I have had the privelege of browsing through her rough book.
and I was not disappointed for the note was filled with some interesting stuff [atleast i found it interesting :))] amidst other run of the mill and mundane scribblings (yea the academic stuff)
The setting:
teacher not in class. class leader 'minding' the class. so students converse in writing.
- the excerpts of the conversation that transpired between her and her friend ----
Other artistes - prathiba.... and roshini (guest appearance).
[their names changed to preserve identities ughh!!!! - ithu romba over illaa????]
Related acronyms :
poo for pooja
prat for prathiba
okay here goes -
poo: dear prathiba, i told u to not tell this matter to anyone. why did u tell this matter to roshini?
prat: in toilet, u only told to tell this matter to roshini
poo: no. when did i tell? and dont show any letter to roshini. yes or no?
prat: i told her the matter . what to do now?
poo: ok ! but dont tell anyone else now.
roshini: okay pooja.
poo: i dont want roshini's answer. i want your answer prathiba.
prat: ok. i wont tell others.
poo: ok. change the topic. we will speak about something else.
prat: no i am doing it with roshini.
poo: what are u doing with roshini?
prat: we are writing story.
prat: ok. we'll play.
poo: ok. u start.
prat: how are you?
poo: fine how are u?
prat: fine. how are your forin studies?
poo: its fine. but your searching for work.no. i will give you work in forin.
prat: hey. i am not searching for work. i am already a vet in america.
poo: but paati told your searching for work.
prat: no i dint tell you that i am searching for work.
poo: okay. leave that off. now u just draw a picture that u are a ghost and trying to kill me.
[ a terrifying pic of a ghost - or a lookalike follows - drawn by prat =))
poo: it is like a doll and a smoke.
prat: gosts will be like this only.
poo: we will play tic tac toe
[ shows a tic tac toe 3 by 3 matrix]
prat: no. it is boring.
poo: it is not boring for me.
prat: hay please write the topic is friends or parler
poo: how to play?
prat: tick any one. we play that topic.
poo: what should i tick?
prat: tick your favorite
poo: you dint give options at all. how can i tick?
prat: i gave options
[in the sentence prat:hay please write the topic is friends or parler
- tick marked on parler - now]
prat: welcome to our parler.
poo: i want to do facesial.
prat: please take your seat. we'll do our project.
[ a pic of a girl with boff hair - i cant see any 'facesial' done on the girl!!!!]
bell rings....trrrrrringgggggggg....class over.
now full time vetti for another 10 mins :))
PS:
Acknowledgements to pooja who had sat beside dictating to me for over half an hour in writing this post.all blog directions - font, colour, style of writing were also advised by pooja.
btw, pooja is my li'l cousin sis , studyin 3rd std now.
flashback:
i was an innocent, ignorant and a dumb child when i was in 3rd std. kids these days are way too smart i guess!!!!
Sunday, December 25, 2005
Monday, December 19, 2005
Is Chennai a Nightmare for Non Tamilians ????
I cant say how many times exactly. or how frequently either!
what????
i mean we have these discussions like who wants to work in what kind of places in "Mera Bharat Mahan" .
i start the usual ramayan like " I love chennai. Chennai is Heaven" and more. what was till now going like a normal time pass discussion suddenly turns dead serious.
Is it with the name itself, I tend to think. For Chennai in hindi can be read as " Chen Nahi".
looks like i am doing a PJ or sth. But i am serious abt this issue atleast ( if not for any issue so far in my life). I wd never hate to hate anybody who attacks chennai.
okay lets get serious here.
the accusation against chennai starts now. in full flow. worst city to live for a non tamilian says one. yet another says he had frightful experiences in chennai. like, one was nearly robbed of his belongings by an auto guy here. two years back, yet another told me that he was robbed in a local train. a strange but irrelevant coincidence here. both were biharis. worse still, a kannadiga says his bangalorean friends had become tired of being prey to money fleecers and cheats. that, the moment a chennaite finds that a guy is from outside, he is gonna take him for a ride. I defend saying these things do happen everywhere. not so only with chennai. I have been to delhi and bbay. and found all these auto and taxi guys trying to fleece me. ofcourse i get experienced after that.
ofcourse we all know abt our own " extra ordinary aurorickshaws "! they never charge ordinary fare. (meter ku mela pottu kudunga ). meter a thaan mela podanum !!!! but the agony rarely ends here.
it is quite imaginable if some uneducated rogue tries to take adv of a helpless outsider. hope quite a few wd have read abt that unsavoury incident where am IIM L graduate was beaten up and manhandled at Bangalore Rly stn and robbed of his belongings. i am talking abt B'Lore RLY police. so what is it with chennai that they dont see elsewhere??
Hmmmm.
Now take for instance the case of chennai software companies . a young female friend, a mumbaite who got married recently and settled with her husband in chennai finds life painful at TCS there. She is shocked everybody talks only in tamil at office. It would not be an exaggeration to say that she was nearly in tears at the way her office ppl treat her. and she begs for a transfer to bombay.
One friend who worked in Infy, Chennai says all the project discussions take place in tamil. When the project leader was requested to conduct the meetings in english, he refused saying that he will lose grip over his team if he does not talk in tamil.
water problem, mourns other. as one puts it, in the infy campus, when young lovers discuss abt water problem during their lunch sessions, amidst thousand other topics, guess how trying it has been. atleast i think, the problem is sorted now. but, we now have a problem of plenty, though :)
One more friend starts arguing that the chennai population has never been to the likes of other major metros. the reason being, outsiders will never want to settle here at all!!!! boy, does he have a point?
If there has been some sortof uneasiness towards non tamils, this, by one of the thousand illiterate guys, it cd be understood. even bbay has its own spat with bihar. the one that happened recently at JJ hospital. Nitish dials Maharashtra CM to take care of biharis in bbay. Maharashtra has the issue with karnataka over Belgaum. With Shiv Sena threatening dire consequences if Karnataka is going to treat marathis badly in Belgaum. there is a already a movement going on for having a marathi recognition for that area. Why, Kannadigas manhandled Tamlis in bangalore, a decade back! all these things say that chennai may not be the only one at fault.
but wait.
the two instances with reputed software companies is not sth we can imagine. even if we say that they cd have been stray incidents, it still reflects how bad this attitude has been towards ppl who are mingling with chennaites as one among us.
I have worked in bbay and a few more places in gujarat. and can never cite such an instance that the guys working with me cd talk only gujarathi or marathi. they do sometimes, but ofcourse not in meetings or with issues of such importance to work as is a project discussion if i am not mistaken.
Personally, my own best friends have been a lot of non tamils both at college and at my work place. to this day back in college.
I dont know how many more chennaites will agree to this post. they wd have had their own experiences from their non tamil friends. or even others who work in comapnies with non tamil colleagues. they can sure come up with totally different responses.
But what I really wish to know is this.
whether Chennai is all that dreadful to scorn at outsiders. I wish I have operated so far purely on teh basis of Bounded Rationality theory.
I wish a fellow chennaite gives me an opposing point of view. that things are not really this bad. that more outsiders had really gud fun working / studying here. that chennai will remain in their list of best places to work and settle.
I wish to be contradicted without compromise. I wish chennai be spelt as Chen-hai !!!!
(and I wish I get the opportunity to return and settle in chennai:))
what????
i mean we have these discussions like who wants to work in what kind of places in "Mera Bharat Mahan" .
i start the usual ramayan like " I love chennai. Chennai is Heaven" and more. what was till now going like a normal time pass discussion suddenly turns dead serious.
Is it with the name itself, I tend to think. For Chennai in hindi can be read as " Chen Nahi".
looks like i am doing a PJ or sth. But i am serious abt this issue atleast ( if not for any issue so far in my life). I wd never hate to hate anybody who attacks chennai.
okay lets get serious here.
the accusation against chennai starts now. in full flow. worst city to live for a non tamilian says one. yet another says he had frightful experiences in chennai. like, one was nearly robbed of his belongings by an auto guy here. two years back, yet another told me that he was robbed in a local train. a strange but irrelevant coincidence here. both were biharis. worse still, a kannadiga says his bangalorean friends had become tired of being prey to money fleecers and cheats. that, the moment a chennaite finds that a guy is from outside, he is gonna take him for a ride. I defend saying these things do happen everywhere. not so only with chennai. I have been to delhi and bbay. and found all these auto and taxi guys trying to fleece me. ofcourse i get experienced after that.
ofcourse we all know abt our own " extra ordinary aurorickshaws "! they never charge ordinary fare. (meter ku mela pottu kudunga ). meter a thaan mela podanum !!!! but the agony rarely ends here.
it is quite imaginable if some uneducated rogue tries to take adv of a helpless outsider. hope quite a few wd have read abt that unsavoury incident where am IIM L graduate was beaten up and manhandled at Bangalore Rly stn and robbed of his belongings. i am talking abt B'Lore RLY police. so what is it with chennai that they dont see elsewhere??
Hmmmm.
Now take for instance the case of chennai software companies . a young female friend, a mumbaite who got married recently and settled with her husband in chennai finds life painful at TCS there. She is shocked everybody talks only in tamil at office. It would not be an exaggeration to say that she was nearly in tears at the way her office ppl treat her. and she begs for a transfer to bombay.
One friend who worked in Infy, Chennai says all the project discussions take place in tamil. When the project leader was requested to conduct the meetings in english, he refused saying that he will lose grip over his team if he does not talk in tamil.
water problem, mourns other. as one puts it, in the infy campus, when young lovers discuss abt water problem during their lunch sessions, amidst thousand other topics, guess how trying it has been. atleast i think, the problem is sorted now. but, we now have a problem of plenty, though :)
One more friend starts arguing that the chennai population has never been to the likes of other major metros. the reason being, outsiders will never want to settle here at all!!!! boy, does he have a point?
If there has been some sortof uneasiness towards non tamils, this, by one of the thousand illiterate guys, it cd be understood. even bbay has its own spat with bihar. the one that happened recently at JJ hospital. Nitish dials Maharashtra CM to take care of biharis in bbay. Maharashtra has the issue with karnataka over Belgaum. With Shiv Sena threatening dire consequences if Karnataka is going to treat marathis badly in Belgaum. there is a already a movement going on for having a marathi recognition for that area. Why, Kannadigas manhandled Tamlis in bangalore, a decade back! all these things say that chennai may not be the only one at fault.
but wait.
the two instances with reputed software companies is not sth we can imagine. even if we say that they cd have been stray incidents, it still reflects how bad this attitude has been towards ppl who are mingling with chennaites as one among us.
I have worked in bbay and a few more places in gujarat. and can never cite such an instance that the guys working with me cd talk only gujarathi or marathi. they do sometimes, but ofcourse not in meetings or with issues of such importance to work as is a project discussion if i am not mistaken.
Personally, my own best friends have been a lot of non tamils both at college and at my work place. to this day back in college.
I dont know how many more chennaites will agree to this post. they wd have had their own experiences from their non tamil friends. or even others who work in comapnies with non tamil colleagues. they can sure come up with totally different responses.
But what I really wish to know is this.
whether Chennai is all that dreadful to scorn at outsiders. I wish I have operated so far purely on teh basis of Bounded Rationality theory.
I wish a fellow chennaite gives me an opposing point of view. that things are not really this bad. that more outsiders had really gud fun working / studying here. that chennai will remain in their list of best places to work and settle.
I wish to be contradicted without compromise. I wish chennai be spelt as Chen-hai !!!!
(and I wish I get the opportunity to return and settle in chennai:))
Friday, December 16, 2005
My Idol - Darren Hayes
Yet another boring day in life. the mind does not respond to the fact that i have to finish this executive summary asap. I try different things. I lock myself in a room, see the same plan again and again to get the executive summary perfect. The coziness of the chennai climate and my eternal laziness form the perfect combo, as i remain blank, unable to add value to the report.
Darren hayes is slowly penetrating into my body, mind and soul. I lie down, totally clueless.
guess just the right kind of atmos to get another blog on the wall. and Darren takes it all.
Darren Hayes came into my life just as i was finishing my engg. it ws not to be just another pop artist in my life. I listen to a bit of carnatic (thanks to appa and paati), a bit of movie songs (mostly A.R. Rahman) and then some english light pop songs ( no rock songs).
Music is sth i usually listen to free my mind, just as anybody else does. But Darren Hayes was meant to load my mind. like ppl take to drinking occasionally.
A bit of history. Darren Hayes is an Australian Pop Singer, a former singer of the famous band " Savage Garden" along with Daniel Jones ( the lead guitarist). They had some problems about three years back or so. Daniel wanted to get into admin stuff of the band Darren wanted to lay more stress on music. Finally they had to kiss Good Bye .
so why Darren was special to me? I have been listening to a lot of these chocolate pop bands. I keep listening to these kind of lyrics - If i let u go, I wanna be with u , I love u and more of such crap. to write abt love is what even Darren does. but theres a passion, a fire, a thought and a real feeling. the fever of his mood used to spread to me many a times. and love is not the only thing. he touches every whisper of life.
The music is , more towards techno. but techno music is not that easy if u want to explain the feeling of a mood and a song in the way that it shd be. ofcourse guitar is the key component here too. I am not trying to compare with Pink Floyd or Dire Straits. they have had their own brand of music. they were geniuses. agreed. but here was a guy, who had a really amazing voice and a way of letting these inside emotions explode. The malleability of voice is beyond imagination ( whats the music terminology, yodelling?). if u wd want to check out, thers no substitute for self listening.
I have maybe listened to just around 30 odd songs of his. the latest album being, " Tension and the Spark". I have downloaded all lyrics and usually read it as he sings. and for me, every song , in that manner, was not abt humming a tune, it was an experience in itself.
My favourite songs ( my fav will be more lyrics based than the music itself) include
Tension and the spark - I like the way, void, Light, Unlovable,
Affirmation - affirmation, crash and burn, You can still be free, Gunning down romance, Animal Song.
Spin - Like it or not, Good enough, What u like
Savage Garden - part one - Universe, To the moon and Back, promises , carry on dancing etc
Just to give u a feel . In his song, "Light" - He points to the stages of light inside every life as : Light first flickers, then blisters and finally glitters. the lyrics are subjective and one can draw their own inferences depending upon their interpretation.
The deathly pale effect of his music adds to the lyrics in leaving u in a state of enigma.
In his song " Affirmation" he lists out his beliefs sth which every one will mostly agree, that are a very touching part of our own lives. He sings " I believe in Karma, what u give is what u get return; I believe that we place our happiness in other people's hands "
In " Gunning down Romance, one can see the way he portrays love . not just another goody goody kind of thoughts. more satire. more pain.
He starts as " Love and other moments are just chemical reactions in ur brain; feelings of aggression are the absence of the love drug in ur vein; "
"Unlovable" lyrics can be aptly said as the height of frustration; his agony knows no bounds.
In " I Like the Way" , for eg, he starts with " Somewhere inside my evolution, Karmically I seek retribution; Looking for love in physical beauty, Desire is the drug of the Bourgeise "
and he further writes
" The decadence of giving into desire, creates such entropy within;
Looking for love in spiritual faces, blind to the art of fabrication "
and finally ends as " Temptation tempts the temptee" !!!!
lots more to say on each of his songs. i have a summary to finish. time i quit this board and get into that. Listen and feel Darren, and u will not be left barren, for sure!!!!
the simplest way to reach his lyrics is the golden world in web technology - GOOGLE
Darren hayes is slowly penetrating into my body, mind and soul. I lie down, totally clueless.
guess just the right kind of atmos to get another blog on the wall. and Darren takes it all.
Darren Hayes came into my life just as i was finishing my engg. it ws not to be just another pop artist in my life. I listen to a bit of carnatic (thanks to appa and paati), a bit of movie songs (mostly A.R. Rahman) and then some english light pop songs ( no rock songs).
Music is sth i usually listen to free my mind, just as anybody else does. But Darren Hayes was meant to load my mind. like ppl take to drinking occasionally.
A bit of history. Darren Hayes is an Australian Pop Singer, a former singer of the famous band " Savage Garden" along with Daniel Jones ( the lead guitarist). They had some problems about three years back or so. Daniel wanted to get into admin stuff of the band Darren wanted to lay more stress on music. Finally they had to kiss Good Bye .
so why Darren was special to me? I have been listening to a lot of these chocolate pop bands. I keep listening to these kind of lyrics - If i let u go, I wanna be with u , I love u and more of such crap. to write abt love is what even Darren does. but theres a passion, a fire, a thought and a real feeling. the fever of his mood used to spread to me many a times. and love is not the only thing. he touches every whisper of life.
The music is , more towards techno. but techno music is not that easy if u want to explain the feeling of a mood and a song in the way that it shd be. ofcourse guitar is the key component here too. I am not trying to compare with Pink Floyd or Dire Straits. they have had their own brand of music. they were geniuses. agreed. but here was a guy, who had a really amazing voice and a way of letting these inside emotions explode. The malleability of voice is beyond imagination ( whats the music terminology, yodelling?). if u wd want to check out, thers no substitute for self listening.
I have maybe listened to just around 30 odd songs of his. the latest album being, " Tension and the Spark". I have downloaded all lyrics and usually read it as he sings. and for me, every song , in that manner, was not abt humming a tune, it was an experience in itself.
My favourite songs ( my fav will be more lyrics based than the music itself) include
Tension and the spark - I like the way, void, Light, Unlovable,
Affirmation - affirmation, crash and burn, You can still be free, Gunning down romance, Animal Song.
Spin - Like it or not, Good enough, What u like
Savage Garden - part one - Universe, To the moon and Back, promises , carry on dancing etc
Just to give u a feel . In his song, "Light" - He points to the stages of light inside every life as : Light first flickers, then blisters and finally glitters. the lyrics are subjective and one can draw their own inferences depending upon their interpretation.
The deathly pale effect of his music adds to the lyrics in leaving u in a state of enigma.
In his song " Affirmation" he lists out his beliefs sth which every one will mostly agree, that are a very touching part of our own lives. He sings " I believe in Karma, what u give is what u get return; I believe that we place our happiness in other people's hands "
In " Gunning down Romance, one can see the way he portrays love . not just another goody goody kind of thoughts. more satire. more pain.
He starts as " Love and other moments are just chemical reactions in ur brain; feelings of aggression are the absence of the love drug in ur vein; "
"Unlovable" lyrics can be aptly said as the height of frustration; his agony knows no bounds.
In " I Like the Way" , for eg, he starts with " Somewhere inside my evolution, Karmically I seek retribution; Looking for love in physical beauty, Desire is the drug of the Bourgeise "
and he further writes
" The decadence of giving into desire, creates such entropy within;
Looking for love in spiritual faces, blind to the art of fabrication "
and finally ends as " Temptation tempts the temptee" !!!!
lots more to say on each of his songs. i have a summary to finish. time i quit this board and get into that. Listen and feel Darren, and u will not be left barren, for sure!!!!
the simplest way to reach his lyrics is the golden world in web technology - GOOGLE
Monday, December 12, 2005
Sunday, December 11, 2005
Last Minute - Last one - Why it happens to me everytime???? - Part 2
okay u heard me clear and loud in my prev blog !!!!
That was a typical college life happening. youthful and colourful. They say life gets serious in work life. and it usually does.
IT DID !!!!
move one step, outside the college and land up in the wonderful world of a chemical engineer. yes, six months into a chemical engineering job can ensure adequate doses of delusions. that of tripping extruders (plant lingo) and hammering pipelines with steel rods ( yes, one of the major skills a chemical engineer in a polymer plant shd possess) all thro the night ( shift).
add to it an endless rotating shift life (morning, afti, night shifts cyclically) - 24 hrs running plant - work for 16 hrs (double shifts) occasionally - sleeping for 16 hrs straight- breakfast at 5 PM - being drowsy most of the times - parents mistake u to be an inveterate drunkard ( from the way u attend to their calls) and the like.
To cut a long story short, my chemical engineering life was chemically choking, mechanically mocking, electrically shocking, instrumentally locking and biologically blocking!!!!
and it makes sure u get all the driving force to determine the easiest exit path! only if exits were so easy. not so easy if u want to put a big kumbudu to chemical industry and remove the tag of a chemical engineer........yeah i was kind of Tagged!!!!!!!
In this country they say, if u are not gud at anything, try management. all u have to do is to do some showbusiness, pick some weird jargons, speak in a semi american accent (lucky for a call centre exp guy) and u've almost made it big in life. so tried my hand at the obvious. koncham seriousness reqd to clear admission process.
The 'last minute...." syndrome ( btw i had started to develop an affection for it lately) was to catch up with me (just like death catches up with survivors in the final destination).
FMS exam: Timing - 2 PM : venue bombay. common sense tells in bombay u have to keep a 1 hr margin for any journey u undertake. that is if travel goes smoothly. and without any surprises. had to travel from vashi to VT. a typical 1 hr journey (if u go by train). that is only the active travel time ( taking into account the walking down, up catching auto etc.)
nice breakfast at chithi's place. aracha kozhambu and saathumudhu ( thair is ofcourse always there). but that was never going to be enough.
and they say u have to chill just before exam to crack a gud paper. but i have a knack of overdoing things ( in my spl own way).
now how to chill????
"Enakku 20 Unakku 18" film ( meaning I am 20, You are 18) . nice dvd print. that was to be the final touch to the exam prep. Romba thevai!
started the movie at around 9.45 am. by the time the movie finishes, its already12.15 PM. okay cool it, i am the master of trainodynamics in bbay, i assure myself and leave for the exam finally.
12.30 pm i am at teh vaashi station.
now what? the coolest thing that can happen when u r on ur way to a competitive exam!
The local trains - the lifeline of bombay - specifically the harbour line ones - the ones exactly between my examination centres ( exactly, again by DESIGN) have been cancelled! oh boy, all my travel calculations were created on a basis that has just disappeared into thin air. that is the proverbial weakness of engineers. they are analytical not creative, to imagine of situations like these!!!!!!!!! if anybody has a different view, atleast these are true of me!
now the beauty is , all buses outside stn are jampacked, thanks to cancellation of local trains.
and due to my extraordinary luck then, i had no single bus to get to my centre. worse still, i barely knew what buses and how to get to my exam centre.
i can hear u all. height of irresponsibility and frivolity even in a career defining stage.
all i cd do is wait and then manage to just get one hand and one toe ( not even a foot) into a bus, which i had no idea where it was going or where i had to get down. after all, for a start i atleast needed to avoid seeing the damn vashi stn atleast. i never got so sick of that station in my life.
had to change buses midway. and reached somewhere close to VT. and then a taxi to get to the centre. once in the centre, had to search for classrooms endlessly ( screw the college. it was more like a jigsaw piece of architecture).
2.05 PM, papers were already being distributed. and here i was, so late, as if I just had a major meeting with some damn diplomat.
well I am truly tired of mentioning the same result as in prev blog- somehow i cd feel jaspal bhatti, with his thick beard, roaring hideously right over my head.
sodhappal of a collosal kind uhhhh?????????
ofcourse in that year I managed to clear one exam but again due to lack of interview prep was chucked out in the final stage. i dont want to get into all those irrelevant things.
now for the mother of all episodes -
one more year passed by (yes painfully) and the ritual of application for MBA seemed to start. CAT was over. time for JMET ( for the uninitiated, that is the exam for mgmt in IITs)......
look at the sequence of events:))
1. Applied to jmet. but the hall ticket did not seem to come. finally exactly one day before i was to leave for bombay from gujarat, the hall ticket came knocking to my apartment. it was apparently doing teh rounds at bharuch town and in all the departments of my chemical plant complex, according to reliable sources!!!!
2. GOD'S GRACE, exam was thro. now time for interview. again the IITB interview call letter did not come (luckily three other letters did) . this one had gone all the way to chennai. how cd they send it there i thought. that too late enough. for an interview slated for feb 28th, i recieved the letter on 27th, at my relatives place where my parents had couriered.
3. interview over. after that realised that yet another year of hardwork was going to the dumps. results were out. waitlisted. that too reasonably far. The benovelent and benign seniors ( @ IITB) took enough care to assure me that it was impossible for me to clear such a high waitlist.
4. again GOD gave an opportunity by clearing the waitlist two months after the result had been originally announced. i get only the mail. my luck with call/offer letter had become so ridiculous that again no sign of the letter. still okay. i make a draft for the fee payment and decide to courier it. i manage to find a courier shop, not so popular. atleast it cannot be notorious i thought. had i walked 100 ft ahead, i cd have managed professional couriers. but then i am a resigned fatalist. my fate ensured that i dispatch my fee thro that courier shop.
5. that was on 24th july. 31st was the last date for fee reciept at IIT-B. after giving the courier, i try calling IIT every day checking out whether my draft was recieved or not. a day passed, one more, and one more....no signs of draft being recieved at IIT. it was 30th.now. sth was terribly wrong somewhere.
to get an admission after two years was itself painful. and now after that u are abt to get chucked because of some damn ( damn is one of my fav words in english) courier guy who cd never ever understand taht i he was screwing my life so badly without possibly knowing it....
6. i go back to that courier shop to check. he says all couriers were dispatched to some distribution centre. i go there with pink courier challan and accost that shop owner as to what fate they had handed out to my draft and to me. we pore over all records to find out the history and geography of my courier. he takes a close look at my challan and says it was a wrong challan they courier guy had used ( apparently a white one shd have been used for out stn couriers)....here i was holding a pink slip ( yeah i had resigned a nice paying job, for tis degree, and now holding a pink slip, exactly)
then we again drive back to the original shop. now i start to raid the shop as if i were from IT dept ransacking a bloody bureaucrat's apartment ( on the basis of a complaint powered by Right To Information Act).........only to find my courier absoultely safe....
where do u think?????
in a crude corner well hidden by a gigantic xerox machine. the last place u can ever find a letter of immense importance.......
i was too tired to start a brawl and too happy to complain....i cd not ever imagine to find my draft in this manner. anyhow hopped to professional couriers to send that draft.
the tricky part was the same day i was leaving for coimbatore from chennai for my cousin's marriage. if i ws not going to find the draft, i was not even in a position to think whether i wd have made it to the marriage, what with all my cousins and relatives rocking the whole house up and down.
checked with IITB next day ( the last date for submission) to find that the draft was safe ( for a change in the hands of the admin dept).......phew!!!!!!!!!
now what on earth can u call that kind of experience??????
btw this is B-136, Hostel 13, IIT Bombay reporting this tearful ordeal to u .
How was that??????
( i wish nalini chithi wd read this post, will ya plzzzzzzzz??????)
That was a typical college life happening. youthful and colourful. They say life gets serious in work life. and it usually does.
IT DID !!!!
move one step, outside the college and land up in the wonderful world of a chemical engineer. yes, six months into a chemical engineering job can ensure adequate doses of delusions. that of tripping extruders (plant lingo) and hammering pipelines with steel rods ( yes, one of the major skills a chemical engineer in a polymer plant shd possess) all thro the night ( shift).
add to it an endless rotating shift life (morning, afti, night shifts cyclically) - 24 hrs running plant - work for 16 hrs (double shifts) occasionally - sleeping for 16 hrs straight- breakfast at 5 PM - being drowsy most of the times - parents mistake u to be an inveterate drunkard ( from the way u attend to their calls) and the like.
To cut a long story short, my chemical engineering life was chemically choking, mechanically mocking, electrically shocking, instrumentally locking and biologically blocking!!!!
and it makes sure u get all the driving force to determine the easiest exit path! only if exits were so easy. not so easy if u want to put a big kumbudu to chemical industry and remove the tag of a chemical engineer........yeah i was kind of Tagged!!!!!!!
In this country they say, if u are not gud at anything, try management. all u have to do is to do some showbusiness, pick some weird jargons, speak in a semi american accent (lucky for a call centre exp guy) and u've almost made it big in life. so tried my hand at the obvious. koncham seriousness reqd to clear admission process.
The 'last minute...." syndrome ( btw i had started to develop an affection for it lately) was to catch up with me (just like death catches up with survivors in the final destination).
FMS exam: Timing - 2 PM : venue bombay. common sense tells in bombay u have to keep a 1 hr margin for any journey u undertake. that is if travel goes smoothly. and without any surprises. had to travel from vashi to VT. a typical 1 hr journey (if u go by train). that is only the active travel time ( taking into account the walking down, up catching auto etc.)
nice breakfast at chithi's place. aracha kozhambu and saathumudhu ( thair is ofcourse always there). but that was never going to be enough.
and they say u have to chill just before exam to crack a gud paper. but i have a knack of overdoing things ( in my spl own way).
now how to chill????
"Enakku 20 Unakku 18" film ( meaning I am 20, You are 18) . nice dvd print. that was to be the final touch to the exam prep. Romba thevai!
started the movie at around 9.45 am. by the time the movie finishes, its already12.15 PM. okay cool it, i am the master of trainodynamics in bbay, i assure myself and leave for the exam finally.
12.30 pm i am at teh vaashi station.
now what? the coolest thing that can happen when u r on ur way to a competitive exam!
The local trains - the lifeline of bombay - specifically the harbour line ones - the ones exactly between my examination centres ( exactly, again by DESIGN) have been cancelled! oh boy, all my travel calculations were created on a basis that has just disappeared into thin air. that is the proverbial weakness of engineers. they are analytical not creative, to imagine of situations like these!!!!!!!!! if anybody has a different view, atleast these are true of me!
now the beauty is , all buses outside stn are jampacked, thanks to cancellation of local trains.
and due to my extraordinary luck then, i had no single bus to get to my centre. worse still, i barely knew what buses and how to get to my exam centre.
i can hear u all. height of irresponsibility and frivolity even in a career defining stage.
all i cd do is wait and then manage to just get one hand and one toe ( not even a foot) into a bus, which i had no idea where it was going or where i had to get down. after all, for a start i atleast needed to avoid seeing the damn vashi stn atleast. i never got so sick of that station in my life.
had to change buses midway. and reached somewhere close to VT. and then a taxi to get to the centre. once in the centre, had to search for classrooms endlessly ( screw the college. it was more like a jigsaw piece of architecture).
2.05 PM, papers were already being distributed. and here i was, so late, as if I just had a major meeting with some damn diplomat.
well I am truly tired of mentioning the same result as in prev blog- somehow i cd feel jaspal bhatti, with his thick beard, roaring hideously right over my head.
sodhappal of a collosal kind uhhhh?????????
ofcourse in that year I managed to clear one exam but again due to lack of interview prep was chucked out in the final stage. i dont want to get into all those irrelevant things.
now for the mother of all episodes -
one more year passed by (yes painfully) and the ritual of application for MBA seemed to start. CAT was over. time for JMET ( for the uninitiated, that is the exam for mgmt in IITs)......
look at the sequence of events:))
1. Applied to jmet. but the hall ticket did not seem to come. finally exactly one day before i was to leave for bombay from gujarat, the hall ticket came knocking to my apartment. it was apparently doing teh rounds at bharuch town and in all the departments of my chemical plant complex, according to reliable sources!!!!
2. GOD'S GRACE, exam was thro. now time for interview. again the IITB interview call letter did not come (luckily three other letters did) . this one had gone all the way to chennai. how cd they send it there i thought. that too late enough. for an interview slated for feb 28th, i recieved the letter on 27th, at my relatives place where my parents had couriered.
3. interview over. after that realised that yet another year of hardwork was going to the dumps. results were out. waitlisted. that too reasonably far. The benovelent and benign seniors ( @ IITB) took enough care to assure me that it was impossible for me to clear such a high waitlist.
4. again GOD gave an opportunity by clearing the waitlist two months after the result had been originally announced. i get only the mail. my luck with call/offer letter had become so ridiculous that again no sign of the letter. still okay. i make a draft for the fee payment and decide to courier it. i manage to find a courier shop, not so popular. atleast it cannot be notorious i thought. had i walked 100 ft ahead, i cd have managed professional couriers. but then i am a resigned fatalist. my fate ensured that i dispatch my fee thro that courier shop.
5. that was on 24th july. 31st was the last date for fee reciept at IIT-B. after giving the courier, i try calling IIT every day checking out whether my draft was recieved or not. a day passed, one more, and one more....no signs of draft being recieved at IIT. it was 30th.now. sth was terribly wrong somewhere.
to get an admission after two years was itself painful. and now after that u are abt to get chucked because of some damn ( damn is one of my fav words in english) courier guy who cd never ever understand taht i he was screwing my life so badly without possibly knowing it....
6. i go back to that courier shop to check. he says all couriers were dispatched to some distribution centre. i go there with pink courier challan and accost that shop owner as to what fate they had handed out to my draft and to me. we pore over all records to find out the history and geography of my courier. he takes a close look at my challan and says it was a wrong challan they courier guy had used ( apparently a white one shd have been used for out stn couriers)....here i was holding a pink slip ( yeah i had resigned a nice paying job, for tis degree, and now holding a pink slip, exactly)
then we again drive back to the original shop. now i start to raid the shop as if i were from IT dept ransacking a bloody bureaucrat's apartment ( on the basis of a complaint powered by Right To Information Act).........only to find my courier absoultely safe....
where do u think?????
in a crude corner well hidden by a gigantic xerox machine. the last place u can ever find a letter of immense importance.......
i was too tired to start a brawl and too happy to complain....i cd not ever imagine to find my draft in this manner. anyhow hopped to professional couriers to send that draft.
the tricky part was the same day i was leaving for coimbatore from chennai for my cousin's marriage. if i ws not going to find the draft, i was not even in a position to think whether i wd have made it to the marriage, what with all my cousins and relatives rocking the whole house up and down.
checked with IITB next day ( the last date for submission) to find that the draft was safe ( for a change in the hands of the admin dept).......phew!!!!!!!!!
now what on earth can u call that kind of experience??????
btw this is B-136, Hostel 13, IIT Bombay reporting this tearful ordeal to u .
How was that??????
( i wish nalini chithi wd read this post, will ya plzzzzzzzz??????)
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Last Minute - Last one - Why it happens to me everytime???? # 1
There are two things to life.
1. Life changes continuously....
2. Yet there are certain constants in life....
I am not talking of a theory that says something always changes in life so that something else remains constant.
what has remained nearly constant in my life?
okay let me explain further : -
It started right from the time before joining college. After a miserable 4339 rank in TNPCEE, and padu flop in Board Exams, getting free seat in a decent ( how do we measure decent?) college is a real fight.
looking at the admission screen in anna university can create hormone surges, particularly when u see the so called open seats are gobbled up while the 'reserved' seats literally crawl. so much for meritrocracy.
so finally one last free seat for chemical engineering in VIT was in the waiting.... and i cd see a good 25 ppl ahead of me in the line. that is desperation defined. all set for climactic finish.
however GOD DECIDED that i was the one even if the last one. and so did the saga of chemical engineering in VIT start.
but this was just the start!!!!
why???? take a look:)
one year in VIT - enough of mugging - Frustration again, write JEE once more.
As if by design it happens to me, the University physics exam and IITJEE physics exam clash.
morning 10 AM - univ exam at vellore - Afti 2 PM - JEE physics at chennai!!!!
change plans- JEE centre shifted to TIRUPATHI. finish Univ exam at 11:15 AM - examiner looks askance at me- get into the car booked for the journey.
reach TIRUPATHI 30 mins before start of exam. only to find our names ( 2 more with me, sandy and praveen) missing from the list of examinees ( btw, does such a word exist?)
after running around here and there, we find our names at the last minute.
result of exam - flop again :) ....bright spot? atleast passed the university physics exam. no arrear. suprisingly i got a score of 77 in the paper for 75 minutes of scribbling.
What next? 3 more years to kuppa kottify in VIT. what else? But the next adventure is already in waiting....
CAT Maze- RAT Race : --
exam at 10 AM. my (bloody) buddy sandy ( that rhymes) gets up at 8. 15 and successfully completes a single cup of filter coffee in 45 mins ( sandy did that taste so good?) . we start at 9 AM. the centre takes around 20 mins by bike in a free road, and 35 mins if u manage to get caught in every signal ( and the way is only full of signals).
no sooner did i start the vehicle ( bajaj pride it was ), the bike was skidding. flat tyre. great start. nalla sagunam. apparam enna, we walk till the nearest bike station. clock says 9.10. As the mechanic repairs the puncture, 9.27 now. okay we have less time, so adrenalin pumped up and so did the accelerator. the bike had two rear view mirrors, protruding so beautifully. as if murphy always rules, the next lafda ( hindi for bejaaru) turns up.
zooming at a high speed, the light weight vehicle that it was, control was difficult. add a sandy road to it ( uh one more sandy, all the lafdas of the day have been dedicated to sandy).
cartload of tomatoes towards us. i try to move out of the way. the rear view mirror does not think so. it gets caught into the cart ( one more painful rhyme)
i manage to keep the bike on road. meanwhile my partner is tasting sand 50 ft behind . tomatoes strewn all over the road. 10 ppl around us . 9.35 time. interesting situation.
after sporting innocent faces amidst begging them that we have an exam, we manage to get out of the mess.
after having to put up with the signals as well, we reach exam hall at the lastminute.
now profusely sweating during the exam.
result of exam - fundoo flop.
had a written test for a s/w company immediately after CAT.
CAT usually requires u to shade answer bubbles marked 1,2,3,4. the written test was to be answered as A,B,C,D. ended up writing 1,2,3,4 in my test answer sheet.
result? even after getting all Qs right, the stupid company said, i cannot mark anything different from A,B,C,D and chucked me out. meanwhile, in all the hungama that ensued in the accident, the silencer of the bike had given away and started giving eeriee noises like that of a bullet bike/Rajdoot.
thanda selavu athukku mela. for repairing the silencer.
phew........have a kitkat.
more in the next blog
tata
1. Life changes continuously....
2. Yet there are certain constants in life....
I am not talking of a theory that says something always changes in life so that something else remains constant.
what has remained nearly constant in my life?
okay let me explain further : -
It started right from the time before joining college. After a miserable 4339 rank in TNPCEE, and padu flop in Board Exams, getting free seat in a decent ( how do we measure decent?) college is a real fight.
looking at the admission screen in anna university can create hormone surges, particularly when u see the so called open seats are gobbled up while the 'reserved' seats literally crawl. so much for meritrocracy.
so finally one last free seat for chemical engineering in VIT was in the waiting.... and i cd see a good 25 ppl ahead of me in the line. that is desperation defined. all set for climactic finish.
however GOD DECIDED that i was the one even if the last one. and so did the saga of chemical engineering in VIT start.
but this was just the start!!!!
why???? take a look:)
one year in VIT - enough of mugging - Frustration again, write JEE once more.
As if by design it happens to me, the University physics exam and IITJEE physics exam clash.
morning 10 AM - univ exam at vellore - Afti 2 PM - JEE physics at chennai!!!!
change plans- JEE centre shifted to TIRUPATHI. finish Univ exam at 11:15 AM - examiner looks askance at me- get into the car booked for the journey.
reach TIRUPATHI 30 mins before start of exam. only to find our names ( 2 more with me, sandy and praveen) missing from the list of examinees ( btw, does such a word exist?)
after running around here and there, we find our names at the last minute.
result of exam - flop again :) ....bright spot? atleast passed the university physics exam. no arrear. suprisingly i got a score of 77 in the paper for 75 minutes of scribbling.
What next? 3 more years to kuppa kottify in VIT. what else? But the next adventure is already in waiting....
CAT Maze- RAT Race : --
exam at 10 AM. my (bloody) buddy sandy ( that rhymes) gets up at 8. 15 and successfully completes a single cup of filter coffee in 45 mins ( sandy did that taste so good?) . we start at 9 AM. the centre takes around 20 mins by bike in a free road, and 35 mins if u manage to get caught in every signal ( and the way is only full of signals).
no sooner did i start the vehicle ( bajaj pride it was ), the bike was skidding. flat tyre. great start. nalla sagunam. apparam enna, we walk till the nearest bike station. clock says 9.10. As the mechanic repairs the puncture, 9.27 now. okay we have less time, so adrenalin pumped up and so did the accelerator. the bike had two rear view mirrors, protruding so beautifully. as if murphy always rules, the next lafda ( hindi for bejaaru) turns up.
zooming at a high speed, the light weight vehicle that it was, control was difficult. add a sandy road to it ( uh one more sandy, all the lafdas of the day have been dedicated to sandy).
cartload of tomatoes towards us. i try to move out of the way. the rear view mirror does not think so. it gets caught into the cart ( one more painful rhyme)
i manage to keep the bike on road. meanwhile my partner is tasting sand 50 ft behind . tomatoes strewn all over the road. 10 ppl around us . 9.35 time. interesting situation.
after sporting innocent faces amidst begging them that we have an exam, we manage to get out of the mess.
after having to put up with the signals as well, we reach exam hall at the lastminute.
now profusely sweating during the exam.
result of exam - fundoo flop.
had a written test for a s/w company immediately after CAT.
CAT usually requires u to shade answer bubbles marked 1,2,3,4. the written test was to be answered as A,B,C,D. ended up writing 1,2,3,4 in my test answer sheet.
result? even after getting all Qs right, the stupid company said, i cannot mark anything different from A,B,C,D and chucked me out. meanwhile, in all the hungama that ensued in the accident, the silencer of the bike had given away and started giving eeriee noises like that of a bullet bike/Rajdoot.
thanda selavu athukku mela. for repairing the silencer.
phew........have a kitkat.
more in the next blog
tata
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
The life of a mysterious and mediocre thengalai iyengar - #1
The mysterious life of a chemical engineer....every bit hard that was to bear!!!! guys two years ( tears to be precise) of an unexpected alliance with reliance , if not been more fruitful, has built a lot of resilience in silence....
but wait....
these two years also taught me to enjoy misery which is also a memory to carry forth in life....to put in lucid taste, the leftover waste, i am gonna dump in here, pls get ready i shoot here my life experience ....kind of a lifetime experience....a life which cd have been wonderful in many ways but then screwd in totality all solely beacuse of a persona non grata - that is me.....
i wish to divide my miseries in stages for two chief reasons: one, u will have something to read and pass time on a daily basis.... two, for the global fact that ppl prefer to multiply joys and divide sorrows ( tch this itches thoroughly) before i get to lament on my fate ( which now atleast is not half as bad as it cd have actually been) i shall start the sojourn from the time of passing from my college....
i shall dvelve in detail the machogiri displayed in the route to misery. pls start looking for further posts if u find it worthwhile to waste time on listening to my ramblings for a while pls also fill in ur expert comments....whenever and wherever relevant and appropriate
yours frustatingly,
ara
but wait....
these two years also taught me to enjoy misery which is also a memory to carry forth in life....to put in lucid taste, the leftover waste, i am gonna dump in here, pls get ready i shoot here my life experience ....kind of a lifetime experience....a life which cd have been wonderful in many ways but then screwd in totality all solely beacuse of a persona non grata - that is me.....
i wish to divide my miseries in stages for two chief reasons: one, u will have something to read and pass time on a daily basis.... two, for the global fact that ppl prefer to multiply joys and divide sorrows ( tch this itches thoroughly) before i get to lament on my fate ( which now atleast is not half as bad as it cd have actually been) i shall start the sojourn from the time of passing from my college....
i shall dvelve in detail the machogiri displayed in the route to misery. pls start looking for further posts if u find it worthwhile to waste time on listening to my ramblings for a while pls also fill in ur expert comments....whenever and wherever relevant and appropriate
yours frustatingly,
ara
Mediocre life - VIT Life begins - # 2
Life provides ample reasons and opportunities for untold surprises....so what is the Q? everybody faces the vissitudes of life....no one is a virgin, everyone is screwed. but whether a lone individual can be eternally commited to lafdas is a thought worth introspecting....
here goes a blow by blow account of how worse things were already, continued to be so and that at a rate each overshadowing the previous.
it all began with a rather uneventful college life. a chosen one....to screw oneself. a college i was destined by join for there was this last chemical engineering seat begging to be taken by a champu who had no inkling of what a chemical engg degree was to provide him in life....(till date this funduchemguy aka FCG has never discovered the difference between a B.E and a B.Tech Degree, while also least interested in knowing the same), after miserably flunking the JEE. For a fact of life, totally bungled up the HSC and TN entrance exams in the name of JEE. and i stood there gazing at the admission screen desperately hoping to get that last seat in VIT. Finally by the end of the day, thanked my stars that i almost sneaked into this insti, the one i were to hate later every bit.
The insti , situated a good 2 hrs travel by a superfast train was reason enough to disappear from college every given chance ( perhaps not just given but taken chances too) and i found my saviour in brindavan and kovai express which were to transport me to and fro....so much so that i had to include them in my vote of thanks in my farewell note on my college convocation.
Railway stations were to become my second home ,a three month train pass - passport to my immediate future, railway stall pongal and cocunut chutney my staple diet, college studies - a forgotten commitment and finally my future - a foregone conclusion.
here goes a blow by blow account of how worse things were already, continued to be so and that at a rate each overshadowing the previous.
it all began with a rather uneventful college life. a chosen one....to screw oneself. a college i was destined by join for there was this last chemical engineering seat begging to be taken by a champu who had no inkling of what a chemical engg degree was to provide him in life....(till date this funduchemguy aka FCG has never discovered the difference between a B.E and a B.Tech Degree, while also least interested in knowing the same), after miserably flunking the JEE. For a fact of life, totally bungled up the HSC and TN entrance exams in the name of JEE. and i stood there gazing at the admission screen desperately hoping to get that last seat in VIT. Finally by the end of the day, thanked my stars that i almost sneaked into this insti, the one i were to hate later every bit.
The insti , situated a good 2 hrs travel by a superfast train was reason enough to disappear from college every given chance ( perhaps not just given but taken chances too) and i found my saviour in brindavan and kovai express which were to transport me to and fro....so much so that i had to include them in my vote of thanks in my farewell note on my college convocation.
Railway stations were to become my second home ,a three month train pass - passport to my immediate future, railway stall pongal and cocunut chutney my staple diet, college studies - a forgotten commitment and finally my future - a foregone conclusion.
VIT Life full flow - # 3
life had started and was in full flow....routine was set and the new order of my life was seeming to commence....
the first year at college.... the first year was different and difficult in many ways. there was this utterly new hostel (or hostile as u may deem fit) life that was literally strangling me. then those stupid classes - doing the same variety of problems one by one as though we were only coached for a degree. now coaching is a bit euphemistic ....poaching wd have been apt. and the worst of the lot - the engineering drawing . i shall not hurry thro all these....there is a beauty in each one of them....and it is not fair to give a cursory attention to them.
hostel life....i never had a better companion than brindavan exp , during college. life wd have been extremely cruel if not for this angel, the angel on wheels of the deccan pride. basically calling myself a hosteller wd be to heap insults to my fellow hostel mates. particularly when u dont stay there at weekends and the most part of the weekdays are spent at college lecture halls. but yes....whatever little i have seen of hostel , i remember....a bizarre incident....
a hostel warden - a semi dude, bespectacled, frowny, corpulent, poorly humourous insaan. a nice little evening we had with our share of cricket and we entered teh hostel....
all we cd see was approximately 29 heads, nearly 13 of them stinking with neem oil, 6 of them as dry as baked brick resembling the kinds of our first year civil engg text books. rest i dont remember....imagine 29 heads bucled into one giant heap looking at a 20cm *20cm notice board....that calls for some thinking.... it was never crowded, i mean the small potico and the lone notice board - till then it was one unnoticed board....but then that was one fateful day of reckoning for this .
the first year at college.... the first year was different and difficult in many ways. there was this utterly new hostel (or hostile as u may deem fit) life that was literally strangling me. then those stupid classes - doing the same variety of problems one by one as though we were only coached for a degree. now coaching is a bit euphemistic ....poaching wd have been apt. and the worst of the lot - the engineering drawing . i shall not hurry thro all these....there is a beauty in each one of them....and it is not fair to give a cursory attention to them.
hostel life....i never had a better companion than brindavan exp , during college. life wd have been extremely cruel if not for this angel, the angel on wheels of the deccan pride. basically calling myself a hosteller wd be to heap insults to my fellow hostel mates. particularly when u dont stay there at weekends and the most part of the weekdays are spent at college lecture halls. but yes....whatever little i have seen of hostel , i remember....a bizarre incident....
a hostel warden - a semi dude, bespectacled, frowny, corpulent, poorly humourous insaan. a nice little evening we had with our share of cricket and we entered teh hostel....
all we cd see was approximately 29 heads, nearly 13 of them stinking with neem oil, 6 of them as dry as baked brick resembling the kinds of our first year civil engg text books. rest i dont remember....imagine 29 heads bucled into one giant heap looking at a 20cm *20cm notice board....that calls for some thinking.... it was never crowded, i mean the small potico and the lone notice board - till then it was one unnoticed board....but then that was one fateful day of reckoning for this .
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