give you a basic idea of what the test was like. Bad grammar goes with the questions, lest you question my grammatical skills.

Q1. In the rainy season, driver should drive slow because:

a)Children like to run and enjoy in rain.

b)Roads are slippery.

c)If driver drives fast, glass may break due to rain drops.

d)Pedestrians carry umbrellas that obstruct vision.

Q2. If you are at a railway crossing, with lights flashing, you should:

a)Get down and investigate.

b)Sound horn to let train know.

c)Wait for train to pass.

d)Block path of train with barrier so that you can pass.

Thankfully I passed, and after a somewhat longish wait, got my license.

I must also point out that my license clearly mentions its validity at two places on it. At one place it says, "VALED UPTO 15 JUNE 2005", and at another place, on the same sheet of paper mind you, it says, "VAILED UPTO 15 JUNE 2005." This inconsistency in spellings at Delhi's main transport department office does not bode well for the city.

Nothing much happened other than that. I have been having a pretty unexciting and calm two day period. Will write more here when something comes up.

Till then, may my readers never be befuddled by profound driving license test questions.

Musafir

I went and saw Musafir today at Chanakya. It is, to be wholly frank, the worst movie I have seen in a long long time. It has no story. None at all. It is a long movie, with meaningless sex and violence thrown in, and an item number every 14 and a half minutes. Songs are by and large crappy. However, Sanjay Dutt's look in the movie is defenitely worth a mention. And I think Sameera Reddy is looking pretty hot, although she couldn't act to save her life.

I would like to sum up my sentiments with a self composed poem (if it can be called one).

Take my advice, it's absolutely free,

Do not be foolish enough to watch this movie.

Main Yahan Hoon

My neighbours are obsessed. They are obsessed with this song. They just keep on playing it. I have been listening to the same song over and over again. No breaks. No stops. 'Main Yahan Hoon', from Veer-Zaara, over and over again, all day, and all night.

Now, anybody who has heard the song in question would probably agree with me that it's a good song. It has very cool music, and the lyrics are kind of nice. In fact, had it not been for my damned neighbours, I would even have gone as far as to recommend it to some of the people I know. It is undoubtedly worth a listen to. But it is not the kind of song you would like to listen to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 3 weeks straight.

No, no. Wait. There was a brief interval during which I did not have 'Main Yahan Hoon' playing in the background sometime in the last 3 weeks. I think it was this evening about a week back, when these people living a few houses away were having a wedding function. On that particular evening, loud Punjabi music managed to mute the somewhat relatively timid strains of 'Main Yahan Hoon'. On that particular evening, 'Main Yahan Hoon' ceased to be a unit of time for me, and its place was taken by 'Saavan di Jhadi'.

But besides that there has been no relief. I have been tortured by 'Main Yahan Hoon'. The lyrics continue to haunt me in my dreams, and the song goes on and on in my head, like a never ending audio casette. Not that I need it to go on and on in my head, when it is constantly going on and on outside it, thanks to my next-door neighbours. My life is now governed by 'Main Yahan Hoon'.

A stage has been reached where I am afraid that the song has left a permanant impression on my mind. I don't think I will be able to nullify the impact that it has made on me. Irreversible damage has been caused. So much so, that I now remember all the lyrics completely, and don't think I would be able to forget them for the rest of my life.

Don't believe me? See for yourself, you doubting fools.

Note to readers: If you have the song with you, turn it on, and sing along. If you don't have the song with you, get it from somewhere, turn it on, and sing along.

Main Yahan Hoon

Jaanam dekh lo, mit gayee duriyan,
Main yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan.


Jaanam dekh lo, mit gayee duriyan,
Main yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan.
Jaanam dekh lo, mit gayee duriyan,
Main yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan.
Kaisi sarhadein kaisi majbooriyan,
Main yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan.


Tum chhupa na sakogi, main vo raaz hoon.
Tum bhula na sakogi, vo andaaz hoon.
Goonjta hoon jo dil mein to hairan ho kyun,
Main tumhare hi dil ki to awaaz hoon.
Sun sako to suno dhadkano ki zaban,
Main yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan.


Kaisi sarhadein, kaisi majbooriyan,
Main yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan.


Main hi main ab tumhare khayalon mein hoon.
Main jawabo mein hoon, main sawalo main hoon.
Main tumhare har ek khwab mein hoon basa.
Main tumhari nazar ke ujalon mei hoon.
Dekhti ho mujhe, dekhti ho jahan.
Main yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan.


Jaanam Dekh lo, mit gayee duriyan,
Main yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan.
Kaisi sarhadein kaisi majbooriyan,
Main yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan.


Main yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan hoon, yahan.

And you can't accuse me of cheating, because I have got ear-plugs on.

Do your neighbours a favour. DO NOT listen to 'Main Yahan Hoon' from Veer-Zaara again and again. If you haven't heard the song as yet, do listen to it. If you happen to like it, listen to it once or twice a day, if you really have to. But be a bit considerate towards your neighbours. PLEASE DO NOT listen to it again and again.

Small, medium or large

I went to Nirula's for a while today. I ordered hot chocolate fudge. It was when I was sitting and enjoying my hot chocolate fudge, that I heard a singularly remarkable conversation.

The conversation was taking place between a potential customer and the cashier. The customer, evidently inexperienced when it came to ordering fast food, took one look at the menu and asked the cashier, "Small kya hota hain?" The cashier, initially taken aback, slowly recovered and masterfully came back with, "Small chhota hota hain." The customer, seemingly not satisfied with this answer, shot back, "Kitna chhota?" Now this left the cashier quite confused, and it took him a while, after which, unable to come up with anything better, he once again repeated, "Small chhota hota hain." The customer, at this point of time realized that he was not going to get much more out of the cashier on this particular topic. So he moved on to the next subject on his agenda.

"Large kya hota hain?", he said. The cashier, by now familiar with the routine, said, "Large bada hota hain." The potential customer thought for a while, and probably realized the futility of his next question. So he jumped on to a totally new subject.

"Medium kya hota hain?" The cashier, I am sure, was expecting this question, so he said without a moment's hesitation, "Medium beech ka hota hain." This seemed to satisfy the potential customer, and he said, "Phir mujhe ek beech ka de do." So the cashier promptly entered something at his computer terminal, and a minute later handed the puzzled customer a rectangular piece of coloured paper.

"Yeh kya hain?" said the customer, feeling quite sure there had been a mistake. He had ordered food, and here he was being offered a sheet of paper. So the cashier tried to explain to him how he was to go about procuring the food he had come for. After a somewhat lengthy explanation, the man left the counter, only to be recalled and gently reminded, "Paise to de dijiye." This, I was happy to see, made some sort of sense to the man, and he paid up, although not before remarking, "Mujhe to pata hi nahin tha ki paise khane se pehle dene hain."

This brought the unusual conversation to an end. The customer went and sat at one of the tables, and kept sitting for quite some time, before one of the men at the counter had to personally come and tell him that his order was ready.

Moving on to the more important things in life. I started playing Caesar III yesterday, after a hiatus of about 3 years. I quite enjoyed it. The fact that I am enjoying playing Caesar III does not say much about the excitement levels in my life, considering all there is to the game is building lots of houses, and waiting for people lugging carts to come and settle in these houses. The only other thing you have to do in the game besides building houses and waiting for cart-carrying people is saving your game and building a few temples occasionally.

In completely unrelated news, I went to LSR today, at the insistence of one of my friends, to attend a concert that the Western Music Society of LSR was putting up as an antecedent to their annual fest, Tarang, which starts on Friday. It was called, quite predictably, 'The Winter Concert'. It was a very well put up performance. The songs were absolutely amazing, the best one, in my opinion, being a wonderful French song, the exact name of which I don't remember right now. Lots of great music. Lots of pretty girls. It was totally worth being called Aditya Goel for an evening. Not that I like being spoken to as Aditya Goel, but given a choice between being called Aditya Goel for an evening, and not going to an LSR Western Music Society concert, I would definitely choose the former.

The next few days are going to be hectic. Tomorrow I start with my formal driving lessons (I already know how to drive, but my parents refuse to get me a license until I take formal lessons.), and my mom's holidays start day after tomorrow. Which means that day after tomorrow onwards the bulk of my time is going to be spent in accompanying my mother to relatives' houses, and lifting heavy grocery. But I am not complaining. I do have lots of interesting stuff planned out for the following week.

Life, ladies and gentlemen, surprisingly, continues to look good.

Death Speaks

I came across a somewhat neat short story as I was going through one of Jeffrey Archer's short story collections yesterday (To Cut a Long Story Short). Although I had read the book a few years back, I had almost forgotten all about this story. It is not an original Jeffrey Archer story, and originates somewhere from the middle east. The writer is not known.

For all of you who haven't read the story I am talking about, here is how it goes.

Death Speaks

There was a merchant in Baghdad who sent his servant to the market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the market-place I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was death that jostled me. She looked at me and made a threatening gesture; now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate. I will go to Samarra and there death will not find me. The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went. Then the merchant went down to the market-place and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning? That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

Eight point someone

Me happy. Me ecstatic. I got my grades a little while back. Ladies and gentlemen, I am overjoyed to inform you that I am now a part of the prestigious eight point someone club at IIT, Delhi. My life is made. Everything is going to work out fine after all. And the best part is that I maxed my Mathematics course. An A grade on my Maths course. Oh, such a wonderful thing, an A grade. Makes all the hard work (in cases where hard work is involved) seem worthwhile.

In a completely unrelated incident, I went to Venkateshwara college today to take part in a parliamentary debate. My team-mate was, once again, Mr. Rajat Sahani. I completely messed up my debate. We didn't even make it to the final round. And this was inspite of the topic being such that we could have creamed the government (we were the opposition).

Life seems to be slowly taking on a hint of normalcy once again. I am doing reasonably well at my studies, and atrociously at debates, just the way it should be. Just the way I am used to it being. This is the best thing that has happened to me in quite a while. Me happy and satisfied with life.

Will write more later. Right now I have to go and begin the celebrations.

Life, ladies and gentlemen, is looking good.

Note to readers: I am still a bit dazed. I didn't expect the results to go so well. In my ecstasy, I think I have ignored some fundamental rules of grammar. I would request you to kindly condone this lapse on my part. Needless to say, my grammar will once again regain its usual flawlessness next post onwards.

Back to school

I went to school yesterday with a few friends of mine. It was a nice trip, except for the fact that it being almost end of term for the tenth and the twelfth classes, none of the teachers or students had much time for us.

This is how an average conversation between us and a teacher went.

Manu Saxena:"Good Morning ma'am."

Teacher:"Hello Manu. How wonderful to see you in school. No college today?"

MS:"No ma'am. My semester ended a few days back, and we have holidays now."

Teacher:"Oh, how lovely. I have class now, see you later."

This is what an average conversation with a student sounded like.

Manu Saxena:"Aur, kaisa hain?"

Student:"Theek hoon. Bye."

There were only two teachers in school who were ready to give us any time at all. So we ended up spending almost all of our 4 hours in school with them. We attended a couple of classes with these teachers, and I had quite a bit of fun, interacting with them and their classes. We even helped one class pick out a topic for their class assembly, although I later heard that as soon as we left the room, the topic was instantly and unanimously vetoed.

What came as a surprise was that I hardly saw any of the students from the current class XII batch, many of whom I know. I did see Mr. Karan Misra and Mr. Maanick Nangia though, both presidents of Exun. They were in a state of deep mourning because the sudden anouncement of a set of pre-preboards has dashed their hopes of participating in the last two computer symposia of the year. My heartfelt sympathies to both of them.

It was nice being in school. The most important thing I noticed is that inspite of the recent unfortunate incident, things have not changed much. The school and its students remain pretty much the same. The only difference is that rules, which always existed, are now being enforced a bit more strictly, which is good in a way. Another difference that I noticed is that during working periods, you don't see many students loitering around in the halls anymore. Considering that till last year, half the school used to be out in the corridors at any given time, this is a great improvement.

I am sure the students feel a bit resentful about the new severity in enforcing rules, as I am sure I would have, had I still been in school. But all in all, the situation has not changed much. The discipline has undoubtedly improved, and hopefuly will continue to improve, but the average DPS RK Puram student is much the same, which I think is a good thing. The last thing I want to happen is DPS students losing their Dipsiteness, their uniqueness, their ability to be individualistic and stand out in a crowd. When I went to school yesterday, I found this Dipsiteness intact, and something gave me the feeling that DPS will probably come out of this mess stronger, and without much damage.

After school, I went to Reliance Web-World for a while, and once again ended up playing games that involved lots of mindless shooting. This Reliance Web-World thing is becoming quite a habit. Now, every 3-4 days, I have this compulsive urge to take part in mindless blood and gore, to release all my pent up frustration with life in general. What I am worried about is that this unhealthy compulsion is putting an undue amount of pressure on the funds I have set aside for these holidays.

My grades will come out in another hour or so, and something tells me that I am probably going to end up at Reliance Web-World this evening as well.

Debating with the enemy

"Anything I have ever done, at any point of time, under any circumstances, has somehow or the other, backfired."
-Manu Saxena, December 01, 2004

I have been long convinced about the verity of this statement. However to all ye who doubt its authenticity, I give further proof. Yet another incident where what I said at one point of time, came back later to bite me in the ass (For more on the past coming back to bite one in the ass, visit Bhavya's Blah).

On the 3rd of December, I received a call from Joseph Mathew informing me about a debate that was to take place at LSR on the 7th of December.

A brief introduction here, although I am quite sure that most of you don't need an introduction to Mr. Joseph.

Joseph Mathew: Ultra-dude and stud debater. He is one of the ultimate authorities at IIT when it comes to matters such as debating. Studies in the 3rd year. Belongs to the Karakoram Hostel. Also known for putting up less than effective notices when it comes to selling brand new hard-disc drives.

Joseph asked me if I was interested in going for the debate. Having heard quite a bit about LSR, and never having had the good fortune of actually visiting the place, I immediately said yes. But I had a slight problem. My team-mate, with whom I am usually supposed to go for Debating competitions is currently in Calcutta attending his cousin's wedding, which put me in a rather unenviable position of not knowing whom to go with. Not being able to decide on this particular point, I finally left it up to Joseph to find me a team-mate. I was confident that he, being the ultra-stud that he is, will manage to find me a suitable chap.

Joseph did manage to find me a partner a couple of days later. Some 3rd year guy was supposed to go with me for the debate. Everything was fine, and life was moving along happily. Little did I know about what was to come a day later.

I received a phone call from Joseph yesterday (well, now day before yesterday) saying that the 3rd year guy who was supposed to go with me would not be able to make it. He suggested an alternate arrangement. He suggested I go with Rajat Sahani (aka Mr. Kermit).

Now all of you who have read my blog entry dated November 25th, 2004 (Ze pompous grenouille), would know that to say me and Rajat were the best of friends would be to stretching it a bit. At first I did not know how to react to this particular piece of information. For about ten seconds my mind was completely blank. However I did recover after that, trying to convince myself that people like Mr. Rajat Sahani had their own work to do, and weren't exactly interested in the random meanderings of a fresher on his blog. In some time, I did manage to persuade myself that Rajat probably would not even know I keep a blog, let alone him actually reading the post in question.

That was when Rajat called me up in person, and dispelled all my doubts over the matter. He had indeed read my blog entry. However, what came as a surprise was that he handled the entire matter very well. He was very cordial, and stated at the beginning of the conversation itself, in no uncertain terms, that he did not hold a grudge against me, and had no qualms about going to a debate with me. This went against my image of Rajat, and, to be very frank, I was very surprised at his calm and composed attitude towards the entire incident.

We did go to LSR as a team, and the debate went pretty well. Although I had gone as a speaker, I ended up getting the best interjector prize. I thought the arguments that I made in my debate were good, and I spoke pretty well, but some of the debaters there were excellent, and I never really had much of a chance for the best speaker award.

However, we did have a lot of fun, and actually stayed back for the mixed bag event. Rajat turned out to be not at all like what I had expected him to be, and I wouldn't be entirely against going with him to another one of these debating competitions. He does have a bit of an ego, but then, don't we all, especially the Dipsites. We had a good time at LSR. Actually, to be very frank, it is quite difficult not to have a good time at LSR, what with all the hot girls around, and the cool café (mind you, not canteen, but café). After spending an entire semester at IIT, it was nice to be back at a place which abounds with female activity, albeit for a day. All in all, it was a good day, and I didn't even have to spend any money, Mr. Kermit eagerly footing the auto bill.

Just goes to show that appearances can be deceptive, and judging people without adequate information is always a stupid thing to do, only surpassed in stupidity by writing weird stuff about people, on the net, without adequate information.

Bhaprosi's unfriendly neighbors

I was initially thinking of titling this post 'Friendly neighborhood Bhaprosi', but I later figured out that 'Bhaprosi's unfriendly neighbors' is a more apt title. Many of you must be quite puzzled about the title to this particular post. If you don't read Karan's Journal regularly, you probably won't know what it is all about. So my first job must be to make the title fully clear to all.

As only a few of you would be knowing, IIT in Hindi is known as Bharatiya Praudyogiki Sansthan. My dear friend Karan Misra, being incapable of pronouncing the name, thought he was doing a big favor to mankind by abbreviating Bharatiya Praudyogiki Sansthan to Bhapros. So that would automatically make me, and all my fellow IITans, Bhaprosis. An interesting name, but it can get on your nerves after a while. To be very frank, I am completely sick of being called a Bhaprosi. Which makes me wonder as to why am I writing this entry. I mean, it doesn't really take a rocket scientist to figure out that by the time I am done writing this entry, half of Delhi will be calling me a Bhaprosi. And, as I have already pointed out, I detest being called that. But then, such are the ways of Manu Saxena.

Leaving the Bhaprosi thing aside, let's move on to the more important things in life. Yesterday happened to be the first day of my vacations. It was, to be truthful, an awful bore. But then , considering I had spent most of day before yesterday at Reliance web-world indulging in mindless blood and gore, it is unlikely that yesterday would have been an exciting day unless a huge, ugly, drooling alien would have suddenly emerged from behind the car and said, "Zoc-colenos metona!", which in English roughly translates as "Die, Human, Die."

Nevertheless I was anticipating a fun day, spent carelessly out in the open spaces where men are men. My hopes, however, were dashed early in the morning itself. When I woke up at about 10:00 AM, I found that my parents and my sister were going somewhere and I was given strict instructions to remain in the house because some guy had to come over to repair the inverter, which was making funny noises and unceremoniously switching itself off at weird times of the night. I reluctantly agreed, thinking I would go out and have my share of fun in the afternoon. But evil doings were underfoot, as I soon found out. When my parents returned at about half past twelve, I was told to get ready. "Why?", I asked, not, I am sure you would agree, without reason. The reason, I found out to my horror, was that my parents were planning to take me to watch Mughal-e-Azam in the afternoon. "Aaargh!!!", I said, but left it at that, because I, unlike some other people I could name, know all about the futility of arguing with parents.

So at about 1:30 PM, all of us left for PVR Saket, for the 3:25 show of Mughal-e-Azam. But that is where my bad luck ran out. We didn't get tickets. Woo-hoo, we didn't get tickets. For the first time in the day, I actually felt happy. We got back home at about half past three, and then I went out to play cricket, something which I hadn't done for quite some time. I would like to tell all my readers that I suck at cricket. I can't bowl or bat to save my life. But for some inexplicable reason, I still love to play. But then, as I have said before, such are the ways of Manu Saxena.

I got back at about six. But I was yet to confront the most horrific incident of the day. At 6:10 PM sharp, some people who live about three or four houses away from us started playing loud Punjabi music at full volume. It was so loud that at first I thought somebody at home was playing Punjabi music. My family isn't Punjabi, and I found this sudden change in music taste rather spooky. But before long, by a method of tedious elimination, I deduced that nobody was playing Punjabi music at my place. It was then that I discovered that the racket was being caused by somebody outside the house. I tolerated it for a while, but when they played 'Saavan di Jhadi' for about the seventh time, I, once again not without reason, lost my cool. Did I do something about it? You bet, I did something about it. What did I do? I went and asked my mom, "WHAT is happening?"

She told me that the people three or four houses away were getting their daughter married. "With loud Punjabi music playing in the background?", I asked incredulously. "Today is the Sangeet ceremony,", she nonchalantly replied. So I quietly retired to my room, having done all I could, and thinking how anybody could possibly call this kind of stuff music. Having nothing else to do, I started writing a debate which I am supposed to be giving at a competition at LSR on the 7th. But I gave up on that when they started playing 'Saavan di Jhadi' for the eleventh time.

Finally realizing that I was not going to get much done, I thought about calling it a day. So, to cut a long blog post short, a quick dinner later, (which lasted exactly 1.7 'Saavan di Jhadis') I retired for the day.

By now I am quite convinced that moving into my new house was a big mistake. My window looks out to a place which looks like a graveyard for old, used desert coolers, I bump into chairs and tables every night when I get up to go to the loo, and my neighbors seem to have an unhealthy obsession with gardening and loud Punjabi music.

There was only one positive that came out of this entire 'Saavan di Jhadi' episode. The constant salvo of Punjabi music managed to dissuade my neighbors living next door (not to be confused with my neighbors living three or four houses away, who were having the marriage) from playing their favorite song.

But more about my next-door neighbors' favorite song next time. Till then, may all my readers live pleasant, satisfactory lives, free from the menace of Punjabi music.

The silence breaks

I have had just about enough. Uptil now I have maintained a dignified silence on the matter of the DPS RK Puram porn video. But that is about to change. I am NOT going to sit idle and say nothing while my school's reputation is being torn to shreds by people who don't even know what they are talking about.

The DPS RKP porn video is perhaps the most talked about topic in Delhi today. Students are talking about it, parents are talking about it, and it has been plastered all over the city's newspapers and magazines. Initially, when the first few articles came out in the papers, I thought the incident was being handled pretty well. The first article did not name the school involved, neither did it give the names of the students involved. At the same time, the article explicitly stated that appropriate action had been taken against the students involved, by the school involved.

But from there things just got worse. DPS RK Puram was named, the students were named, and the details of the incident were given. If that wasn't enough, one particular news network actually telecast the video on TV, with the offending portions pixelated. The most recent development, I hear, is Indiatimes posting a still shot from the video on its online newspaper. Disgusting developments, I must say. Now everyone seems to have gone into this moralistic tizzy and a campaign of sorts has been launched against DPS RK Puram.

What I would like to do first of all is to remove the most common misconception about the video. The incident in question did NOT take place inside school. I cannot give you unquestionable proof on this particular matter, so you will have to take my word for it. The newspapers seem to be bent on making readers believe otherwise, even if it means resorting to fabricated and baseless reports. One newspaper actually went as far as to say that the incident took place in the school library. Completely false. The video was not shot on school premises. I am not sure where exactly it was shot, but as long as it wasn't within the school, I don't care much about the location.

The one thing that people are failing to realize, or maybe they don't want to realize it, is that sex in Delhi schools is not something new. It has been around for quite some time, and making a huge hoo-haa about this particular video isn't going to prevent it from happening in the future. Just because some people happen to be dumb enough to record the actual thing (WHAT were they thinking?) does not mean you single out one school, and launch this massive public drive against it. Last heard, the principal of Modern School was sermonizing on the importance of discipline and social values. Ha! What a joke. The principal of MSBK tells us about discipline and values. We don't need any advice from MSBK, thank you very much, keeping in mind the kind of activities that their students indulge in. I wouldn't like to say more on the nature of these activities, as that would go against the very spirit of this post. All I would like to say is that the only good thing that can be said about MSBK students is that they don't happen to be stupid enough to record some of the things they do.

This blog must not be taken as a validation or a justification for sex in school. I am not supporting the two a***holes who came up with that disgusting video. All I am saying is that you cannot judge a school which has a strength of 4500 on the basis of a sample size of 2. Uptil some time back, all the major newspapers were singing praises when it came to DPS RKP. And now they have done a sudden about turn. It is completely ridiculous to believe that the immoral actions of 2 people can somehow completely nullify all the good work done by thousands of students over a period of years.

DPS RK Puram is a wonderful school. It is a school that has given amazing people to the world for the past 2-3 decades. Its alumni is doing very well all over the world, in all fields under the sun. More importantly, it is a school that stresses on discipline and good moral values. Contrary to popular belief, the average Dipsite's favorite time-pass is not making pornographic videos. What all of you saw in the video was an aberration, not the norm.

I would like to request all the newspapers and journalists who are making up all kinds of wild stories about the incident, and about DPS RKP in general, to please discontinue the negative publicity. By all means, fight sex at school, and drugs at school, and smoking and drinking in school, but please do not single out schools and students. Spreading negative propaganda about one single school is not the way to go about it. It does not do anybody any good, it does not effectively combat the problem, and it can be most damaging to other students (or ex-students) who happen to be in the same school.

And to everybody in general, please stop the sermonizing. It is not the way out, I assure you.

Tous mes professeurs

I gave my last major test of the semester today. Mathematics, it was. I am quite sure that by now all of you know the phrase I am going to employ to describe the test. So I'm not going to use it. In case you don't know about the phrase then,
a) You haven't been reading this blog regularly, and
b) You'll find it on the top right corner of this window, right after "My life is an".

But that is not what this entry is about. This entry is to commemorate the end of the majors and the semester. And what a catastrophic semester it has been. A large part in making the semester catastrophic was played by my professors, and since I probably won't have the time to introduce them to you next semester, having a new set, I will do so now.

Meet my professors.

1. Prof. B.L. Sachdeva (Engineering Drawing, MEL 110)

Favorite Quote:"Showing hidden lines on this figure is a mast."

He is the only professor who has been mentioned before on this blog. He happens to be an extremely cool professor. He knows his subject well. However, he has an appalling memory when it comes to names. He just randomly assigns any name to anybody.Thus if I am lucky, he calls me Prasun. If I'm unlucky, he calls me Biswas.

2. Prof. S.R. Kale (Introduction to Mechanical Engineering, MEN 110)

Favorite Quote:"The world as we know it is going to change within the next 90 days. ____ is going to become obsolete. ____ is going to become archaic."

He is also one of the better professors I have. He also happens to be my course advisor (as pointed out by Arnav). He is an excellent speaker, and is very good at making students understand the intricacies of a subject. He has a PhD from Stanford. The only qualm I have with him is that he is too bent on changing the world. And he thinks everything will become obsolete by the time we graduate.

3. Prof. J.B. Shrivastava (Mathematics, MAL 110)

Favorite Quote:"If you don't attend classes, you won't get any marks in the examination."

Such a simple, logical corelation. No wonder he is the head of the Mathematics Dept. at IIT, Delhi. He is a good teacher, but he teaches at an abysmally slow speed. On an average we do about half a question in one lecture class. Maybe he'll be able to teach faster if he doesn't stress on the importance of good attendance 14 times in every class.

4. Prof. D. Bandopadhyay (Chemistry Lab, CYP 100)

Favorite Quote:"Hey!!"

He is strict and calls a cellphone a 'cellophone'. He addresses all students as "Hey!!" and molecules and atoms as 'guys'. So don't be surprised when you here something like, "Hey!! Can you tell me how this guy has three valence bonds at its co-ordination site." He is either in a very good mood, or in a very grumpy one. One can distinguish between the two on the basis of the tone of his "Hey!!" when he calls you.

5. Prof. A.J. Elias (Inorganic Chemistry, CYL 120)

Favorite Quote:"This topic is given very well in Huheey."

Excellent teacher, if you can make out what he is saying. He has a very nasal voice, which usually means that whatever he says just ends up as a set of incoherent wheezes. Which also means that he calls complexes 'gomblexes' and molecules, 'bolegules'. Huheey, by the way is a textbook which he pronounces as Uuhi.

6. Prof. B.R. Chopra (Drawing Workshop, MEL 110)

Favorite Quote:"You must do your latrine neatly."

Not much to say about him, except for the fact that when he says 'Lettering', it sounds like 'Latrine'.

7. Prof. O.P. Bansal (Drawing Workshop, MEL 110)

Favorite Quote:"Pleeease submit the sheeeets."

After the end of the 4 hours of allocated time we get to complete a sheet, he surreptitiously arrives behind you and says in a booming, zombie-like voice, "Pleeease submit the sheeeets.", which immediately causes you to jump about two feet in the air and drop your pencil. The voice is the key here. It is such that it wouldn't seem unnatural if you appended his favorite quote with ",or pay with you life!" He is Yamraj personified.

8. Prof. K.K. Chaudhary (Applied Mechanics, AML 110)

Favorite Quote:"This substitution is going to make life veeery simble."

He makes life veeery hard. He doesn't know how to teach. He comes to class in weirdly stitched safari-suits, and takes extra classes with more regularity than normal classes. And he weighs the same as all the students of the class put together.

9. Prof. J.D. Singh (Inorganic Chemistry, CYL 120)

Favorite Quote:"We are pre-poning the test due to some tachnical prablams."

He looks exactly like the guy who comes with Zayed Khan in the pizza hut ad. And by adding his weight to K.K. Chaudhary's and dividing by two, you get the average weight for a human adult.

That was about it as far as my professors go. They are a weird lot, but thanks to them, I am probably going to pass all my courses this semester.

A heartfelt thanks to tous mes professeurs.

My life

My life can be summarized completely in one simple, yet longish sentence.

"Anything I have ever done, at any point of time, under any circumstances, has somehow or the other, backfired."

In other words, my life is an unmitigated disaster.

Don't ask me about the latest addition to a long series of failures that has caused me to write this rather uncharacteristic entry. Just give me a lot of sympathetic comments.