Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
[The beginning of The Lord of the Rings clearly states, "The Lord of the Rings is not a trilogy. It consists of six books divided into three parts..." Why then, does my title have Trilogy in it? Because I am commenting on the movies, which is a three part 'trilogy'.
Being larger than life, I cannot dedicate this post to anyone; not Tolkien, not even Peter Jackson.]
It has been a fairly long time since I last read The Lord Of The Rings. About 17 months in fact. And that too I was unable to complete it then. Since that time however, I have watched the extended versions of the movie twice, each time feeling that I should read the book again. I just watched the movie trilogy and thought I'd bring out a few things I noticed between the books and the movie.
The character of Aragorn.
In my opinion, Aragorn is the most complex character in the book as well as in the movie. While Aragorn's past could not be depicted in the movies, for those who have read the book along with certain appendices would draw a highly different view of him as compared to his depiction in the movies. In the Fellowship of the Ring, from the time they reach Rivendell, he is depicted as an unsure character, one who is ashamed of his blood inheritance to Isildur. In a number of occasions, Arwen has to be a source of reassurance to him. In the Two Towers, his character is somewhat mellow, neither too unsure of himself, nor too imposing. This transitional depiction in my opinion, is the closest to the true Aragorn from the books. In the third movie, he takes up his inheritance. So much so as to the point of claiming strategic command even above Gandalf. This is quite a complete transformation from the character in the first movie; and should be considered a wee bit odd, for such a change to occur in less than a year, to one who is as old as eighty seven (according to Aragorn in Two Towers movie).
The character of Pippin.
Peregrin Took, better known as Pippin, is blatantly made out to be a comic fool. It is most, well comic, the way he says, "So where are we going?" after the Fellowship has been formed.
Actors.
The LOTR movie trilogy spanned the years I'd guess 2001 to 2005. During this time, there was a fair intersection of characters between this movie and other fantasy-style movies. A connection I had known, but only this time tried to expand in my memory.
Gandalf and Magnito from XMen
Saruman and Count Dooku from Star Wars
Legolas and William Turner from POTC
In some sense, one should greatly commend the way Hollywood makes costumes for fantasy movies. I was able to recognize the above three pairs only by matching their distinct and unforgettable voices. Gandalf's wizened accent, Saruman's powerful voice, and Legolas' unique voice.
Other connections which one could recognize by face, due to the uniqueness of the actor's features include
Elrond and the Matrix agent
Frodo and some teen scifi movie whose name I forget character
Boromir and National Treasure villain (I think)
Before joining college, I never really bothered about actors, who they were, and all that. I only enjoyed the role they played and was done with it. I suppose that might be a reason why I did not make any great connections earlier on.
The same old kids.
I might have been seeing things, but I am quite sure that the children actors have been repeated at completely different points of time in the movies. Not that it makes a difference, but it was quite cool to just make that slight observation. The kids I'm talking of first appear as the hobbit children when Bilbo is telling his story of the trolls to them on his birthday. Their next appearance is at Helm's Deep, when their mothers are sheltering them from the evil sounds of battle. And the third time was when Captain Faramir was riding out from Minas Tirith for the second time and they were throwing flowers onto his path.
Factual differences (possible spoilers, but a bland account in any case).
At the outset, I did not find a single inconsistency within the movies. This is just a slight comparison between certain pivotal (in my opinion) incidents which were modified in the movie.
0) Anduril. This difference deserves a position higher than all other differences. In the movie, Elrond brings Anduril to Aragorn, unlike in the book, where the sword is reforged before they set out from Rivendell.
1) The Council of Elrond. Elrond does not call a council, but all people's representatives come together by fate in the book. Also, in the movie, the choosing of the Fellowship all happens at The Council of Elrond, whereas in the book, only Frodo and Sam are chosen during the Council, the others are sort of debated-with later.
2) The choice of the Mines of Moria. This is quite a one-eighty-degree-turn from the book. In the movie, Gandalf's initial choice was to go through the Gap of Rohan and he changes his mind only when the craybian (birds) come spying over them. In the book, the Gap of Rohan isn't even an option, except to Boromir. Also, in the movie, Gandalf is quite completely against going to Moria. It is the last resort according to him. In the book however, he has to debate with Aragorn about the choice and in fact FAVOURS Moria if my memory serves me right. Well, this kind of caused a slight inconsistency in the movie, as when Celeborn says, "Needlessly did Gandalf go..." and Galadriel replies, "Needless were none of the deeds of Gandalf in life. We do not know his full purpose..." These lines go perfectly for the version in the book, but their repetition in the movie sort of subverts the fact that Gandalf did not at all choose Moria in the movie.
3) The fleeing to Helm's Deep. In the movie, Rohan flees to Helm's Deep as soon as 'the alarm is raised' by those two children who reach Edoras. Further, they are ambushed by Wargs, one result of which is Aragorn's fall off the cliff and his subsequent seeing of the size of Saruman's army. In the book, Theoden and all march out to war while the women and children go to Helm's Deep. Further, it is when they are on their way, that Gandalf and Legolas see the massive size of Saruman's army and Gandalf then tells Theoden to flee to Helm's Deep while he goes 'on urgent business' (Gandalf's businesses are always spoilers, so never mind them). I have poor memory of this, but I doubt that Eomer was away from Helm's Deep during the battle, unlike what was depicted in the movie, where Gandalf had to ride off to call him.
4) Saruman's death. Big difference. Big fat consistent difference.
5) Faramir. As horrid if not more horrid a character depiction as Aragorn's. The wise Numenorean captain of Gondor is made out to be some father's-pride craving son. I may say that Aragorn's depiction is forgiveable, because although they did not depict him as he really was, atleast he was not bad. Faramir's depiction however, is so black in comparison, that I think I would not be going too far to bring out Samwise's statement, "You've shown your quality, sir, the very highest", as an inconsistency. In the movie, Faramir did NOT, show his quality as the very highest.
6) Shelob's lair. I can't be critical of this difference, but it did not exactly remove something from the book. It modified things quite a bit, but added a whole dimension of character. In the movie, Gollum is shown to turn Frodo against Samwise. He cunningly brings in the element of mistrust in Frodo; something that the book does not touch upon at all. This leads to the great difference that Frodo faces Shelob alone in the movie, unlike in the book.
7) The paths of the dead and the palantir. Ah, ah, ah, Peter Jackson saved himself a few actors with this stunt. Where the Dunedain of the north are supposed to ride with Aragorn into the paths of the dead, here we have just the trio of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli. While the newsbearer is Elrond in the movie, and the reason is a lacking of numbers, in the book the newsbearers are the Dunedain of the North and the reason is mere haste which is a consequence of Aragorn's looking into the Palantir. In the movie, he looks into the Palantir after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Also, The Dead are freed after they have retaken the ships, unlike in the movie where they take the city and end the battle, and then only are they freed. I missed the reunion of Eomer and Aragorn, but I guess it was made up for in the battle for Helm's Deep when Gandalf and Aragorn reunite.
8) The destroying of the Ring. All I can say is, if they had made the movie the way the book was written, it would have seemed incomplete. On the other hand, since the book gives us a much fuller picture of Gollum, the destruction of the Ring in its manner is more acceptable. This is singularly the most noticeable difference between the book and the movies.
The cry, "The Eagles are Coming!".
This is a cry that is used once in the movies, right at the last battle in the return of the king. I am vaguely lost in terms of its origin in the book, but I am sure that this cry did not occur just once. I have an inkling, that tells me it emanated from The Hobbit, although I have read the hobbit just once/twice and cannot quite remember it. Its more like a process of elimination I guess.
Compared to almost all other fantasy-to-movie adaptations, the Lord of the Rings extended editions is the only one that lives up to the book, by changing things minimally, and otherwise reporting things as they are. As such, it is complete in itself. However, the double edge flipside of this, is that after seeing the movie in which hardly anything is changed, it is hard for one's imagination to remain original while reading the book. I daresay that if I had seen a Harry Potter movie before reading the book, I would have been able to imagine things in the book quite differently, and quite uniquely. By reporting things as they are in the book, the Lord of the Rings trilogy has made the reading one-tracked as well as somewhat unnecessary.
In conclusion, I'd just like to say that Peter Jackson ended it greatly. Out of all the other points in time to end the movie, he chose to end it with the exact same words that ended the book: "Well, I'm back."
PS: I just finished reading the book yesterday, so thought now was THE TIME to post this. Long break, yeah...
Sunday 15 November, 2009
Wednesday 28 October, 2009
Happiness
[Dedicated to the first blog I'd ever read, for one of its posts was very much like this. I can't link you to it, cuz it doesn't exist any more.]
10 Things that bring me joy, in no particular order, with some overlappings.
1. Spiritual joy
2. Finding you can confide in a friend
3. Being reassured in times of distress
4. A quiet walk away from traffic
5. Getting attention from one you love
6. Cheering a side on to its win
7. Falling in love
8. Overwhelming movie scenes
9. Being touched and speechless with gratitude
10. Witnessing a discreet help bear fruit
10 Things that bring me joy, in no particular order, with some overlappings.
1. Spiritual joy
2. Finding you can confide in a friend
3. Being reassured in times of distress
4. A quiet walk away from traffic
5. Getting attention from one you love
6. Cheering a side on to its win
7. Falling in love
8. Overwhelming movie scenes
9. Being touched and speechless with gratitude
10. Witnessing a discreet help bear fruit
Tuesday 20 October, 2009
Confessions of an IIT aspirant (thematic giveaway)
[If you have not read Confessions of an IIT Aspirant, I suggest you do that first, and then come here. This is what one would call a 'spoiler'.
Okay, so here are your giveaway paragraphs. The first one gets inserted after the 5th paragraph, and the 2nd one gets inserted after the last paragraph: which you would have known if you had got the theme. Here are the missing links...]
On my visit to IITB with my aunt just before starting JEE coaching, I remember thinking how inside the campus, the grass was greener. If intellect was Light, then the Light was brighter. I remember thinking of myself being there with friends surrounded. The days of pondering the mysteries of science and technology would be followed by the nights of wonder.
Looking back at the two years of my JEE preparation, I recall my first holi: how photographs of KK's pre-holi lawn showed the grass was greener. I admit I was in love during that time, and there were times when I looked at Her, and the light was brighter. I remember eating Chole Bature at KK's holi, and thinking that the taste was sweeter. But most of all, I remember the times I'd beg for sleepover permission, and whenever it was granted, the nights of wonder. Those few nights were nostalgic occasions, for we all were mutually with friends surrounded. I recall the sleepover at Nish's after the batch party, and how we listened to The Dark Side of the Moon with the dawn mist glowing. And my second and more violent holi, with the water flowing. Continuously it flowed, forming the endless river. All in all, my non IITian-desirous life of those two years shall be cherished by me forever and ever.
[If after this giveaway you still haven't got it, its okay. You probably never will unless someone blatantly lets you in on it. And in that case, I seriously doubt you would look at this the way I do. However, if you have got the theme, I am hereunder putting the entire thing again, with these two paragraphs inserted in their correct place, so that you can judge the flow, and hopefully find the ending more hopeful. Read on if you wish.]
Driving along from Bombay to Pune to visit my cousin pursuing an MTech from IITB, I remember looking out to the sea, and wondering what lay beyond the horizon. I guess that was the holiday when I had first heard of the words 'horizon' and 'skyline' and was just generally admiring the scenic beauty of the place with the mist over the water on one side, and the skyline of Bombay on the other. It was the summer vacation for my brother and me, and it was at our Aunty Annette's that we lived when we came up to Bombay. We were young back then, about ten years old, but still the 'brand IIT' had been heard of, even if not quite understood. In a land dependent on the agriculture industry, these IITs had made a dominating impact! Our cousin showed us some complicated stuff of magnets and miracles had become natural occurrences.
Back at home and back to school after the summer, we found our thoughts strayed from the lectures in class. Constantly and enthusiastically was I seen trying to explain some electromagnetic thing to my peers. I think that they only ended up thinking that my imagination was without boundary. All this was put to the back of my mind however, till 11th grade, when the ringing of alarm bells at 5:20 a.m. for the 6 o'clock coaching class would interrupt my peaceful slumbering for the next two years. Speaking of bells, it was at this time that I was introduced to Pink Floyd and their album The Division Bell. With IIT aspirations on the one hand, and school friends' fun on the other, the emotional upheavals they caused ensured that my maturation had begun.
"Along the long end of the bimetallic strip is..." started the thermo physics lecturer. "The ball rolls on this flat road and on towards the wall with a friction coefficient of ...", droned the mechanics physics lecturer. Though this should have been hectic and all, I would end up wondering about my friends in my previous school and those in my present one as I walked down the causeway. "Do they still stock up on eggs for Josephs-Germains matches?" Or else, "Maybe I should call some on them in Indiranagar and we could meet there by next week?" All this while simultaneously hoping I'd make the cut for the IIT Bombay Computer Science Department.
Then there was a time when I noticed the competition get fierce. The majority of the coaching=goers were like some ragged band that was worn out and yet still carrying on. As we led, they followed in our footsteps. My ambition was great; for my part, I was running before time, racing against it. We all had our own ambitions, and we all had to stretch, lest complacency took our dreams away.
Leaving the myriad NCERT problems in school for those not into the JEE preparation, we used to pursue those 'higher level' IIT problems during class hours, much to our teachers' displeasure. You can't blame us; those NCERT problems were like small creatures trying their best to lure us into some false sense of achievement. For their part, the teachers wanted to tie us to the NCERT syllabus, so that we acquire good marks for them in the board exams and maintain the school's reputation. Of course, we did make full use of the P.T. periods to play volleyball in the ground. Without these little bits of fun, we would have been devoting our selves to a life of physics, chemistry and mathematics alone. Consumed by determination and perfection, we had been to excel. And the NCERT problems were left to their slow decay.
On my visit to IITB with my aunt just before starting JEE coaching, I remember thinking how inside the campus, the grass was greener. If intellect was Light, then the Light was brighter. I remember thinking of myself being there with friends surrounded. The days of pondering the mysteries of science and technology would be followed by the nights of wonder.
On a number of occasions, I would end up looking beyond the moments of temporary satisfaction to the impending glory at the end of those two years' hard work. On other occasions, I would look back at my past and reflect on how much I'd changed recently; seeing embers of bridges I'd crossed and realising I could not return to being the person I'd earlier been. I doubt I was the only one who was feeling this tempestuous change; I guess we all had bridges of our own, glowing behind us. The hectic pace of our lives had transformed each memory from a clear vision to a glimpse through a fog. Memories of how green our Garden City was, were obscured by the grey concrete present of the Silicon Valley of India. It was on with the rat race for all of us JEE rats, while the others were hanging out with each other. We were all dying to get to the other side of the IIT portal.
I had to face the inevitable debate of whether I would have my steps taken forward out of passion or out of a necessity to work hard. When I was working out of passion, my progress was metaphorically not just walking ahead during the day time, but sleepwalking at night as well. Referring back again to my passion or hard-work debate, even at the height of my being driven by the former, I would doubt whether the latter was enough. I was dragged by the glamour of the computer science subject and Bombay as being the location of my favourite summer vacations. As a force of some considerable magnitude, was y aspiration to enter into the IITB Computer Science branch. This force was like an inner tide dragging me along even when my will and motivation was not very high.
During the coaching class tests, I would picture myself as an eagle soaring off at higher altitude as compared to the other birds. Or when the results of a test were declared, I'd imagine myself as a victorious captain, returning home with flag unfurled. By the end of our first year, a lot of us did indeed feel proud of where we reached in our rat race. The dizzy heights of our seniors' achievements did not look so dizzy now that we had climbed so high ourselves. That dreamed-of world at IIT had become a realistic entity.
Towards the end of the two years, looking back at those times, I thought I had been encumbered forever by various hopes and by love. Personal desire and ambition is not easy to satisfy when you are an IIT aspirant. When you want a top 50 JEE rank, or an IPhO gold medal, there's a hunger to push yourself in various directions, not always parallel. With time before the JEE running out, I found I was still unsatisfied with my preparation., but realised I could not do much about it.
Our weary eyes, having spend an eighth of their lifetime on the IITJEE cause, would relish the slightest out-of-the-ordinary sight; be it a goat with two feet on a wall reaching up to eat a few leaves off a low garden tree, or a bunch of care-free kids doing wheelies for over 100 m. on an empty stretch of road-blocked road. My eyes would still stray to a lost IPhO dream, having not qualified for the selection camp. Those daydreams can still be seen at the horizon, gleaming just out of reach. Though down this path of disappointment I had seen myself go, I would still find myself a new fool's hope to cling on to. This disappointment-following-hope road we've been down at least once; for all of us. For so many times I had witnessed the symptoms of a dying fool's hope, whether it was my X Std. board exams or my IPhO dreams, but my IITB CSE dream would be the last one I'd cling on to, till it inevitably shattered with the final disclosure of the JEE results.
Looking back at the two years of my JEE preparation, I recall my first holi: how photographs of KK's pre-holi lawn showed the grass was greener. I admit I was in love during that time, and there were times when I looked at Her, and the light was brighter. I remember eating Chole Bature at KK's holi, and thinking that the taste was sweeter. But most of all, I remember the times I'd beg for sleepover permission, and whenever it was granted, the nights of wonder. Those few nights were nostalgic occasions, for we all were mutually with friends surrounded. I recall the sleepover at Nish's after the batch party, and how we listened to The Dark Side of the Moon with the dawn mist glowing. And my second and more violent holi, with the water flowing. Continuously it flowed, forming the endless river. All in all, my non IITian-desirous life of those two years shall be cherished by me forever and ever.
[For those of you who got the theme, I'd just like to give you a little 'disclaimer' about the relationship of the theme with the article.
Though this truly represents a part of me rather personally, I would like to warn you against reading too much inbetween the lines.. In my desire to keep to the theme, I have distorted some emotions and brought in needless ones. Also, my memory has been doctored since the past one year, and may not represent the reality I had made for myself in 11th & 12th. However, I can offer one clue on what to read between the liens: if it sounds artificial, like it is there just to fit in with the theme, don't take it seriously. And finally, if you do correctly glean what I had felt, you will understand why I liked HH more than WYWH.]
Okay, so here are your giveaway paragraphs. The first one gets inserted after the 5th paragraph, and the 2nd one gets inserted after the last paragraph: which you would have known if you had got the theme. Here are the missing links...]
On my visit to IITB with my aunt just before starting JEE coaching, I remember thinking how inside the campus, the grass was greener. If intellect was Light, then the Light was brighter. I remember thinking of myself being there with friends surrounded. The days of pondering the mysteries of science and technology would be followed by the nights of wonder.
Looking back at the two years of my JEE preparation, I recall my first holi: how photographs of KK's pre-holi lawn showed the grass was greener. I admit I was in love during that time, and there were times when I looked at Her, and the light was brighter. I remember eating Chole Bature at KK's holi, and thinking that the taste was sweeter. But most of all, I remember the times I'd beg for sleepover permission, and whenever it was granted, the nights of wonder. Those few nights were nostalgic occasions, for we all were mutually with friends surrounded. I recall the sleepover at Nish's after the batch party, and how we listened to The Dark Side of the Moon with the dawn mist glowing. And my second and more violent holi, with the water flowing. Continuously it flowed, forming the endless river. All in all, my non IITian-desirous life of those two years shall be cherished by me forever and ever.
[If after this giveaway you still haven't got it, its okay. You probably never will unless someone blatantly lets you in on it. And in that case, I seriously doubt you would look at this the way I do. However, if you have got the theme, I am hereunder putting the entire thing again, with these two paragraphs inserted in their correct place, so that you can judge the flow, and hopefully find the ending more hopeful. Read on if you wish.]
Driving along from Bombay to Pune to visit my cousin pursuing an MTech from IITB, I remember looking out to the sea, and wondering what lay beyond the horizon. I guess that was the holiday when I had first heard of the words 'horizon' and 'skyline' and was just generally admiring the scenic beauty of the place with the mist over the water on one side, and the skyline of Bombay on the other. It was the summer vacation for my brother and me, and it was at our Aunty Annette's that we lived when we came up to Bombay. We were young back then, about ten years old, but still the 'brand IIT' had been heard of, even if not quite understood. In a land dependent on the agriculture industry, these IITs had made a dominating impact! Our cousin showed us some complicated stuff of magnets and miracles had become natural occurrences.
Back at home and back to school after the summer, we found our thoughts strayed from the lectures in class. Constantly and enthusiastically was I seen trying to explain some electromagnetic thing to my peers. I think that they only ended up thinking that my imagination was without boundary. All this was put to the back of my mind however, till 11th grade, when the ringing of alarm bells at 5:20 a.m. for the 6 o'clock coaching class would interrupt my peaceful slumbering for the next two years. Speaking of bells, it was at this time that I was introduced to Pink Floyd and their album The Division Bell. With IIT aspirations on the one hand, and school friends' fun on the other, the emotional upheavals they caused ensured that my maturation had begun.
"Along the long end of the bimetallic strip is..." started the thermo physics lecturer. "The ball rolls on this flat road and on towards the wall with a friction coefficient of ...", droned the mechanics physics lecturer. Though this should have been hectic and all, I would end up wondering about my friends in my previous school and those in my present one as I walked down the causeway. "Do they still stock up on eggs for Josephs-Germains matches?" Or else, "Maybe I should call some on them in Indiranagar and we could meet there by next week?" All this while simultaneously hoping I'd make the cut for the IIT Bombay Computer Science Department.
Then there was a time when I noticed the competition get fierce. The majority of the coaching=goers were like some ragged band that was worn out and yet still carrying on. As we led, they followed in our footsteps. My ambition was great; for my part, I was running before time, racing against it. We all had our own ambitions, and we all had to stretch, lest complacency took our dreams away.
Leaving the myriad NCERT problems in school for those not into the JEE preparation, we used to pursue those 'higher level' IIT problems during class hours, much to our teachers' displeasure. You can't blame us; those NCERT problems were like small creatures trying their best to lure us into some false sense of achievement. For their part, the teachers wanted to tie us to the NCERT syllabus, so that we acquire good marks for them in the board exams and maintain the school's reputation. Of course, we did make full use of the P.T. periods to play volleyball in the ground. Without these little bits of fun, we would have been devoting our selves to a life of physics, chemistry and mathematics alone. Consumed by determination and perfection, we had been to excel. And the NCERT problems were left to their slow decay.
On my visit to IITB with my aunt just before starting JEE coaching, I remember thinking how inside the campus, the grass was greener. If intellect was Light, then the Light was brighter. I remember thinking of myself being there with friends surrounded. The days of pondering the mysteries of science and technology would be followed by the nights of wonder.
On a number of occasions, I would end up looking beyond the moments of temporary satisfaction to the impending glory at the end of those two years' hard work. On other occasions, I would look back at my past and reflect on how much I'd changed recently; seeing embers of bridges I'd crossed and realising I could not return to being the person I'd earlier been. I doubt I was the only one who was feeling this tempestuous change; I guess we all had bridges of our own, glowing behind us. The hectic pace of our lives had transformed each memory from a clear vision to a glimpse through a fog. Memories of how green our Garden City was, were obscured by the grey concrete present of the Silicon Valley of India. It was on with the rat race for all of us JEE rats, while the others were hanging out with each other. We were all dying to get to the other side of the IIT portal.
I had to face the inevitable debate of whether I would have my steps taken forward out of passion or out of a necessity to work hard. When I was working out of passion, my progress was metaphorically not just walking ahead during the day time, but sleepwalking at night as well. Referring back again to my passion or hard-work debate, even at the height of my being driven by the former, I would doubt whether the latter was enough. I was dragged by the glamour of the computer science subject and Bombay as being the location of my favourite summer vacations. As a force of some considerable magnitude, was y aspiration to enter into the IITB Computer Science branch. This force was like an inner tide dragging me along even when my will and motivation was not very high.
During the coaching class tests, I would picture myself as an eagle soaring off at higher altitude as compared to the other birds. Or when the results of a test were declared, I'd imagine myself as a victorious captain, returning home with flag unfurled. By the end of our first year, a lot of us did indeed feel proud of where we reached in our rat race. The dizzy heights of our seniors' achievements did not look so dizzy now that we had climbed so high ourselves. That dreamed-of world at IIT had become a realistic entity.
Towards the end of the two years, looking back at those times, I thought I had been encumbered forever by various hopes and by love. Personal desire and ambition is not easy to satisfy when you are an IIT aspirant. When you want a top 50 JEE rank, or an IPhO gold medal, there's a hunger to push yourself in various directions, not always parallel. With time before the JEE running out, I found I was still unsatisfied with my preparation., but realised I could not do much about it.
Our weary eyes, having spend an eighth of their lifetime on the IITJEE cause, would relish the slightest out-of-the-ordinary sight; be it a goat with two feet on a wall reaching up to eat a few leaves off a low garden tree, or a bunch of care-free kids doing wheelies for over 100 m. on an empty stretch of road-blocked road. My eyes would still stray to a lost IPhO dream, having not qualified for the selection camp. Those daydreams can still be seen at the horizon, gleaming just out of reach. Though down this path of disappointment I had seen myself go, I would still find myself a new fool's hope to cling on to. This disappointment-following-hope road we've been down at least once; for all of us. For so many times I had witnessed the symptoms of a dying fool's hope, whether it was my X Std. board exams or my IPhO dreams, but my IITB CSE dream would be the last one I'd cling on to, till it inevitably shattered with the final disclosure of the JEE results.
Looking back at the two years of my JEE preparation, I recall my first holi: how photographs of KK's pre-holi lawn showed the grass was greener. I admit I was in love during that time, and there were times when I looked at Her, and the light was brighter. I remember eating Chole Bature at KK's holi, and thinking that the taste was sweeter. But most of all, I remember the times I'd beg for sleepover permission, and whenever it was granted, the nights of wonder. Those few nights were nostalgic occasions, for we all were mutually with friends surrounded. I recall the sleepover at Nish's after the batch party, and how we listened to The Dark Side of the Moon with the dawn mist glowing. And my second and more violent holi, with the water flowing. Continuously it flowed, forming the endless river. All in all, my non IITian-desirous life of those two years shall be cherished by me forever and ever.
[For those of you who got the theme, I'd just like to give you a little 'disclaimer' about the relationship of the theme with the article.
Though this truly represents a part of me rather personally, I would like to warn you against reading too much inbetween the lines.. In my desire to keep to the theme, I have distorted some emotions and brought in needless ones. Also, my memory has been doctored since the past one year, and may not represent the reality I had made for myself in 11th & 12th. However, I can offer one clue on what to read between the liens: if it sounds artificial, like it is there just to fit in with the theme, don't take it seriously. And finally, if you do correctly glean what I had felt, you will understand why I liked HH more than WYWH.]
Wednesday 14 October, 2009
Gwalior return trip
[For quite a while, I did not like the fact that pretty much all I could write was narratives. It felt like I was in a shell and could not break out of it. I somehow simply refused to see the beauty of the narratives I'd written. When the following incident happened however, I realised that the best possible way to pen it down, would be as a narrative.
Dedicated to Dominoes Cheese Burst.]
"Sometimes we're on a collision course, and we just don't know it. Whether it's by accident or by design, there's not a thing we can do about it. A woman in Paris was on her way to go shopping, but she had forgotten her coat - went back to get it. When she had gotten her coat, the phone had rung, so she'd stopped to answer it; talked for a couple of minutes. While the woman was on the phone, Daisy was rehearsing for a performance at the Paris Opera House. And while she was rehearsing, the woman, off the phone now, had gone outside to get a taxi. Now a taxi driver had dropped off a fare earlier and had stopped to get a cup of coffee. And all the while, Daisy was rehearsing. And this cab driver, who dropped off the earlier fare; who'd stopped to get the cup of coffee, had picked up the lady who was going to shopping, and had missed getting an earlier cab. The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street, who had left for work five minutes later than he normally did, because he forgot to set off his alarm. While that man, late for work, was crossing the street, Daisy had finished rehearsing, and was taking a shower. And while Daisy was showering, the taxi was waiting outside a boutique for the woman to pick up a package, which hadn't been wrapped yet, because the girl who was supposed to wrap it had broken up with her boyfriend the night before, and forgot.
"When the package was wrapped, the woman, who was back in the cab, was blocked by a delivery truck, all the while Daisy was getting dressed. The delivery truck pulled away and the taxi was able to move, while Daisy, the last to be dressed, waited for one of her friends, who had broken a shoelace. While the taxi was stopped, waiting for a traffic light, Daisy and her friend came out the back of the theater. And if only one thing had happened differently: if that shoelace hadn't broken; or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier; or that package had been wrapped and ready, because the girl hadn't broken up with her boyfriend; or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier; or that taxi driver hadn't stopped for a cup of coffee; or that woman had remembered her coat, and got into an earlier cab, Daisy and her friend would've crossed the street, and the taxi would've driven by. But life being what it is - a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone's control - that taxi did not go by, and that driver was momentarily distracted, and that taxi hit Daisy, and her leg was crushed." - Benjamin Button, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Oct 04, 2009.
So basically, our train back from Gwalior to New Delhi (Shatabdi #2001) was at 7:05 p.m., and at around 5 p.m. we find out the location of the local Dominoes Pizza outlet as City Mall, at M.L.B. road, Lashkar. Mayank and me decide that it'll be possible to drop by there and have a pizza considering we hadn't had any 'lunch' that day. None of us have packed, but we know that it would take us only 5 minutes to get the job done. Having thus planned our schedule, we return from the internet lab to our room to give Nikhil the update.
After packing and everything, we leave the place at 530, where there is an auto waiting for us in front of the hostel. At this point, we began to consider that it would be getting late, but still decide it would be worth to try out the mall. Now, the autos in Gwalior are extremely spacious. They have 'dikkis' as well as a rather wide passenger area. Also, there was a platform in front of the passenger area as well. The three of us were fairly comfortable. On the way to the mall, the spaciousness of the rickshaw allowed for himto pick up some 3 more passengers, thus increasing his profit on the way. I remember discussing this spaciousness of the rickshaws and their relation to business with Mayank before falling asleep, after which I can't really tell you what the journey was like; except for the fact that we crossed the railway station on the way and the rickshaw man told us that the mall was just 3 Km away from there. We timed the mall-to-station journey at about 15 minutes, and carried on.
When we reached the mall, I had the slight hesitation about carrying a lot of luggage into the mall. It was the first time I'd be doing something like this, and was slightly apprehensive about the frisking while carring two loaded bags, but the guard merely asked what was in the bags and I showed him; similarly for the other two.
Inside the mall, we got the distinct impression of it being an upgraded lighted-up version of Palika Bazaar, with its narrow corridor and somewhat circular centre. The crowd was also similar: dense, and with our luggage, a task to maneuvre. By fortune or fate, we just walked right into Domino's without asking anyone for directions on the way or anything. No seating, but as Mayank pointed out, the important thing was to get our order done. The time was 6:11. We gave our order and managed to get a table, while our bags were kept at the side for the time being.
"Dominoes takes about 12 minutes to get the pizza. So that means we'll be getting ours at 6:23.. then we'll have to leave here by 6:35, so that we reach in time," said Mayank, the experienced Dominoes customer.
6:22...6:23... and we're still waiting. "Your watch is fast. 6:23 on mine". His experience turned out to be true, and we did get it at 6:23 by his watch. However, at 6:35, we still had half a pizza left to finish, among the three of us. Being three of us, we decided to finish it off there and then leave, reasoning that 6:35 and 6:40 doesn't make much difference. At 6:40, we leave Dominoes, briskly rush out, and try getting the auto.
After about one or two rejections, we manage to get an auto. The time is 6:45 now. Unfortunately, what we hadn't accounted for, was that the traffic would blow up at that time. We hadn't even reached the first junction, when we found ourselves virtually stuck in what I termed Bombay-traffic. Nikhil reassured me saying that after that junction the traffic would ease. It did ease, but only very temporarily; for by the next junction we were again in traffic. He then reassured us saying that 'once we reach the flyover, we'll be okay'. But we didn't seem to be reaching the flyover any time soon.
Mayank then said, "We will not make it in time; but we will catch the train."
Nikhil asked him, "Is that 'but' meaning an 'and' or an 'or'?"
Mayank was like, "Its an and."
Nikhil said, "Must be an or..."
And that pretty much summed up how anxious we were at that point of time.
At 7 p.m., we reached the station. Hurrying in to look at the display board for the platform of our train, we get a major shock: there was no #2001 Shatabdi train listed. There was a train going to Delhi at 1905, but it was #2191. We rechecked our tickets: it said #2001. Nikhil went up to a counter to enquire, but the person at that counter just sent him off. He then tried to jump the queue of the other counter to enquire, but fortunately, a guy in a red shirt said that the 2191 train was ours, that it was already on the platform, and that we would be late if we waited.
Thats when we ran onto the first platform, and took the general direction towards the crossover. We virtually jogged all the way up to the crossover, only to find that it was to be reached from the outside. "What now?" I don't know who said it, but it put into words our helplessness. "Just cross over the tracks" said some guys sitting nearby, "you'll be late otherwise."
Without stopping to think, Nikhil got down onto the tracks and began to cross. Mayank followed him. Then I climbed down. Crossed over the first platform... back up onto the 2nd... got down from 3rd... up again on 4th, each time dumping my bag ahead of me as I jumped down or climbed up. We had AC class tickets and fortunately, the AC coaches were nearer to us and we didn't have to sprint the entire length of the train. The three of us hopped on, the food people confirmed we were having AC class seats, and thus we began our journey from the 8th coach down to the 2nd one.
We hadn't even crossed the 8th coach when I realized that the train had begun moving!
If only one thing had happened differently: if the comps in the lab had had to be switched on; or there hadn't been an auto waiting right in front of the hostel; or the guard at the mall had insisted on frisking us thoroughly and checking every item in all our bags; or we had had to ask for directions to Dominoes in the mall; or Dominoes hadn't lived up to its standards of 12 minutes for the order; or we had eaten a wee bit slower; or we hadn't got even the third auto from the mall; or our rickshaw hadn't pushed itself through the traffic; or the guy in the red shirt hadn't told us that it was our train; or the people next to the crossover hadn't told us to just cross the tracks, we would have missed our train and lost 2500 bucks. But life being what it is - a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone's control - we did manage to make it onto the train, and Nikhil announced that this incident definitely deserved a blog entry.
Appendix A: Comparison of New Delhi and Gwalior
Gwalior is a small town, and has the town-feel, with narrow-ish roads which aren't burdened by traffic. Also, the air in Gwalior was highly unpolluted. I haven't faced such clean air and such great weather (slight rain) since my middle school days in Bangalore. The weather even reminded me of that. A clear contrast to New Delhi.
When we had gotten out of the station in Gwalior, the rickshaws there were all looking forward to taking us where we wished to go. We told them we were being expected, but they kept insisting that we hire them; even arguing that "why to unnecessarily worry those who have to pick you when it is night". When we returned to New Delhi, we found a number of autos; all of them empty. One or two rickshaw drivers whom we did spot, seemed to be running away from us as we approached even. We had to wait outside the station to catch a rick.
In comparing IITD to ABV-IIITM, I found the latter more 'wild', had narrower pathways, and much less 'concrete' and more 'green'. Whereas the greenery of IITD seems artificial, with lawns that are trimmed all the time, the IIITM campus had wildery all over. There were also very few students there in comparison to IITD.
Appendix B: memories/souveneirs
There are two things I find that make the trip memorable. The presence of frogs hopping around on the grass while we took a stroll is one. Why, a frog even hopped onto my foot inside the room and I hadn't realised it. The other one is a girl; one of the volunteering students, with a ponytail and a strong posture, whose name was I think Saakshi (I think I heard someone calling her), and who had a sweet voice that was unable to pronounce 'Mathias' (she said 'muh-thih-YAHS' instead of 'muh-THAH-yis') properly :P
Dedicated to Dominoes Cheese Burst.]
"Sometimes we're on a collision course, and we just don't know it. Whether it's by accident or by design, there's not a thing we can do about it. A woman in Paris was on her way to go shopping, but she had forgotten her coat - went back to get it. When she had gotten her coat, the phone had rung, so she'd stopped to answer it; talked for a couple of minutes. While the woman was on the phone, Daisy was rehearsing for a performance at the Paris Opera House. And while she was rehearsing, the woman, off the phone now, had gone outside to get a taxi. Now a taxi driver had dropped off a fare earlier and had stopped to get a cup of coffee. And all the while, Daisy was rehearsing. And this cab driver, who dropped off the earlier fare; who'd stopped to get the cup of coffee, had picked up the lady who was going to shopping, and had missed getting an earlier cab. The taxi had to stop for a man crossing the street, who had left for work five minutes later than he normally did, because he forgot to set off his alarm. While that man, late for work, was crossing the street, Daisy had finished rehearsing, and was taking a shower. And while Daisy was showering, the taxi was waiting outside a boutique for the woman to pick up a package, which hadn't been wrapped yet, because the girl who was supposed to wrap it had broken up with her boyfriend the night before, and forgot.
"When the package was wrapped, the woman, who was back in the cab, was blocked by a delivery truck, all the while Daisy was getting dressed. The delivery truck pulled away and the taxi was able to move, while Daisy, the last to be dressed, waited for one of her friends, who had broken a shoelace. While the taxi was stopped, waiting for a traffic light, Daisy and her friend came out the back of the theater. And if only one thing had happened differently: if that shoelace hadn't broken; or that delivery truck had moved moments earlier; or that package had been wrapped and ready, because the girl hadn't broken up with her boyfriend; or that man had set his alarm and got up five minutes earlier; or that taxi driver hadn't stopped for a cup of coffee; or that woman had remembered her coat, and got into an earlier cab, Daisy and her friend would've crossed the street, and the taxi would've driven by. But life being what it is - a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone's control - that taxi did not go by, and that driver was momentarily distracted, and that taxi hit Daisy, and her leg was crushed." - Benjamin Button, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Oct 04, 2009.
So basically, our train back from Gwalior to New Delhi (Shatabdi #2001) was at 7:05 p.m., and at around 5 p.m. we find out the location of the local Dominoes Pizza outlet as City Mall, at M.L.B. road, Lashkar. Mayank and me decide that it'll be possible to drop by there and have a pizza considering we hadn't had any 'lunch' that day. None of us have packed, but we know that it would take us only 5 minutes to get the job done. Having thus planned our schedule, we return from the internet lab to our room to give Nikhil the update.
After packing and everything, we leave the place at 530, where there is an auto waiting for us in front of the hostel. At this point, we began to consider that it would be getting late, but still decide it would be worth to try out the mall. Now, the autos in Gwalior are extremely spacious. They have 'dikkis' as well as a rather wide passenger area. Also, there was a platform in front of the passenger area as well. The three of us were fairly comfortable. On the way to the mall, the spaciousness of the rickshaw allowed for himto pick up some 3 more passengers, thus increasing his profit on the way. I remember discussing this spaciousness of the rickshaws and their relation to business with Mayank before falling asleep, after which I can't really tell you what the journey was like; except for the fact that we crossed the railway station on the way and the rickshaw man told us that the mall was just 3 Km away from there. We timed the mall-to-station journey at about 15 minutes, and carried on.
When we reached the mall, I had the slight hesitation about carrying a lot of luggage into the mall. It was the first time I'd be doing something like this, and was slightly apprehensive about the frisking while carring two loaded bags, but the guard merely asked what was in the bags and I showed him; similarly for the other two.
Inside the mall, we got the distinct impression of it being an upgraded lighted-up version of Palika Bazaar, with its narrow corridor and somewhat circular centre. The crowd was also similar: dense, and with our luggage, a task to maneuvre. By fortune or fate, we just walked right into Domino's without asking anyone for directions on the way or anything. No seating, but as Mayank pointed out, the important thing was to get our order done. The time was 6:11. We gave our order and managed to get a table, while our bags were kept at the side for the time being.
"Dominoes takes about 12 minutes to get the pizza. So that means we'll be getting ours at 6:23.. then we'll have to leave here by 6:35, so that we reach in time," said Mayank, the experienced Dominoes customer.
6:22...6:23... and we're still waiting. "Your watch is fast. 6:23 on mine". His experience turned out to be true, and we did get it at 6:23 by his watch. However, at 6:35, we still had half a pizza left to finish, among the three of us. Being three of us, we decided to finish it off there and then leave, reasoning that 6:35 and 6:40 doesn't make much difference. At 6:40, we leave Dominoes, briskly rush out, and try getting the auto.
After about one or two rejections, we manage to get an auto. The time is 6:45 now. Unfortunately, what we hadn't accounted for, was that the traffic would blow up at that time. We hadn't even reached the first junction, when we found ourselves virtually stuck in what I termed Bombay-traffic. Nikhil reassured me saying that after that junction the traffic would ease. It did ease, but only very temporarily; for by the next junction we were again in traffic. He then reassured us saying that 'once we reach the flyover, we'll be okay'. But we didn't seem to be reaching the flyover any time soon.
Mayank then said, "We will not make it in time; but we will catch the train."
Nikhil asked him, "Is that 'but' meaning an 'and' or an 'or'?"
Mayank was like, "Its an and."
Nikhil said, "Must be an or..."
And that pretty much summed up how anxious we were at that point of time.
At 7 p.m., we reached the station. Hurrying in to look at the display board for the platform of our train, we get a major shock: there was no #2001 Shatabdi train listed. There was a train going to Delhi at 1905, but it was #2191. We rechecked our tickets: it said #2001. Nikhil went up to a counter to enquire, but the person at that counter just sent him off. He then tried to jump the queue of the other counter to enquire, but fortunately, a guy in a red shirt said that the 2191 train was ours, that it was already on the platform, and that we would be late if we waited.
Thats when we ran onto the first platform, and took the general direction towards the crossover. We virtually jogged all the way up to the crossover, only to find that it was to be reached from the outside. "What now?" I don't know who said it, but it put into words our helplessness. "Just cross over the tracks" said some guys sitting nearby, "you'll be late otherwise."
Without stopping to think, Nikhil got down onto the tracks and began to cross. Mayank followed him. Then I climbed down. Crossed over the first platform... back up onto the 2nd... got down from 3rd... up again on 4th, each time dumping my bag ahead of me as I jumped down or climbed up. We had AC class tickets and fortunately, the AC coaches were nearer to us and we didn't have to sprint the entire length of the train. The three of us hopped on, the food people confirmed we were having AC class seats, and thus we began our journey from the 8th coach down to the 2nd one.
We hadn't even crossed the 8th coach when I realized that the train had begun moving!
If only one thing had happened differently: if the comps in the lab had had to be switched on; or there hadn't been an auto waiting right in front of the hostel; or the guard at the mall had insisted on frisking us thoroughly and checking every item in all our bags; or we had had to ask for directions to Dominoes in the mall; or Dominoes hadn't lived up to its standards of 12 minutes for the order; or we had eaten a wee bit slower; or we hadn't got even the third auto from the mall; or our rickshaw hadn't pushed itself through the traffic; or the guy in the red shirt hadn't told us that it was our train; or the people next to the crossover hadn't told us to just cross the tracks, we would have missed our train and lost 2500 bucks. But life being what it is - a series of intersecting lives and incidents, out of anyone's control - we did manage to make it onto the train, and Nikhil announced that this incident definitely deserved a blog entry.
Appendix A: Comparison of New Delhi and Gwalior
Gwalior is a small town, and has the town-feel, with narrow-ish roads which aren't burdened by traffic. Also, the air in Gwalior was highly unpolluted. I haven't faced such clean air and such great weather (slight rain) since my middle school days in Bangalore. The weather even reminded me of that. A clear contrast to New Delhi.
When we had gotten out of the station in Gwalior, the rickshaws there were all looking forward to taking us where we wished to go. We told them we were being expected, but they kept insisting that we hire them; even arguing that "why to unnecessarily worry those who have to pick you when it is night". When we returned to New Delhi, we found a number of autos; all of them empty. One or two rickshaw drivers whom we did spot, seemed to be running away from us as we approached even. We had to wait outside the station to catch a rick.
In comparing IITD to ABV-IIITM, I found the latter more 'wild', had narrower pathways, and much less 'concrete' and more 'green'. Whereas the greenery of IITD seems artificial, with lawns that are trimmed all the time, the IIITM campus had wildery all over. There were also very few students there in comparison to IITD.
Appendix B: memories/souveneirs
There are two things I find that make the trip memorable. The presence of frogs hopping around on the grass while we took a stroll is one. Why, a frog even hopped onto my foot inside the room and I hadn't realised it. The other one is a girl; one of the volunteering students, with a ponytail and a strong posture, whose name was I think Saakshi (I think I heard someone calling her), and who had a sweet voice that was unable to pronounce 'Mathias' (she said 'muh-thih-YAHS' instead of 'muh-THAH-yis') properly :P
Tuesday 6 October, 2009
Confessions of an IIT Aspirant
[Hidden theme, hope you find it. Will post a 'giveaway theme' later on.
Anyway, enjoy this account, I hope you will.
Dedicated to Nehruji, who started the IITs.]
Driving along from Bombay to Pune to visit my cousin pursuing an MTech from IITB, I remember looking out to the sea, and wondering what lay beyond the horizon. I guess that was the holiday when I had first heard of the words 'horizon' and 'skyline' and was just generally admiring the scenic beauty of the place with the mist over the water on one side, and the skyline of Bombay on the other. It was the summer vacation for my brother and me, and it was at our Aunty Annette's that we lived when we came up to Bombay. We were young back then, about ten years old, but still the 'brand IIT' had been heard of, even if not quite understood. In a land dependent on the agriculture industry, these IITs had made a dominating impact! Our cousin showed us some complicated stuff of magnets and miracles had become natural occurrences.
Back at home and back to school after the summer, we found our thoughts strayed from the lectures in class. Constantly and enthusiastically was I seen trying to explain some electromagnetic thing to my peers. I think that they only ended up thinking that my imagination was without boundary. All this was put to the back of my mind however, till 11th grade, when the ringing of alarm bells at 5:20 a.m. for the 6 o'clock coaching class would interrupt my peaceful slumbering for the next two years. Speaking of bells, it was at this time that I was introduced to Pink Floyd and their album The Division Bell. With IIT aspirations on the one hand, and school friends' fun on the other, the emotional upheavals they caused ensured that my maturation had begun.
"Along the long end of the bimetallic strip is..." started the thermo physics lecturer. "The ball rolls on this flat road and on towards the wall with a friction coefficient of ...", droned the mechanics physics lecturer. Though this should have been hectic and all, I would end up wondering about my friends in my previous school and those in my present one as I walked down the causeway. "Do they still stock up on eggs for Josephs-Germains matches?" Or else, "Maybe I should call some on them in Indiranagar and we could meet there by next week?" All this while simultaneously hoping I'd make the cut for the IIT Bombay Computer Science Department.
Then there was a time when I noticed the competition get fierce. The majority of the coaching-goers were like some ragged band that was worn out and yet still carrying on. As we led, they followed in our footsteps. My ambition was great; for my part, I was running before time, racing against it. We all had our own amibitions, and we all had to stretch, lest complacency took our dreams away.
Leaving the myriad NCERT problems in school for those not into the JEE preparation, we used to pursue those 'higher level' IIT problems during class hours, much to our teachers' displeasure. You can't blame us; those NCERT problems were like small creatures trying their best to lure us into some false sense of achievement. For their part, the teachers wanted to tie us to the NCERT syllabus, so that we acquire good marks for them in the board exams and maintain the school's reputation. Of course, we did make full use of the P.T. periods to play bolleyball in the ground. Without these little bits of fun, we would have been devoting our selves to a life of physics, chemistry and mathematics alone. Consumed by determination and perfection, we had been to excel. And the NCERT problems were left to their slow decay.
On a number of occasions, I would end up looking beyond the moments of temporary satisfaction to the impending glory at the end of those two years' hard work. On other occasions, I would look back at my past and reflect on how much I'd changed recently; seeing embers of bridges I'd crossed and realizing I could not return to being the person I'd earlier been. I doubt I was the only one who was feeling this tempestuous change; I guess we all had bridges of our own, glowing behind us. The hectic pace of our lives had transformed each memory froma clear vision to a glimpse through a fog. Memories of how green our Garden City was, were obscured by the grey concrete present of the Silicon Valley of India. It was on with the rat race for all of us JEE rats, while the others were hanging out with each other. We were all dying to get to the other side of the IIT portal.
I had to face the inevitable debate of whether I would have my steps taken forward out of passion or out of a necessity to work hard. When I was working out of passion, my progress was metaphorically not just walking ahead during the day time, but sleepwalking at night as well. Referring back again to my passion or hard-work debate, even at the height of my being driven by the former, I would doubt whether the latter was enough. I was dragged by the glamour of the computer science subject and Bombay as being the location of my favourite summer vacations. As a force of some considerable magnitude, was y aspiration to enter into the IITB Computer Science branch. This force was like an inner tide dragging me along even when my will and motivation was not very high.
During the coaching class tests, I would picture myself as an eagle soaring off at higher altitude as compared to the other birds. Or when the results of a test were declared, I'd imagine myself as a victorious captain, returning home with flag unfurled. By the end of our first year, a lot of us did indeed feel proud of where we reached in our rat race. The dizzy heights of our seniors' achievements did not look so dizzy now that we had climbed so high ourselves. That dreamed-of world at IIT had become a realistic entity.
Towards the end of the two years, looking back at those times, I thought I had been encumbered forever by various hopes and by love. Personal desire and ambition is not easy to satisfy when you are an IIT aspirant. When you want a top 50 JEE rank, or an IPhO gold medal, theres a hunger to push yourself in various directions, not always parallel. With time before the JEE running out, I found I was still unsatisfied with my preparation., but realized I could not do much about it.
Our weary eyes, having spend an eighth of their lifetime on the IITJEE cause, would relish the slightest out-of-the-ordinary sight; be it a goat with two feet on a wall reaching up to eat a few leaves off a low garden tree, or a bunch of care-free kids doing wheelies for over 100 m. on an empty stretch of road-blocked road. My eyes would still stray to a lost IPhO dream, having not qualified for the selection camp. Those daydreams can still be seen at the horizon, gleaming just out of reach. Though down this path of disappointment I had seen myself go, I would still find myself a new fool's hope to cling on to. This disappointment-following-hope road we've been down at least once; for all of us. For so many times I had witnessed the symptoms of a dying fool's hope, whether it was my X Std. board exams or my IPhO dreams, but my IITB CSE dream would be the last one I'd cling on to, till it inevitably shattered with the final disclosure of the JEE results.
Anyway, enjoy this account, I hope you will.
Dedicated to Nehruji, who started the IITs.]
Driving along from Bombay to Pune to visit my cousin pursuing an MTech from IITB, I remember looking out to the sea, and wondering what lay beyond the horizon. I guess that was the holiday when I had first heard of the words 'horizon' and 'skyline' and was just generally admiring the scenic beauty of the place with the mist over the water on one side, and the skyline of Bombay on the other. It was the summer vacation for my brother and me, and it was at our Aunty Annette's that we lived when we came up to Bombay. We were young back then, about ten years old, but still the 'brand IIT' had been heard of, even if not quite understood. In a land dependent on the agriculture industry, these IITs had made a dominating impact! Our cousin showed us some complicated stuff of magnets and miracles had become natural occurrences.
Back at home and back to school after the summer, we found our thoughts strayed from the lectures in class. Constantly and enthusiastically was I seen trying to explain some electromagnetic thing to my peers. I think that they only ended up thinking that my imagination was without boundary. All this was put to the back of my mind however, till 11th grade, when the ringing of alarm bells at 5:20 a.m. for the 6 o'clock coaching class would interrupt my peaceful slumbering for the next two years. Speaking of bells, it was at this time that I was introduced to Pink Floyd and their album The Division Bell. With IIT aspirations on the one hand, and school friends' fun on the other, the emotional upheavals they caused ensured that my maturation had begun.
"Along the long end of the bimetallic strip is..." started the thermo physics lecturer. "The ball rolls on this flat road and on towards the wall with a friction coefficient of ...", droned the mechanics physics lecturer. Though this should have been hectic and all, I would end up wondering about my friends in my previous school and those in my present one as I walked down the causeway. "Do they still stock up on eggs for Josephs-Germains matches?" Or else, "Maybe I should call some on them in Indiranagar and we could meet there by next week?" All this while simultaneously hoping I'd make the cut for the IIT Bombay Computer Science Department.
Then there was a time when I noticed the competition get fierce. The majority of the coaching-goers were like some ragged band that was worn out and yet still carrying on. As we led, they followed in our footsteps. My ambition was great; for my part, I was running before time, racing against it. We all had our own amibitions, and we all had to stretch, lest complacency took our dreams away.
Leaving the myriad NCERT problems in school for those not into the JEE preparation, we used to pursue those 'higher level' IIT problems during class hours, much to our teachers' displeasure. You can't blame us; those NCERT problems were like small creatures trying their best to lure us into some false sense of achievement. For their part, the teachers wanted to tie us to the NCERT syllabus, so that we acquire good marks for them in the board exams and maintain the school's reputation. Of course, we did make full use of the P.T. periods to play bolleyball in the ground. Without these little bits of fun, we would have been devoting our selves to a life of physics, chemistry and mathematics alone. Consumed by determination and perfection, we had been to excel. And the NCERT problems were left to their slow decay.
On a number of occasions, I would end up looking beyond the moments of temporary satisfaction to the impending glory at the end of those two years' hard work. On other occasions, I would look back at my past and reflect on how much I'd changed recently; seeing embers of bridges I'd crossed and realizing I could not return to being the person I'd earlier been. I doubt I was the only one who was feeling this tempestuous change; I guess we all had bridges of our own, glowing behind us. The hectic pace of our lives had transformed each memory froma clear vision to a glimpse through a fog. Memories of how green our Garden City was, were obscured by the grey concrete present of the Silicon Valley of India. It was on with the rat race for all of us JEE rats, while the others were hanging out with each other. We were all dying to get to the other side of the IIT portal.
I had to face the inevitable debate of whether I would have my steps taken forward out of passion or out of a necessity to work hard. When I was working out of passion, my progress was metaphorically not just walking ahead during the day time, but sleepwalking at night as well. Referring back again to my passion or hard-work debate, even at the height of my being driven by the former, I would doubt whether the latter was enough. I was dragged by the glamour of the computer science subject and Bombay as being the location of my favourite summer vacations. As a force of some considerable magnitude, was y aspiration to enter into the IITB Computer Science branch. This force was like an inner tide dragging me along even when my will and motivation was not very high.
During the coaching class tests, I would picture myself as an eagle soaring off at higher altitude as compared to the other birds. Or when the results of a test were declared, I'd imagine myself as a victorious captain, returning home with flag unfurled. By the end of our first year, a lot of us did indeed feel proud of where we reached in our rat race. The dizzy heights of our seniors' achievements did not look so dizzy now that we had climbed so high ourselves. That dreamed-of world at IIT had become a realistic entity.
Towards the end of the two years, looking back at those times, I thought I had been encumbered forever by various hopes and by love. Personal desire and ambition is not easy to satisfy when you are an IIT aspirant. When you want a top 50 JEE rank, or an IPhO gold medal, theres a hunger to push yourself in various directions, not always parallel. With time before the JEE running out, I found I was still unsatisfied with my preparation., but realized I could not do much about it.
Our weary eyes, having spend an eighth of their lifetime on the IITJEE cause, would relish the slightest out-of-the-ordinary sight; be it a goat with two feet on a wall reaching up to eat a few leaves off a low garden tree, or a bunch of care-free kids doing wheelies for over 100 m. on an empty stretch of road-blocked road. My eyes would still stray to a lost IPhO dream, having not qualified for the selection camp. Those daydreams can still be seen at the horizon, gleaming just out of reach. Though down this path of disappointment I had seen myself go, I would still find myself a new fool's hope to cling on to. This disappointment-following-hope road we've been down at least once; for all of us. For so many times I had witnessed the symptoms of a dying fool's hope, whether it was my X Std. board exams or my IPhO dreams, but my IITB CSE dream would be the last one I'd cling on to, till it inevitably shattered with the final disclosure of the JEE results.
Sunday 27 September, 2009
The Language Debate
[This is the first (and possibly the last) debate article I'm posting on this blog. As a debate, this topic has special relevance to me personally.
Dedicated to Siddharth Bhattacharya, whose blog is filled with such articles, and who will hopefully post an article on this too.]
This 14th of September was celebrated as 'Hindi Divas'. Keeping to the context, Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal proposed a 3 language system of education: English, Hindi and Regional Language. And Sunday the 20th, featured this Language Debate on NDTV's We The People show. Here, I am going to give a summary of what I had heard in that debate.
Broadly speaking, the debate touched upon issues of language elitism, and the identity-connectivity requirement of language.
First of all, it is debatable whether each language considers itself superior to the other or not. In any case, there is a sense of 'language pride'. Those who have english are supposedly at a higher class as compared to those who don't have it. At the same time, without hindi or the regional language, survivial would not be easy. Lets consider the kind of people who are equipped with one and not the other.
People who know english and not hindi think that it sets them apart from the masses. They feel that they are able to rise in their careers and in their social circles because of it. They consider those who don't know english as people who are uneducated. Kids educated through the convent education are imparted with english elitism, whether it is in the movies they watch, songs they listen to, or culture they embrace. Now coming to the hindi walas, they feel that they are the real people, like the english ones are fake of sorts. This feeling of authenticity is the main cause of hindi elitism. They consider non-hindi speaking people outsiders, unworthy of being Indian as such. This is just the elitist view of either side.
The identity-connectivity requirement of languages just gives us an excuse to embrace other languages. "English is highly required to get along in the outside world", "Hindi is essential to survival in North India"; or else, "Hindi is the national language. It shows your being Indian" and "Your mother tongue gives you the feeling of who you are in this multicultural India." All these are various reasons for needing a language, whether it is to prosper, or for your sense of identity.
If we look at a few viewpoints of this debate, a lot of people are happy with the way things are and feel there is no need for change. "I was once given the choice to learn Hindi, or German. I chose German. I had thought, 'why would I need to learn hindi?!'", was one such view. It came from one who knew hindi, but felt it would not benefit her if she learnt it. The panelists all agreed that nowadays there are different kinds of english all over the world; that the U.K. English differed from the U.S. English and so why don't we just embrace our own form of Hinglish? With the Oxford Dictionary accepting words such as 'Jai Ho', such a thing is inevitable and certainly acceptable.
Some of the adults in the panel and in the audience tried taking the child's view. "First the child learns his mother tongue. Then he goes to school and has to learn English, Hindi as well as his regional language. What are we trying to do to them?!" Other views involved the decline of certain languages which did not have a region associated to it. Languages like Konkani and Urdu which don't have any region to belong to as such would decline under Sibal's '3-language-system' of education. One of the panelists knew as many as 5 languages. "I know English and Hindi out of experience. Being Muslim, I know Urdu as my mother tongue. Having been born and brought up in Maharashtra, I know Marathi. Since I am currently living in Chennai, I know Tamil. In spite of knowing these 5 languages, I am happy if my children know only English, Hindi and Tamil." was her viewpoint.
At the end of the day, I guess people found this system nothing short of 'forcing languages down people's throats'. A better solution to this problem of linking different-language people while simultaneously not adversely affecting the identity concerns of an individual is that of translations. If someone from the south wants to speak in the Parliament in Tamil for example, why should he be disallowed? Aren't there interpreters at hand to translate what he says into the other languages? If you have a work of literature, wouldn't it be a good business strategy to translate it into another language and get recognition? Why force languages down people's throats when such a solution (if not easy to implement, is atleast feasible) exists?
You might think that this entire topic does not merit debate. If you feel this way, I would just request you to for a moment imagine yourself as a monolingual person. Imagine you know just english, and no regional language, no national language, no mother tongue. Imagine yourself without the 'identity' of your ancestors. Imagine yourself without the 'identity' of your region. Imagine yourself unable to communicate with 'the common man'. And imagine your peers treating you as a linguistic hero who owns a property that they'd hope to imbibe by virtue of being in your company. Imagine of all the things, they are jealous of your english. Now tell me that this does not merit debate.
Dedicated to Siddharth Bhattacharya, whose blog is filled with such articles, and who will hopefully post an article on this too.]
This 14th of September was celebrated as 'Hindi Divas'. Keeping to the context, Cabinet Minister Kapil Sibal proposed a 3 language system of education: English, Hindi and Regional Language. And Sunday the 20th, featured this Language Debate on NDTV's We The People show. Here, I am going to give a summary of what I had heard in that debate.
Broadly speaking, the debate touched upon issues of language elitism, and the identity-connectivity requirement of language.
First of all, it is debatable whether each language considers itself superior to the other or not. In any case, there is a sense of 'language pride'. Those who have english are supposedly at a higher class as compared to those who don't have it. At the same time, without hindi or the regional language, survivial would not be easy. Lets consider the kind of people who are equipped with one and not the other.
People who know english and not hindi think that it sets them apart from the masses. They feel that they are able to rise in their careers and in their social circles because of it. They consider those who don't know english as people who are uneducated. Kids educated through the convent education are imparted with english elitism, whether it is in the movies they watch, songs they listen to, or culture they embrace. Now coming to the hindi walas, they feel that they are the real people, like the english ones are fake of sorts. This feeling of authenticity is the main cause of hindi elitism. They consider non-hindi speaking people outsiders, unworthy of being Indian as such. This is just the elitist view of either side.
The identity-connectivity requirement of languages just gives us an excuse to embrace other languages. "English is highly required to get along in the outside world", "Hindi is essential to survival in North India"; or else, "Hindi is the national language. It shows your being Indian" and "Your mother tongue gives you the feeling of who you are in this multicultural India." All these are various reasons for needing a language, whether it is to prosper, or for your sense of identity.
If we look at a few viewpoints of this debate, a lot of people are happy with the way things are and feel there is no need for change. "I was once given the choice to learn Hindi, or German. I chose German. I had thought, 'why would I need to learn hindi?!'", was one such view. It came from one who knew hindi, but felt it would not benefit her if she learnt it. The panelists all agreed that nowadays there are different kinds of english all over the world; that the U.K. English differed from the U.S. English and so why don't we just embrace our own form of Hinglish? With the Oxford Dictionary accepting words such as 'Jai Ho', such a thing is inevitable and certainly acceptable.
Some of the adults in the panel and in the audience tried taking the child's view. "First the child learns his mother tongue. Then he goes to school and has to learn English, Hindi as well as his regional language. What are we trying to do to them?!" Other views involved the decline of certain languages which did not have a region associated to it. Languages like Konkani and Urdu which don't have any region to belong to as such would decline under Sibal's '3-language-system' of education. One of the panelists knew as many as 5 languages. "I know English and Hindi out of experience. Being Muslim, I know Urdu as my mother tongue. Having been born and brought up in Maharashtra, I know Marathi. Since I am currently living in Chennai, I know Tamil. In spite of knowing these 5 languages, I am happy if my children know only English, Hindi and Tamil." was her viewpoint.
At the end of the day, I guess people found this system nothing short of 'forcing languages down people's throats'. A better solution to this problem of linking different-language people while simultaneously not adversely affecting the identity concerns of an individual is that of translations. If someone from the south wants to speak in the Parliament in Tamil for example, why should he be disallowed? Aren't there interpreters at hand to translate what he says into the other languages? If you have a work of literature, wouldn't it be a good business strategy to translate it into another language and get recognition? Why force languages down people's throats when such a solution (if not easy to implement, is atleast feasible) exists?
You might think that this entire topic does not merit debate. If you feel this way, I would just request you to for a moment imagine yourself as a monolingual person. Imagine you know just english, and no regional language, no national language, no mother tongue. Imagine yourself without the 'identity' of your ancestors. Imagine yourself without the 'identity' of your region. Imagine yourself unable to communicate with 'the common man'. And imagine your peers treating you as a linguistic hero who owns a property that they'd hope to imbibe by virtue of being in your company. Imagine of all the things, they are jealous of your english. Now tell me that this does not merit debate.
Saturday 12 September, 2009
My Dream Hug
[A hug is very nearly the ultimate form/expression of support. Here, I'd just like to share an 'experience' I had not long ago; wherein I received my dream hug from someone in need of support (and hugged her back duuh!). Dedicated to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4]
It was early morning in the airport: you know those low-cost flights which charge you cheap and make you stay up the previous night cuz theres no point sleeping just 2 hours when you gotta reach the airport at like 0430 hours. So anyway, it was early morning, it was in the airport, and we were all half conscious as anyone would be if they hadn't slept a night and had no reason to be excited. The unpolluted air of the early morning Bangalore air (ya, weird phrase) had me wheezing throughout the journey to the airport. Swine flu had broken out, and I feared I would be sent for testing or what-not, and might even end up missing my flight.
But that was half-worry. The wheezing was like most early-morning wheezings and was just a temporary phase between getting my body into action and getting my body used to the action. Ya, so it was temporary. As with it, so was my worry.
In the airport, there were a few people in masks. Actually, hardly anyone, but that was the first time I had got to see a swine flu mask. I vividly remember looking at some kind of bulletin board when it happened. Somehow, my vivid memory tells me that the bulletin board was very like the black pin-up-letters board in our hostel where the reps' and secys' names are pinned up. Anyhow, so here I am, looking up at this bulletin board, and then from behind me comes a young lady. I guess she'd be hardly 6 years older than me, with keen piercing eyes behind spectacles, a scarf around her neck due to the cold early morning of Bangalore, and just generally looking fairly hep. She was wearing a mask.
Shortly after her, came another youngster female. This one was wearing I think jeans and a green T-shirt: green of a shade a bit darker than my favourite light green T-shirt. She was coughing and sneezing away, and as I looked, a lot of people were blatantly avoiding her. The previous female then said aloud, “Why don't you get yourself tested, dear?!”, then walked up to her, tapped her on her cheek, and walked on. The poor sick girl then broke down, turned towards us sitting in our seats, and croaked emotionally, “Could anyone give me a hug?” (I think thats what she said, unless it was something like, “Anyone want a hug?” as a plea of mutual need.)
I guess I felt a kind of empathy then. After all, I had myself felt the fear the of rejection and the fear of being an odd-one-out merely because of a little wheezing on my way to the airport. On that impulse, I stood up and walked towards her. She gave me a very emotional sort of smile and extended her arms as she approached.
We embraced then. Hugged, whatever. Now, I have hugged, and been hugged before this, but the moment I did it, I knew it was the ultimate hug, the perfect hug, my dream hug! We leaned into each other, her head on my shoulder, mine on her head. Our bodies leaning into each other had both of us siphon off our troubles, dissipating into the air by themselves. It was a relief physically as well, our bodies' cushoining the other's. There were no words spoken, and yet as if psychically, we knew how to cling to each other.
Inevitably, it ended. I turned away and went back to my seat. For a while, my mind was blank, my breaths deep, calm. It was a fleeting few moments, shared with a complete stranger, and yet so much more beautiful than most times with friends. It was born out of probably mutual need, and in the end, it left us both feeling whole and satisfied.
This truly and literally, was my dream hug.
[I wanna know what you think of the flow; how much does this hold you. And whether the important parts have been dealt with satisfactorily, or there is some discrepancy in how the description is overdone at some places etc]
It was early morning in the airport: you know those low-cost flights which charge you cheap and make you stay up the previous night cuz theres no point sleeping just 2 hours when you gotta reach the airport at like 0430 hours. So anyway, it was early morning, it was in the airport, and we were all half conscious as anyone would be if they hadn't slept a night and had no reason to be excited. The unpolluted air of the early morning Bangalore air (ya, weird phrase) had me wheezing throughout the journey to the airport. Swine flu had broken out, and I feared I would be sent for testing or what-not, and might even end up missing my flight.
But that was half-worry. The wheezing was like most early-morning wheezings and was just a temporary phase between getting my body into action and getting my body used to the action. Ya, so it was temporary. As with it, so was my worry.
In the airport, there were a few people in masks. Actually, hardly anyone, but that was the first time I had got to see a swine flu mask. I vividly remember looking at some kind of bulletin board when it happened. Somehow, my vivid memory tells me that the bulletin board was very like the black pin-up-letters board in our hostel where the reps' and secys' names are pinned up. Anyhow, so here I am, looking up at this bulletin board, and then from behind me comes a young lady. I guess she'd be hardly 6 years older than me, with keen piercing eyes behind spectacles, a scarf around her neck due to the cold early morning of Bangalore, and just generally looking fairly hep. She was wearing a mask.
Shortly after her, came another youngster female. This one was wearing I think jeans and a green T-shirt: green of a shade a bit darker than my favourite light green T-shirt. She was coughing and sneezing away, and as I looked, a lot of people were blatantly avoiding her. The previous female then said aloud, “Why don't you get yourself tested, dear?!”, then walked up to her, tapped her on her cheek, and walked on. The poor sick girl then broke down, turned towards us sitting in our seats, and croaked emotionally, “Could anyone give me a hug?” (I think thats what she said, unless it was something like, “Anyone want a hug?” as a plea of mutual need.)
I guess I felt a kind of empathy then. After all, I had myself felt the fear the of rejection and the fear of being an odd-one-out merely because of a little wheezing on my way to the airport. On that impulse, I stood up and walked towards her. She gave me a very emotional sort of smile and extended her arms as she approached.
We embraced then. Hugged, whatever. Now, I have hugged, and been hugged before this, but the moment I did it, I knew it was the ultimate hug, the perfect hug, my dream hug! We leaned into each other, her head on my shoulder, mine on her head. Our bodies leaning into each other had both of us siphon off our troubles, dissipating into the air by themselves. It was a relief physically as well, our bodies' cushoining the other's. There were no words spoken, and yet as if psychically, we knew how to cling to each other.
Inevitably, it ended. I turned away and went back to my seat. For a while, my mind was blank, my breaths deep, calm. It was a fleeting few moments, shared with a complete stranger, and yet so much more beautiful than most times with friends. It was born out of probably mutual need, and in the end, it left us both feeling whole and satisfied.
This truly and literally, was my dream hug.
[I wanna know what you think of the flow; how much does this hold you. And whether the important parts have been dealt with satisfactorily, or there is some discrepancy in how the description is overdone at some places etc]
Monday 31 August, 2009
Quote by Albert Camus
This post is just open for comments.
Let me know what you think.
"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."
Let me know what you think.
"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life."
Sunday 9 August, 2009
A Proposal
This is a part fiction, part true story. I doubt anyone really knows what part is fact and what fiction. It'll be fun trying to guess [yes, some people will guess correctly] though.
I somehow still have the vague confusion of tenses-changing arbitrarily. Sorry for any such lapses. I'd like to know how the flow is, as such.
I had to steel myself; get the weight off my chest, lest it take a cancerous hold over my brain, my time. Her radiant beauty was like the sun; I could not afford more than a glance, lest my eyes get scorched, blind to all else. -
"Go, in the peace of Christ!"
Startled out of my reverie, I give the required "Thanks be to God!" response.
I had noticed her in church from about a year and a half ago, going for the sunday morning mass. She was definitely younger than me: when I had initially seen her, I had already gone through puberty, having satisfied large parts of my sexual curiosity and intrigue; whereas she was still a girl, not yet into puberty. She had a bony horsy/mouse-like face, clear complexion, with short hair curling about her ears, coming down to her mid-neck.
I did not know her name, I had never even spoken to her. I knew nothing about her other than the things I could observe. She had a Caucasian-ish balding dad, and an old-looking bespectacled mom. Well, atleast I assumed they were her parents because I'd never seen her without them. She had large eyes and keen eyebrows, and was probably the quiet type of girl.
As the final hymn was being sung, I recalled the time I noticed her past her puberty. I had just exited the church that morning and turned around, waiting for my brother when I saw her walk past. As she went by me, I glanced down. To my immense joy, I spotted them: the two tiny bumps on her shirt, round and ever so slight. Atleast she wasn't that young, that my feelings are like to a pedophile. Maybe she'd grow to like me! Er, who'm I kidding...
The hymn ended. I had to act fast. The plan was to intercept her before she reached her car, else I'd never get her alone. I exited the church, and looked to where she generally exited from. There came her parents.
And then, there was she! She was trailing her parents, which was going according to the plan. However, having never confessed my love to a girl before, I was completely overwhelmed by my emotions and the knowledge of what I was about to do. A few steps forward, each step harder than the last, and I found my legs turn marshmallow. My heart began thumping against my ribs and my throat turned dry.
I had to steel myself again. I looked back at the past two weeks: how thoughts of her had eaten at my mind; how plans and counterplans were formulated for this moment. I could not, would not, turn back now.
I called out to her, "Excuse me!" It came out as a croak.
Cursing myself in my mind, I took a step or two again and called out, "Excuse me!" But that came out as loud 'Ex', a soft 'cuse' and an undertoned 'me'. Sighing, I jogged up to her and called out "Excuse me?"
She turned. I stared. She stared back. Except for a few involuntary twitches, I was by and large immobilised.
"...Yes?"
If it wasn't for things suddenly having picked up pace, I might've wanted to digest the fact that I'd just heard her voice for the very first time.
"Hi! My name's Pradeep. Whats yours?"
"Why do you ask?"
Shit! Think of something! The plan! "Oh, I've seen you in church some times. I need certain data for a survey I'm conducting..." If I was a better liar, my plan might've been a bit less far-fetched perhaps. But as things stood, I hoped she'd buy it.
"Hmmm... I'm Shweta."
"Sheweta, I'll need your email address..."
"Hey I really gotta go now. Parents are waiting for me. Maybe next week...?"
I don't know what happened to me then, but the thought of waiting another week somehow seemed kind of unbearable. I hanged the plan, and just blurted out, "I have a crush on you..."
She stared. I searched her face. It betrayed nothing. Nothing except confusion. She looked as if my words had knocked out the ground from under her feet; like she was in free-fall. It had unsettled her. Badly. She looked lost. I decided to end the silence then, because her parents seemed to be getting restless, waiting at their car.
"Hey, its ok. Don't think about what I said. Just don't tell your parents. Make som... - "
I think the word 'parents' shook her out of her nightmare. She promptly turned on her heel and walked up to her dad and started speaking to him.
Fearing the worst, and not wishing to confront the man, I walked away as briskly as I could, not daring to look back. Fortunately, I was never chased, and didn't have to confront him.
Unfortunately, I never saw Shweta again. She stopped coming for the sunday morning mass, and the times I went for other mass timings, I could not find her. They'd probably shifted parish. But all this has never stopped me from looking toward her exit, every time I attend that church, in the fool's hope that I may once again glimpse a beauty that will surely have me intoxicated even to this day.
I somehow still have the vague confusion of tenses-changing arbitrarily. Sorry for any such lapses. I'd like to know how the flow is, as such.
I had to steel myself; get the weight off my chest, lest it take a cancerous hold over my brain, my time. Her radiant beauty was like the sun; I could not afford more than a glance, lest my eyes get scorched, blind to all else. -
"Go, in the peace of Christ!"
Startled out of my reverie, I give the required "Thanks be to God!" response.
I had noticed her in church from about a year and a half ago, going for the sunday morning mass. She was definitely younger than me: when I had initially seen her, I had already gone through puberty, having satisfied large parts of my sexual curiosity and intrigue; whereas she was still a girl, not yet into puberty. She had a bony horsy/mouse-like face, clear complexion, with short hair curling about her ears, coming down to her mid-neck.
I did not know her name, I had never even spoken to her. I knew nothing about her other than the things I could observe. She had a Caucasian-ish balding dad, and an old-looking bespectacled mom. Well, atleast I assumed they were her parents because I'd never seen her without them. She had large eyes and keen eyebrows, and was probably the quiet type of girl.
As the final hymn was being sung, I recalled the time I noticed her past her puberty. I had just exited the church that morning and turned around, waiting for my brother when I saw her walk past. As she went by me, I glanced down. To my immense joy, I spotted them: the two tiny bumps on her shirt, round and ever so slight. Atleast she wasn't that young, that my feelings are like to a pedophile. Maybe she'd grow to like me! Er, who'm I kidding...
The hymn ended. I had to act fast. The plan was to intercept her before she reached her car, else I'd never get her alone. I exited the church, and looked to where she generally exited from. There came her parents.
And then, there was she! She was trailing her parents, which was going according to the plan. However, having never confessed my love to a girl before, I was completely overwhelmed by my emotions and the knowledge of what I was about to do. A few steps forward, each step harder than the last, and I found my legs turn marshmallow. My heart began thumping against my ribs and my throat turned dry.
I had to steel myself again. I looked back at the past two weeks: how thoughts of her had eaten at my mind; how plans and counterplans were formulated for this moment. I could not, would not, turn back now.
I called out to her, "Excuse me!" It came out as a croak.
Cursing myself in my mind, I took a step or two again and called out, "Excuse me!" But that came out as loud 'Ex', a soft 'cuse' and an undertoned 'me'. Sighing, I jogged up to her and called out "Excuse me?"
She turned. I stared. She stared back. Except for a few involuntary twitches, I was by and large immobilised.
"...Yes?"
If it wasn't for things suddenly having picked up pace, I might've wanted to digest the fact that I'd just heard her voice for the very first time.
"Hi! My name's Pradeep. Whats yours?"
"Why do you ask?"
Shit! Think of something! The plan! "Oh, I've seen you in church some times. I need certain data for a survey I'm conducting..." If I was a better liar, my plan might've been a bit less far-fetched perhaps. But as things stood, I hoped she'd buy it.
"Hmmm... I'm Shweta."
"Sheweta, I'll need your email address..."
"Hey I really gotta go now. Parents are waiting for me. Maybe next week...?"
I don't know what happened to me then, but the thought of waiting another week somehow seemed kind of unbearable. I hanged the plan, and just blurted out, "I have a crush on you..."
She stared. I searched her face. It betrayed nothing. Nothing except confusion. She looked as if my words had knocked out the ground from under her feet; like she was in free-fall. It had unsettled her. Badly. She looked lost. I decided to end the silence then, because her parents seemed to be getting restless, waiting at their car.
"Hey, its ok. Don't think about what I said. Just don't tell your parents. Make som... - "
I think the word 'parents' shook her out of her nightmare. She promptly turned on her heel and walked up to her dad and started speaking to him.
Fearing the worst, and not wishing to confront the man, I walked away as briskly as I could, not daring to look back. Fortunately, I was never chased, and didn't have to confront him.
Unfortunately, I never saw Shweta again. She stopped coming for the sunday morning mass, and the times I went for other mass timings, I could not find her. They'd probably shifted parish. But all this has never stopped me from looking toward her exit, every time I attend that church, in the fool's hope that I may once again glimpse a beauty that will surely have me intoxicated even to this day.
Sunday 19 July, 2009
Not another sob story
This is a product of a jobless evening in the R2 in the 1st sem. I didn't know what to do, and just msged a friend in Madras (yes, an authentic maddu) out of boredom. He told me to 'try something new'. So I thought I'd try some kinda lyrics ... This is the product of my emotions at the time. Its dedicated to that Maddu friend, and two women in my life (they know who they are, having contributed bits of the lyrics :P) who've been an inspiration to me with their grit in times of distress.
Every cloud has a silver lining,
But the darker ones have a brighter lining,
Its all the same, it just looks like so; say some
And thats the whole point, to notice it so.
But what about a black hole?
That inescapable cloud of darkness?
What happens when it is easier to embrace the darkness
Than hold on to the Light?
"I just want this hell to end!
I can't I can't! I can't take it anymore!
I just can't I just can't!
I want to scream and just break!
I want to just break..."
A glass half full, or one half empty?
Thats for the philosophers to decide
But how does one between a glass choose
Being just about empty or but a drop full!
Pain will come and pain will go,
Pain must come and pain must go,
But to suffer, you can decide
Or else just take it in your stride.
"I just want this hell to end!
I can't I can't! I can't take it anymore!
I just can't I just can't!
I want to scream and just break!
I want to just break..."
"My life was flowing on,
Like a boat among streams and rapids,
Until that waterfall, until that waterfall,
And all that I thought I had, all I took for granted,
Is gone...
So now where do I restart from?"
"I just want this hell to end!
I can't I can't! I can't take it anymore!
I just can't I just can't!
I want to scream and just break!
I want to just break...
And never feel again."
Every cloud has a silver lining,
But the darker ones have a brighter lining,
Its all the same, it just looks like so; say some
And thats the whole point, to notice it so.
But what about a black hole?
That inescapable cloud of darkness?
What happens when it is easier to embrace the darkness
Than hold on to the Light?
"I just want this hell to end!
I can't I can't! I can't take it anymore!
I just can't I just can't!
I want to scream and just break!
I want to just break..."
A glass half full, or one half empty?
Thats for the philosophers to decide
But how does one between a glass choose
Being just about empty or but a drop full!
Pain will come and pain will go,
Pain must come and pain must go,
But to suffer, you can decide
Or else just take it in your stride.
"I just want this hell to end!
I can't I can't! I can't take it anymore!
I just can't I just can't!
I want to scream and just break!
I want to just break..."
"My life was flowing on,
Like a boat among streams and rapids,
Until that waterfall, until that waterfall,
And all that I thought I had, all I took for granted,
Is gone...
So now where do I restart from?"
"I just want this hell to end!
I can't I can't! I can't take it anymore!
I just can't I just can't!
I want to scream and just break!
I want to just break...
And never feel again."
Saturday 30 May, 2009
The Race Files
On the Evolution of Racing
This post is dedicated to one Mr. Ishan Gupta who took one of my eccentricities - the following one in fact - and turned it into a most hilarious topic of conversation.
Back in the good ol' days, when I was five or six, the seeds were sown. A lot of kids, when they are kids, observe certain 'symmetries' and behave accordingly weird. Stuff like walking on lines, walking in squares, walking on one's tip-toes, skipping certain steps of a staircase: all of which would seem completely pointless to a rational mind, and yet would be as law for a kid in his world.
Most such sown seeds, give rise to plants that die early, due to the child undergoing a process called "coming of age". Unlike most such plants, this one did not die out; it merely "came of age" itself, or in common terms, it evolved. This, is the Ritual of the Race.
Stage 1 - Germination
It all began with my brother and I joining the auto man who'd take us to school and back when I was five. The earliest form of the Race was simple: get to the auto first in the morning, and get back home first from where the auto drops you in the evening.
Stage 2 - Survival of the Fittest
Due to the complexity of the grography (read, one basement and five flights of stairs) and the ambiguity in start and finish lines and times, the Race was not only about who was faster. We both had to play to our strengths. I was the faster and the early-riser, whereas my brother was the stronger. It turns out that speed NEVER mattered. Being the early riser, I would esily win the morning race. Being the stronger, my bro would never let me enter the house first: he'd physically pull me and leave me behind!
Stage 3 - Old age
By now, the plant had grown old, and it was time to shed some of its life force. The morning issue of the race died out just like all other habits. The evening issue however, was in for the first stage of evolution: The Next Generation...
Stage 4 - Evolution
A new rule entered the Race! It was the definition of the finish line. Now, I was approximately in the third grade, my bro in fifth. My contribution to the rule was that the winner would be declared as the first person who shouted "FIRST!" My bro's contribution was that you had to be inside the house for the shout to be valid.
Stage 5 - The Defining Moment I
By now, our Race was an advanced life form capable of being fine-tuned to perfection, which each tuning leading to various strategies etc. The problem with the last rule was that there was no way of defining how inside was required before you could be eligible to shout FIRST! My bro found an easy workaround. By default, you need to be complegely inside the house (with both feet in, not on the doormat). Otherwise, just declare a custom finish line and use that.
This led to the infamous ONE-LEG-ON-MAT format. My bro would should ONE-LEG-ON-MAT and then shout FIRST! while holding me outside the door and preventing me from coming in.
Stage 6 - The Starting Line
These rules fit all very well, so long as we knew the starting point as when the Auto stops at the apartment gate. But with the Race turning so much fun, we started having it even when one would just go to the Provisions store. Now, how could that be a race when one person's still in? Thus came the race-initiation rule! A race begins when any one person travels outside the house and the balcony. Tis rule didn't affect the Race much in terms of its usage, but it prevented the 'surprise strategy' where one would take a step out, step back in, and shout FIRST! claiming a 'win'.
Stage 7 - ... the Present ...
We finally come to the last rule, the one that edged out the ONE-LEG-ON-MAT format as a redundant part of the Race. The 3rd Gen Race came about as a simple thing of needing to prove that your opponent has heard you shout FIRST! So 'rigorous' is the proof required that if one covers his ears with his hands, he can't hear a thing. This rule caused both of us to hold our ears and at the same time, get the other person's hands off. By now, the Race has evolved to such a degree that for the past nine years it hasn't been evolving, except in the numerous strategies employed (see Appendix).
Conclusion.
For the past one year or so, I've been meaning to write down The Race Files, to document the evolutionary process of the Race, as we had grown up.
Appendix - Present strategies
This post is dedicated to one Mr. Ishan Gupta who took one of my eccentricities - the following one in fact - and turned it into a most hilarious topic of conversation.
Back in the good ol' days, when I was five or six, the seeds were sown. A lot of kids, when they are kids, observe certain 'symmetries' and behave accordingly weird. Stuff like walking on lines, walking in squares, walking on one's tip-toes, skipping certain steps of a staircase: all of which would seem completely pointless to a rational mind, and yet would be as law for a kid in his world.
Most such sown seeds, give rise to plants that die early, due to the child undergoing a process called "coming of age". Unlike most such plants, this one did not die out; it merely "came of age" itself, or in common terms, it evolved. This, is the Ritual of the Race.
Stage 1 - Germination
It all began with my brother and I joining the auto man who'd take us to school and back when I was five. The earliest form of the Race was simple: get to the auto first in the morning, and get back home first from where the auto drops you in the evening.
Stage 2 - Survival of the Fittest
Due to the complexity of the grography (read, one basement and five flights of stairs) and the ambiguity in start and finish lines and times, the Race was not only about who was faster. We both had to play to our strengths. I was the faster and the early-riser, whereas my brother was the stronger. It turns out that speed NEVER mattered. Being the early riser, I would esily win the morning race. Being the stronger, my bro would never let me enter the house first: he'd physically pull me and leave me behind!
Stage 3 - Old age
By now, the plant had grown old, and it was time to shed some of its life force. The morning issue of the race died out just like all other habits. The evening issue however, was in for the first stage of evolution: The Next Generation...
Stage 4 - Evolution
A new rule entered the Race! It was the definition of the finish line. Now, I was approximately in the third grade, my bro in fifth. My contribution to the rule was that the winner would be declared as the first person who shouted "FIRST!" My bro's contribution was that you had to be inside the house for the shout to be valid.
Stage 5 - The Defining Moment I
By now, our Race was an advanced life form capable of being fine-tuned to perfection, which each tuning leading to various strategies etc. The problem with the last rule was that there was no way of defining how inside was required before you could be eligible to shout FIRST! My bro found an easy workaround. By default, you need to be complegely inside the house (with both feet in, not on the doormat). Otherwise, just declare a custom finish line and use that.
This led to the infamous ONE-LEG-ON-MAT format. My bro would should ONE-LEG-ON-MAT and then shout FIRST! while holding me outside the door and preventing me from coming in.
Stage 6 - The Starting Line
These rules fit all very well, so long as we knew the starting point as when the Auto stops at the apartment gate. But with the Race turning so much fun, we started having it even when one would just go to the Provisions store. Now, how could that be a race when one person's still in? Thus came the race-initiation rule! A race begins when any one person travels outside the house and the balcony. Tis rule didn't affect the Race much in terms of its usage, but it prevented the 'surprise strategy' where one would take a step out, step back in, and shout FIRST! claiming a 'win'.
Stage 7 - ... the Present ...
We finally come to the last rule, the one that edged out the ONE-LEG-ON-MAT format as a redundant part of the Race. The 3rd Gen Race came about as a simple thing of needing to prove that your opponent has heard you shout FIRST! So 'rigorous' is the proof required that if one covers his ears with his hands, he can't hear a thing. This rule caused both of us to hold our ears and at the same time, get the other person's hands off. By now, the Race has evolved to such a degree that for the past nine years it hasn't been evolving, except in the numerous strategies employed (see Appendix).
Conclusion.
For the past one year or so, I've been meaning to write down The Race Files, to document the evolutionary process of the Race, as we had grown up.
Appendix - Present strategies
- Stand inside. Prevent opponent from entering. Use both hands to get one ear free. Shout FIRST!
- Enter quietly. Creep upstairs where opponent is reading/pretending to study/studying etc. Surprise him with the Shout!
- While opponent enters quietly etc (read above), and you are the one upstairs, hold your ears and await his shout. When he shouts, expecting victory, he does not keep his ears covered. You shout then!
- Hold one ear on your one shoulder, and using that free hand disarm the opponent. Now shout FIRST!
- When opponent is closing his ears, ask him a question. If he answers, it proves that he can hear through his hands, so shout FIRST!
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