Pee or battle

Yep. That's what my Chemistry Professor used to often say in class. Every time he wanted to say something about p-orbitals. I say 'used to say' because he doesn't teach me any more. I'm glad. IIT is hard enough without having to make weird and unpleasant choices.

I return, to the dismay of all.

It has been a very long time since I last wrote. Partly because this last week was probably the dullest week of my life, and partly because I was very busy and had a completely packed schedule, what with tests, quizzes and NCC Parade rehearsals going on. Except for all the stuff mentioned in the last sentence, not much has happened since I last wrote. What has happened, I will proceed to write here.

I saw Amélie (or more accurately Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain) a couple of days back. It is an amazingly well made movie. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it. There is only one word that comes to mind when describing the movie: 'Beautiful'. It is a beautiful movie, one of the best I have seen in a long-long time. And if the movie is amazing, the sound-track is even better. It's practically all I've been listening to for the past five days. As a fellow blogger and a friend recently, and very accurately, observed, "It's music you'll fall in love with."

Besides that, one of the other interesting things that have happened since I last wrote is the fact that I have gotten a haircut. What is so interesting about a haircut, you might want to ask. Let me explain. This was no ordinary haircut. I got my hair cut short this time. Really short. I usually like to keep my hair rather long, so this was a big change. The last time I had hair this short was probably sometime back in class tenth. Now, anybody who knows me well, knows that I am rather fond of my hair. So why would I do such a thing to it. The answer is rather simple. A couple of days before Republic Day, the army guy who was supervising our parade came up to me, and issued a threat. The exact phraseology of the threat issued cannot be reproduced here, keeping in mind general standards of decency and sophistication of language. The threat, I would like to say, was extremely effective (Primarily because it was not in keeping with general standards of decency and sophistication of language) and immediately succeeded in its aim, which was to get me to get a haircut. It was, in fact, a lot more effective than was necessary, which explains my present state. My friends at IIT, who are not used to seeing me like this (I have maintained long hair since I joined IIT about seven months back) have started calling me ganja (The Bald One). However, short hair, I would like to add, does have some plus points. I can now save about half a minute every day in the morning, as I don't really have to comb my hair anymore. And the feel of the wind on my scalp is one of the most soothing and uplifting feelings that I have had the good fortune to experience during my, so far, short lifetime.

I did my Republic Day Parade today. As I have probably mentioned earlier on this blog, all IIT NCC Cadets are supposed to put up a Republic Day Parade every year. The Parade went good, and as a result I am 20 hours closer to the required 100 hours that need to be done before I stop viewing approaching weekends with dread and apprehension.

I took my first test, or quiz of the semester three days back. As expected, I got screwed. It is heartening to know that some things have remained the way they were before the winter holidays started. I am beginning to get used to getting screwed in tests and exams now, and this latest disaster (an unmitigated one, I might add) did not disturb me much. Yes, I was momentarily unhappy. But I was back to being my cheerful and bright self exactly 1.5 minutes after the test ended. I think my new-found exuberance and cheeriness has something to do with the short hair. I feel so light and elevated these days. It is as if a great load has been lifted off my head. Or it could just be that I have stopped caring. It's one of those two. Which one, I really don't care.

I got my permanent driving license yesterday. I am, as a result, happy. I am now legally permitted to drive on Indian roads. The only qualm I have with the license is the fact that it shows me with my hair cut short, as it is now. Which means that even if I do manage to grow my hair long again (from the looks of it, I think its going to take years), I will still not be allowed to forget my short-haired state, atleast not till the year 2025 (That's when the frikkin thing expires).

And now I must leave you. This blog entry has gone on long enough.

I know not why I hadn't downloaded this song earlier

I finally downloaded 'Bulla Ki Jana' by Rabbi today. Very cool song. I liked it.

The only thing better than the song itself is the video. But being on dial-up, there is no way I am going to be able to download that, unless I am willing to run up a telephone bill of a few thousand. I guess I'll have to get it some other way.

Also, I am happy. Things seem to be finally looking up on the academic front. Today, we discussed Joule's Experiments in Thermodynamics class, and I am happy because this is the first topic I have managed to fully understand so far in this semester. I had been completely unable to understand anything in any course. But that was until today. Now, I understand Joule's experiments. And since I do, I am going to write about them. Why?? Because I can, and that's saying something.

There was this British guy, whose name was J.P. Joule. Now, one day, Joule was stirring his chai. For some weird reason, he was doing so in an insulated container. Insulated container bole to, jisme garmi andar-bahar nahin hone ka (watched Munnabhai MBBS yesterday, good movie). So Joule was stirring his chai. Now, Joule happened to be diabetic (That's a fact.). So why was he stirring his chai, you may ask, since it was definitely not to dissolve the sugar. Good question. He was stirring his chai to cool it down. So imagine his botheration, irritation and frustration when, to his surprise, the chai became hotter instead of cooler.

"Heat is a form of Energy.", he very logically concluded, and started drinking coffee instead.

Sucker Love

Today (actually yesterday) was the 2nd day of a 3 day-long weekend. However, instead of enjoying life, and celebrating the fact that Makar Sankranti turned out to be on a Friday, I was entertaining myself by marching up and down a football field.

All NCC cadets are supposed to put up a parade on the 26th of January, and preparations for the parade are in full flow. Some weirdo from the Indian Army had come over to supervise our parade today, and the guy went completely berserk on seeing us (Don't really blame him. We Suck.). He got us all to run 5 or 6 rounds of the field instead of the usual 2, to warm up. And then he punished us for small things like not looking ahead while marching, and not shouting (which he, for some reason, pronounced as 'shooting') loudly while giving and taking orders. His punishments were also much tougher than the usual punishments that are given to us. At one particular point of time he told all of us to do something which he referred to as 'Maindhak-Chaal' (Frog-Walk)

For the interested, here is how you do the 'Maindhak-Chaal' (Frog-Walk, for those who weren't paying attention). You place your hands on your waist, and bend on your knees, so that your butt rests on your heel. Once that has been achieved, you press your toes hard against the ground, so as to produce an upward motion, and the calf muscles get tensed. Then using these contracted calf muscles, you jump, and at the same time move forward. It is something like a duck-walk, but atleast three times more physically taxing, because you don't have to walk. You have to jump. Once you know the procedure for one jumping motion, repeat this entire process across two lengths of a football field, in strict time to drum-beats, and you have a rough idea of what I went through today. I say rough because I still haven't mentioned the push-ups and the hand-stands. And the fact that like a fool that I am, I went to play cricket in the evening, followed by badminton. It was good I took the car along to the badminton courts, because I am quite sure I wouldn't have been able to walk back.

But enought about NCC. I have already devoted an entire post to NCC earlier, and I don't feel much like writing about NCC right now. What I actually wanted to write about in this post is that I have been having very weird dreams/nightmares lately. I had one two nights ago, in which me and a few of my friends were, for some weird reason, trying to kill each other using guns, and we were doing all this, for some weirder reason, inside the CSC (Computer Services Centre, for all the non-IITans). It ended rather abruptly, when I was shot down by Mayank Gupta, one of my very good friends. Then there was another one in which I was sitting in a movie hall watching TV (Yes, TV!!) on the huge screen, and the remote control was, again, for some weird reason, with me, and I made everybody else in the hall watch Teletubbies. And I am also having the recurring Airport-Dream again. But seeing that this entry is already longer that I intended it to be, I'll save the Airport-Dream for some other post.

As far as movies go, I saw, in the last two days, The Godfather, parts of The Godfather Part II, and the first half of Mohabbatein. Mohabbatein, I thought, was a crappy film. Both the Godfathers were nice, although I believe the first one was much better. I also believe that most would agree with me on that. If you don't, I would like to remind you that this is my blog, not yours, so, go to hell.

Before I leave you, a few lines from a very good, and in my case, a very relevant song.

Like the naked leads the blind,

I know I'm selfish, I'm unkind.

Sucker love I always find,

Someone to bruise and leave behind.

Goodnight.

On resolutions and wicked administrators

A lot has happened since college re-opened for the 2nd semester, after the winter break. A brief recap.

A lot of people came up to me the last week and asked me about my new year resolutions. When I said I didn't have any, most of them looked at me strangely, as if I was some worthless low-life who didn't belong at IIT, while the others were convinced that I had lofty ambitions for the new year, the details of which I was unwilling to divulge. I want to make this very clear. I do not have any new-year resolutions. I just don't believe in them. Yearly resolutions never do anyone any good. I make weekly resolutions, and then I try my best to stick by them. Yearly resolutions tend to be too long-drawn, and in most cases, too impracticable for my liking.

I have a Computer Science course this semester, called CSL102 (Introduction to Computer Sciences). The teacher, Professor S.A. Kumar, is a very cool teacher. The only strange thing about him is that he seems to be obsessed with administrators with questionable morals. He has a firm belief that all network administrators are demented sadists who delete or modify user's data for game. Strange, but mild compared to normal IIT professor standards. I am sure we can all live with it.

One of my professors asked me why I took the JEE about three days back. The question set me thinking. I haven't yet come up with a reason, except the fact that all my friends were taking it, so it seemed the natural thing to do. But my professor thought this wasn't a good enough reason. If any one of you can think of a better one, please do let me know, because the fact that I took the JEE without any motive in mind is, frankly speaking, quite a scary thought.

I recently came to know that Louis DeBroglie, the guy who came up with the whole 'Matter Waves' concept was actually a historian. His elder brother, Maurice DeBroglie, who was the actual physicist, was working on the 'Wave-Matter Duality' principle, but couldn't come up with anything concrete. Enter Younger DeBroglie. Louis did an instant voluntary DepC (Department Change, in IIT lingo), and within an year he had with him the expression for the DeBroglie Wavelength for particles. After another 4 years came experimental proof, and almost immediately after it, the Nobel Prize. Poor Maurice, shown up by a historian kid brother.

I have PHL120 this semester. After attending 3 lecture classes, I totally agree with the statement that was spotted by a friend of mine, engraved on one of the lecture-theatre desks. "Never, ever take PHL120 as an elective."

Having new courses this semester, I decided to go to the IIT Central Library a few days back, to look for some of the text-books I will be needing this semester. I didn't find a single one. However, as consolation, I found all the text-books I needed and couldn't get last semester, and about 50% of the text-books I will be needing next semester. From what I've heard, most of my friends who, like me, were brave enough to venture into the library had similar experiences. I have a feeling that this is another one of the numerous conspiracies hatched by IIT to make our lives miserable. How they manage to do it, however, is something that eludes me for the moment.

I did my first Physics experiment of the semester today, and I learnt many things. Firstly, never lend ruler(s) and pencil(s) to people who you do not know well, especially if you know you might require them (the rulers and the pencils) at a later point of time. Secondly, don't bother much with the TAs (Teaching Assistants, who are usually PhD students). They don't know a thing about the experiment you are doing, but somehow seem to be doing theses on the experiment your neighbor is doing. And thirdly, do not, under any circumstances, try to poke the terminals of a charged capacitor with your fingers.

With that I must bid Adieu. And in the words of the legendary SAK, "Beware of Wicked Administrators!"

Ab... Bus

It’s been quite a long time since I last wrote on this blog. After a break of exactly a week, I am back. A lot has happened during the last one week, much of which I would love to write about here. But all that will have to wait till the next post, as this post will be dedicated exclusively to Delhi’s most commonly used mode of public transportation, the Bus. I will be writing about how buses, and more specifically Bus Route No. 507, play an integral part in my life.

You might be inclined to ask me why I show this bias towards Route No. 507. It is because 507 is the 'King Of Buses'. Allow me to make my reasons a bit clearer.

I live at AIIMS. I study at IIT. I watch movies at Priya. And I play LAN games at Reliance Web-World, near Priya. As a result, I spend about 95% of my time at one of these 4 places. And bus no. 507, the 'King Of Buses', conveniently connects all these 4 places. The only problem with bus no. 507 is the fact that the service is crappy. But we'll come back to that later.

Let me first acquaint my readers with my daily bus-schedule. I have classes at IIT at eight in the morning these days. I get up at about 7:25 every morning, and reach the AIIMS bus stop at about 7:55 AM. At that time, I am still half-asleep, and I groggily board the first bus that I see. (I once boarded a school-bus by mistake and ended up at a school someplace in East Delhi. Since then I have been very careful to avoid buses with 'Vedram Public School' written on them.) It is an extremely good thing that all buses (except school-buses) from AIIMS go to the IIT fly-over, without taking any turns on the way. This means that I can afford to groggily board any bus in the morning (except school buses) without worrying too much about where I am going to get to. Once the bus gets to the IIT fly-over, luck comes into play. If I am extremely unlucky, the bus takes a left, away from IIT, increasing my walk to get to class by about a kilometre. Under normal circumstances, the bus goes straight, which means that I get down on the Mehrauli side IIT gate, a ten minute walk from the main academic building. However, if I am very lucky, the bus turns out to be a 507 (the odds of this occurring are infinitesimally small, due to the above mentioned poor frequency), and takes a right, and drops me right in front of the main IIT gate. No crossing of roads. No lengthy walks. When I am lucky enough to be in a 507, I am in class within 3 minutes of getting down at the bus-stop, which means I am only about 15 minutes late for class.

The only drawback, as I mentioned earlier, with 507 is that it has a very very poor frequency (1 every half an hour or so). 507 is the most crowded and heavily used bus, but for some reason there are fewer buses on this route than any other. The chances of getting a seat on a bus with Route Number 507 are practically nil. A 507, at an average, holds about 200 people at any given time. You have to stand all the way, in an aisle which contains a solid mass of human bodies congealed together, having a width of approximately 3 human body units, and a length of approximately 40 human body units.

Now, I don’t really mind standing in bus no. 507, because I know that it gets me to my destination in the minimum time, and I know the importance of choosing efficiency over comfort. What really gets to me is something else. When 120 people stand in a bus-aisle, all with their arms hanging from the overhead support bar, the major problem is not the physical discomfort. It is the smell that poses one of the gravest challenges. It is the smell of about a dozen kinds of body-odour fused together. Winters, for obvious reasons, tend to worsen the situation. Route 507 is not for the feeble-hearted. The smell can get slightly overpowering at times, and fainting episodes aren’t completely unheard of in buses which ply on this route. The smell in 507 is one of the main motivations for me to quickly get a permanent driving license. Then I probably wouldn’t have to go through this mental torture everyday.

However, it is not all bad. There are some good things about traveling in 507. The entertainment factor is one of them. 507 goes to Okhla, which, from what I hear,is a very interesting place. One gets to hear a lot of remarkable stuff about the place. Today, for example, I heard a very interesting conversation between two people about the deteriorating quality of fish there, and how it is unjust that people living in South Delhi get better fish than people living in Okhla.

In the last half year, I have spent a large amount of my time on buses. With the semester restarting, bus travel has once again become common in the last week. But I have yet to come across any other bus-route half as interesting as 507. 507 is not just a bus-route. It is an experience. An experience that should be undertaken at one's own risk.

Again!!

Yesterday was the last day of my winter holidays. And what did I do on the last day of the winter break? To that my answer would be, "I went and watched Veer-Zaara. Again." I had no idea how I was going to spend the last day of the holidays until about 10:00 in the morning yesterday. Then, I asked myself, "What is it that I most enjoyed doing during these chhuttis?", and the answer became clear. It was then that I decided to go watch a movie. And since there was no good new movie on, and I really wanted to see Veer-Zaara again, that was precisely what I did.

This was the second time I saw the movie. And the second time I liked it. If possible I liked it even better than I did the first time. And this time, I came closer to crying at the end. Didn't make it though.

The obvious conclusion that can be drawn from the preceding paragraph is that I like movies that make me feel sad. It is a very disturbing conclusion, and it might lead many to think that there is something wrong with me. But disturbing or not, I think it is more or less accurate. I have always liked sad movies. It takes a lot to make me feel sad, but movies that manage to make me feel so, do tend to impress me. However, the fact that Veer-Zaara made me feel sad and thoughtful is not the only reason I liked it. All those who have read my earlier blog entry on the same movie (About a movie, dated November 22, 2004) will agree that the movie did profoundly affect me. I think I now better understand the reasons why I liked the movie so much, and why it has affected me so profoundly. They will not, however, find a mention here. My reasons are my own, and I do not see why I should put them down here.

Although I have mentioned this before, what I would like to say again is that Preity Zinta is looking very nice in the movie. She has never looked this good, in any of the movies she has done so far. I could watch the movie again and again, atleast half a dozen times more, just to see her. The other thing in the movie that appeals to me is the purity. The feelings portrayed by the two characters in the film are pure and unchanging. I happen to be a hopeless romantic at heart, and the fact that such true love does not really exist in the real world saddens me. It is why I could watch the movie again and again. To see all that love should be, and all that it isn't actually in the real world.

It's a BAD BAD world. And just for that, it isn't going to get a post from me the whole of next week. Not that it is going to make much of a difference to the thousands out there, but it is definitely going to make one to me.

I know I sound weird, but I just happen to be in a weird mood right now. Hopefully I'll get over it soon. I have a week. Then I'll be back. Back with entries that are funny and light, and are appreciated by all. Back with fresh and unusual blog posts. Again.

The year that was

The year has come to an end, bringing with it an end to my holidays. Today happens to be my last chhutti. I don't have much to write about, so I think I'll look back a bit and write about the year 2004.

Just about over an year back, at the beginning of the year 2004, my life was in a state of complete disarray. Class XII pre-boards were about to start. VM classes (my JEE coaching classes) were becoming harder by the day. My marks at school, as well as at VMC were pathetic, and the boards and JEE-2004 were threats that seemed quite insurmountable. To make matters worse, school was on the verge of ending. The fact that in a few days I would no longer have a school to go to was just about beginning to sink in, and I was, understandably, not in the best of spirits.

Just as the clock had struck midnight , signifying the beginning of year 2004, I had thought to myself about the importance of the coming year (2004). About how it was going to be the most crucial year in my entire life. About how my entire life depended on it. Understandably, these thoughts did not make me feel much better.

January 2004 was perhaps the worst month I have ever had in my life. The pre-boards, which started about a week into 2004 were crappy. I got 79%. Not a disastrously bad aggregate percentage, I agree, but what pained me was not the fact that I had not done too well at my pre-boards, but the fact that for the first time in my entire school-life, I got less than 80%, and that too on the last set of examinations I was supposed to give at school. If I had only gotten above 80% on my pre-boards, I would have had the enviable record of never getting less than 80% throughout my stay at school. But it was not to be.

Things just got worse from there. The disaster of the year came in the 3rd week of January, during my Physics Board Practical examination. The external examiner, an irritable bitch from some small school on the outskirts of the city, had something against public school students. She was shouting incessantly during the entire practical. On a random whim, she started going through a couple of Practical Files, and mine happened to be the first one she looked at. She found something she did not like (I had lost some data relevant to one of the experiments, and to save myself the trouble of doing the entire experiment again, I had, with the permission of my teacher, stuck a photo-copy of the observation table in my file, which I got from one of my group-members, who had also done the experiment with me.), and all Hell broke loose. I was called from my seat, where I was peacefully trying to set up a meter-bridge experiment, and was shouted at for close to half an hour. She said a lot of things, and some of them were not pleasant. I had always been a good student at school, and when she accused me of being a cheat and a shame to the schooling system in India, I was, to be quite frank, hurt. I was also shocked. Surely she was over-reacting. I mean, I had just messed up 1 of the 11 experiments, even if you could call that messing up. But I patiently listened to her, and quietly returned to my seat once the tirade ended, having being told earlier that saying anything against the Board Examiner would not be an advisable course of action. The episode didn't end there. I later found out that I had been given 22 on 30 on my practical, inspite of turning in a perfect experiment, and managing an above average viva. And that is inspite of the fact that the Practical File is marked out of a maximum of 5 marks.

It was at that point that I had thought that things just could not get any worse. Thankfully, I was right. At that juncture I regained a bit of my lost luck. I started studying a lot harder, and things did get better.

The rest of the Board Practicals went pretty well, and I ended up with 30 on 30 in both Chemistry and Computers. The boards went well, and I managed a 90%. JEE-2004 was not half as difficult as I had expected it to be. It could have been a lot better, but I am not complaining. I got a decent rank, thanks to which I am in a decent branch at IIT, Delhi. I had an excellent month-long vacation when I visited mom at Winnipeg, Canada, immediately after taking the JEE.

The past 5-6 months have gone by quickly. Classes everyday. Quizzes and debates once in a while. I am already a semester old into this place. I have griped a lot about IITD, as I am sure all of you who regularly read this blog would know. But I've had fun. All in all, it was a good semester, and the fact that I managed an 8.5 in it makes it seem even better.

I hope that this year goes well. I know that it isn't as crucial or important as last year was, but I would like to do well. If I can do half as well in the coming year as the last 11 months, I'll be a very happy person indeed.

Today happens to be my last chhutti, as I have mentioned earlier in this post. Tomorrow onwards, I will have to get back to the grind. Back to the terrible lecture theatres and workshops of IIT, Delhi. I still have not decided how to spend this last day of my holidays. Any suggestions? Feel free. The comments section is all yours.

And before I sign off, once again, a Very Very Happy New Year to everybody reading this.