Story of my life

(Note: You may see more posts coming up with this title. It doesn't mean I'm depressed. Just that I was too lazy to come up with a new title when I posted it)

Preparations are under way for the trip to Delhi. What trip to Delhi, you ask? The one I mentioned in my previous post. You probably missed it in all the bitching.

On Thursday, we had an oratorical competition. The topic was, “Scientific study should be for the benefit of the society.” Participants had to speak for the motion for two minutes, do an about face (not literally) and talk against the motion for two minutes. This innovative competition saw a grand total of … 6 entries. And Yours Truly was one of ‘em.

I have a feeling that, subconsciously, I enjoy shooting off my mouth. I really didn’t plan on taking part. It just happened. I ended up registering on impulse and I said some very confusing, downright silly things. It must be the first time some one mentioned Einstein, GPS, vaccines and cavemen in the same speech. Needless to say, I lost. Maybe I would have won the prize for the most incoherent speech. Sadly, there was nothing of the sort.

Following that, at 1900 hrs we had a debrief about the trip (Military time makes it sound like it’s a bigger deal than it actually is) We selected a leader for our team. (B_G, take a bow) We decided that we needed more practice in the sci-fi writing event. Apparently our writing either wasn’t scientific enough. Or, as in the case of one of the first year students, wasn’t fictional enough (!) And my genetics prof also insisted that we practice for the debate and other oratorical events. I’d made a very big impression. As an example of what can go wrong…:-(

Yesterday was fun. We went down to Symbiosis for a quiz on the media. It was part of a 3 day long fest organized by their Media and Communication school. The quiz itself was crap. Mostly because the Quizmaster WAS JUST AWFUL. For one, he stood behind a lectern. He mumbled. He used corny, beaten-to-death lines. He wasn’t friendly. He wasn’t engaging. And he made up the rules as he went along. He even had a flunky to walk around the stage. The guy actually told one of the teams, “Don’t argue with the quizmaster. Just answer the question,.” Or, in other words, you can’t win. One of the few times that I was glad I didn’t qualify for the finals.

I did meet Saras, one of my seniors from school. She was in the organizing committee for the fest. She was part of one of the most bubbly, creative, colourful in-your-face batches. And she was one of the most bubbly, creative, colourful and in-your-face among them. Looks like she’s doing pretty well. She’s got an interview lined up with STAR Networks next week. And I’ve got Chem practical reports to submit next week. Damn.

After all that running around from my coll to Symbi and back, I went shopping in the evening. I had to get a jacket for aforementioned trip to Delhi (last time it’s gonna come up in this post, promise!). And this morning, when I look at what I bought, I’m having second thoughts. I’ve realized that satisfaction with what you buy is a lot like waking up the morning after. If it’s you’re girlfriend, who you obviously know well, beside you, it fills you with a warm feeling and reassures you that she’s there. If it’s a girl you barely know, and you’re slightly hung over, you’re scared. You’re wondering “What did you just do? What the hell were you thinking?!”

See, I’m a slave to brands. It’s a mark of quality. For me, whenever there’s a choice to be made, I always go with the branded one “What hard drive do I buy? The branded one. Which restaurant do I go eat in? The branded one. Who do I ask out? The branded one” You get what I’m saying?

So, I bought a Puma Jacket over something called a “t-base”. Both cost me about the same. But now, the Puma, well…

Don’t get me wrong. The material feels really good, it fits really well, and it has a nice, sporty air to it. But now, it looks too casual. I get the feeling I could have spent my not-overflowing funds better if I’d looked around a bit more. And the colour. It’s almost the exact shade of grey as my school uniform! Freudian slip? One-night stand? Impulse buy? Dunno, but it cost me MUCHO bucks.

Anyway, I’m gonna go watch the auditions for the college play. It should be fun watching someone else make a fool of themselves on stage, for a change. Ciao!

(Factoid: Puma and Adidas were founded by brothers Rudolf and Adi Dassler, respectively. They split up their shoe-making business after WWII into two companies. Apparently there's been a history of Ambani-style split ups. And Adidas comes from ADI DASsler, not All Day I Dream About Sports)

It's the pits

(I wrote this last night when I was in a really rotten mood. So read it only if you want to know how I sound when I bitch. And no, I don't regret anything I've said here.)

Depression’s a bitch. You never know when that deep blue funk is gonna come up, you don’t know how long it’ll last, you don’t know why it happens. It just hangs over your mind, like a giant Dementor, sucking every positive thought out of you. Actually, sucking every thought out of you. And just filling you with this big load of negativity. Sunrise doesn’t move you one bit. A bird chirping makes you curse it for being so noisy and apparently happy. And you just want to tell the next guy who says what a great day it is to shove it up his arse.

If I could, I’d get a big load of junk food, chocolate, espresso, then seal myself off from the rest of the world and watch some cheesy Adam Sandler movies, or some dumb romantic comedies until I fall asleep. It probably won’t do me any good, physically or otherwise, but it sure will remove the need to think. Or at least get rid of the single thought going on in my head. Namely, what’s the whole point?

Really, what IS the whole point? Of anything? What is the point of going to class when you don’t understand anything? What is the point of a class which isn’t designed for students like you? What is the point of a lecturer who doesn’t know what he’s talking about? What is the point of college? What is the point of there being an opposite sex? For that matter, what is the point of there being other people? What is the point of life on this dumb planet? What is the point of doing anything if it goes unnoticed? Why does it seem like some people exist just to tick you off? Why is my roommate the leader of that lot? Why even bother?

And what really pisses me is that it all starts out of the blue. It’s not as if I had a bad day at college. It was about average. And if anything I should be happy and excited about my trip to Delhi for this inter-college meet. But I’m not. I just keep thinking that it’s gonna be a huge letdown, that the accommodation will be awful, that the competitions will be poorly organized, and that I’ll screw up the quiz there.

It seems really easy to give up. To just take a couple of sleeping pills, hit the sack, and wake up from a dreamless sleep the next day. And yet I know that if someone came up to me even now and told me that they were feeling down, I’d do the best I can to cheer them up. Regardless of the fact that I’m the one who needs cheering up more. Why would I do that? Why not just tell them that life sucks, so piss off. After all, I don’t see it any other way.

And the people around me. They make me feel worse. Getting excited for the tiniest of things. Laughing at some really stupid, pointless jokes. Making off-colour, anti-establishment jokes. And others who think THAT’S funny. People who act like nothing affects them and that they can roll with whatever life throws at them. People with a holier-than-thou attitude. People who think they can get wherever simply through academics. Dumb ostriches that are happy to bury their heads in denial while life and the joys of youth pass them by. People who are looking for dirt from your life, as if their very existence depended on it. People who MUST trample over you and come out on top. Brown-nosing suck ups who wouldn’t survive without patronage. And didn’t know that there are other things in the world besides their bosses butts.

Plus it’s the little things that really tick me off. Right now there’s some song about ‘pehla pyaar’ playing in the background. What is the big deal? 99% of the time, it’s doomed to fail, for whatever reason. And ,at that time, no one really knows what they’re doing. By the time you’re wise enough to know what you did wrong, you never get the same rush again. Also, I’m the kind of guy who takes myself so seriously, that asking a girl out is almost like applying for a research grant or something. I can’t treat it lightly. Which means I’m definitely never gonna get that rush I did when I was 14. So why do you have to bloody rub it in?

Also, I’ve been going through some pretty weird moods in the last one week. I sent two really mushy texts to my ex, purely on impulse. I never sent her anything of the kind even when we were going out. She isn’t telling me, but I’m sure she thinks I’m turning into some kind of lovelorn, Devdas-minus-whisky type now. And that can’t be good.

Whatever. I hear that apparently men also go through cyclic mood swings. It’s just that PMS is more obvious in women. Plus it’s that much easier for a guy to drown his blues in alcohol, or drugs or whatever. And that may be why it hasn’t been noticed for a long time.

Linda Goodman says that Cancer’s moods vary with the tides. But she also says that the full moon is when they’re at their most imaginative, creative best. I don’t know what to believe. Maybe the full moon’s just turned the energy the other way? Maybe she doesn't know what she's talking about.

Btw, my typing has been pretty bad. Plenty of spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, rewrites. I think this post is trash. I think I shouldn’t even write a blog. I think I need a shot of hot, strong, black coffee. And then I’m going to bed. If you actually thought it was worth your while to read this post, well, it wasn't.

The List

Readership is slowly picking up here, thanks mainly to tireless advertising by Yours Truly("Read my blog! Read my blog!"). I've got some requests and suggestions as well here. Suggestions being, "Don't keep it so local and tamil. At this rate, the only person who'd enjoy reading your blog is you!", and "Why are you writing about stuff that's so personal, and yet unrelated to the rest of us? This is the internet, not a locker room, for goodness' sake!". And finally, "Stop ending your quotes with exclamation marks!!!" (Yes, that's a very juvenile joke. But then, this is MY blog. So, ha!)

Moving on to requests, I've got one to make a list. Apparently, one of my readers loves lists. Which is one of the reasons why she was hooked onto ClunkiestAtol's blog [the other being that they're best friends. But that's only a minor detail ;)].

So, here goes. Things that scare me:

1) Horror movies that have an actual scientific basis (like "I am Legend". Not like "Frankenstein" and definitely not like "Independence Day")

2) Exams. Wait, this shouldn't even be on the list. Everyone's scared of them!

3) Traffic in Madras- I'd rather park on Mount Road and walk to Panagal Park, rather than drive through T. Nagar. No, even better. I won't go to Panagal Park

4)Computers hanging up - Especially when you need 'em the most. Damn you, William!

5) Train horns going off just as they pull into the station - Been scared of that ever since I was 5. That happened for the first time in Coimbatore. Not funny!

6) Being alone. I mean emotionally, not physically. (Boy, do I sound like a wuss)

7) People who smile for no reason at all. Especially if they're looking at me when they smile.

8)People who say they know what I'm thinking

9)And when they actually do know what I'm thinking!

10) Getting shot down when I ask a girl out. And I mean a massacre where she not only says no, but abuses you for actually asking her. Thankfully, that's never happened to me, yet...

Other news. The astrology app in Facebook says that Cancer is the classic flirt and has to turn the heat down today (!). And I just earned myself a Porsche Carrera GT racing in the Petrolhead app.(Woohoo! Geek!)

And finally, continuing the laundry theme from last time, here's a bit of advice to anyone who has to do their own laundry. Never (and I mean never) wash indigo or red clothes in hot water. Thecolours run like they're in a marathon.

That's all for now. (No laundry next time, promise :D)

Blink, and it's gone

My mind amazes me. No, not in the sense of, “I’m so gobsmackingly intelligent!” I get plenty of that as it is from parents and relatives. Apparently my aunt tells my cousins to look at me as an example of how well one ought to study (hah!), and keeps goading the poor kids. I’m sure they must hate me by now (they’re in the US, so I don’t know for sure)

No, it amazes me because of the sheer volume of seemingly irrelevant thoughts that pass through my head. It’s like some kind of anti-boredom system (My very own ABS. Cool!) It’s got just one instruction: When all else fails, flash random things through mind. And they’re totally random. F’rinstance, I was ironing a shirt last night, while listening to a song and here are just some of the thoughts that flashed by:

+Male Mallu singers have wonderful, deep voices
+Unnikrishnan doesn’t have a deep voice
+That joke by Vivek on kaakaa biryani and Unnikrishnan’s voice
+Saif shouldn’t have been cast in Abbas’s role when they re-made Minnale in Hindi
+Why does Gautham Menon make so many police themed movies?
+Kamalinee Mukherjee looks hot!
+Dum da dum dum da dum dum dum DUM
+How come no Tamil actor has done a film about a laundry-man?
+Naa isthrikaaran, isthrikaaran / nalla amutthum isthrikaaran / nyayamulla rate-u kaaran …
+How I get my most inspired ideas when I’m doing my laundry
+Maybe I should carry a Dictaphone with me whenever I do my laundry
+Why don’t I write about this in my blog!
+How utterly short of ideas I must be to write about doing laundry in my blog

Some sobering thought like the last one brings me back to reality. I scold myself for being silly (See! More examples of uptightness), and get back to work on whatever I’m supposed to be doing. For a while, anyway. It never lasts. (Mum, if you’re reading this, this is why it always took me so long to study even one chapter). One recurring theme is my current flame, whoever she is at that moment, and how I’d ask her out. Of course, I hardly ever get around to doing it, but I always rehearse, re-rehearse and re-re-rehearse. Complete with a background score, elaborate sets and subtle lighting changes. All of it in my head. Yeah, it sounds pathetic, but trust me it’s loads of fun.

The worst part is that when I need my mind to be productive and come up with ideas, it clams up. Completely. Seals itself shut. Only after much self-goading, self-prodding and self-hair-pulling am I able to get any work done. This paragraph alone took me ten minutes.

Anyway, today is Pongal. It’s the second Pongal in as many years that I’m spending away from home. That’s what I hate about living in a hostel. I can’t be with the people I love the most on the days that matter the most. I’ve spent my last two birthdays, parents’ birthdays, Valentine’s days away from home. At least I’ve been in Madras for the new year every time so far. Small mercies.

Ok, sorry. Shouldn’t bum you out on Pongal. Pongal nalvazhthukkal to you all. Don’t get caught near Alanganallur anytime today :)

Pongalo Pongal!

First one of '08

Well, me hearties, it’s been two weeks into the new year and I’m nowhere near fulfilling those new year resolutions. No. 1 is very clearly taking a beating. No. 2’s going nowhere (well, I actually did ask a girl out, but that was more as a joke. For the record, it fell flat on its face. Quite, quite flat). Finally I don’t really see what I can do about No.3, considering that I got pretty uptight on more than one occasion while I was in Madras. And it would have been most prudent not to, on each of those occasions. I guess that’s just who I am. A serious, stiff stickler who just can’t let go. And, so far, only alcohol seems to help ;-) No, no alcohol since that one time, in case you’re wondering.

I finally got around to watching Anniyan. And this was after I’d seen Sivaji. I gotta say that Vikram’s done a good job. So has Prakashraj, although I think Shankar’s played the vendetta angle a little too strongly. Vivek and Sada were pretty good too, within the limited scope of their roles. On the whole, it’s very typical Shankar fare. He makes only two kinds of movies: sappy romance (Kadhalan, Jeans, Boys) or clichéd crusade (Gentleman, Indian, Mudhalvan) Anniyan and Sivaji are just the latest of the second kind. And every single one of them has a completely unbelievable plot, loads of special effects and CGI. Whatever. It makes for good watching, if you can suspend the rational part of your mind (Which you probably do already, if you watch a lot of Indian movies or soaps)

So, there have been some changes in college. Sorry, research institute. According to one of my profs, this place “..was never meant to be a college in any sense of the word. It’s a research institute where they ALSO teach undergraduate students” And surprisingly, this doesn’t bother any of my classmates. We have no life, barring academics. None of the other colleges in Pune know that we exist. Our course load is worse than that of the IITs (until this semester atleast). And there’s barely any support from the faculty for our extra-curricular activities. Plus, none of the students seem to be taking any initiative. I organised a quiz almost single handedly in November, but that’s about it. Oh, they do come up with grandiose schemes about what can be done, but there’s so much bickering going on that they don’t even come close to any kind of workable concept.

Enough bitching. (BTW, it feels really good to get this stuff off my chest and into cyberspace) The biggest of the changes is the new academic building. It’s not much, three floors of an office block (about 30000 sq.ft. altogether). Plus, the whole place has a very corporate feel to it. Doesn’t feel like a research institute even, come to think of it. The other big change is the reduced coursework. Only 7 compulsory courses, worth 16 credits altogether. So, things aren’t totally hopeless around here.

Here ends my “state of the person” piece. Expect something a little more light hearted next time!