Its that time of the year again ...

Its christmas time again ! \m/
This has always been my favorite time of the year... everything and everyone around is so ...happy :D
I thought about it today, and discovered that there are many reasons as to why I like christmas time more than any other time of the year:

1.) Its just a purely happy time :D, although other festivals like diwali also are similar in theri happiness quotient
2.) There are festivities all around, everything just becomes so colorful. I like that :D ( again, diwali scores here )
3.) The holidays are neither too short, nor too long. Diwali time, the holiday is generally too short :-/
4.) Even after christmas eve and christmas, the holidays continue for a few more days at least. And theres also the new year which is another happy day. That keeps up my optimism :D
New year is also a happy time, but there's the whole new year ahead, that somehow feels like a monday :| . Diwali, of course, is standalone.
5.) There are no colors or crackers or insanely loud sounds that one usually experiences during Diwali or holi. I like this way better. Of course, the year would be too empty and drab without the diwali and its crackers and colors, but once a year seems to be just perfect.
6.) The whole world celebrates ! I like to imagine people in various countries, celebrating in their own way

there might be some more points, but I'm too happy to think of any more right now :D
There's this carol singing that the institute has organised, and I just came from there... although I'm bang in the middle of term end exams, today's the day when I blissfully enjoy the moment :D

Just felt like posting and spreading some of this happiness that invariably swells up inside me every year during christmas :D
merry christmas and a happy new year to all !

Musical musings

I always associate a particular song with a particular period in my life. I don't do it consciously, it just sort of associates itself with that time, and whenever I hear that music, I'm flooded with memories of that particular period. Memories that are surprisingly rich in detail.
The problem with this is that I can't really subjectively simply enjoy the song from that point. It has a 'tag' etched in it forever, which I can never really disassociate from the song.
On the plus side, I like it when memories come flooding back. Be it good or bad. Good, because it makes me smile, bad because it makes me smile that I somehow got through those times.
One such song is floyd's 'high hopes' , which is exactly what I was listening to right now. It reminded me of my last 2 weeks at BITS.
Even as i type, a new song is getting associated with this time of chillmax life, when the usual assignments and quizzes etc fail to really burden you anymore and in general that's about all there is to academic life right now.

I'm learning the guitar on my own now, though it sucks that I have to make a tremendous effort to actually put it down after a while and get on with some courses that i'd rather not spend any time on.
Its CAT time again, heres wishing all the candidates the best of luck :)
thats all folks!

Bhook value

V

Its that time of the year, when life is the most hectic it will get in my 2 years here. This half-term is punctuated with innumerable presentations by companies pitching for recruiting for summers, each presentation lasting on an average for about two hours. Two hours is precious time (lost), especially in these times, when the sleep receivables are accruing to ominous levels, and even weekends are somewhat dreaded, for the flurry of deadlines we have to meet, either regarding company forms, some mundane assignments no one gives too much of a damn about but have to be completed anyways, and attempting to address the accumulating summer prep backlogs, among other things.
This is also the time when I'm actually quite enjoying things out here. Till now, it was mainly about cribbing about the enormous workload dumped upon us, the apparently useless assignments that invariably form a part of any course anywhere in the world, and all the other things worth complaining about. However, with summers, the actual implementation of what we're supposed to have learnt, how little we know right now, how much one has to cover to even have a faint hope of not appalling the recruiter with our profound ignorance, and most importantly, how practical all this really is, has come to the fore.
This is also the term when our section has got the most wonderful profs, and the subjects seem more relevant than ever. Each prof brings his/her own eccentricities to the class, which makes it all the more interesting. Of course, you can't help but sleep in some of the classes, either because you have been up last night, doing something which you should have done in a fraction of the time you actually took to complete, or simply because you find that particular subject to be not half as interesting as some of the other ones.

I have this exam I have signed up for, to obtain a certification from NSE, called NCFM (NSE certification iin Financial Markets) tomorrow, and theres 150 pages of esoteric stuff that I'v got to study for that, so I'll sign off.
I can almost smell the light at the end of the tunnel. Just about a month and a half now. Then its freedom, at least relatively :D

Fun @ iima

One of the untold (and probably, only) fun parts of being a PGP1 Student at IIMA:

Zooming about in your room, in these awesome chairs-with-wheels that they provide you with.

Wheeeeee !

I should seriously consider getting a life.

The million dollar question

8 Days. 8 quizzes. Surprise.

P( 9th quiz | 8 consecutive quiz days ) = .9999999....

So which subject's gonna be next ?

Ladies and Gentlemen, don't go anywhere! We'll find out on the other side of this short break !

The experience

I'm back to the blogging scene as a temporary moment of insanity consumes me, what with the hellish week we've been having after the blissful no-quiz routine that I had unfortunately gotten quite used to.

Three surprise quizzes in three days, not entirely unexpected. So whats the surprise here ?

Well, owing to the fact that the we were strangely fortunate to have the last week declared as a no-quiz week, which of course resulted in some pretty crude celebrations, the likes of which had hardly been seen during the second week after midterms, the time when the word 'quiz' becomes the most feared thing, and it was pretty much expected that after that piece of good..,no, supremely outstanding piece of good fortune, the third week was pretty much gonna be a killer.

And it has lived upto our expectations. Though the surprise element in there being a quiz has been obliviated, there is still the aspect of which subject.

To make matters even more convenient, all subjects are completely up to date on the 'askable-in-quiz' part of portions, so there's no respite for us poor over exploited souls.

Now that the cribbing part has been dealt with, I must say the last week was quite fabulous. Though the number of assignments was in no measure small, the feeling of impending doom in the quiz that might happen the next day was conspicuously absent :D.

Of course, one gets immune to such tactics by the system to bow you down to submission.

I saw the Arsenal game yesterday although there was the really horrible prospect of there being a quiz in one of particularly disastrous (for me) two courses, and then blissfully slept off.

One of the consequenses of which was that I was totally unprepared for a class (Unprepared here does not mean not read the case or something, that I never do anyways, unprepared means we had a presentation by a random group in class, and our group had not done anything, which, btw, is a cardinal sin at iima).

God helps those who help themselves, and He also helps Oink from time to time. After some nerve wreaking random group number generating moments, I heaved a sigh of relieef.

My phone rang. That itself is quite phenomenal as my phone seldom rings. Putting that aside, my phone rang today in class. It was then that the thought struck me that today might be quite my lucky day. The unbelievable part was that the phone rang 5 minutes after the class was over, in the 15 minute break given between classes. It was not in silent. 5 minutes earlier, or 10 minutes later, and I would have been screwed. Yet another inexpilcable quirk of fate, only this time, and its been some time coming, in my favor.

To top it all, the two subjects I was abso-freaking-lutely dreading, had no quiz today. It was some random globe subject that was to take the honors of having a quiz today. Though I have no idea how I have done, I do know that I shall not flunk.

Well, time seems to not whoosh by you, it seems to actually disapparate and leave you with a 'Smack! you're late!' feeling.

That feeling's just struck me now, and i realize i gotta rush.

Adios

Long un

its ironic, isin't it , that i never posted when i was at the pinnacle of joblessness, but now that im buried under with never ending assignments deadlines etc, this is my second post in, what, 4 days ?

Well, not quite. There is this thing of having something to post about. Or even if nothing very postable has happened in the recent past, at least something other than nothing that is getting on your nerves. What has happened is that im totaly sick of this fart course that im having to study, this has no credits whatsoever, just random philosophical stuff picked out from heaven knows where, pages and pages of globalization of a few random, repeating, so-called facts, which is then randomly shot down, ending with something of the 'we can't really decide at this point' variety, and all this after about the only 100 odd pages of reading assignment even before the subject has actually begun as part of the classes, and as if this wern't enough, making this a group assignment so you can't even finish this at your own pace, but have to wait and match teh schedules of everyone in the group, wait for everyone to finish their part, which seldom happens synchronously, so that the thing that you could have done, with tremendous application and focus, i have to add, say, in less than an hour and a half, you end up not completing even in a little over 3 hours, the remaining of which you spill over for the next day, when you'd rather be pursuing other things, sleep being one of them.

Now that that not so short a sentence is complete, my mind is fresh again, and i shall resume attacking this mundane 0 credit subject.

adios

iimba

Its 3 20 am, tomorrow's the, correction, today's the first iim ahmedabad class for us. I just thought i'd post a small post before going off to sleep. Yes, im sleeping at 3 am, its wayy to early by iima standards, seeing as i'v been sleepin not before 5 the last two days, when classes were non existent. Today, after preparation of two cases and an assignment, all this before even a millisecond of class is underway for that mba degree waiting at the end, i feel a sense of deep satisaction. For the past two days iv been more busy than my entire stint at bits put together, minus the waves time.

The thing is, im loving it. This is what college should be like. Bits had its own awesome moments. Its just that i needed a change, and this is just it. I have so much fallen for this place.

I should really not be spending any spare time doing anything other than sleeping, as its a rare commodity here, even before the first bouncer has been bowled by the profs. The seniors are the most amazing people i'v ever met. They not only inspire, not only are they the most helpful, they are almost the managers that one would expect out of this hyped an institute. i am awed by the tremendous change that one year at B-school brings to the personality. The way things are gone about here is just ... inspiring. I never quite believed the hype associated with these so called premier institutes. But i see now that it does change you, and for the better. Management is much more than a load of tosh, as i have come to experience these past few days.

I just hope this love affair lasts a long long time.

ID Mubarak !

Okay, my stint in bits comes to an end, and im back to blogger. Net speed is now back to what i would like it to be.
On my way home from bits, i was thinking about the alarming amount of time i spend in front of my computer, especially if i have nothing to do. well, yours truly decided that once home, the computer will get to see a lot less of me.
It went on well on Day 1. The laptop lay blissfully packed in its cover, and the resolution looked to live the first day.
Only to be spectacularly broken the second day. Not that i became desperate or anything. What just started with a seemingly harmless pestering by my sis to open the laptop and show her all that i'd downloaded from DC in college, snowballed into the breaking of my resolution that i had really wanted to keep.
again, it started because of the fact that my sis, what with her unique name n all, could get, at quite a late stage, an email id hername@gmail.com. Pure. elegant.
Thus began my attempt at obtaining elegant emails.
Obviously, myname@gmail.com was not an option, courtesy my oh-so-not-uncommon name.
Then began the variations, ranging from myname.initial to initialmyname, to all possible variations that i percieved to be an email worthy of posting in my ceve.
I gave up in the end, cursing the day when i chose horcruxer as my email id, when i could very well have gotten any damn ID that i had wanted, seeing as gmail had just been launched then and was through invites only.
Then comes microsoft to the rescue :D . apparently they have launched this live.com, a new thing that combines multiple windows utilities. What the heck, who cares. All i care is that i got my yogeshp@live.com ID :D :D
yoyo. Now i'l re-resolve to not sit in front of the comp for to long. Hopefully, nothing as interesting as this will come up in the next 2-3 weeks. ( ??!!! )
ID mubarak to me :D

Tata, Birla!

Its the final fortnight of my Bitsian life. Compres are under way, and familiar exam-time scenes are now not too infrequent. 

I'd be lying if i said that this sem has not been a bit boring. The fact that half our batch is actually not in campus adds to the 'emptiness' thats largely what this sem felt like. Nevertheless, it has been a wondrous journey, not just this sem, but the entire 4 years at Bits. 

Statutory Warning: This is gonna be a long post, so bear with me. You have been warned!

I remember when i first came to the campus, all excited about living a hostel life for the first time, meeting new people, expecting to learn from some really awesome profs in such a renowned institute, that too in goa, the land of beaches. It would be fair to say that the first few weeks were really exciting, to say the least. Those were the days when my attendance per unit time was at never to be seen levels. Well, that was prolly the case with everyone at that time. 

My antics in one of the first classes, prob stats, taken by a certain SKG, saw me getting nicknamed with a really hilarious nick, of which i wasnt to learn until much later :P. Well, the attendance curve soon became precipitous, falling to zero within a couple of weeks. I remember the system of surprise quizzes and tests that really screwed me upside down, primarily because i attended almost none. Hostel life changed my sleeping patterns, i became , like most others, a creature of teh night. Well, in November, i got my comp, and there started my gaming addiction. There was no LAN at that time, still i managed to  get hooked on to comp gaming. It was perhaps due to the fact that i never had any exposure to any kind of gaming, except perhaps the occasional bouts of mario at home. Anyways, GTA san andreas was the first game to catch my fancy. For the uninitiated, it is a really huge game. It consists of a set of three cities in which you can roam about, almost like in the real world. People moving about, cars, traffic, shops, and all that. Well, the point is that it takes a while to complete it, and take a while it did.

Enter 2nd sem, and my GTA addiction continued, even though my CGPA was screaming for improvement. Well, who cares about marks, right? This is college, for heavens sake!

With that optimistic attitude, i played GTA like there was no tomorrow. I made some good friends, all of whom seemed to find classes a unnecessary pain. The scrapping of the insane surprise quizzes and mini tests did nothing to change that point of view. This was also the sem which i managed to pass without buying a single text book. How i did it, i dunno, but somehow at that time i felt books were unnecessary expenditure. In retrospect, i should have utilized those times better. What else happened in that sem, largely remains a blur, primarily because i dont think i did anything at all except play GTA on my comp. Come sem-end, and partial LAN was up, and all the excitement was about when full lan would come. Needless to say, i performed no better this sem, though it hardly caused a flutter.

2-1, perhaps, gaming wise, the most efficient sem. A large number of people got introduced to that mother of all acad-screwers, Counter Strike. Coupled with the timely arrival of lan, this sem saw me engrossed in the game, so thoroughly that i wondered how i had survived the previous year. Clans were made, forging friendships that would last a lifetime. lan was my life at that time. Sometimes i feel i kind of overdid it, but then, it was an experience. Something that i perhaps will never experience again. acads were as neglected as ever. Many people say 2-1 was the best sem of their bits life. for me, it was a lot of fun, though not the best one. DC was introduced to the campus, and i was one of the early hosts of the Titan hub. It brought with it a plethora of possibilities.

2-2 brought along with it, the shadow of the CDCs. A couple of courses that were sort of alarm bells for the dreaded core subjects on their way to engulf us. They however, did little to drive home any sense into me. This was the sem when i would get sort of tired of CS, and get introduced to what i still feel is the greatest game ever made - World of warcraft. 

This was also the sem when i would truly become an integral part of my corridor, which was made up of the strangest specimens that bits could come up with. Im thankful for the wonderful corridor that i had been allotted. Those were some of the most fun days of my bits life. Well, WoW came and stayed, and i gradually got really hooked on to it. Waves 07 was one of the most memorable times of my life. Exam times were most fun, when the entire corridor came out, hurling insults at the mundane subjects, shouting at the top of our voices, discussing absolutely unrelated topics with tremendous enthusiasm, and in the process often disturbing the more serious 9Ps who were at it trying to conquer yet another subject. And so went on another sem.

Then came PS1. My preference of PS station caused large scale laughter mingled with pity. Bitsunami, chennai, one of my top 3 options, i was allotted. Braving widespread ridicule, i went to chennai in not-so-high spirits. PS1 however, turned out to be the best 2 months for me in bits. I might have cribbed and crabbed, but i thoroughly enjoyed every moment of it. Trips to remote villages, roaming about chennai with friends, exploring the city like never before, taking random buses to wherever, falling in love with the city in the process, it was a most unique experience. _/\_ bits for including this in the curriculum.

3-1 came, and my WoW playing consumed almost the entire sem. Music club occupied a major part of my non-wow time, and i at last started to look at a life beyond my 17 inch screen. At the end of the sem, the realization dawned upon me that cg does matter, and i forced myself to develop an interest in my core subjects. The CDCs were unrelenting, yet classes largely remained an ignored entity. It was this sem that i decided that i would try my hand at actually doing some justice to the 'engineer' tag. The Pilani trip, my attempt at learning french, the realization that electronics wasnt as bad as it was made out to be, all these made this sem unforgettable. 

So began 3-2, a sem that was made up of very less gaming, a non-zero attendance curve, a desperate attempt to change my sleeping patterns (in vain ) , the sudden addiction to trivia on dc mainchat, the desperate attempts at doing something in electronics, and a steep increase in the gpa curve. That sem was largely made up of electronics and music club, and then some more of both. Projects in the core domain, CY and DSP clubs, labs, etc formed a part of my daily routine. Frequent meetings of the music club, Waves committee meetings, and in general, the non-gaming part of college life is what i will remember. Then came the part which i feel is the most stupid thing in bits. Farewell, given a whole year early. It was an emotional time, knowing that half the batch perhaps i might never meet again.  The farewell, with all the suits and sarees was, again, one of those unforgettable moments in bits. But i feel, as do most others, that it was a year too soon. In the end, it was goodbye time for the batch. 

PS2,well, i got screwed. To keep it simple, it wasn't the most thrilling of experiences. Nevertheless,  it was a different one. 

With the anticipation of 4-2 being the most fun sem of all, what with the almost nil load and the unlimited free time, people were most looking forward to this sem. For me, it has not lived upto the expectations. To be fair though, expectations were a little too high, and PS changed a lot of people. Those who usually revelled in doing nothing actually wanted to do something useful. Hardcore gamers left gaming, lazy joles started working dilligently, and people were a lot more serious about the future. Its like growing up, this system of PS. suddenly you are catapulted into the big bad world, and you experience first hand how life is gonna be hereafter. For me, this is the sem when i'v spent the least time on campus. More often than not, i was either in Bangalore or Mumbai. Its been fun, to say the least. But the time in campus, it's sort of suffocating. Well, the only thing is that im now savoring the time i have left on campus. Frankly, im not too big a fan of the campus. Neither do i find goa to live up to even a fraction of the hype that it is usually given. I shall, however, miss the people. All the bitsians, who have been part of this wonderful journey, the friends and acquaintances and strangers, the seniors and juniors, my batchmates, profs, the  mess guys, monginis, nescafe, the jhopdi that i seldom visited, shop C guy, the miser aunty, and everyone else who made these 4 years, an unforgettable vacation :P

This sem is not over, yet. Who knows, it might yet throw up a few more surprises. This is prolly the last time i'll be posting from college, however. So ends, my time here. 

Tata, Birla!

Pro - pose

I just heard about this TV news reporter who proposed to his anchorwoman girlfriend on live television at the end of a news broadcast.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/entertainment/805210/journalist-proposes-to-anchor-on-air

The Indian news channels are infatuated with this story. Its understandable, to them, this must be the most romantic thing in the world. On the face of it, it looks to be a perfectly sincere and creative way to propose. But i can't help marveling at the brilliant idea of the reporter guy. Not because of the inherently innovative way he employed, but because of the near fail-proof nature of the plan.

Think of it from the anchorwoman's point of view: This was completely unexpected. True, to some, this might just be the perfect proposal. Provided the guy is the right match.
Now consider the situation where the woman wants to say no. the catch is that she can't say no without coming across as a heartless inhuman non- friend. I mean, who the hell says no to such an innovative and wonderful proposal, right ?
For the guy, its a win-win situation: She says yes, all's well that ends well; she says no, he becomes the martyr to creativity who was shot down by the evil anchorwoman who can't appreciate genuine love.
The thing becomes even more complex for the anchorwoman if she wants to actually consider her answer, like if she wants to think it over. What could she do, with the whole world watching ?
and her boss breathing down her neck ? (Oh cmon, if she says no, think of the boss' reaction: Ratings plummet negative publicity blah blah : in short, both her personal and professional lives are screwed up). The only option for her, say yes.
Moreover, the guy gets all the credit. 'oh, how brilliant that was! ' and 'He's such a romantic'
And the woman ? She's blissfully forgotten. She's the side show.
That's called strategy.

PS: In case you are reading this, Mr reporter, ( oh yeah, now thats a stretch ! ) im sure you meant well.
Thats the second straight post that might get me labelled as crazy :-/

But it (sp)Rained !

I had wanted to post something a few days ago, but was thwarted by the stubborn refusal of the bits net to get me signed into blogger.
Im just back from yet another trip to Bangalore, although unlike the others, this one was strictly a chumma trip.
Anyways, today i decided to go play tennis for a change. Back home, i play at least 4-5 hours on weekends. In college, due to the laughable courts combined with my racquet being nicely hoarded back home, my playing frequency is zero. However, today it seemed to be a favorable alternative to being bored to death, and so there i went, off to the newly being (re)built tennis court. Someone had mentioned the courts were blue like in US open, though made of tar. Well, that was enough to spark off my curiosity, and i went-a-searching for a tennis racquet. I found one with a friend, and promptly headed off to the courts.
There i found the nets hanging dead barely a feew inches over the ground, as if some hurricane had come there and demolished everything in its path. The courts, lived up (down) to my expectations of resembling more a road than a tennis court.
Anyways, all the effort gone into gearing up and walking right upto the tennis court was not going to go to waste, oh no. A few juniors playing, i joined them. Ah, long time. New court, new racquet, new opponents, and the ever so fickle wind changing direction every other minute, being sometimes a boon blowing cool sea-breeze into the face and sometimes a curse swinging the ball wildly according to its own whims and fancies. Anyways, it was fun simply because it was something other than staring at a 17 inch screen.
During the last rally, i sprained my leg. Perhaps it was due to the lack of tennis in the past 3 months. It should be just another sprain, i know. But i can't help glorifying it, because its been aeons since i had any physical injury. It feels good to be human sometimes. It might be a minor sprain, and then again, it might not. I can't really remember when i last sprained my ankle, or for that matter any part of the body. Its not that i don't play much. At home, tennis forms my major weekend activity. In college, of course, i take recourse to other activities, most of which involve sitting idiotically in front of the machine which im using to post this right now. Its just that I haven't got hurt much. All around me i see people on plasters and temporary crutches and Volinis. I kinda feel this sprain was long time due.

Obviously, i dint visit the doc or anythin, despite the assurance of some basketball n football players that i might regret it later that night. Lets see, if it swells to conspicuous levels, then i might go tomorow. Till then, i will savor this once in a blue moon occurence. Even if it means a painful night. The only downside is that i might not be able to play for a few days. Ah well, one can't have everything in life now, can they?
I aint no masochist, just another crazy human, with just another crazy post.

Soup

Some mixed feelings here. Spurred by the sudden joblessness that has creeped in lately partly due to the clarity of what im going to do the next two years and my giving up gaming altogether, these thoughts are more prominent now.
Happy i am, for me, and many of my friends, all of whom will start a new journey of their lives.
Sad i am, that i will be leaving this college and all the people i have been associated with in here, in a month, on my own path to wherever.
Hopeful i am, that these friendships will be maintained. That these memories will never be forgotten.

A longer and more detailed post on this will come, when the time is set, for us to set off from here. Till then, i shall relive these memories in the unlimited spare time i seem to be having at the moment.

My latest impractical plan for saving the world

The world is currently a sad place. There is recession looming everywhere, terrorists are havign the time of their lives blowing up people every other day, and roger federer failed to win yet another tournament.

In these times of grave crisis, i come as a messiah of hope. Here goes my plan for eliminating recession and bringing peace to India. Like most ideas, this one isint original, but has  cleverly been tweaked so that any claim on the idea, in case it goes on to win me the nobel peace prize, would be seen as merely yet another zietgiest.

For starters, lets find some country that terrorists ( like al qaeda, US govt, or Investment bankers) would never target. Lets take the swiss, for example. Those neutral bastards found the perfect scam to avoid being attacked by terrorists or dictators. Thats called good defense strategy. 

Obviously, it is impossible for India to stage the neutral scam, although not for lack of trying. Take the case of hospitals. Rarely would one hear of a hospital being blown up ( except in case of 'joker' of the Batman: Dark knight fame). Even terrorists try to avoid that sort of target. My plan is to make India the country to look up to when there is an emergency. With the right foriegn policy, India could become the country to fall back upon. 

The problem is, India is neither a supremely rich country that can afford to aid monetarily, nor is it a superpower so it can support militarily. The one thing that we do have in excess, however,  is population. We could have a national disaster relief consortium, that goes to the various nations and provides the labour to rebuild it. This could be in the form of manual laborers or skilled ones. We could even customize it according to the GDP of the nation concerned and charge for our services. For example, Australia and Canada would be heavily charged, while it would be free for afghanistan. In the times of recession, this could provide the much needed job openings for people, and remove us as the target of radical groups.The lure of foriegn travel is also something that could be used to attract people to the job, not that they need it during these times. 

The great thing is, there is no shortage of disasters in the world. Thus, there would never be any actual joblessness.  The best part is that we could use the same in case we ever get struck by disaster. We would still need a big-ass military, just in case. But it would be efficient if they would be dual trained, for fighting and for disaster recovery. Foriegn policy is completely over rated :|

As most of my ideas are, this is probably unoriginal and completely impractical. I just think its interesting to think why. 

This Cushion

After quite a long time, actually, for the first time this semester really, i had a good two and a half hour long discussion/debate on politics, policies, world happenings, history etc etc.

Only three of us, but its been some time since i'v had a good long debate about these things in college, so,  man, that felt good! Interspersed were facts and quotes that were googled just to make sure none of us was bluffing our way to dominion.

It started with the usual rambling about the job scenario in rDx's room, which, by the way, is way too damn hot , where any air circulation goes to die. The eternal optimist in me still felt that the scenario wasn't as bad as was being portrayed, and that bitsians would still have some advantage, hopefully, to weather the storm, only to be laughed at, and then followed by the regular college,economy, wall street, etc abusing. 

A small innocent comment about the inefficacy of the govt proved to be the tipping point for the discussion, further fueled by the arrival of Samya, the walking-talking-world-war-2 dictionary. From whether or not the NDA would be better than the UPA,  to their past policies, Samya siding with with the latter while rDx with teh former, n yours truly, in the true spirit of a dilly dallier, with both (:P), it then spiralled into the posible solutions for kashmir, then into the balochistan-kashmir comparison, china, russia, europe, world war 2 ( at which point samya almost jumped with delight ), g20, manmohan vs advani, modi, sonia, PoK, tibet, afghanistan, intelligence, osama, WTC, and the like. 

Why im posting this is because it reaffirmed how little we know (or at least i know) about what is happening in the world around us, how we are just another face in the crowd, how there is so much scope for expanding our sphere of information, how my quest for keeping myself abreast of the latest developments has to keep pace with the ever changing world. 

Nothing like a good ol' discussion to remind us that we are truly just an insignificant seed in the forest of knowledge, and only by absorbing all that the environment offers can we rise above the weeds and reach out to the sun. 

If theres one thing iv learnt in the past few months, its that im pathetically ignorant, and its about time i do something about it :|

Edit: Tan ta daaan !!! My new avatar is here 0.0

Intriguing question of the day

I walked into a most wonderful bookstore in Brigade Road, bangalore called Blossoms. They have both new and 2nd hand books, and the most important thing, they have almost any book u would want. Just ask the librarian, and they wil take you to the book you had been searching for eons.

I spent like 2 hours there, just browsing books, and trying to reach a decision on which books to select to fit my then limited budget. Im definitely going back there during my next bangalore trip, this time with a considerably fatter wallet. 

While i was looking thru the books, i came across this interesting book, the name of which i unfortunately don't remember, but whose summary, like of so many others, i read. It posed an interesting question:

What would be the one piece of wisdom/knowledge/contribution you would give to the world, if you knew these were your last few moments on earth ?

Happenings

This is gonna be just about anything that comes to my mind as i type at 4 am.

For starters, something that really set me off thinking, almost making a skeptic out of me regarding the apparent forward thinking mindset that's supposed to be a characteristic of the urban Indian. Im assuming of course, that fellow students of our so called well known institute constitute a fair representation of our urban youth. I was having a discussion with a group of friends who i just happened to cross on my way to the mess for snacks. Who they were, i don't really want to go into that, for reasons that will be fairly obvious in a while. The discussion as usual started off with the usual stuff about the college turning more into a prison sort of place and about the need for a student union that actually has the balls to do something, then launched off tangentially in the direction of jobs and salaries and future and all that stuff that we'v been hearing all too frequently lately. Someone then remarked Mr. X's gf would be earning more than him, and got a mortified reply that that wasn't the case and that he would be the one earning more, pointing out some things like cost to company and the like. What i really noticed was the fervor with which he replied, almost with a sign of triumph or relief, cant say which, that he was with the higher paying job. I casually remarked that i wouldn't really mind at all if it were the opposite in my case, only to get a curious, almost pitiful stare from everyone in the group. They were seeing me as if i had uttered something blasphemous, which is what set me off into a debate with the rest of the 5-odd people, all of whom were appalled by my stance. The debate was inconsequential in the end, each side sticking to their guns, although i was heavily outnumbered. I got the cup of tea which is just one of the extremely few things that i like in the mess just in time, and set off thinking about where was all the forward thinking that is so hyped in the papers? I just met a bunch of well read, young and brilliant students at a premier institute, all with good backgrounds and so called forwards thinking youth of the country appalled by the possibility of their better halves earning more than them. I was almost amused by the pettiness of their stand, then later dissapointed and disheartened that such things really matter to the educated youth. I'd like to think that such a stand is fairly uncommon and i just happened to cross a group of people who all thought this way, and that all the recent hubub about gender equality is not just plain empty talk.

In a more lighter vein, iv been playing more WoW than ever before lately, and the guilt of doing nothing better has been eating me from inside, so i thought i'd better post something here to take my mind off the guilt of having wasted the few hours that im awake, and am likely to waste in the future. Coming to this sem, its been awesomely (or awfully ) light, especially because i havnt taken any project. A little boring, compensated by the occasional thought of this being the last of its kind 'vacation', and the frequent 'house' episodes that i still havnt got remotely tired of. The college is at its notorious worst, reprimanding people in its usual manner for things as trivial as not opening the door when warden comes knocking and ur sleeping, dead tired, or playin loud music that no one in the corridor seems to mind. I'll be visiting Bangalore next week, so i guess that would be a break from the monotony. This post is looking more like a letter than a blog post, so i think i'll stop, and go to sleep, got work to do tomorrow, technically, today, that really can't afford to be procrastinated.
gg