A pappi question

A very good day/night, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to my blog. If you're wondering about the significance of the weird title I have given to this post, and want to know what it is all about, then you've come to the right place, because the next few paragraphs of this post will be devoted almost entirely to that purpose.

My experiences with the word 'Pappi' began a little more than two months back, when I spotted an advertisement for an insurance company on TV. Metlife, I think it was, or maybe New-York Life Insurance. The commercial was one that instantaneously attracted attention. It featured two sardars, and Pappi, if I remember correctly, was the name given to the smaller one, who was, it seemed, having a 'Happy Budday Pappi' party. I took an immediate liking to the ad, maybe because it was a genuinely good ad, or maybe because it had in it, among other things, an overt and generous usage of the word 'Pappi'. I would not be exaggerating if I were to say that the word took an instant hold on me. I became obsessed with the word. I have a rather long history as far as obsession with words is concerned (That is to say, I cannot help myself from repeating words that are fun to repeat. Once in school, when I used to study Biology, I came across the term 'Golgibody', which is a name for some sort of a cell-organelle, and I liked the sound of it so much that for the next couple of days, all I could get myself to say was Golgibody, pronounced Gaul-ji-body. More recently, I had a thing for Pamposh Enclave. Did you know that there is actually a place in Delhi by that name.), but this obsession was like no other. It stayed with me longer than most of my previous wordly obsessions, and during its period of influence took complete control of me. I began to incorporate 'Pappi' into each and every sentence I used, many of which were just a string of 5-6 'Pappi's in quick succession. My friends started avoiding me. My family started using ear-plugs, and even I, under normal circumstances an extremely tolerant person, couldn't help but feel a bit peeved every time the word escaped my lips. I was upset, not so much with the word, as I was with my lack of will-power, for I have been aware for some time now that this obsesson of mine with weird-sounding words is an unmanly weakness, one which should be given up by me as soon as possible, but try as hard as I might, I somehow cannot restrain myself from overly using such pleasant to enunciate words, when I am under their influence.

However, what I must add is that, even at the peak of my obsession with 'Pappi', I never really used the word in any other form than a noun. (Pappi: A derogatory name which can be used to address somebody who is a)Dumb, b)Weird, c)Stupid, d)Not liked by Manu Saxena, or e)All of the above.) The potential of the word as another part of speech was not realised by me, until about two days back, when I was suddenly made concious of the word's limitless possibilities, during MEL 140 (Engineering Thermodynamics) class.

Regular readers of this blog will know that Engg. Thermodynamics is the only course this semester in which I have been able to understand most of the concepts done in class, making it an easy course, by any standards. Due to the ease with which it can be followed in class, I routinely divert a substantial component of my vast intellectual resources in other directions during the lectures, using only a small percentage of them for the task of understanding the laws of thermodynamics. The majority of these resources I use in pondering over questions pertaining to life, the universe, and everything else, or in sleeping. As I don't pay much attention to what is going on in class, I usually become acutely aware of what is happening around me (when I'm not sleeping), which causes me to notice things, such as I did in that eventful lecture class that was held two days ago. What happened, in brief, was this.

The professor, bent on finishing the course for the minors, was rushing through Tutorial Sheet-3, stopping only at questions that which were either important, or difficult, or both. Thus, when she stopped at question number 4, we were all expecting, to be quite frank, a toughie. But contrary to all expectations, the question turned out to be a sitter. It was then that a fellow student, and a good friend, unable to hide his surprise and indignity, hotly exclaimed, "Arre!! Yeh to pappi question hain."

Nobody is more awake to the fact than I, that during the course of this exclamation, my friend did not exhibit much of what might be called conversational sophistication. He was however, it must be kept in mind, in a state of great shock. His feelings could have been compared to a person whose rather unpleasant uncle, who he thought to be destitute, had suddenly died in the pink of health, leaving him a small fortune. It is, therefore, no wonder that my fellow IITan failed to immediately soar to great heights of eloquence, and as broad-minded human beings, we must try to forgive him for it. He did, however, manage to drive his point home, in the process making me realise the infnite possibilities that exist as far as the word 'Pappi' is concerned. Something tells me that the future of 'Pappi' is bright, and holds much promise. Who knows, 'Pappi' might some day even be allowed to gain entry into the Oxford English Dictionary, that revered book, that ultimate authority on the significance of seemingly insignificant words. As of now, my obsession with 'Pappi' continues.

Keeping 'Pappi' aside for a moment, allow me to move on to less important things. My heater got burnt yesterday. "How?", you might want to ask. Well, I was studying, or at least trying to fool myself into thinking that I was studying. The heater was on, as it is bound to be on these cold wintry days. Everything was going smoothly, until I came to this rather tough Mathematics question. Not knowing what to write, I looked up idly from my notebook towards the heater for inspiration, and found it engulfed in flames. When I took it to the repair guy at Yusuf Sarai, he said, with supreme casualness, "Iska to heating element jal gaya hain." He charged me 150 bucks to fix the thing, which means that my plans to watch Black (the movie) in a theatre after the minors have suffered a deadly financial blow, a blow from which they might not recover, and in time die a painful death. Which means that I will have to follow the following algorithm (I will be giving my Computers minor tomorrow, and algo practice is good preparation.) to make sure that I don't miss watching the movie.

1. Convince my parents that the movie is very good, and definitely worth a watch, by citing selective reviews.

2. Convince my parents to go watch the movie in a hall.

3. Tag along when my parents are going to watch it, so that I don't have to pay for the ticket.

That ought to do the trick.

Before I go, I must add that I am beginning to take a liking to IIT. I might have been a little over-critical when I wrote those long blog posts about how dreadful and weird the place seemed at first. Turns out that all one has to do is completely stop caring about academics, find one's niche, and stop going to all NCC-related events, and life at IIT becomes a lot more bearable, maybe even a little interesting.

Oh, and I had my first minor yesterday. Got screwed in it, as usual. But then, I've stopped caring now.