I know I shouldn't be doing this. I can also predict the fairly dire consequences that await for wasting an hour's time blogging, but when the whole world conspires to keep you from studying, there is little that you can do to resistht the waves of distraction.
At no other time can you have such profoundly meaningful insights into so many things that will in no way help you in the exam tomorrow. At no other time can you appreciate the hypnotic quality of the arrangement of seeds in a pomegranate. At no other time can you truly reflect upon the illegibility of your handwriting. At no other time can you come across fascinating discoveries like the mole which was hidden all these years amidst the hair on your head. At no other time can you imagine "lol" looking like a drowning man. Well, you get the drift...
As everybody will have experienced, "study holidays" make for some of the most interesting time in a person's life. Be it watching movie after movie, flipping past pages with zero concentration, the sudden berserker-like urge punish yourself for wasting time and the occasional piece of information which is promptly forgotten, study holidays are extremely useless. (for me atleast).
If you are thinking about how the topic of this post is related to everything that I have said above, dont bother thinking. there is no connection.
I had intended to blog about a badly injured dog which had half its face siphoned off and was looking like "Two Face"'s pet dog. and my attempt at getting some medical help for the poor creature.
An hour is wasted! the urge to blog has subsided, and now its the time of panic to set in and give me some much wanted seriousness.
May the force be with you.
P.S. The credit for coming up with "lol" looking like a drowning man goes to Abhijit.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Bunkitis
Blogging for the first time from a laptop. Not even a sentence down and this thing is already testing my patience. It's hard to shift from a proper desktop keyboard to this small, feather sensitive keyboard.
There was this SMS joke which was doing the rounds a few weeks back. "Why was Vishveshwaraiah such a good engineer?" "Coz he didn't study under VTU". Lame as it may sound, after completing almost one semester under an almost VTU-like syllabus, I'm bound to agree with whoever created that joke.
The classes are dominated with the "izzzzit"s of my maths professor and the "wadijit"S of my chemistry prof. And not to be left out is our dearest Constitution of India teacher (Bolamma.. pronounce it as you will!) who has this amazing knack of continuing to teach even when its blatantly obvious that nobody is listening. The best teacher presently is our EVS prof. I say he's the best because he never comes to class and always lives up to our expectations and bunks whenever we want him to.
The general feeling in all classes is the urge to physically throw the teacher out of the class or scream in frustration. This is infact the first symptom of "bunkitis". A condition often found in frustrated college-going students. Other symptoms include constant boredom, hands which refuse to part with the mobile phone, sudden interest in the colour of the flowers in a distant tree, and in extreme cases, a sudden urge to get up and sing in class.
Bunkitis is a plague. One person can transfer it easily to lots of other people. The rate of transfer of the plague is directly proportional to the closeness of friendship and the abundant availability of pocket money. In rare cases, when the whole class temporarily has the plague, a phenomenon known as "mass bunk" is found to occur. Mass bunks are rare and are more often than not foiled attempts.
After a lot of research, a cure was found for "bunkitis", much to the dismay of the student community. It was found that "guilt" is the best medicine there is to prevent bunkitis. This research proved effective in the early 1990s but was soon proved redundant by the most recent batch of patients whose brains find it very hard to generate the required level of guilt to effectively tackle this disease.
A brilliant breakthrough was produced by college authorities to tackle this menace. "Attendance shortage", the latest drug available in all colleges is a sureshot way to cure people of this disease temporarily. But even this cannot guarantee complete cure as "bunkitis" resumes it work on the human brain as soon as "minimum attendance cut-off" is reached.
The student mind is probably destined to forever be in the clutches of this disease.
More on bunkitis when I get affected by it, which will be in a week or two!
Ciao... May the force be with you.
There was this SMS joke which was doing the rounds a few weeks back. "Why was Vishveshwaraiah such a good engineer?" "Coz he didn't study under VTU". Lame as it may sound, after completing almost one semester under an almost VTU-like syllabus, I'm bound to agree with whoever created that joke.
The classes are dominated with the "izzzzit"s of my maths professor and the "wadijit"S of my chemistry prof. And not to be left out is our dearest Constitution of India teacher (Bolamma.. pronounce it as you will!) who has this amazing knack of continuing to teach even when its blatantly obvious that nobody is listening. The best teacher presently is our EVS prof. I say he's the best because he never comes to class and always lives up to our expectations and bunks whenever we want him to.
The general feeling in all classes is the urge to physically throw the teacher out of the class or scream in frustration. This is infact the first symptom of "bunkitis". A condition often found in frustrated college-going students. Other symptoms include constant boredom, hands which refuse to part with the mobile phone, sudden interest in the colour of the flowers in a distant tree, and in extreme cases, a sudden urge to get up and sing in class.
Bunkitis is a plague. One person can transfer it easily to lots of other people. The rate of transfer of the plague is directly proportional to the closeness of friendship and the abundant availability of pocket money. In rare cases, when the whole class temporarily has the plague, a phenomenon known as "mass bunk" is found to occur. Mass bunks are rare and are more often than not foiled attempts.
After a lot of research, a cure was found for "bunkitis", much to the dismay of the student community. It was found that "guilt" is the best medicine there is to prevent bunkitis. This research proved effective in the early 1990s but was soon proved redundant by the most recent batch of patients whose brains find it very hard to generate the required level of guilt to effectively tackle this disease.
A brilliant breakthrough was produced by college authorities to tackle this menace. "Attendance shortage", the latest drug available in all colleges is a sureshot way to cure people of this disease temporarily. But even this cannot guarantee complete cure as "bunkitis" resumes it work on the human brain as soon as "minimum attendance cut-off" is reached.
The student mind is probably destined to forever be in the clutches of this disease.
More on bunkitis when I get affected by it, which will be in a week or two!
Ciao... May the force be with you.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Fashion faux pas
I was going through Bangalore Times yesterday, as part of my daily after college ritual. Along with all the loads of celebrity gossip and the various completely idiotic yet completely convincing relationship advice, there are also posts on fashion. All these days I was ignoring these articles and yesterday, in a fit of boredom I actually did read the complete article.
It was worth it! My fashion sense still remains zero but I did manage to have a good laugh. I don't understand fashion.
Firstly, all those horrible things they do to clothes just makes it seem like a waste of good cloth.
Secondly, most of the things they drape models with rarely fits anybody other than them.
Thirdly, most of their designs (especially the summer collection) seems too garish to wear in decent company.
Some of the clothes that do make it to the market (and are wearable) are too bloody expensive for the common man to purchase. Such being the case, I wonder how that whole industry survives on the clothing equivalent of gluttony on the part of a few millionaires.
Most importantly, I doubt if many people understand fashion. I was reading about the "fashion advice" that these fashion gurus give to people like us. And how moronic are all of us who go by their taste of clothing. Something that they say is suddenly the "in thing" and something that somebody refuses to use suddenly becomes outdated. There are few people who pull the fashion strings and crown themselves the fashion-makers.
Should we let the tastes of a few people rule our cupboards? Should we lets the whims and fancies of a few people allow us to mimic stars and lose our individuality? I don't think so. Fashion is surprisingly one of the biggest industries today and I suppose there are many out there who disagree with me.
A beautiful woman looks beautiful in whatever she wears (the gay types please look elsewhere). I don't think that by wearing pink shoes with a black dress suddenly makes her sprout hitherto unseen pimples and freckles and suddenly go out of shape and make her look hideous.
Beauty is skin deep!
And don't get me started with the "bikini collection". Nobody cares what damn designs you do on them. They are never seen or noticed. If you do start looking at the designs then you must seriously reconsider you orientation.
Ciao
It was worth it! My fashion sense still remains zero but I did manage to have a good laugh. I don't understand fashion.
Firstly, all those horrible things they do to clothes just makes it seem like a waste of good cloth.
Secondly, most of the things they drape models with rarely fits anybody other than them.
Thirdly, most of their designs (especially the summer collection) seems too garish to wear in decent company.
Some of the clothes that do make it to the market (and are wearable) are too bloody expensive for the common man to purchase. Such being the case, I wonder how that whole industry survives on the clothing equivalent of gluttony on the part of a few millionaires.
Most importantly, I doubt if many people understand fashion. I was reading about the "fashion advice" that these fashion gurus give to people like us. And how moronic are all of us who go by their taste of clothing. Something that they say is suddenly the "in thing" and something that somebody refuses to use suddenly becomes outdated. There are few people who pull the fashion strings and crown themselves the fashion-makers.
Should we let the tastes of a few people rule our cupboards? Should we lets the whims and fancies of a few people allow us to mimic stars and lose our individuality? I don't think so. Fashion is surprisingly one of the biggest industries today and I suppose there are many out there who disagree with me.
A beautiful woman looks beautiful in whatever she wears (the gay types please look elsewhere). I don't think that by wearing pink shoes with a black dress suddenly makes her sprout hitherto unseen pimples and freckles and suddenly go out of shape and make her look hideous.
Beauty is skin deep!
And don't get me started with the "bikini collection". Nobody cares what damn designs you do on them. They are never seen or noticed. If you do start looking at the designs then you must seriously reconsider you orientation.
Ciao
Monday, October 11, 2010
Hostly Duties
I had the opportunity to go to a function(along with my family of course) the past weekend. It was a religious event and hence the host's duties were limited.
This post is a critical examination on the multifaceted duties a host has to play... with more stress on food.
Hostly Duty (H.D) 1: It is imperative that you cook for twice the number of people you have invited. This is for 2 reasons. Running out of food is disastrous. It gives you licence to perform the following HDs.
H.D.2: There is no such thing as a full stomach. Loading the plates of the guests until they are an inch from puking on you is considered a very gracious thing to do.
H.D.3: From H.D.1, it can be inferred that there will be lots of food left after lunch. Have a backup guest list to fall back to to clear all that good food for the night.
H.D.4: Insulting, taunting and angering thin people during lunch and dinner is an "ok" thing to do (not if you are the one being taunted).
H.D.5: Dialogues of self loathing after serving one round of food or talking about one's limited expertise when it comes to cooking is observed to be the best way to end anybody's hopes of criticizing your food.
H.D.6: Be careful and don't let anybody serve you your food. (People like me are always waiting to take revenge).
This probably happens in every house (with a few minor changes of course). It is quite amusing that guests, even with the prospect of undergoing such torture, feel let-down and insulted if they are not tortured.
Ciao..
This post is a critical examination on the multifaceted duties a host has to play... with more stress on food.
Hostly Duty (H.D) 1: It is imperative that you cook for twice the number of people you have invited. This is for 2 reasons. Running out of food is disastrous. It gives you licence to perform the following HDs.
H.D.2: There is no such thing as a full stomach. Loading the plates of the guests until they are an inch from puking on you is considered a very gracious thing to do.
H.D.3: From H.D.1, it can be inferred that there will be lots of food left after lunch. Have a backup guest list to fall back to to clear all that good food for the night.
H.D.4: Insulting, taunting and angering thin people during lunch and dinner is an "ok" thing to do (not if you are the one being taunted).
H.D.5: Dialogues of self loathing after serving one round of food or talking about one's limited expertise when it comes to cooking is observed to be the best way to end anybody's hopes of criticizing your food.
H.D.6: Be careful and don't let anybody serve you your food. (People like me are always waiting to take revenge).
This probably happens in every house (with a few minor changes of course). It is quite amusing that guests, even with the prospect of undergoing such torture, feel let-down and insulted if they are not tortured.
Ciao..
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Conversations
In life we have to put up with a lot of things. A lot of nonsense, a lot of people, a lot of supposed intellectuals and instances where all you can do is smile and say "you are right" even though your brain is screaming at you to correct a factual error or just a downright idiotic deduction.
With friends, one has the liberty of stopping the other person or interrupting him in any way possible and put in your point of view. People doing that (me, mostly) are often unwelcome guests in a conversation. And some people (me again!) learn to put up with that and smile inwardly looking at people making a fool of themselves.
It is even more irritating during group conversations among relatives, usually during a function. All the supposed intellectuals come out with all their fine oratory skills to impress a point, often a misinterpretation or a devastatingly idiotic deduction, upon the non-attention-seeking crowd. The ones who are not blessed with the same oratory skills butt in the middle to add mirch masala (read more nonsense), with constant nodding of the head.
Please do not mistake me. It is a treat to listen to people who actually know what they are speaking about.
The usual ice breaker when it comes to a group conversation is politics. And after the usual cursing of all the people and policies of the government, the quasi orators take central stage in discussing a recent political event. Some of the wannabe orators usually come up with a good Deve Gowda curse and the others stop their respective conversations to curse in unanimity. The wannabe then stops with a smug smile on his face.
Then begins the fun part... Especially when they discuss modern technology. example iPhone 4. Some of the features attributed to the iPhone make it seem like a supercomputer! Then there is always another group which will be discussing banking and economics. The conversations are usually loaded with big words like economic instability, self correction mode of the market, etc etc which no one understands, but to which everyone nods their heads.
And in every family, there is always someone who is from Amway and keeps trying to get other to join the network marketing chain.
I might be wrong, I might be right. In either case, this was my observation in a recent function.
Cheers
P.S. Happy Birthday Mahatma Gandhi!
P.P.S Happy birthday to my mobile :)
With friends, one has the liberty of stopping the other person or interrupting him in any way possible and put in your point of view. People doing that (me, mostly) are often unwelcome guests in a conversation. And some people (me again!) learn to put up with that and smile inwardly looking at people making a fool of themselves.
It is even more irritating during group conversations among relatives, usually during a function. All the supposed intellectuals come out with all their fine oratory skills to impress a point, often a misinterpretation or a devastatingly idiotic deduction, upon the non-attention-seeking crowd. The ones who are not blessed with the same oratory skills butt in the middle to add mirch masala (read more nonsense), with constant nodding of the head.
Please do not mistake me. It is a treat to listen to people who actually know what they are speaking about.
The usual ice breaker when it comes to a group conversation is politics. And after the usual cursing of all the people and policies of the government, the quasi orators take central stage in discussing a recent political event. Some of the wannabe orators usually come up with a good Deve Gowda curse and the others stop their respective conversations to curse in unanimity. The wannabe then stops with a smug smile on his face.
Then begins the fun part... Especially when they discuss modern technology. example iPhone 4. Some of the features attributed to the iPhone make it seem like a supercomputer! Then there is always another group which will be discussing banking and economics. The conversations are usually loaded with big words like economic instability, self correction mode of the market, etc etc which no one understands, but to which everyone nods their heads.
And in every family, there is always someone who is from Amway and keeps trying to get other to join the network marketing chain.
I might be wrong, I might be right. In either case, this was my observation in a recent function.
Cheers
P.S. Happy Birthday Mahatma Gandhi!
P.P.S Happy birthday to my mobile :)
Monday, September 20, 2010
The boring Bangalore crowd
Shreya Ghoshal and Sonu Nigaam were in town! And that simple sentence is probably enough to get your attention. They were performing at the APS college grounds in Basavanagudi as part of the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. And the cost of the entry ticket was.. wait for it... zero!! That's right. It was free.
And as with everything free in India, the number of attenders was indeed a lot. Young and old alike stood in the queue to enter the concert. And as usual, there were the few self assuming "senior citizens" who bulldozed past many of us who were standing in the queue just because they are old. Now, I have nothing against old people or queues. Its just the combination that I'm not too fond of. A note to all people who might organize such concerts... please have a separate special queue for "senior citizens", and you will be able to cope with half of your problems. Have separate seats reserved for "Senior Citizens" and hence put all party-poopers in one basket.
What is the main intention of attending a concert? To have fun and to listen to music. and what to these housewives and old grandmothers do? come to the concert and talk family politics. Such killjoys. And then there were the ones who believed that they were attending a serious classical recital. They sat there with their strict, emotionless pokerfaces and expected everybody to do the same. Another category of people included the ones who wanted to have fun but feared their lowering in social stature if they went with the flow.
All in all, the Bangalore crowd (read, basavanagudi crowd) is a very boring one. If anybody is planning to go, please go there with a large group if you want to have fun, ?If not, enjoy listening to family problems along with bits and pieces of every song.
P.S. Shreya Ghoshal... You rock!!!
Ciao
And as with everything free in India, the number of attenders was indeed a lot. Young and old alike stood in the queue to enter the concert. And as usual, there were the few self assuming "senior citizens" who bulldozed past many of us who were standing in the queue just because they are old. Now, I have nothing against old people or queues. Its just the combination that I'm not too fond of. A note to all people who might organize such concerts... please have a separate special queue for "senior citizens", and you will be able to cope with half of your problems. Have separate seats reserved for "Senior Citizens" and hence put all party-poopers in one basket.
What is the main intention of attending a concert? To have fun and to listen to music. and what to these housewives and old grandmothers do? come to the concert and talk family politics. Such killjoys. And then there were the ones who believed that they were attending a serious classical recital. They sat there with their strict, emotionless pokerfaces and expected everybody to do the same. Another category of people included the ones who wanted to have fun but feared their lowering in social stature if they went with the flow.
All in all, the Bangalore crowd (read, basavanagudi crowd) is a very boring one. If anybody is planning to go, please go there with a large group if you want to have fun, ?If not, enjoy listening to family problems along with bits and pieces of every song.
P.S. Shreya Ghoshal... You rock!!!
Ciao
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Height of Inspiration
College started at last! And there came an end to our seemingly never ending holidays. Now that classes have started in full swing, I did find it difficult to get back to the serious listening mindset. (in other words the tactical, repeated nodding of the head, irrespective of whether the teacher is making sense or not) My college campus is pretty good. Much better compared to Jain college anyways. The canteen is nice and the cup noodles bloody expensive. Other than that, this actually seems like a good place to spend 4 years.
Mr. N.R.Narayana Murthy was the chief guest for the inauguration function. It sounded as though BMS college had borrowed the old speakers from our very own railway station. The sound quality was horrible and I was forced to lip-read in order to understand what they were all saying. This was the only bummer in an otherwise pretty good program It seems Mr.Murthy had 100% attendance in his Engineering college!
The first two days in college were boring. We were introduced to our respective departments, visited the library and the sports dept. We had some Self motivational classes which were intended to inspire and motivate us.
The lady who talked seemed to be teaching us english rather than motivating us. She finally put across a few motivational points and one of them was asking all of us to smile at each other.
After enduring all that for a couple of hours, I say a classmate of mine (dunno the name though) grinning maniacally at me from across the parking lot. It was a very weird experience.
A bit of advice to all the "easily-motivated"... Please think a little before you try and implement all that people ask us to do.
Ciao
Mr. N.R.Narayana Murthy was the chief guest for the inauguration function. It sounded as though BMS college had borrowed the old speakers from our very own railway station. The sound quality was horrible and I was forced to lip-read in order to understand what they were all saying. This was the only bummer in an otherwise pretty good program It seems Mr.Murthy had 100% attendance in his Engineering college!
The first two days in college were boring. We were introduced to our respective departments, visited the library and the sports dept. We had some Self motivational classes which were intended to inspire and motivate us.
The lady who talked seemed to be teaching us english rather than motivating us. She finally put across a few motivational points and one of them was asking all of us to smile at each other.
After enduring all that for a couple of hours, I say a classmate of mine (dunno the name though) grinning maniacally at me from across the parking lot. It was a very weird experience.
A bit of advice to all the "easily-motivated"... Please think a little before you try and implement all that people ask us to do.
Ciao
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