Estoy de vuelta

If you are a dedicated reader of my blog, which I am assuming you are not, you will realise that I am writing after almost six months (You may verify from the date of my last post). Where was I these six months? As much as I'd like to say something spectacular as traveling to Greece and Italy, I was happily sitting and studying besides badly managing two random jobs in which I lasted no more than two months. But then those who are aware, will know what has happened. I now have less than two weeks to the interview, and my mock interview are a disaster. But that is a different story. These six months were quite eventful. And my 'eventful' comprises of watching films and a trip to Tamil Nadu, which by the way is a very interesting place, especially if you tour it in a day-time temperature of close to forty degree centigrade. I went to Chennai, Velankanni, Pondicherry and Mahabalipuram, and en route saw a few other places whose names I cannot recall correctly. The purpose of the entire trip was to visit Velankanni, which is one of the few pilgrimage sites for us Catholics in India, and the six hours that I spent there were some of the most meaningful and enriching hours of my life. I liked Pondicherry primarily because that was the only place in the entire state that I saw a clean beach. And for those of you who corrected me that it was Puducherry, even the territory headquarters say the former. Mahabalipuram had beautiful architecture in the few temples that the tsunami had spared. Chennai reminded me a lot of Delhi-broad roads captured by badly parked cars, autos that overcharge, shopkeepers that double prices for tourists, and crowded markets, and I genuinely felt closer to home. 
The other half of my eventful six months, as I said earlier, comprised of watching films. And considering that I saw Band Baajaa Baaraat for the sixteenth time yesterday, I do not need to elaborate. I am always more interested in the films that focus on the dhinchak of Delhi, rather than the ones on the Bollywoodesque Bombay. More on this, in some other post. 


Ps. The title of this post is very interesting. Maybe you should Google it. 

I Hate Friends

Honestly, I wanted to watch Glee only to find out what the god damned thing was! The promos were well played to conjure up suspense, and because I do not watch online episodes of US shows (yes I am that kind-sorry if I don't sound cool) I had no idea what Glee in Glee was supposed to be. 
Apart from the 25 year old teenagers routine common to most US shows (I have The O.C. to prove my point), the sexually charged show replete with the regular obsessions of guess-which-one-of-you-two-got-me-pregnant, Glee is a sheer delight because of the thematic song renditions. For reasons that completely evade me, one of my favourites is Kurt's All the single ladies...maybe I just like Beyonce...maybe I don't!!! The show does have interesting dramatic undertones manifested through the characters, which I like...as much as I like Emma for all her mysophobic idiosyncrasy. Though the "Be yourself" bit is the quintessential unwed and pregnant, fat, black, gay routine. 

Okay so if you don't like HIMYM. you should officially be killed...better stoned to death...after being driven on the roads by wild goats. Gosh...if there has been anything I've been in love with after DH, it's this!!! Incredible...or stupendofabulous whatever that word is...is perfect to describe this show. Mr. Thomas & Mr. Bays *applause*
The concept is brilliant, and the story lines of each episode are just so meticulous and engaging that I can't help watching repeats. My favourite bit is the Marshall-Lily love track, as much as is Barney's suiting up stints. Robin's become much more outspoken this season, and we're not complaining. 
 This is what legendary is made of...
All right..between

And...

How could you not prefer watching the latter? For starters, I hated that White Collar begun immediately after Castle ended, and that too on the same slot, and so it was more like because of you Mr. Smart Criminal I won't get to see Castle. But that aside, White Collar was plain boring...art thieves, murder, art thieves, murder ...can we please move on now. Matthew Bomer made no incentive either for obvious reasons. I think WC lacks the edginess that Castle has...people do get murdered here as well but in all the...mmm...for want of a better word...fancy ways *sadist takes a bow*. Then they throw in lots of technicalities and intricacies that amaze you with a gosh-that's-how-he-did-it!!! Plus Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic have better on-screen chemistry and timing. I like the way Castle and Beckett complement each others' lines of thoughts. Interesting....

Prior to these, Star World advertised 90210 intelligently enough to make me see it...to the stupid extent of even watching the original series online. And by the way, if this poster leads you to opine about the show anything on the lines of The O.C., I must say you'll be absolutely right. It was more of an OC meets Baywatch meets Dawson's Creek with ample sex and skin show. Nevertheless it made for a decent watch with it's risque story lines. 
One of the best comedies that Star World has broadcast is 30 Rock. Alec Baldwin and especially Tina Fey have been so extraordinarily amazing with their performances that it was sheer pleasure to see the sarcasm driven controlling Jack, and the totally down-but-not-out Liz Lemon.
Then there were the other shows that I remember watching like My Name Is Earl, Boston Legal, The Office, and The Practice, which I really enjoyed, though nothing beats The Simpsons!!!
But I never have, and will never like Friends (except for Phoebe). I don't understand why people love it so much....it is, if I may take the liberty of saying so...crass of the first order. Most of the people I know who like it, do so only because others seem to like it...senseless, but nevertheless, to each his own.

Hard Times High Times

It's been really really long here....nearly two months. But I am here at last, with lots of happenings of the past two months. The entire gamut of experiences that I went through these last two months reminded me of these lines from a song I remember randomly-
"Hard times, high times
Sometimes the living is sweet and sometimes there's nothing to eat (quite literally)"
My tryst with destiny began on July 26th with DSC Ltd., my first workplace. The induction programme was incredible. I don't remember having had such a fun filled week ever. I met so many new people, read some of the best brains in the country *applause*, tried to come to terms with the feeling of working to make ends meet :-D having been pulled out of my comfort zone but thankfully with a lot of luxurious living. A week later we were off to Guwahati, which was diametrically opposite to what I had imagined it to be-one sight of an isolated mountain, 42 degrees Centigrade, no rainfall, and squalor. But nevertheless I was content with the office, and my residence. My hopes of seeing the Kaziranga park were dreadfully squashed by my boss when he decided to send us off for a brief visit to the Dibrugarh office, and as much as the 'garh' suffix will lead you to believe so, this place is not in Rajasthan. Dibrugarh is in Upper Assam and is not infested with Naxalites who go about randomly killing people on streets (another one of my friend's wisecracks). This place seemed much better than Guwahati-primarily because I got good vegetarian food to eat at nominal prices unlike the apology that the 700 bucks veg biryani was in some of the "finest" restaurants of the capital city. Bombay (and not Mumbai) was the next stop. The office was beautiful, the apartment as gorgeous, the city glimmered in the evening lights, and my trip was cut short by the UPSC.
I had to return to Delhi to find that I had cleared my IAS Prelims *thank you*. The sequence of events that followed included frantic shouting, hurried form filling sessions, deep discussions, and an apologetic resignation letter, which was followed with the information that our salary had been raised by ten thousand bucks!!!
And ever since I'm torn between two tough decisions, and my friends are divided on the issue...

A Hiatus Well Deserved

Two months....two entire months of not doing anything at all! After the last exam ended on the fourth of last month, I have been doing nothing at all. The first few days were spent in getting all the administrative work done in college, and after that I had absolutely nothing to do (read I wanted to do nothing at all). I remember how in school I would always spend my summer vacations trying to complete the year's syllabi and sometimes go for a small trip to meet my cousins. Even in college, I always had myself worried about the next semester during the summer break. The last two summer breaks, were however, spent around concrete columns and amidst iron bars, and as much as that gives the impression of I being in jail, I was actually in certain similar places, that is, my industrial training construction sites. However this summer was completely different. I completed all my formalities and paper-work in the first week of June itself, and then I was left with nothing to do! This was probably the first ever time that I was not worried about the impending scenario, with my work in place. I was informed about my late-July joining so that left me with nearly six weeks to unwind at home. I chose to do nothing except watch television, and roam around till late with friends. As unproductive as this might seem, it was completely the opposite...and no I did not achieve nirvana, any form of self-realisation. 
I started my day with 30 Rock (an absolute delight, and incredibly humorous), and ended it with The Simpsons (a new found liking), sprinkled with optimum amounts of chatting on the phone, and making random comments on FaceBook. And while we're speaking of FaceBook, I even tried to find out the reason behind this odd name, but in vain. I was hooked on to Castle the entire time and even watched all the repeat episodes-it was just so gripping. After its season ended Star World begun telecasting White Collar, which was  not even half as interesting...most of the stories were only about stolen antiques, but made for good viewing nevertheless. There was also a time when I was watching a lot of European, and South-East Asian films as well on World Movies, and I must admit they were very interesting, captivating, and incredibly original, and I could easily spot which Hindi films they had 'inspired' (sic).
But as fate would have it, I am only three days away from starting work, and I am at the pinnacle of my anxiety levels. One week in Gurgaon, then Bombay, and thereafter different places around the country-it's definitely a great experience to look forward to. I know the work will be difficult, but it will definitely worth what I am getting in return, so no complaints there. I have a lot to do over the weekend-meet at least a dozen of my friends who have sworn to kill me if I don't, meet a whole bunch of relatives who have also sworn the same, treat a lot of people, shop etc. etc.
So, I guess I'd better get started...

Life's not been fair...

It is not very uncommon a thought, to not write about; a recurring thought in not only my mind, but I bet in the minds of many other scores of people out there in the world. This is precisely what I have been saying to myself a lot lately. At the risk of sounding cynical, I genuinely believe that there are a lot of things that happen in life that compel one to believe that more often than not, life is extremely unfair. Without debasing all the good happenings, it would be a lot better had life treated me better at times and given me all that I had worked hard for and deserved, and to an extent, the things I wanted badly. Somebody with lower grades getting a better placement, under-prepared people in my class scoring better with simple questions in vivas my life is full of things as trivial as these to many others that led to greater repercussions. Such a feeling is, I believe, completely justified, for it is not very rare to see people with a lackadaisical attitude achieving more than some better working counterparts (read 'me'). Trust me into believing that that one stroke of luck rarely comes for me! It is a travesty of logic how such things perpetually happen, without promises by my close ones of “something better” materializing. Trivial issues like some that I have so miserably mentioned previously, more often than not accumulate and eventuate into an enormous amount of frustration and dissatisfaction, that is, unless the promised “better things” happen.

But in such situations, your helplessness, after all your efforts renders you to believe that maybe things were just not meant to be the way we had planned them. So what to do? Forget it, and carry on with things, and I always pray that

God, grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

The week that was...

Theory exams end...finally...two great and one deplorable, but then they're over, and they won't come back again. No more mugging up causes for earthquakes, types of sands et al. I'm out of the cage of Fe415 bars for at least a month now. The theory exams went off exactly how they always do-mugging up numericals at 2 am, syllabus changes in the morning of the day of the exam, and suspense over which teacher will set the paper, and who will mark them; basically so unpredictable that now it is not even surprising. The high point of these exams is definitely two of our teachers fighting over a subject, and suggesting completely divergent topics to study from two different books that were not available in any corner of the city. But whatever it was, I'm done with it. And I'm hoping to score pretty well...again! Just this afternoon our practical exams were re-scheduled for the third time. This did come as a pleasant surprise to me, as I'm still not done typing out our 100 page long project report. But gladly, now I have quite some time to get the project work done. The sad part is, that the entire rigmarole has now extended by a couple of days more. 
I took the Civil Services exam on Sunday, and I must say, I was really taken for a surprise. The Sociology paper seemed unusually simple, and the General Studies paper did not go as well as I had thought it would. This complete reversal of expectations will add to my already highly unpredictable result. But I can only hope for good. My center was a government school, a little away from my home, and my five hours there really made me empathize with the students studying there, in total lack of infrastructure and the sweltering heat. And in my spare time there, I was made sure of the absolute incapability of the engineer and designers who made the school buildings owing to some very bad construction. Thankfully, my four years of undergraduate study have given me something to show-off about in situations such as these.
And lastly, it is now when all slam books have been autographed, t-shirts have been signed, drunk friends have repeatedly proven their unfathomable depths of friendship, that we are starting to have that really weird feeling of being apart...
being separated...
and losing on our friends...
And that things will never be the same again...

Towards the ending...

Today was an extremely overwhelming day. In the morning, when I was in the metro, it suddenly struck me how today would practically be the last day of college. Though there still is another week to go, but people will not really be regular next week. The sudden deluge of somberness that I experienced was extremely depressing, and throughout my one hour of travel in the metro, a montage of memories from the past four years flipped through my mind, after which I decided that because today would be the last day that all of my friends would be together voluntarily, I would try my best to make the day memorable. The weather also favoured us today, and I felt truly blessed. But the sequence of events that followed was completely different from what I had envisaged. 
I don't really want to detail out everything here, but I was really upset while going back home, and even the Black Currant shake couldn't do much to change my mood.  By evening, I was practically alone in the college. Most had either left for home or were busy with something or the other. I tried to get some to hang around with, but it eventually didn't turn out that way; I guess the approaching exams are keeping everyone busy. I had planned to stay on till late in the campus, but eventually changed my mind because of the same reason; but returned half-way for no apparent reason. All I wanted to do today was hang around with my friends, because I keep having a recurring feeling of how these days once gone, will never return, and I want to do more than just loiter around in the corridors.
Anyway, I just think that the day just turned out to be extremely futile, and did nothing except make me realise that things are starting to change. 

Dil, Dosti etc...

We're always complaining about how some people are mean, selfish, they do not care about our feelings, talk to us only when they have some work, or constantly try to take advantage of other people or get their work done some way or another. I have come across a lot of such people in life, mostly in college. But I don't think that there is anything wrong about their behaviour. What they exhibit, is as I'd like to call it, normal human behaviour. Why normal? That is because this is how most people are! At the risk of sounding cynical, I genuinely believe that most people are that way, and I personally think that it would be wrong to criticize their attitude, because that is the people they are and not much can be done about it. They are regular people with the regular attitude, and nothing can, or rather should be expected of them, because if we waste time doing so, then we won't be able to experience the other set of people in the world. Barring the people I mentioned, there is a percentage of people who do not have this 'regular' attitude; they are different in the things they say, and in the things they do. These are the people who last the entire lifetime as close friends; these are the people you, if lucky enough, eventually end up spending your life with. These are the people who make life beautiful and each moment worth cherishing. We seldom come across such people in life, and whenever we do-we create wonderful and everlasting memories. It just depends on how lucky you have been to have such people in life? These four years in college have also taught me a lot about 'friends'. Who is your friend? The one you hang around with the entire day? The one you bunk your class to go to a film with? Your agony aunt? A lot of back-bitching goes around, actually. So what is the point in calling each other friends when in the next breath you supplement it with your limited availability of options because the said person is in your class and you'd might as well get along! 
Shucks!!!! I just do not get it. Either you are friends, or you are not. A relationship of convenience is not something that goes down well with me, but then people have their own ways to deal with things, and I just find it really weird. 

Out of sight...

I love Vodafone's ZooZoo ads. Those funny looking white creatures speaking some alien language are very  cute. But just this evening, while I was watching one of their ads, it suddenly struck me how their predecessor has now been completely wiped out from our memories. The Hutch dog was incredibly adorable, and I absolutely loved it in the ads. Even the jingle, 'You and I....' was really hummable. But then Hutch changed to Vodafone and the cute dog got replaced with ZooZoos....
I guess that is how things go around usually. At one time, everything is perfect and you're on the top of the world, and the next instant things change, either for the better or for worse. Everything in life is very transient...very replaceable, I guess. If there's something good, then there will always be something better around. I had some friends in school whom I vowed to forever stay in touch with, but now the only contact between us is Facebook. I have a group of friends in college, and at this point of time when we're all nostalgic as it is the last month before we graduate, I wonder how many of will actually bother about the others a few years down. Most of us who are in romantic liaisons will probably find someone different; someone better to be with. Our choices change as the days pass. It absolutely amazes me to see how people find relationships and memories replaceable!!! An individual's own choice it surely is, but I still find it very...for want of a better word...frustrating. And it really upsets me to see how this the way most people are generally.
Every relationship- even failed ones, every memory-even unhappy ones, every person I've been closely associated with-even if not now, and every penetrating thought is deeply etched in my memory. None of them can ever be replaced by terming as an emotional baggage, because each one of them has its own rightful place; each one of them has taught me, and made me better in thought and in action. None of my friends can ever be replaced by new ones, because I believe, each one of them has been amazing enough to deserve a very special place. My choices, and likes cannot ever be replaced because I have harboured them for as long as I can remember. Of all the people who changed, and all the things that eventually did not turn out in my favour? Well, they can not just be replaced to make place for 'better' ones because they are a constant reminder. All I am trying to say is that I am very happy to remember and moreover value each of these things because when they happened, they did matter a lot to me. I know a lot of people will not agree with me on this (they never do), but then... it's just me... :-)
  

Engineers on the streets

D.C.E. got changed to D.T.U. and all hell broke loose. 

Last summer, the Delhi government decided to upgrade our Delhi College of Engineering to the Delhi Technological University, and ever since the decision materialised, there have been a series of discussions about the viability of the action and its repercussions, among the students as well as the faculty. The government decided to take this action to enable full autonomy to the administration in terms of course revision, hiring of teaching staff and general administrative work. But the students did not take kindly to this, and fearing the degradation of the brand name of the institution, appealed to the authorities to revoke the decision. However, after months of no action, the students and the faculty decided to take the issue in their own hands and show a more salient agitation and disapproval. It all started earlier this month with the students protesting on the roads outside the college, against the Vice-Chancellor, who was asked to step down, and the authorities to repeal the decision. The protests went on till late in the evenings and over the subsequent days spread to Jantar Mantar, C.P., and India Gate. The protest has, surprisingly received complete support from the entire student community, as can be seen by the complete no show of the students in the mid-terms examinations that were to be held last week. The entire college chose to sit in the blazing sun in Japanese Park near the college in silent protest rather than appear for the exams in security of the RAF. My stance, on the conversion, is not what I'm trying to highlight here, though. What I am actually impressed by is the most remarkable feature of the entire unrest, which was that at no point did the students resort to any form of violence to make themselves heard. It would have been very convenient to burn down buses outside the college, disrupt traffic, break things inside the campus or even physically attack people, but kudos to all who chose instead to have a peaceful and non-disruptive and moreover a civilised and Gandhian form of protest against the authorities. All the students participated in the protest out of their own free will and no incentives were offered to anyone to join the agitation. I was quite surprised at how everyone actually turned up for the protests about which they were informed through messages! Everyone participated out of genuine concern for the college and the fraternal feelings running through the entire student group; and this is extremely commendable, as is the way Ravi and his team pulled off the entire protest....great work people (sic)!!!