The inescapable truth

Hej!

The holidays have ended. A new semester has begun. I am now officially a 2nd year student. Classes began a couple of days back. And, very frankly, I am a bit surprised about the fact that I have no idea how I feel about all of these recent developments.

The past few days have left me confused. Very confused. Till about a week back, I was sure about my reaction towards going back to IIT after a (very) long break. I was sure I was going to feel sad and dissatisfied and immensely unhappy about going through another 4 months of uninterrupted torture at a place I have, over the past year, come to strongly dislike. I was angry and irritated about the imminent end of the vacations. I was filled with dread at the prospect of attending never-ending lecture classes in the ominous-looking main building. I was filled with even more dread at the prospect of worrying about grades and marks all over again. Still more dread filled me when I thought about walking once again among people who were never more comfortable than when talking about the latest difficult Kinematics problem. And more than all of that, I was dreading the prospect of being addressed as an IC as I walked down long, seemingly endless, corridors.

But that was a week ago. Very surprisingly, as the day college was scheduled to reopen came closer, my angst and frustration were slowly replaced by very mixed feelings about my return to IIT. It is true that I never, at any point of time, actually looked forward to attending IIT again, like I used to do when school was involved, but I distinctly remember moments of uncertainty, when I remember feeling not all that bad about going back to IIT as I would have myself believe.

The last two days have done nothing to help me make up my mind. I remain as uncertain as ever. My feelings of ambivalence have, in fact, augmented since the day college reopened. If I was undecided about my feelings towards IIT at the time college reopened, I'm downright confused now. On the one hand, I am, after a gap of more than two and a half months, once again seriously contemplating suicide as an option. However, on the other hand, contrary to whatever I may have said earlier, and in spite of all the magnetic darts and brief newspaper appearances, I have to admit that the just concluded holidays have been a bit more boring than I had expected them to be. I can't really say I'm happy to be back at IIT, because I'm not, but saying I'm unhappy would just be an uncharitable lie.

Which brings me to a peculiar and rather upsetting conclusion that emerges logically from the above given facts. I have no idea when or how this happened, but for better or for worse, IITD and some of the people I know here have become an important part of my life. And nothing I might do or say, including bitching about IIT on this blog to keep it up and running, can change that.

I had intended to make this post a lot longer. I had intended it to be an introspective post telling everybody (myself included) what I thought about my holidays. I had also intended it to be a detailed account of the past two days, wherein I was supposed to write about the as-boring-as-ever classes, the as-weird-as-ever professors, a revamped CSC, a delightful couple of hours I recently spent in the Nilgiri Music Room, and a very interesting freshers'-quiz, but the philosophical implications of what I have just written have left me a bit dazed, and I don't much feel like writing any more.
So screw you guys, I'm going home.

Aaj bhi hain...

Aaj bhi hain pakde ye ummeed ki dori,
Don't lose hope is the moral of the story.
Jisne inse seekha life mein kabhi bhi naa jhukna,
Hot-seat pe milega bhaiyya, ummeed se dugna. Haha.

Insomnia

College is just about a week away, and the mourning, as a friend of mine with a very happy gift of expression puts it, has begun. The last two and a half months have come and gone quickly. So quickly, in fact, that I could almost hear them whoosh by. Undoubtedly, I have had fun, and could not have hoped for a better and more carefree set of holidays. But as the day college reopens nears, I can't help but feel a bit dismayed. I've enjoyed a lot, but there is still so much left to do, and so little time to do it in. There are more friends to meet. There are more movies to be watched. And there are so many more needless and insignificant arguments to be won. I feel, to put it in a nutshell, an acute shortage of free time before college reopens. I have therefore, stopped sleeping at night.

I know that many of you would like to express your reservations concerning the appropriateness of the course of action I have planned for myself. Many of you would be thinking it unwise and unhealthy. Many of you would even be going as far as questioning my sanity. I would like to say, therefore, at the very outset of this post, that I am not crazy. I admit that this might not be one of my brightest and most prudent ideas. I daresay it might be one of my most preposterous and absurd ones. But I can't do much about it, simply because it is not a conscious one.

What I mean to say is that there was at no point of time a single moment of inspiration when I suddenly sat up, sweaty and exhausted from mindless thinking, and said to myself, "Manu. You aren't going to sleep tonight. What's more, you aren't going to sleep tomorrow night either. And not the next. And not the next. And so on and so forth." What really happened was that I lay down one night to sleep, and couldn't. So I got up and started watching a movie instead. I lay down to sleep again the next night, and waited for sleep to take me, but it didn't, so I ended up reading all of the newspapers from the month of June instead. The next night, I couldn't sleep either, and re-rated all the songs on my iTunes library twice over to keep me occupied. The fourth night onwards, I gave up trying. It seems that my body, in a state of extreme panic due to the approaching end of the holidays, has simply forgotten how to sleep.

There's obviously nothing very wrong with not sleeping at night, except for the fact that one does tend to feel very tired throughout the day. But that, as far as I am concerned, is but a minor side-effect. The much bigger problem for me is to keep myself occupied at night, when everybody else is asleep. I usually see off my last friend on MSN at about 2:00 AM, and nobody at my place gets up before 5:30 AM. The three hours and thirty minutes that elapse between these two times are the hardest to pass, unless you happen to have an unread Harry Potter book in your hands. However, I have managed to do it for about a week now (6 nights actually, if I don't count the night I did have an unread Harry Potter book in my hands), and I am getting increasingly proficient at it.

So here, ladies and gentlemen, are some things one can do between 2:00 AM and 5:30 AM, and still live (as against die of boredom) to tell the tale.

1. Music. There's nothing better than listening to music at night. Everybody's asleep, which means that there's nobody to disturb you by asking you to clean your shoes or take a bath in the middle of your favorite song. All you need is lots of music, and relatively docile neighbors, and you're ready to go.
Harmful side-effects: Fit-to-burst parents and/or sibling(s), temporary deafness from 5:30 AM to 7:30 AM, and general tendencies exhibited by shoes and by you of getting excessively dirty.

2. SouthPark. If your parents can't stand your music, the next best thing to do is to watch SouthPark episodes. They're perfect for night-time viewing. They're not too mentally taxing and the names of the characters are short and easy to remember. Aseem Suri, a like-minded friend of mine, who also seems to be afflicted with a bad case of insomnia these days, compares watching SouthPark episodes to meditation. I totally agree, except that meditation is never as much fun.
Harmful side-effects: A marked increase in abuses/beeps in one's speech depending upon the extent of censorship in the watched episodes, rapid deterioration in one's sense of humor, and a general inclination towards using the phrase, "Oh my God! They killed Kenny. The bastards." excessively and completely out of context.

3. There's nothing that relieves the tedium at night like a long, winding walk. The weather, obviously, has to be nice. Walks are a complete waste of time when it is hot. A pleasant breeze that runs through your hair is much more desirable. The best weather to take a walk, however, is when it is raining. And at AIIMS, post-midnight rainfall, especially at this time of the year, isn't too much of a rarity. I must, however, make clear at this point of time that any post-midnight attempts to take on the wild outdoors are not entirely free from danger. Any mishaps occurring due to embarking on walks late at night after reading this blog will not be my responsibility. In other words, take walks late at your own risk.
Harmful side-effects: Colds and kidnappings.

4. Playing NFS: Underground. It's fun. It's fast. And you can watch cool cars collide and crash without experiencing any of the pain that is usually associated with such situations.
Harmful side-effects: General urges to drive at 160 mph on city roads, usually leading to undesirable consequences. Frantic searching for arrow keys at turnings, leading to still more undesirable consequences.

5. Reading: Reading is, by far, the best way to spend free time at night. No angry parents/siblings/neighbors, no risks involved, and no irritating withdrawal symptoms. When in doubt, pick up a book.
Harmful side-effects: None.

Of course, if nothing else works, one can always resort to aimless net-surfing. Reading blogs, posting comments and pointlessly taking worthless online tests takes up a lot of time. Which reminds me of this particular online test I took yesterday. Try it. It works well.

That about wraps it up for things to do at night. While none of them sound as good as sleeping, they fill up time just as well.

Before I go, I have another couple of things to write about.

I finished reading the 6th book in the Harry Potter series a couple of days back. It is, in short, an excellent read. As most of you would know by now, Dumbledore dies at the end. I always thought, ever since I was sucked into the Harry Potter phenomenon 4-5 years ago, that Albus Dumbledore was invincible. That come what may, he will be there, a solid rock of support for Harry to fall back on, and an eternal source of wisdom and intelligence that will continue to elucidate and enchant till the end of the series. I was wrong. He was, by far, my favorite character from the series and the fact that he was not as indispensable as I think he was, more than his dying, makes me sad.

Also, my hair has once again reached, as it tends to do every three months or so, the awkward length which lies somewhere between short and long. It is looking, very frankly, quite dreadful, and my mother, like is expected of her every three months or so, has started asking me to get them cut. If any of you reading this have any idea how to convince mothers that long hair is a good idea, kindly let me know. I will be grateful to you for the rest of my life.

Oh my God! They killed Kenny. The bastards.

Go make some science

Yesterday

I have much to write about, and not a lot of time. For I must get back to Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince.

The purpose of this entry is to keep all the people interested in my dull life updated with what's been happening. I wouldn't have gone through the time and trouble of posting this entry but for them. They seem to be more interested in my life than I am, and as a result seem to flock to this blog in large numbers. I would hate to see them leave disappointed. And therefore, I write.

Not much has happened since I last posted. Yesterday was fun. I went to VM. For the uninitiated, VM is an abbreviation for VidyaMandir, as in VidyaMandir Classes. VM is located in West Punjabi Bagh, and it is a place where students are taught Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics to help them prepare for the JEE, or the Joint Entrance Examination. The JEE, as all of you would probably be knowing, is the test one has to take to get into one of the seven IITs spread across the country. I used to study at VM for a period of two years, and I usually make it a point to go there at the beginning of every set of vacations, to see how things are getting along there. However, during these summer chhutis, every time me and my friends used to schedule a trip to VM, something or the other came up at the last moment, and we had to postpone the visit every time. Yesterday, however, me and three of my friends, who also studied in the same batch at VM as me, managed to finally realize our plans to drop in on the VM bhaiyyas (that's what we call our teachers at VM) at about 10:00 AM.
We spent quite a bit of time there. We met with a few of the bhaiyyas, and exchanged views with them on subjects ranging from ragging at IITD to recent movies. It was, as always, a pleasure to be at VM, and it was only at about lunch-time that we left the place.

The question that the four of us faced then was, in true H2G2 fashion, where to have lunch. In the absence of a better alternative, we settled for a McDonald's outlet. Then we decided to watch a movie, and once again, in the absence of a better alternative, had to settle for a movie called Maine Pyaar Kyun Kiya. I shall write more about it when I write a detailed post on the movies I have watched this week, so look out for a review then. Till then, all I would like to say is that if you have decided to go catch the movie sometime, you would do well to reconsider your decision.

That about wraps up the boring part of this entry, and I now move on to more interesting, although very slightly more interesting, things.
But before that, allow me to digress a little. I know I am straying from the task at hand, but I would like very much, at this point, to introduce a friend of mine. I have known him for quite some time now, but very surprisingly, he never quite got around to being mentioned on this blog. All that is about to change.

Rishi Kant, as this particular friend of mine is called, is a from the same school as me. He was in the same section as I was in classes XI and XII. After school, he, like me, made the awful mistake of deciding to pursue engineering, and as a result, is almost as sexually and mentally frustrated as me, and indeed most of the other engineering students of our country. He studies (I am not quite sure if the word 'studies' can do full justice to what I am trying to convey here, but whatever) at the Delhi College of Engineering, also known as DCE.

Besides that, Rishi is one of the best players of cricket I have had the fortune to meet, and one of the worst drivers I have been unlucky enough to travel with. He wears specs, has extraordinarily big teeth and an almost perfectly elliptical head. He is also in the habit of addressing people as 'Pandu' , and incessantly muttering obscenties when he has nothing better to do, which is always. Rishi used to, until a day back, stay at Green Park, and since Green Park is, geographically speaking, quite close to AIIMS Campus, I used to, until a day back, visit him quite frequently. He had therefore, over a period of the last 3-4 years, become a rather good, if somewhat eccentric, friend.

To put it in a nutshell, Rishi is an utter ass, and as a result, is extremely interesting company. Keeping a straight face is next to impossible when he is around. The sad thing is, he won't be around very often now.

Rishi left for the US yesterday. His dad got a very cool job there, and as a result his entire family has shifted to New Jersey. He will, very probably, come back sometime soon, but it is unlikely that he'll stay for a long time. He has applied for a transfer to a few US universities, and, being the person he is, he very probably will get one. He will, therefore, in all probability, spend the rest of his life driving fast cars (not very well, I might add), minting money, and pataoing hot, white chicks. In short, he'll be doing all the things I would love to do but would probably never get a chance to because I'm stuck at stupid IIT. Sad. Quite sad.

Anyway, what I am trying to say, perhaps not very successfully, for I never am at my articulate best when talking about such stuff, is that Rishi was a nice guy to have around. And while I might not exactly be devastatingly depressed and miserable because of his departure, I will go as far as to say that he will be missed. Rishi, dude, if you're reading this, keep in mind that coming from me, that's a lot. I don't usually say things like that.

Well, that done, I shall get back to Harry Potter.

Customary Calvin and Hobbes post

And you can't really blame them. Who wouldn't be?

Guess who's back?

If you guessed Manu, you were correct. You can pat yourself on the back, and commend yourself on a job well done. If you didn't guess Manu, you might as well just go away, because there is not much chance of you understanding most of the rest of this entry.

Moving right on, I would like to, firstly, make clear the reasons that kept me away from blogging for such a long time. Although I do realize that I do not owe anybody any explanations, it will make me feel better if I can justify my longish absence. The reasons are complex and varied, and might seem, at first, especially to the shallow-minded and superficial, to be slightly capricious. But they are not. They are extremely valid reasons.

At first, I didn't feel much like writing. This phase lasted about a week. And during this phase, I, well, didn't feel much like writing. Then, and this is where it gets really interesting, so follow me closely, I fell ill. And it was no ordinary illness. It was a fever, but not quite, for it was also a stomach problem.

Now, the thing is, I don't usually let illness affect me much. But as I said, this was no ordinary illness. A fever I can handle without much difficulty, and I have been known to show much courage and bravery when confronted with stomach problems, but ask me to handle the two simultaneously, and I would be compelled to refuse the generous offer. They just don't go well together, fevers and stomach problems, if you ask me. They, together, possess the potential to get in the way of your daily routine. And activities such as blogging quite lose their charm and significance when you are too busy alternating between visiting the lavatory and having thermometers stuck into your mouth.

After that, once I got over my illness, about a couple of days back, I was waiting for the comments counter on the previous post to come up to 42, for reasons entirely my own.

Well, the pleasant news is, I am all good and cured now, and the previous post has received the 42 comments it was destined to receive. I am also eagerly looking forward to regularly blogging again, and I have lotsa stuff to write about. So watch this space. Carefully.