The Wise one says…

What does it take for me to go to the college. Had I been in first year, my answer would have been “Classes” without any slight air of ambiguity in my voice.  Now are the days, when I walk out on teachers present right in front!

It took me a cancelled invitation to a postponed Jam session, and I was right there at the hub of all the buzz and spark as some would call it. But I would call it sheer exhibition of spare dirty lenin hanging from post to post, pillar to pillar, shamelessly basking in the sun as if the dye was yet to dry! The cheer haran was telling its own story.

Stepped into the newly constructed Auditorium, jam packed with people, whistling to the dacning ladies on the stage. Fortunately/Unfortunately a dancing girl is all it takes to attract our attention. The free energy drink “cloud 9″ coldnt get me high, but got one of the performers on a roll when she just denied to part with her grin…which looked creepy after a while. A half an half attracted the ire of the janata (would somebody ask him/her/it what he/she/it was trying to achieve/prove??). The organisers were overwhelmed with the fact that they had been endowed with the Auditorium keys, so overwhelmed that they were clueless about the sound system, the light system and the system as a whole! Chaos ensued!

The onset of the group dances captures our imagination everytime. The janata was still captivated by the “Shimla ki pariyan” from last year. It was going to take a whole new bunch of girls with shunned inhibitions ,oodles of make up, noodles for clothing and a real “latka jhatka” packed power play for couple of minutes, ritulaistic scarifice of a modern girl in front of the frustrated corwd of an Engineering college. The crowd was screaming, had there been a balcony in there…people for sure would have jumped.The fact that an all boy group cannot survive the DCE audience was also brought into the light. Nor does the male anchor sustained the jibes coming from the audience. The DCE dancers were a huge disappointment. Robin Scherbatski’s conspicous absence, and a bad conclusion of the performance which failed to live up to the hype their rehearsals had created, the ardent fanatics…the regular pilgrims of the TNP…were disheartened! 

Before I could see the results, I had to leave the grand green auditorium.

I sat in the auto, only to be asked “Bhaiya…suna hai badi acchi acchi ladkiyan naach rahi hain andar!”

“Sure…Sure!”

I am not Brutus..to start with.

Of the days I spent in the hostel for a couple of days (Regarding Ether Avatar…!! The coolest event of the year..thats what I call it..and saw participation of 170 teams…yayee), I say it here…in the post. Of what allw as said to me in the hostel… “Et tu Nigam” sums it up.

It all began with the twilight, when I was waiting for the testing of our event to start (which never took a flight that day), the ephemeral talk about life, Universe and dogs…gave me away. I stayed there  for the night. The pseudo warden caught me catching the movie at Abhishek’s and what ensued was a half an hour of sheer confusions and chaos, the fear of getting slapped and kicked out of the hostel in the middle of the night! Fled his room for an hour and helped my Ether buddies.

Day two was..more like stepping up to make the event work the next day. 25 planets to be named…and  details to be made up (which in the event…nobody paid attention to!   ) . Dinner at PD, snacks at the night mess. One thing I learnt..was to never be to quick to judge people. Chances are that you would get them wrong.  I was up till 4 in the morning…doing nothing significant and thats when I collapsed and dozed off.

The next morning saw me running in the CC…pinging every other machine. To my surprise….only 12 machines could be worked with. It took us startling 5 fully attended prelims in the first floor, and about 12 teams attending the prelims while we were setting up the finals. 7 hours later, we had one big controversy(which I had nothing to  do with, nor I understood any of it), one happy me, one winning team and one befuddled soul who could not be the judge for this event, in the end…who had to testify the outcomes. The man sat in front of the server…couldnt let me monitor the cheaters!

The night that followed was the most exciting part of my stay. Played Counter Strike (for the first time!), watched a horror movie with Abhishek and Arjun (Shrieked! Screamed!Cursed!Sweared!), nibbled on free food…(and a paratha that actuallly came for free). Met a lot of classmates…who were surprized to see me there. I shook hands as a foreign delegation does. I was an Alien. Ignorant…unaware alien I was.

The salt formations on Abhishek’s floor,the stench of the loos but its the hospitality  I admire the most.Thank you Abhishek!!

My desk basks in the argon tube  as I lie in my chair,with some coffee in my hands. A look at the carefull assembly of books, bigger ones on smaller ones and even bigger ones on the top of it makes me look like a student of architecture. As some may wrongly attribute my sudden inclination towards the architecture and the construction business to the fact that I am in the middle of Ayn Rand’s F-H, but trust me…there is more to think about than just deriving concrete analogies.

I have been  compared to Ellsworth Toohey by many, and that scares me. I compare myself to Peter Keating..who is by all means…a man of means! and this scares me even more. Its not oppurtunitism that I have been resorting to of the late and the consequences cannot be great.

Dont even feel like continuing with the post,…

1. Supposedly got a virus. My window is hooting , decibel away from cracking my window panes.

2.The wrong usage of grammar pointed on my post. It was time now..somebody gave me a reality check.

3. #2 nullifies my chances to win the essay competition!

4. My John Nash comment ediited out from the NDTV. (I personally wish they blurr my face as well )

5.Ether avatar on a roll. I had some fun today

6.It was nice when all my frnds dropped in while I was (barely) working. Had some good laughs for those 10 minutes. Blabbed something really stupid..which I regretted later. My apologies to the ones who took any…..OFFENCE !

7.I feel irritated with a couple of people. (Some happen to be close frnds) Dont feel like talking to them anymore….. a strange emotional dilemma I face. Feel as if I am in movie or so. Hate it…hate to be in the non-existent (or my own make believe) soup!

8.Sick of the CL episode which has no end insight. The pasteurs on the other side are going greener by the day. Hate to have got separated from you guys….     But such is life…UNFAIR.

9.Growing feeling of insecurities for som reason I havent been able to figure out. People going places…m stuck…lost….dont know

10.fountainhead may take quiet a while. The story is..not progressing since the last 50 pages.

[I entered this competition, dont have any hopes, couldt understand what I was thinking....just jotted down everythin that came to my mind, comments/feedback/criticism will be appreciated]

Integrity in Social life

“Cow is of bovine ilk, one end moos and another milks” , and this is how Nash has done the easier task already; the cow and the cattle have been studied, slaughtered and eaten already. No similar statements can be made about the mankind though. The man has been studied anatomically…psychologically but the enigma prevails till date. Men have been slaughtered in numbers, eaten by Hannibal the Cannibal but hardly any good can come of such acts! The understanding of absolute working of this watch is beyond the possible, the multifaceted man requires several layers of philosophical and Biological abstractions just to partially decipher a part of his existence.

One such similar uni-dimensional research states that the human, is in fact a social animal. The man requires the support of other men who apparently form this society. Does man really need one?? Well..may be not at all. The man needs the society out of habit. For the reasons man has been living in one for a very long time. Is it the society that churns out this much talked of “integrity” or is it the one which forms a foundation of society? Chasing these questions would be no less futile than the running in the circles.

The society has instilled our minds, our beliefs with the human limitations, just so as it happens, some choose to call it integrity. Variety was the flavor of life, the cliché suits the edifice of thought one is trying to propagate. Unpredictability is celebrated by the lover, who may like surprises, sudden impulses, rages, surges, outbursts, the much coveted “CHANGE”!  The moral uprightness or the lack of it, so rigid would be absolutely comparable to a toaster one uses every morning.  The society,  unreasonably demanded the human to curtail his basic instinct of being unpredictable in his choices. An infant is not afraid to try, acquire new experiences touch the flame, eat the roaches; its only what the society does to him, helping him unlearn the subconscious traces of wild and the savagery left in us. 

Had this world been so easy to live in, so that a book and a list of do’s and don’ts , a couple of yes/no rules governed this world, the “autobots” and the “decepticons” would have taken the world over already.  The man’s tale of survival talks of millions of years of evolution, survival and adaptability none of which came from integrity.  It is the society which takes a toll from the man who survives a society. Man is expected to behave in a correct, righteous manner. But the questions here is, who defines right?? Is it for some one else to tell the correct from the sinister for me?? Since when has the survivor become so weak that he couldn’t make his own choices?? This is exactly where Derrida’s deconstructionism makes its divine presence.

Even If a man with integrity and the capacity to make his own choices , given the liberty to do so, the choice made would be ensconced in ones mind forever. And this is when black remains black forever. Leaves no scope for cross  overs between the good and the evil. Implications of such a  happening would lead to utter chaos in this world. With the evil not backing, not surrendering either would be difficult to tackle with. With integrity, may come a liberty which would rather lead to deterioration of the society which instilled the artificial integrity in the first place.  Such a situation would not have arisen, had there been no integrity in the picture. Which actually will leave ample scope of modifications and remodeling of ones values. Without integrity the man would be required to adopt the social belief, live by their guidelines or else be a pariah in the modern world. There are catches in here, requires skills of an equilibrist to survive this modern day dilemma.

A man’s being so limited, contained, dull makes him just too short of being a man. The world will always celebrate the unpredictable, witty, interesting personas which capture the imagination of their contemporaries. Change is what makes a day different and distinct from the ones which have gone by. After all, it is the rigid baseless integrity of the likes of Bush and the Taliban , world is still trying to recover from.

So..what esle has been bugging me these days??

Well…a couple of things..

To begin with the whole CL episode. The fact that this person could act in such a bizzaare manner and get himself sacked from CL …is jsut strange, outlandish to be honest. A couple of theories surrounding his exit from the institute have emerged. Of course..no denials to the fac that they may be the chinese whispers riding the air, but none of them can be eliminated or denied for that matter with absolute exactitude.

One of the theories portray the subject as the malicious licentious man who “inappropriately” behaved with a female subordinate. Closer inspection of the alligation would lead to condemnation of the very hypothesis for the subject’s behaviour as observed in the classroom was no where close to indecency,

Another theory being heavily betted upon is the one which accuses the subject of hitting (may include severe beating,mild punch between the eye or a tight slap) some colleague. Now, the students who have known the man for (2 months!) have never seen the man so angry even upon asking same things over and over again. But who knows, what one may only predict about the mortal tendencies is the sheer unpredictability of the human cnduct.

Some people with a strong imagiation have taken supreme liberties at involving the two of their favourite chaacters (the math and the English teachers) into the whole incidence. As per this version, the male couldnt stand the indecent behaviour of a colleague with the female, which led to sever beating up of the other male. But raising certain doubts,some think that the female could have taken “care” of the matters by herself. Some have even gone to talk about an alleged breakup leading to the two walking away in different directions.

Some are even calling it a cheap publicity gimmick by the male so that the students follow this pied piper. Whatever you say, he was a pied piper!!

Hope I get to study from you again….

What rules the world, is it deception or is it conceit, is it the pretty faces or is the brains, is it the centre pieces of your drawing room or the corner tables?? Wait, scroll, read and find out.

This NDTV program for which I was invited my friend(which I still thank  her for) got me to the IHC. Spare me…or lets say that forgive me for my megalomania..but its “pretty big deal to be talked about on TV”.  It was not what it was told it was going to be.

The longer we wait, more people from DCE and NSIT and LSR and AIIMS and CBS and SRCC. Wow…its gonna be a big party now?? As it turned out..it was a big party.

“Hey…people…lets gather around. Lets sit here…” said the producer or whhoever she was! So…we sat what we thought the centre would be (Watch it people…the coordinates are of greater importance). Ya…The origin got shifted! So..I made the frame…spot me somewhere at the extreme!

So…ever wondered what goes behind the making of such shows?? Well….girls with makeup…make the centre and the front. Remaining girls make the periphery. Rest make the boundary. So there were I, guardin the frame..like a soldier! A girl who failed to make the cut , had to …erer resolve to er er.. (“I dont feel like wearing this jacket any longer……oh…its too hot here!”)

So here was the topic, Medical vs Engineering vs DU grads battling it out for the prized trophy, the crown…the glorY with a capital Y. Lamest of the topics I have heard recently. So……what it boiled down to…I tried to get the mic in the beginning….and then  I couldnt…and then I just remained silent and then I just stopped bothering..and then I looked left and then I looked right…and then crew intimated me to follow the discussion!!

Mic came to me, the topic was…faculty and stuff and this is what I said…they probably will edit it out….but people applauded (yayee)

“We at DCE-NSIT have home bred John Nashes!” (Gosh…I missed his class for this utterly repulsive discussion which I dont felt like being part of)

One thing that made me sick was…the chic quotient. I dont mean to slot or typecast…but their were girls from DU wearing fishnet things…sitting cross legged…shouting on tip of their voices bout chics in DU! OK….suffragette reduced to bachelorettes actually doesnt go very well down with me.

Attention deprived first year(s) from our college had an affinity to the mic..singlehandedly hijacking the show!  And one thing…”We make robots playing soccer” was my statement…and I just didnt happen to have a mic at the right moment…lest it was snatched by peers….got its fair share of footage the show!

The anchor…sat amongst the DU girls…the DU girls…were the only girls who seemed to  decipher his sense of humor. As one of them rightly said “We have brains too!”

The existence of antithesis is something which thrusts the society to grow out of it. Had it not been for the ones who rose up against the dogmatic beliefs ensconced into our  in our rustic minds, the society would still be celebrating the wheel till the date. The society owe to the antagonists, the agnostics, but still they are laughed upon, poisoned, hunf till theur spines crack in pieces..satisfying the warriors of the truth and just with their cracking sound. History id full of such events.

But why I am writing all this?? Well…I am being forced into the whole hanuman chalisa thing. An image of the lord looke over me as I write this. Now..I dont believe in prayers, only if it had been that easy to get rid of all your pains and troubles! The image is though provoking…. makes me wonder this stuff..doesnt it?? I guess it works!

Ayn Rand eludes me , makes me wonder what could go wrong in this world that she finds  a compulsive need to write this much of verbeage. Met people who follow her philosophy, met people who admire her philosophy, met people who despise the same. But I am bound to conclude that Ayn Rand is a phenomena. Varied people across the face of this Earth have connected to and drawn inspiration from this Russian talking about America.

So…I borrowed the copy, not sure though if this was the best time to read it (with placements in the next fall). Cinema has depicted people committing suicides with a copy of fountainhead by their side(No plans to do that whatsoever). So..I read a couple of pages out of my curiosity…

I was disarmed. 10 pages it took to win me over. I am a kind of person who savours the dialogue, and like to see edgy  characters (like the ones you see in old movies). This book delivers one so far. Its been over hundred pages….and I think its a consitently written…an impressive protagonsit..Roark.

I wasnt bored, a fact that must be noted…it was only some sleep and my compulsion to feed my blog, which made me put it down.

I know, I cant make it up for the days I have been underground, but the sudden freequency of my post could be traced back to an incident which occured minutes ago.

One (especially moi)  never thinks twice before filling up those suggestion forms at the McD. The pseudo writer’s refuge, the unsuccessfull to be, the dreamy eyed self proclaimed blogger/writer/critic/poet’s attempt to be funny with the questions. Not much do we realise that the phone numbers one innocently gives away, finds it way to some call center in some obscure gaming site’s call center office.

A person behind the desk which we think of as a faceless caller who is mean, and ambitious and probably a B.Com from some nameless college. But one is disillusioned as the naked truth flashes in front of ones eyes. Try and do whatever my friend but this little thing called truth would get to you eventually.

“Sir, whom am I speaking to”

“Its Prateek.”

I never wanted to talk to the guy at the first place, but it was my mom..who probably gave me away as the “Internet user in the house”. The stature is no less then alpha male. Speaking of my parents, they are  really quick in buying something from a salesman who claims to be an MBA student. They lends an easy and a patient hearing to every sales girl,every student,every call center employee as long as they dwell on the rationality. That my friends would explain the mounds of encyclopedias and educational CD’s and English to English/Hindi/Sanskrit dictinaries!

“So, Prateek…madam just told me that you are an Engineering student”

“Yes. I am”

“So am I.”

I feel sad already. What happened? Its not training period, its nobodi’e vacation I suppose.

“Ok” I say

“Sir, we are from indiagames. adn you are the lucky customer chosen by us. You are being offered…..”

Whatever I was being offered is immaterial to me, probably to him as well..but here he was convincing me to register(he must work on commission)

His consistent reminders of our commoradary were not helping me, nor were they helping him or his income. He was a 4th year student from some college, Mechanical ! But that did not matter. He was at a call center. Now..No stigma against call center employees….but lets not miss the disheartening reality.

Who knows what I will be doing in an year’s time. Till then..lets say

“to the job that pays the rent!” Cheers.

No reason to cheer for that matter, or shall we say tatter!