Reverse Pedagogical woes

It's been quite a long time since school, and I have absolutely no idea how I used to study stuff back then.

I pushed off on my own in the 8th standard, my mother absolving herself of anything to do with my studies with the crucial 7th standard Annual Exams. Initially I faltered, of course, but I quickly adapted and survived. I actually used to highlight sentences in the History textbook and study daily. Whew, and my folks cut the cable connection that year. Broadband didn't come till after the Engg. exams, ditto for the loong-overdue system upgrade. Windows 98 was still running till the 12th std, and i had to make do with Dial-up internet.

Right now, with the worst, entirely fucked up timetable of the whole world, I am faced with as little time for stuff as possible. The laptop makes things worse. Whole chapters stare back at me with the most ":|"-est xpression, not unentirely like Thurman. My friend misplaced my All-in-One notebook, contaning all my notes, products of an idle mind and some good mechanical autopiloting while fighting sleep. Fighting down occasional paranoia and trying not to look down, I gingerly mount the portions, praying that the new rudraksham around my neck do me some supernatural favour during the exams. This is hardly studying, and it's absurd that after 2 years of this bullshit facade of copying and faking results in practical exams, I suddenly become an Electrical Engineer.

Hakuna Matata... Yup, none whatsoevah. :)

Read more...

Test, new

Finally removed the infernal Disqus thing. It was laborious and convoluted. I was forced to add it because Blogger wouldn't provide the comment under post feature Wordpress had introduced aaaaaaaaaaaaaages ago. #epicfail

Want to see how the new thing works on my place.

Read more...

il capo

"Staying alive and sane, with all your vitals intact and your facilities at optimum efficiency requires skill. Getting the right contacts, pulling the correct strings at the designated times, trusting your gut and putting faith in yourself. The ability to complete sentences. To set up the perfect facade of control away from yourself, while you sit in that bunker, lighting up every few minutes and gesticulating to your capo. That bent of mind, that confidence - it is born of patience, perseverence, grit and guts, and stoicism. Cutting through the shit, wading through the muck, getting drenched in the rain and keeping that joint alive in the river. Skill, forged in the red hot fires of the mind, being laconic blessed Jesus hisself. Family and kids. To seek, to strive, but never to yield."

- Cpt. Wu Shi, Third Battalion, Forty-fifth regiment.

How i wish you were here...

Read more...

Down the length of India in a train

NP: Bande - Indian Ocean

The train journey home was pure poetry. I watched the sun rise and set over different locations, two different horizons. It began raining when i was sticking my head out of the footboard, enjoying the wind buffeting my glasses. The landscape steadily improved from arid waste in the UP region to deciduous forest (i could actually make that one out, thanks to Geo classes) to traces of healthy greenery near good old Madras. And of course, the friendly neighbourhood exortionist hijras. Grandfathers with cute cuddly toddlers, pointing the light n' sound show of the train out to them from huts, tops of ledges and from boats beneath. Goats, sheep, cows, all contentedly munching away in distant fields and grasslands. The epiphany inducing cloud formation, you know, the one where the cloud canopy is like caved in at a point, allowing all the sunlight to stream down, like a faucet, complete with the Tyndall effect. Kids dancing with hooplas, the floor cleaner, the blind flute player, the keychain seller, taaza khabar wala, the raucous dehati family, the Madras-bound paandis, bald Gulties, the Rameshwaram-bound Northies. Plug points that are fucked. Toilets that haven't been cleaned in a long time, stinking of the depths of hell. The wind in my face. The late-night conversations with fellow traveller Prashanth. The echoing dhoom dhoom of the train as it navigates a bridge, the expanse and depth of water underneath my feet; grip on handlebars tightening. Checking out the girls in the station, and in the compartment, by getting down at every station. Throwing caution to the winds. Eating every single thing that arrives in baskets, packets...

There is just something that i despise about travelling by AC when it aint summer no more. Hell, I cant stand AC even in the summer. What is a train without the rock n' roll dhadak dhoom beat, the heat, the flies, the blast of the horn, the reassuring toot, the people, the tasty unhealthy food, the cold nights, the WIND, the slow, story-like unravelling of indefinite lengths of railroad...? If it's luxury one's after, better take a flight. In case you were wondering, Chennai -> TVM was B3 in Trivandrum Mail.

MUST say this much: First half of Sem 3 was fucking kickass. Things are finally climbing the old graph. No valleys for some time to come.

Read more...

The One with the Kashiyatra

NP: Coldplay - Viva La Vida

Last three weeks were like the most hectic part of my life till now. Stuff happened real fast. It all began with my parents' surprise visit to my place, the subsequent Kashiyatra, the acquisition of my delta, and Avishkar. Avishkar is my college's Techfest. Never before has so much stuff happened in such a short period of time. Though it's like all fuzzy and irritating at the moment, something tells me this is one of those periods of time which are enjoyed from a viewpoint in the future. This is, hopefully, a blog that will find its way to completion, unlike its four other aborted brethren.

This was also the time when i caught up with a few friends, with varied fortunes and stories to tell of their own. I wrote the elims for most of the Trical events in Avishkar, got screwed in the paper presentation, got through to the 3rd round of Pentathlon, and generally had a nice time. But my team was the only one that had a fully original idea for a paper, with the least amount of Googling involved.

I must elaborate on the Kashi Yatra. It was a huge fucking disappointment, is a gross understatement. I had expected a huge, Puri-style temple with flowershops et cetera strewn in its spacious grimy surroundings. What i saw was this easily missable Minotaur ka maze type labyrinth, no indication of a few hudred fucking years-old temple anywhere, very narrow, grimy, shit piled in neat brown green dumps all around. Cows (My god, there are a million of them, all of them in your way, with this extremely irritating contented, stupid cud chewing face), motorbikes, people and dogs. This "world renowned" temple, fucking KASHI for God's sake, is a oh-so-diasppointingly small setup not bigger than one fourth the Padamanabha swamy temple. The entrance is indistinguishable from the millions of other small gallis that make up the labyrinth. The most indigestible part is the motherfuckers who run the God business. Throw a garland, pour some milk on the (again, disappointingly) small lingam, and they ask for money. The audacity of this particular pot bellied impostor fiend, he asked for 200! I'm now sure i restrained myself because my parents were with me. And, kids are not kids, they are full-fledged businessmen. All south indian languages are spoken by the "guides". My mom took an instant liking to this cute 13 year old boy who spoke heavily accented but correct Tamil, who then took care of our entire temple viewing programme. Then he went, "oddu, oddu", at this blatantly Gulti baldie who was gaping at some garlands. The Varanasi train station has this awesome tourist guide cell, with this guy who explains everything relevant expertly. We never had a problem finding our way, with autos or anything. The temple complex is typical UP, with open drains, oooooold buildings, broken paved dirt tracks, harmoniously dirty and rustic. It seems very humbling that this great edifice has endured Time and retained its identity. Though, i disagree vehemently with the policy of letting any bozo touch the lingam. I'm sure some sly shady Pandey character invented this to aid the tourism business, and rake in the rupees. What better B-plan than letting bhaktas perform the puja themselves? Any idol should be handled only by the pujari, after he has performed the mandatory cleansing rituals. There, i'm riding my favourite tangent now. But anyways, i did see those exotic sadhus for real, with matted hair and brown locks. Just like in all those movies. But because since our schedule didn't permit us to stay more than a few hours in the place, I couldn't click many pictures or see the famed temple fully. Next time...
It was Amma's dream to go to Kashi. I'm just happy she's happy :), mainly because she has finally come to terms with me in Allahabad, reasoning that my decision was just a nimithham for her kashiyatra (!!).

My Delta is a Dell Inspiron 1440. 38.5k. It's a Win Lin machine now, hoping to install Mac too. Last night was this large-scale plundering of the LAN, with 50-60 GB loot in the box. I've started playing serious CS. Actually, my steady-state usage pattern of the lappie is yet to be determined... after the midsems.

Read more...