Spillovers and Mergers...

Decided to merge my blogs, copying the only post in the other to my more regular one. Of course, more regular being one post every year. The blog was begging to be removed, me having suffered verbal amnesia.

I don't know why I decided to become an Engineer. Well technically, I'm not an Engineer yet, I'm still in university. And I don't remember choosing to become one either...I'm guessing it had something to do with the fact that I'm South Asian and we're told only one thing-study hard, become either a Doctor or an Engineer. Oh, and if you don't succeed in becoming either, you can always fall back on CA(Chartered Accountancy),which, I would like to say, is as easy as holding back when you're bursting your bladder with yoohoo. Though I didn't really like either option, I took Engineering cuz...well, I thought it was cooler. Plus I heard you get free beer when you're an engineer. Also (no offense to doctors here, I understand you do awesome stuff) I didn't fancy the idea of putting together ruptured spleens for a living. But had I known the kind of cash doctors roll in at that time, believe me, I would've seriously considered having an MD rather than a PEng after my name. Wow...if I keep taking career decisions this way...ah, what the hell...it's better than flipping a coin.

Blogs...really??

Yeah, I know it's a big deal getting an internship and such, but I've often wondered why it is that every left boob that lands a twenty-five cent job wants to dance naked on the Eiffel Tower, figuratively speaking. Pardon my indignation, but I was simply musing on why these blokes insist on making martyrs of the English language by posting blogs recounting their rather..what is the word I search for..ah, fucking moronic experiences.

Please, don't mistake me, it's not the anecdotes I don't enjoy - they're nothing but pure literary treats, and they are rather fun to dissect, much more so with a colleague who doesn't have the literary IQ of a doornail. It's the collateral mutilation of the English language that drives me up the proverbial wall, so to speak.

I must admit I've sought great pleasure passing those links around to persons I know will appreciate them, and I am ashamed to say I've found it. While I search these blogs for any semblance of a coherent sentence, I find the most unexpected use of words that would put the likes of Wordsworth and Yeats to shame. And by that I of course mean that they'd rather slit their scrotum rather than acknowledge these modern pieces of literary work part of the English language. Okay, so I flew a little off the handle there. But any conscientious reader would probably have the same reaction.

What do I say now? "Friend, spare the innocents and stop writing." "Man, your writing is reminiscent of that smelly fart in the elevator that no one owns up to." I could do that, but that would make me a dick, now, wouldn't it? So I do this. I write a blog. Yes, I'm just being a good and polite friend, I rationalize. What could anyone say? Comments are moderated. Hopefully the persons for whom this was intended will get the message. However, don't think that my hypocrisy in writing a blog about bad blogs has gone unmentioned or unnoticed. Duly noted.

Then again, maybe I'm just venting.

Long live the freedom of speech.

"I'm Allergic"

It's Oasis. It's the annual cultural fest of the BITS-Pilani, Pilani Campus(I generally despise calling it Pilani Pilani, but I have no other choice). What this event is really famous for is the myriad of talented guys and gals (please note that I refrain from using the term " insanely hot chicks" here) from different colleges across the country it attracts who participate in a bunch of boring stuff, starting from debates to plays to music. But I'm not going to talk about that. Those stories have had enough publicity, what with having big names like MTV, Airtel and Red Bull sponsor their events. What goes amiss in these big shows is the story of ordinary people in hilariously fucked up situations. I came to know of such a situation when I was catching up with some chums from the Indian subcontinent. For those of you un-BitsGians, I'd like to tell you about a certain character that meanders the corridors of our campus, in particular, AH8-previously BH7(Boys' Hostel 7, for the intellectually incapacitated readers of this blog), and his name is D*. I must describe him to you, for his character is pivotal in this less known story in Oasis.For the awe-inspiring awesome BitsGian readers of mine that are well-acquainted with D, please pardon me and divert your attention for a while I describe the joy that is our very own D. Walk your dog, hump the grass, do your laundry or something- whatever you do in your free time. Anyways, it was not after much deliberation that my friend was christened D, but after a remarkably awesome first conversation I had with him. As I've said about him to many, one mustn't judge him from first impressions- because if you do, you'll be left alone in the middle of the fucking desert trying to castrate yourself to death. While this guy makes a first impression envied by most how-to-be-successful-in-interviews-authors, his ensuing impressions will knock your balls clean off. I have since learned never to take him seriously. But he's a good friend to have around, which is hard to come by, and so he's not going to punch me in the face for writing about him in such a stupendously degrading fashion.
Now that I've spoken sufficiently about the foibles of D, I shall delve into our little story. So here I was busy pretending to read in my room and the gtalk thingy starts to dance in orange and blue lights on my task bar(Yeah, I still have XP, cuz VISTA FUCKING SUCKS). There was an incoming chat from D. I can only paraphrase at this juncture, and so I hope memory serves me well. The exchange ran somewhat like this after pleasantries had been made.

D Dude, you wanna hear something funny?
ME: Always.
D: You know I went to Oasis, right?
ME: Oh? No, I didn't know Pilani was so stupid that they actually called you there. What did you go there for?
D: Debating, ob.

*Let me just jump in, again, for the sake of the un-BitsGians, and say we at BitsG have our own lingo like every other university and we use that lingo proudly in our conversations. We're apparently too lazy to say the word obviously fully. Plus we think it's cool and everything.*

ME: Nice, dude...win anything??
D: Obbb, man. First place \m/
ME : Congrats dude, first worthy achievement since day 1 of college.
D: Fuck you. But that's not the news. It's this incident I had while I was in Pilani.
ME: Incident?
D: I almost did it.
ME: It? YOU did It?? And wait a minute…how do you almost do it??
D: Yeah…oh, but before I forget dude, there was this totally awesome cold war on the train on the way to Pilani, and it was over some really ugly chick rofl..It was M and P, and they were……..

At this point my brain had successfully blocked out his funny train story and started concentrating on his earlier statement. Oh my God, D’s done it. D’s done it. Of all the people, I had never pictured in a million years…and then the images started flooding..oh lord, the images. Some continue to wake me up in cold sweats.

….after that M and P didn’t speak to each other the whole trip including the way back hahahahaha…

ME: Yeah yeah hilarious man…so you were saying before the train story?
D: Oh yeah, there was this chick that I was hanging out with, in Pilani. The night before I leave for Goa after the last day of Oasis, she gets completely stoned, and totally starts hitting on me and shit.
ME: go on…(I am presently awestruck at the fact that a) Indian chicks do weed and b) he was the lucky bastard that was around when it happened)
D: Then she asks me if , well, I wanted to do it.
ME: Holy shit! What did you say?
D: What the fuck could I say?? What do you say in a situation like that? I keep quiet. And then, get this, she rifles through her carry bag and goes, “do you like flavored condoms??”
ME: Damn. Damn. Did you atleast open your mouth now?
D: I wish I hadn’t.
ME: What do you mean? What the hell did you say?
D: I said, “I’m allergic to flavored condoms”. And then I took off. :(
ME: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YOU SAID WHAT?
D: Stfu dude what the hell was I supposed to say man?
ME: Oh dude, hahahahahahaha, anything but that, man….

And that was how the general tone of the conversation went from thereon. Me mocking the crap out of poor D and practically splitting my sides laughing all over the plushly carpeted bedroom floor. The incident still brings a happy smile to my face. I hope it will to yours too.

-Cheers.

PS: I have written the above post with oral consent of said D.
*This is a rather weak attempt at protecting my friend's identity. I am not liable to prosecution should this story offend him rather badly.

The Lone Sandal

“How the hell did it get there?” I demanded of Arvind, who’d just woken me up at 5:30 in the evening. I was not in a very great mood, what with having missed getting my mid term papers back and everything. “Dunno”, he said following my gaze to the top of the hostel roof. “Did you upset someone lately?” Even as I strained to think of an answer to his musing, I was trying to comprehend why someone would think of this as punishment, or even revenge in any way. My brown leather sandal was seated happily atop our hostel roof, with its pair on the ground, as though someone had tried to throw them both on the roof, but had only partially succeeded. I was quite annoyed at first, but then found the concept of a lone sandal on the hostel roof quite amusing to say the least. Not surprisingly enough, a small crowd gathered around my room as we contemplated on whether or not we should rescue my footwear from the roof. Deciding that it should be challenging to us Engineers, who were jobless beyond normal measure (this has been generously understated), we decided to go for it.

My buddies came up with, I should say, several very innovative ideas, some of which included “lassoing” the sandal from the third floor, throwing footballs, and waiting for the July monsoon to wash it down. Deciding that leaving it to Mother Nature wasn’t such an exciting proposition at the moment, we decided to try the first idea that was tossed around. At this point I would like to mention a certain rope that’s been taking residence in our hostel for a long time. I do not know if it still exists, but it was heavily and extensively used, especially by Harsha, to make birthdays memorable. A phenomenon our Hostel Superintendent Murali Sir used to refer to as “birthday ke din gaand pe maarna”. The special thing about this ordinary piece of rope was that it had a rubber slipper attached to one end of it, much like the ones used in Rome for torturing slaves.

The first idea involved some heavy upper body strength, so I invited Aatif bhai, on the sole condition that he wouldn’t speak any “Hyderabadi Hindi”. After what seemed like a year or two, we concluded that tossing rubber slippers on the roof wasn’t going to bring down anything other than the rather badly colored tiles of our hostel roof (analytical capabilities as Engineers, you see). The next idea was far more intellectual in nature-we were to work as a team (we exercise our brains while simultaneously working on our management principles-“work together as a team”)- the couple of us on the second floor balcony were to toss a deflated football to try and bring the sandal down. There was a man stationed on the ground (Walunj) to retrieve the football and toss it back up, and of course there was Shrikrishnan doing his bit to irritate the crap out of all of us. Once again (after some pointing and laughing at Walunj trying to make his throw reach the first floor) we abandoned the exercise as utterly futile.

A year later, when I returned to a rather mouldy and fungus-infested room after my summer vacation, I was pleasantly surprised to find my lone sandal lying on my previously barren hostel lawn, now abundant with thick grass brought in by the July monsoon. I guess it was Mother Nature who beat us to it.

-Cheers

HOLI WARS..

Someone once told me to have "dreams" for me to reach new heights in life… I was heeding the advice of this great visionary when I was rudely woken up by a sharp knock on my dorm door… "Machchan, vaada sappadalaam"(C’mon man let’s go eat).. I think it was the voice of my good friend Arvind Jaya (known widely as Dramatics, much to his dislike and for which I take full credit) that made me squint at the alarm clock on my desk… 0700 hrs… I gathered myself, still staggering as an after effect of the late night movie routine, to the bathroom and got myself in shape for a good meal at the good old mess. When I registered my surprise on my friend’s new early routine, he was quick in comforting me by saying he had yet to sleep for the night.
Barely had I walked out of the mess after what I can only term a near death experience (severe malnutrition- as in Ethiopia and Somalia) that I ran into Lux (better known as Lakshman), another of my good chums from the land of the muggus, who magnanimously promised me a session of cricket coaching that morning. When I joined him on our hostel cricket slash football slash etc. ground, waving a hi to Walunj, another kind/jovial creature that resides on my floor, I heard a wild shriek and turned around a little too late to see the pail of green water that was heading my direction… Crap… it was HOLI today, wasn’t it….? Well, it was at this point that Lux abandoned his cricket bat in my hands and ran at full speed to the nearest room to hide… apparently he doesn’t like his face becoming a spot of canvas… well, who can blame him..? So do many people…
The holi mood was just setting in, with the guys coming at each other with lots of colours in their hands, and many blemish less faces arriving from theirs rooms to be painted on. It was then that the gang( not anyone in particular, just the bh7ites) decided to call one of its well-respected and popular members, Babaji (less widely known as Sahil). Well, as I told you earlier, he was one of those types that don’t like to be a human doodle… so, there was a big hue about "holiday spirit", accompanied with some rotten-egg bursting inside his room...the guy didn’t budge, though… Well, you can’t blame the guys for trying…
So, the guys from Boys Hostel 7 (BH7) started off in a big (I mean it) group, off to, you know, spread the joy… I am happy to announce that I was part of the group. We trampled off to the main building, hitting BH6 on the way, to meet some seniors from BH1 and 2...Well, it was quite a sight…It was around 1030hrs when some bloke thought it would be a good idea and a new tradition in BITSGOA(forgive me, but I hate calling it bitsG for some reason) to tear (only guys’) T-shirts or whatever ppl were wearing that morning to shreds, and some other guy thought it would be funnier still to hang those tattered remains on a lone tree standing near our workshop building… Well, let’s just say we had a lot of campus cleaning to do before the next day, our inter college fest, WAVES-07… cheers…

Intro Blog

Hi folks...now that I'm no longer a part of the awesome Bits-Pilani Goa Campus, my blogs are the only things that remind me of what I'm missing every minute of every day that I'm not there. I hope to keep my memories of the place alive through these (not so regularly posted) blogs of mine...hope you guys enjoy it.