Phew!

The last couple of paragraphs are nice. The rest of this entry is very eminently skippable. Just thought I'd let you know.

The minors are over. They reached their conclusion this Sunday, much on their own volition. They were, expectedly and quite unsurprisingly, unmitigated disasters. Each and every one of them. But, they're over, and, while I am quite happy that they are, the complex set of feelings that I experience currently do not quite conform to the usual sense of exhilaration that I generally experience immediately after a set of minor examinations. They are, to put it simply, different. They are much of the same quality, but not quite of the same magnitude. But before that, for purposes of better understanding, allow me to acquaint you with the way examinations usually work with me.

It all starts with denial, and it sets in about a week before the examinations are due to begin. I wake up in the morning, and simply refuse to acknowledge their existence. This period usually lasts about four days, and during these four days, I flatly refuse to admit, to myself or to others, the fact that the set of examinations in question is fast approaching. I flounce about, doing the things I usually do, doing them the way I usually do them, and, and this is the trickiest part of the process, filtering out all examination related thought and talk from normal non-examination related thought and talk and fiercely guarding against its entry into my head. It is this stage which probably sees me at my hysterical best, mostly because everyone around, at this point of time, is usually completely losing it, and seeing them completely losing it makes me hysterically happy. People don't like to talk to me too much during this period, for I am, most undoubtedly, quite a handful even when not at my hysterical best.

Then, approximately 70-80 hours before the first exam is due to start, comes the critical point in time when it suddenly dawns on me that the examinations are approaching, and not thinking about them, while an excellent means of keeping myself sane, wouldn't quite be very effective as far as making them go away is concerned. At this juncture, I almost invariably sit up rather suddenly, and cause all the things in my lap to fall down (I once broke a thermometer that way. I also once banged vital organs against the table that way. They hurt like crazy. Needless to say, I didn't do too well on the exams that followed.). This is when I completely lose it. I reach an excited and frenzied state, and it is in this excited and frenzied state that I start studying. I study for about an hour. Then I realize I am not getting anywhere. Then I call Mridul.

Mridul informs me about the syllabus, and tries to persuade me that much of it can be managed within the time that I have left. Somewhat reassured, I return to my studies. But try as I might, I am still unable to make much sense of the course. This is when I take contingency measures. I call Mayank.

There is much that can be said about Mayank, and most of it is not pleasant. But one must admit, if one is an objective observer and does not have a clandestine propaganda of one's own, that when it comes to patience, few manage to even come close to achieving levels that for Mayank are merely a walk in the park. The man is a virtual storehouse of patience. He cultivates, especially around examination season, an almost Buddhist attitude towards life. He listens to me ranting and raving for about 20 minutes (sometimes more), and interrupts only at times when I become insane enough to be unable to form coherent sentences. He then puts in a word or two, allowing me to cool down, and then promptly reverts to listening me rant and rave.

Then I sleep. All the shouting and yelling gets me tired. And when I get up, I get cracking. I study day and night, losing interest rarely and contemplating suicide only once every 3-4 hours. I direct all my (with me, that's not a lot) mental resources towards one goal, 'Surviving The Exams'. I consume jars of coffee. Somehow, under-slept, under-fed and half conscious, I make it to the first exam. I take it. I invariably mess it up. Then I get sad and disillusioned and my frequency of contemplating suicide goes up marginally. I start questioning the utility of my existence. These philosophical pursuits leave me rather unequipped to handle my second exam. After screwing that one up, I manage to settle to an almost consistent level of incompetence, and I wreck one exam after the other as the week crawls along.

When the last exam finishes, I sigh and say to myself, "Well. That didn't go too well. That didn't go too well at all. I'll study more next time." Then, I jump with joy (carefully though, for some of these IIT tables have very sharp edges), exclaim a joyful exclamation (like 'woo-hoo', or 'whoopa', or words to much the same effect), and spend the rest of the day dazed and high-spirited.

However, something odd happened this time. I did not go into denial-mode. Four days later, I did not hurt my dick. I did not make the customary distress calls. The minors arrived, and passed in a dull and hazy blur. One thing, however, did remain unchanged. They were just as bad as always.

When I reached the end of the last test, I sighed the sigh. I said to myself, "Well. That didn't go too well. That didn't go too well at all. I'll study more next time." Then, I jumped with joy (carefully though, for some of these IIT tables have very sharp edges). Then, something odd happened.
I stopped. I knew there was supposed to be more, but I couldn't figure out what that more was. It was only on my way home that I realized what it was, and the realization left me reeling with the slightly odd sensation of having been slapped in the face with a wet rag.

There had been no exclamation. There had been no 'woo-hoo'. There had been no 'whoopa'. And there had been no words to much the same effect.

Something was wrong. I was not exhilarated. I was very clearly not exhilarated. Relieved, yes, but not exhilarated. For if I was exhilarated, I would have exclaimed. I would have said 'woo-hoo' or 'whoopa' or words to much the same effect. But I hadn't, and I was, therefore, very conclusively not exhilarated.
My hypothesis is that age is finally catching up with me. But then, I could be wrong.

My lack of exhilaration, however, did not quite prevent me from having the time of my life on the rest of Sunday and Monday (which was a holiday for me). After being closeted in my room for about a week, leaving only about once a day, and that too to take a test, I found it very pleasant spending two whole days outside the house, in the wild outdoors, where men are men, beasts are beasts, and small furry creatures with pink noses that multiply quickly (the creatures, not the pink noses) are called rabbits.

On Tuesday, I slipped back into the monotony and tedium of IIT life. The last time I checked, I wasn't feeling too pleased with my dull and boring life, for I seldom do, but I definitely was relieved, for there seemed to be no more minors in sight to screw up. It will be a good long month before they rear their ugly head again.

Till then, I continue to grapple with myself, trying to find ways to maintain a philosophical calm while I am stripped of all dignity by the irony that is life. How else can one explain the fact that while Parvesh Nehra (He's an ass, by the way. That's all there is to know about him.) walks away with a simple and gentle reprimand for the 5 practical classes that he misses, I get deregistered from the same course for missing 1.
For the uninitiated, deregistration is not a good thing to happen, especially if you're at IIT. It tends to give rise to some rather inconvenient complications.

Before I sign off, I have a very pertinent question to raise. It is something that has been bothering me for a while now. I gave it some thought, because I was initially under the impression that the question, due to its rather awkward nature, was not quite fit to be put to people at large, but after much thinking, the answer continues to elude me, and therefore I have decided to ignore prudence and propriety, and have decided to ask for help. I hate unsolved puzzles, and any help in arriving at the answer to this particular question will be much appreciated.

Why do men spit in urinals?
If I've seen it once, I've seen it a hundred times. I've seen The Urinal-Spitters. They spit in the urinals. Their modus-operandi is somewhat similar. They enter the Gents' Washrooms as normal men do. They then proceed to relieve themselves, like normal men do. And just when they're about to leave and you begin to start thinking them normal, they look down and spit in the urinal.
So what exactly is the point that they are trying to make? What is the purpose of this wanton Urinal-Spitting? What makes men weak and despicable enough to stoop to such levels? What is their aim? Are they trying to show contempt towards the urine? Towards their own urine? Are they trying to tell us that they have nothing but disdain and derision for their own urine? And exactly what point does that serve?
Somebody help me, for I am lost. The questions just keep coming, and the answers, unfortunately, not so much.

Good Morning.