Look!

Pune in the monsoon is a sight to behold. Sure the roads are muddy, clothes don't dry and you need to carry a brolly with you wherever you go, but it is a SIGHT to behold. Lush greenery offset by the sky that's alternately grey and blue, with the Western Ghats as the backdrop. I guess there's more than one reason they call this place the Oxford of the east :)

Something not nearly as pleasant is that they've installed Linux on all the common systems in the institute. Now I'm all for open-source software, but not for crappy execution. Being able to log in is a hit-or-miss affair. There's no guarantee that you'll be connected to the internet. And Firefox takes a full two minutes to load and crashes at the drop of a Red hat (pardon the pun). Plus, there's this whole red theme, which just makes everything seem very Orwellian.

But the biggest news is that the new batch of students will be thrice as big as my batch. Which means we'll be up to our ears with 12 std pass outs. Good or bad? I'll know in a couple of months.

In the meantime, I'll keep beholding :)

40 degrees and rising...

I'm typing this as I'm watching Kings XI Punjab getting creamed by the Mumbai Indians. Now I'm not going to apologise for not posting in such a long time and I'm not going to call this a comeback post either. This is just a post to make a very important announcement.

I'm on VACATION!!!!!!

(Come on now. Where's the wild cheering and thunderous applause???)

Anyway, coming back to the mundane details, I won't be able to vote in this, the first election I'm eligible to vote in. I won't be in town when the bandwagon passes through. Call it poor planning. And spare the brickbats. I don't feel good about missing it, y'know.

Right now I'm in Hyderabad. Visiting a cousin. And to be honest, the weather ain't much better than Pune. In fact, Pune is slightly better, since we have fully air-conditioned classrooms. But hey, the weather's just one side to the whole thing. I've been to Hyd only once before, and I haven't seen too much of the city, so if anybody has any suggestions let's hear 'em.

Other positive news this week is that now it seems that instead of having a race car that's both slow and unreliable, the Ferrari F60 is merely unreliable. So that's a step forward for a team that only a few years ago could do no wrong.

I'll keep you posted over these vacations, but don't hold your breath. And stay safe :)

The one with the background music

The semester is winding to an end, and I’ll be back home in exactly six days. And the weather is just as glorious as ever. In fact, it’s even colder now and I’m starting to appreciate things I didn’t mention in my other post about the winter. Like even though the water coming out of the geyser can be scalding, it’s actually better this way. Or that concrete is a reasonably good insulator (Okay, fine. There’s nothing romantic about the temperature going below 10°C at night. Happy?)

Really, there’s very little to upset me right now. Yes, my exams are going on. And yes, there is that extremely crazy terrorist attack on Bombay (which seemed to have ended, but not quite) But then, exams are a part of life when you’re a student. And as far as Bombay goes, well, just remember that far more people die on the road in that very same city every year. I mean, yes it is a despicable act. But how many of your freedoms are you willing to forego in the long run, to defend yourself from something that may or may not happen? Remember that at the end of the day most people are living longer, healthier and happier lives on an average. If you live in urban India you’ve got a better chance of developing diabetes than of dying in a terrorist attack. What do you say about that?

All I’m saying is that let’s not go overboard here. Yes, we need to take some action. Yes, we can’t let this keep happening. But tackling terrorism needs a change in the whole system, a change in people’s mindset. Cursing the terrorists and then promptly forgetting everything about it when the crisis blows over won’t cut it anymore. And since my blog isn’t the place to talk about this kind of stuff, I’ll stop here.

I watched Casino Royale again last week. And ever since, I’ve been compulsively listening to the title song, “You Know My Name”. Hell, I’ve even made the chorus of the song my ringtone. I’ve realized that what life really needs is background music. I guess every blogger must’ve been tagged at least once to make a soundtrack for his/her life. But just think how cool it would be if you could have the Mission Impossible theme playing while you work on a tough paper. And then have the Ode to Joy play after you hand in your answer sheet and walk out of the exam hall. “Danger Zone” when you’re stuck in rush hour traffic. Think of the possibilities!

Maybe all those iPod junkies have the right idea. Create your own mood wherever you go. And with the insanely huge memories that these portable players can have, it isn’t bloody difficult. And they have earphones, so that what’s in your head stays in your head. (Now I know what I want for my next birthday!)

Hopefully, I’ll squeeze in another post before I go back home. But if I don’t, this is my last post of the year from Pune! (And that’s what you should do with life itself. Make the little things seem big so you actually want to do them :D)

The one with the maroon lampposts

I apologise for an earlier post where I said there was no way that the development work for the Commonwealth Youth Games would be completed as scheduled. As it turned out it did happen as per schedule, and now the road outside my hostel is a smooth, wide 4-laner. Sweet!

What’s even better is that they’ve put up new lampposts and benches on the pavement. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill silver lampposts, or flat benches. No sir, the lamps have pseudo-wrought metalwork, and the benches have curved metal armrests. Also, this road is filled with Central Govt. establishments, whose compound walls have all been painted brick-red very recently. Plus it’s a very green part of the city and not too many people live here. The result is a road that's so much easier on the eyes. I daresay it even looks faintly colonial. However, the lampposts have been painted maroon and that just looks wrong.

It’s fun to sit on one of these benches and watch traffic whizz by, watch the sun set, the sky slowly fade to darkness, feel the chill of the evening creep up on you, try to recognise the constellations overhead (I was interested in astronomy while I was in school). Later in the evening, you put on a sweater, fold your arms across your chest to keep your hands warm and keep watching. You see everything, and yet you see nothing. When I’m sitting on a bench and watching is when the loneliness really hits me. I mean, I can totally picture me there with a girl, both of us in warm-ish clothing, my arm over her shoulder, sitting on one of these benches. It kinda makes sense that Valentine’s day is in February. The romance of the past three cold months needs dramatic release, and that’s exactly what happens. (By that logic, there should be another Valentine’s day in August for the Southern hemisphere. Wonder if anybody else has thought of that…)

As far as I’m concerned, winter is most definitely the most romantic season of all. I like the crisp air in my nostrils when I step out in the morning, the clear skies at night, the warm clothing. Mostly the clothing. Personally, I find sport jackets and overcoats sexy, sweaters laidback, and sweatshirts casual without trying too hard. Plus, it never goes below 20°C in Madras, so any kind of cold weather is exotic! (Although technically it can’t be winter when the maximum temperature is around 30°C, can it? That’s what the weather is like in Pune now. Weird.)

There’s something very captivating about the idea of caressing a hot latte in your hands on a cold evening, maybe even making it Irish to deal with the weather. I haven’t been able to shake it out of my head all week (and the milky crap they serve in the canteen doesn’t help matters) It’s been nearly a month since I last went to a coffee shop, and I guess it shows :D And of course, ice cream doesn’t ever taste as good as it does on a cold night. Neither does soup. Mmmm, noodle soup [Note: Friends reference ;) ]…

Really, the only thing that can mess up cold weather for me is the cold virus. And being the virus magnet that I am, I’ve caught my third cold in as many months. You might say I deserve it for my late-night ice cream runs. But I don’t care. Ice cream on a cold night is just too good to pass up!

In the last 48 hours

It’s funny how I find myself thinking, nay ruminating, a lot more now that I’m down with a cold. It’s almost as if my thoughts were escaping out my nose and the only way to stop them was to partially block the exit with snot. Yep, it’s gross. Why should I be the only one who’s gonna be miserable today?

I was looking through some notes that I made in my journal some time ago and I came across a piece I didn’t complete. The gist of what I wrote before I stopped is this: the worst fate that can befall a person is not thinking. Now though, I’m not so sure it’d be all that bad. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of aimless wondering, which could lead to self doubt, or worse. By the way, I can’t quite remember why I didn’t finish writing that. Maybe the strain of thinking about thinking was too much for me.

It’s been another wet weekend here in Pune. Miserably wet, if you don’t like the rain. Or are sick. Thankfully, the rain hasn’t been too heavy, because we really could do without new potholes. In fact, in 2007 the condition of the roads was actually an issue during the Municipal elections. Every newspaper had articles about potholes almost every day, including the gossip rags *cough* Times of India *cough*
The fact that the rain isn’t particularly heavy now is a cause for concern. I haven’t looked at the official data, but the general consensus is that the monsoons are starting earlier, pouring heavier in June and August, less in July and less rainfall overall. Commentators have also said that the unique geography of the Indian sub-continent has shielded us from the effects of climate change. But maybe there’s only so much that the Himalayas can do when everything else changes.

And to wind up, fun cold fact. The reason your phlegm is yellow when you have a cold is because bacteria that are normally under control in your nose have a surfeit of snot to gorge on. And the reason that there’s a surfeit in the first place is because that’s how the cold virus gets around.

....

Go, navigate away from this page. I have a conscience. I can’t willfully gross you out more than this.

Update 11/8/08: As it turned out, yesterday was pretty wet with landslides on the Pune-Bombay Expressway. And there's more rain expected later this week. Plus, my cold wasn't all that bad today, but it's still fun to think I can gross people out :D

National Science Fest, and all that

So, I'm back from Delhi. Was really hoping I could keep you in the loop with whatever was going on there. However there was no way for me to access the net from St. Stephen's campus, and I was too lazy to go out to a net cafe and post a new entry. Yep, typically ess.

Anyway, this isn't everything I want to say about Delhi. It'll come out over the next week, cos there's a LOT that need to be said. (subtle psychological trick to make sure you keep coming back here :D) But here's a little preview of what I'll be writing about, in no particular order:
*Delhi is friggin' cold. The coldest place I've been to yet. (No comments about me being a wuss, please)
*The Metro is super-cool. Really! The MRTS looks positively ancient in comparison.
*For a national level event, the nsf was TINY!
*Why in the world did they let Stephen's students participate in their own fest?
*Random musings while on the train
*And lastly, a wee little detail. Girls at Stephen's are smokin' AND smart!

Finally, I just read this. It's why neither you nor I should take blogs too seriously.

Is all. But I'll be BAACK (cue Arnie-voice)

A rather unremarkable week

Things that have happened in the last week:
P& I took part in a quiz organised by the economics dept. of Fergusson College. What were two science students doing at an economics quiz, you ask? By the end of the qualifiers, I was asking myself the same thing. The questions were a little bit of economic theory, and a lot of business trivia. (Did you know that the BSE is the oldest stock exchange in Asia?). As expected we didn’t qualify. Hey, don’t look at me. It was P’s idea. I don’t normally do business quizzes, regardless of what Subbu’s testimonial about me on Orkut says. And from now on I don’t do business quizzes. Period.

Speaking of Subbu, I’ve been having long chats with both her and Krish via Google Talk. Mostly because we’re jobless (at any rate, Subbu and I are) We’ve been talking about relationships, blogs (they’re both thinking of starting blogs of their own), break-ups, zodiac signs, network problems (the GODDAMN NETWORK in college is really, really SLOW). About the only things we haven’t talked about are why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings ;) I’ve also tried a few feeble attempts at flirting over the net. Krish told me off soundly, as anyone who knows her would expect her to. Subbu’s taking it in her stride, playing along…
It’s been a lot of fun. It’s almost like 12th standard all over again. A small group of us at the back of the class. Not particularly bothered about what goes on in the front of the class. Me trying not-so-subtly to get Krish’s attention. (Apparently my flirting STILL needs work. Krish’s words) Talking F1 trash with Subbu. Those were the days. Well, almost.

I’ve been re-reading this book Bertie gave me two years back, ‘The Know-it-all ’ by A.J. Jacobs. It’s the real-life story of an editor with Esquire who tried to read the whole of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. And he did it too, in the space of a year. I really like his style of writing. It’s almost like a blog. He writes about his thoughts as he went through the encyclopaedia word by word. For instance:
liar paradox
The ancient paradox goes like this: ‘If the sentence “This sentence is not true” is true, then it is not true, and if it is not true, it is true’. I feel very lucky I am not stoned, because if I read this after a bong hit, my head would explode.
I’ve picked one of the shortest entries, so that this post isn’t unmanageably large (yes, dear reader, I’m all heart). His writing is very informal and makes you feel right at home. I recommend it to anyone who’s looking for funny stuff, which can also move you at times, and gives it all in small doses. (Makes it almost like a paperback version of FRIENDS)

Blogs have been a recurring theme this week. I’m supposed to submit an article for the college mag on blogging. Tuesday night is the deadline. And I’ve got nothing. Nought. Nada. I mean, I could scribble some random stuff along the margin of a newspaper and it MIGHT still get printed. The Ed says hardly any submissions have come in this year. At this rate, come March and we’ll release the annual pamphlet. Or the college leaflet. Yikes!
But still, I’ve got to do something that’s up to my standards. Anyone who knows me will vouch. Seriously. I helped edit the school mag in 2006. (Back me up, people!) So, if you’ve got any ideas, suggestions, whatever, mail me. Ideas will be duly acknowledged. I’ll sing your praises in my blog, if not the article itself.

Weather’s been getting colder. Went below 8°C. Twice. And word is that Delhi’s gonna get colder next week. Damn! My Madrasi body can’t take it, I tell you. Why do we have to go to friggin’ Delhi for a fest? What happened to fests in Pune? Or Goa? Or even good old Madras, for that matter? Who in their right mind would give up Saarang (IIT, Madras fest) for St. Stephen’s? I guess my Director would, but don’t tell him I said so.

And finally, I’ve given myself a new handle. It’s how you’d pronounce the first letter of my surname. It’s also an acronym for Evolutionarily Stable Strategy (I can’t hide the nerd in me) Plus, it’s easier for someone to write to ESS rather than to Therefore I Am. And it sounds more like a name and less like a title (Therefore I Am, OBE anyone?) That way it actually is an ESS. Can’t be dislodged easily.

Is all. I take your leave. Thank you (Applause! Cheers! …no? You’re mean!)

P.S. For the record, Formula 1 by itself is not trash. It’s ONLY the coolest sport in the world. And Michael Schumacher is the God of modern single-seater racing.