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.

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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

It's not so bad, it's not so bad....

There's a theory that bloggers blog only when they're stressed, or if things aren't going well in real life.

If you look at a blog as an extension of a journal or a personal diary, it makes sense. People keep journals to put feelings, emotions, events that they feel are important, in words. And the human mind has evolved in such a way that fear and threat evoke a greater response than joy or appreciation. In any case, most of us find the simple joys of life to be fleeting and insignificant in the long run. Whereas the fear and the pain live after their usefulness has vanished (like the evil that men do, in Mark Antony's speech)

It's only natural. How many times have parents evoked the fear of a bogeyman? And even after they grow up, a lot of people are still afraid of the dark (regardless of bogeymen) And how many preteens have a genuine fear of the other sex? Agreed, preteens do tend to gang up in groups of their own sex. And that leads to much awkwardness as they fumble their way in interactions with the other sex. But talk to preteens about cooties or some such, and you've effectively thrown a spanner in their works. And delayed any "normal" interaction considerably.

The point is that as people we are prone to thinking negatively. And we are prone to suggestion. Auto-suggestion, in particular. It's very easy to fall into a trap of saying your life sucks, just because of one minor hitch (I've been guilty of that crime so many times in the past that I've lost count) And bloggers, with their active imagination and their ability to weave words into exquisite tapestries of prose, are all the more susceptible to blue spells. Blue spells that churn up their creativity and bring out bitter, if beautiful, prose.

I know for a fact that some people blog just to get their worries and frustration out into the open. The therapeutic value of such activity is open to debate. Personally, I think that these are trying times that we live in. We really don't need any more bitterness. I just have a small request to anyone who read this. Whenever you're feeling down, bitter, broken, try and force yourself to think happy thoughts. Or recollect pleasant memories. Whatever it takes to get over a bitter spell without any brooding, or resorting to artificial stimulants. Both you and the world will be better for it.

Letting go

When I’m in my room, and bored (which is often) I like to sit back and re-read “The Know-it-all”. I’ve mentioned the book in an earlier post too. I like it because no single story in the book goes on for more than two pages. Each piece is part of a larger mosaic, but you can read each entry for its own merit.

It’s probably an inherited thing. Dad likes to re-read “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. I tried reading it once, couldn’t get thru it. There is far too much philosophy in there for me to handle. Not in the actual text, but in the implications of what Pirsig says. Guess I’ll have to grow up a little more before I REALLY get what he’s saying. I am a teenager after all. For the next three months, at any rate.

Anyway, the reason I brought up “The Know-it-all” was this piece I read about Petrarch. A. J. Jacobs (the author), talks about what a loser Petrarch must’ve been to be hung up about a woman he never had a chance with, for a very long time (she was already married). He goes on to add that Dante and Byron were also hung up about women who never loved them. And how in the 21st century, those women would’ve got restraining orders slapped on those “stalkers”.

Then, he says it’s not so uncommon and talks about his friend who’s still hung up about his college crush, even though it’s been over 15 years since the guy graduated. Which brings me to the whole point of this post. Why is it so hard for us to let go of something we value, even if we can’t use it, reach it. To let go of something that was never ours to begin with. A false sense of ownership, of belonging. And when we “lose” it, be it a person, position or an inanimate object, it eats you from inside.

The reason I brought it up was that it hit me just how much this sounded like my own relationship with Rags. To be honest, there never was any real romantic love there. It was almost entirely platonic, most of the time anyway. And yet, when we decided that there was no real chance of it working out, it killed me. And I was hung up over it for a pretty long time.

That’s not the only thing that hangs me up. Another major hang-up is the fact that I’m in the college where I am. I may have had a chance of going into another college. But where I am isn’t a bad place at all. Yet in my weakest moments the “what if I’d been elsewhere?” question comes back. I’ve been fighting it for over a year and a half now. Haven’t been entirely successful till date.

Sigh, maybe the fact that there are no worthwhile women around here is really getting to me. I’ve already brought this up with two different people over the weekend. It doesn’t look like these feelings are gonna go away without a fight. Guess New year resolutions aren't so easy to keep after all.

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!

Imbibo ergo sum?

Yeah, the first time you drink. It's a rite of passage of sorts, isn't it? It was at the launch party of Ergo, The Hindu's latest supplement. You can even see my photo in the issue of The Hindu dated 8/12/07, if you need proof that is.
Fact is, my friend who's a reporter with Ergo has always been telling me to loosen up. Believe me, loosen up here is almost in the sense of, "stop being such a nerd, you doofus!!!" And that's not entirely wrong, considering that at a party, I'm usually standing by the side, soft drink in hand (no alcohol ever till yesterday), smiling for apparently no reason at people who are actually dancing.
So, last night, I just decided to chuck it and try both drinking and dancing (not at the same time, though). Although I had to be plied with alcohol before I got onto the dance floor. And if felt good. A bit like "Why didn't I do this sooner? But I'm glad I did it now at least". Plus, would you believe that I was the one who drank the most in our group? How's that for loosening up?
Point is, this means I'm pretty close to fulfilling resolution #3. And if I keep posting every three days, resolution #1 will be done as well. And with a month to go for the New Year.
Damn, I need new resolutions.
Anyway, I'm gonna stop here. The words just don't seem to be coming this morning.