SALAAM NAMASTE

Hi, Hello ,How do you do,Fine thank you!It has been a long,long time and I thought it would be fine to clear the cobwebs and dust my blog. It has been gathering dust for a month.Even my room generally breathes life once in 15 days. My body thankfully hasnt been subjected to an IITian form of life and I can proudly say that I take bath daily albeit at odd hours.Guess some of the guys who chat with me between 10-12pm would have known my erratic bathing timings.

The sem was damn painful initially mainly due to the long distances. Of course I dont mean travelling 1-2 hrs as most of the engg guys do. Any distance greater than Jamuna to MSB,which might be 1km is "long" for me.I have been fortunate enough in having my places of study quite closeby .The farthest I have encountered was my school which at the max would have been about 4 km . Actually I cant believe that I used to cycle down 4 kms then because I find cycling so painful now. Probably with advancing age things which seemed pleasurable once stop being so.

By an odd quirk of fate I suddenly find myself too busy.I have a quiz almost every alternate week and a spate of assignments to do. Assignments have been there every sem,only that this sem we cant copy most of them and some require original ideas. Of course original is a euphemism for googling or askjeeving on your own computer.Atleast this has provided the impetus to do something on my own and its surely time to rejoice as I have finished almost all the assignments on time.sadly laziness got the better of me and I am yet to submit two of them.A couple of assignments require some sort of a survey.And one of them is about FMCG etc.Surely we will be shown the out gate without any mercy whatsoever unless we hang our ID cards and produce them first like some FBI agents.What tragedy has befallen me! An engineer doing a salesman level job :P .Thanks to the turn of events in the past month I can now proudly claim that I am no longer vetti (=jobless, for those unacquainted with the word). I shall go a step further and announce that you will be offending me by calling so. Henceforth people are advised not to even inadvertently address me as a vetti,as its tantamount to insulting.

I have started playing football.Its interesting,only that more running is required.Cricket is so peaceful in that way.Of course I dont run much even in cricket.Let alone running, my footwork is also pathetic and after 15 odd years of batting I still cant get the cover drive right.Somehow my legs simply refuse to move when required despite my having a predilection towards cricket.Coming back to footer I am still in the learning process and have just learnt how to take a kick.I now play (I mean weekly once or twice)as a striker ,thereby masking my inability to run much and also in the process being able to play football. Dribbling ,hoodwinking etc will take time.All is fine with football,only that the term "beautiful game" somehow doesnt go well with me as I find it a tad "unbeautiful" and violent.

Btw if you haven't watched Salaam Namaste you haven't lost anything.Just check out Jaaved Jaffery's comedy track in that.Really hilarious. DON's audio has been released and the title song is really cool and sung beautifully as always by Shaan.The music is too good in that song.The rest are ok types.Udit Narayan,SRK and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy have murdered "khaike paan banaras waala" with new beats,SRK chipping in with limericks and all crap.It will be interesting to see whether this Farhan-SRK combo can match one of Big B's biggest hits. Post KHNH only Swades was good. The rest sucked big time. Once again continuing the talk about movies sadly Chiru's Stale-in {Stalin} isn't doing well.The mega star seems to have lost his touch with 3 straight flops. JIllunu oru Kadhal has been dismissed as a worthless movie and even ARR didnt give his best. The biggest hits this season have been Bommarilu in Gult and Munnabhai in Hindi and haven't watched both of them. What about Hollywood? Bole tho??? :P

And finally posting this on a day after writing two quizzes on the same day,followed by preparing the ppt for the intern viva tomorrow.This is supposedly the break. Atleast now are you convinced that for a change I am really doing something??

FIRST ANNIVERSARY

Firstly Happy Birthday to my blog.

Incidentally this blog's 1st birthday and my 1st day of M.tech fell on the same day.As always happens when you put maajar fight to attend a class {go walking from Jamuna to CAD lab -better put as Taramani to Velachery} we did not have any classes yesterday.Today's first hour had only 7 students from the dual degree stream.Out of the 5 courses I have,only 2 courses have the no. of students in double digits.Surely ,as I have already mentioned,proxies,sleeping in class,attendance % just equal to 75 have met with a premature death.Already two Profs know our names.The last hour was interesting.There were about 34 students.Needless to say,most of them are from JNTU,OU,AU -all in AP.More than 70% have been sponsored Mtech programmes from DRDO,ISRO,TVS and some have more than 5 years work experience!By a conservative estimate they would be atleast 27 years old.How can someone have the enthu to study Mtech at that age when they can as well do something "consistent with their age" ;).Surely one feels odd sitting with 25 yr olds all around.And finally there is an awesome female in my class,who is also in that sponsored programme,but sadly she is married.I obviously did not go down the bench to see her toes,she had the cliched "maang mein sindoor".Anyway everything is new and I feel like having entered some other college!Lets see how life is with the uncles.

AGAIN ARBIT MAXX

I had to put a night out yesterday even to complete the project report.Procrastination kills.I would like to catch hold of the guy who taught me this art and shoot him from a point blank range.Am I playing the blame-game? Chill people,passing the buck is my birthright.

I am done with the summer internship and boarding the Hyd bound train on Saturday at 4pm. My mom has already packed my schedule till 8pm on Sunday.The doctor has agreed to look into various means of creating rifts with my best friends- running nose and sneezing at 10 am.

It seems some soul who is preparing for IIT-JEE came to know of his mom's colleague's son who is in IITM (read me), and is hell bent on spoiling my first evening at home .Our man wants to have some fundaes on cracking JEE. Welcome home my dear.I will bombard you with all the gibberish on earth. I will teach you the concept of night out.That should suffice for the time being.Proxies,sleeping in class will follow soon. Of course I will also ensure that you get ragged to death if you happen to come to IITM for spoiling my 1st evening as my dear friend
does wants this intellectual session as soon as possible and cant wait for a few days.

There have been clear cut and strict orders from my side to my mom. (1)She should not cook the wretched potato ,better known as aaloo atleast for a few days.If found doing so it will be mercilessly thrown into the gutter. I have been downing aaloo daily thrice-breakfast,lunch and dinner for the past 2 months.Solid spherical aloo,Aloo balls floating in a liquid,gelly type aaloo, aloo sandwich,chapati-aloo,poori-aloo,aloo in dal,aloo with beans,aloo with cabbage,aloo with kovakayi{dondakaya in gult.dont know the english equivalent) to name a few. Have missed out aloo raitha.No wonder I have become like aaloo now. Most of the boot-cut jeans have become skin tights now. Probably my mom can now narrate a story bordering on the lines of the fat pig Empress {in Pelican at Blandings} which refused the potato offered by its master Emsworth at Blandings. (2) She should not cook "Swathi saathumdhu". Swathi is my sister.She eats only if the saathumdhu (also called Rasam) resembles red coloured water without any other vital components like seasoning,coriander leaves etc.If found doing so it will be decolourised and used as water.{Filtering is not necessary as it does not have solid particles }.I am sure my sis will prevail after 3 days.Lets see.

This reminds me of the peculiar way of naming some of the food items in our family. Most of these dishes have a name as a prefix. For instance "Lambu Narayanan kuzhambu". Narayanan is a tall,famous Tam cook in Hyd and I love his kuzhambu or sambhar. So I can take credit for having coined that.The term in (2) has also been coined by me.I don't know with what dishes my name has been associated.I shall have to ask a couple of cousins for that.I only hope its not a "Rajeev aloo".

TV will not be there for another year.Thats ok,not at all a problem as I have new excuses up my sleeve for watching night shows and loitering about after dinner.Helmet is compulsory in the twin cities now thanks to that super lady cop Tejdeep Kaur and I do not have one .Hope the cops dont pull out much from me if caught without a helmet on a 2-wheeler.

Thats it for now.Hyderabad here I come!

GEN ARBIT UPDATE

Imagine no net,no TV after 10,no newspaper,no cell phone during working hours {assuming I work that is},no people around your house.Come outside the quarters and see a full fledged village replete with cattle walking on roads ,vendors selling "aamblet and aaf boil ", fish markets,town bus,monthly fair etc.This has been my life for the past few weeks.Two more weeks and I will be done with this intern stuff.I am literally killing time thanks to the extended sleeping hours in the afternoon ,football matches before 10 pm,fart sessions with room mates,some good books etc.Actually absence of newspaper is a huge handicap as I am literally cut off from the world.I just cant think of any possible reason for the prohibition or absence or whatever of the newspapers.I have to depend on my mobile for every damn thing.This has resulted in the message counter showing 10500 sent messages right now as against 8000 odd on May 16th,the 1st day of interns. We finally got our swimming passes after
weeks of dillydallying and as ill luck would have it I ended up with severe cold after 2 days.The worst part is that I have been advised against using the pool.So my plans of being in the water have gone down the drain or shall I say have been watered away!

I suppose I have to get used to such a lifestyle as life after getting placed will in all probability be an extension of the same. Work on weekdays,wash clothes and press them on weekends and also travel long distances,going home only for a few days etc.I haven't bunked a single day inspite of waking up with totally zuk enthu on many days.Actually I have realized that I can attend 6 weeks without sleeping during the working hours.Yo man!Of course books and newspapers have been the main weapons in keeping sleep at bay but atleast I have the satisfaction of proclaiming from rooftops that I havent slept or bunked.I hope I dont squander away the momentum because next sem the class strength will not exceed 20 and will be as low as 9 in some courses. The lovely days of getting and sending smses at 7:55 AM with the golden words "Macha put proxy da" will be thrown into the coffin soon .The obvious replies "Macha I am already putting for 3 da.Ask XYZ" will also follow suit.I cant even sleep in the last bench with just 20 people and so its better to attend the remaining 2 weeks also without bunking and sleeping.I hope I am adequately geared for the personal attention by the Profs by the end of this summer intern.

The saddest part has been the quality of the food which has been detiorating.I surely can't imagine anyone having kachori-chana,chapathi-raitha or pav bhaji for breakfast.On second thoughts I guess only South Indians find this queer.Of course for a guy used to Himalayan food this should not be a problem.Lunch has been the only saving grace and continues to be fabulous.There is another thing which is supposedly very good but is of absolutely no significance for/to me.{Kindly let me know people.Do we use for or to there}It is the booze rates.Liqour is sold at half the rates thanks to the zero tax .If there are any takers for quality foreign booze at cheap rates let me know :P.

6 weeks have passed away.The first 2 weeks were very painful and irritating mainly due to boredom. Actually I fear loneliness and boredom, when they are together that is.Its one of my phobias apart from human anatomy.The advent of some books has killed the boredom to some extent.The best part is that my novel reading pace has increased a lot.The library here is awesome and boasts of quality literature and has many classics and best sellers in its shelves.I hope to cash in on this for the next 2 weeks.Otherwise there is nothing much to be written about the project.Eagerly looking forward to rushing through the next two weeks and getting back to Hyd on 9th for a 20 day vacation.

10 SIMPLE PLEASURES

I was tagged by Asha.Its called some ten simple pleasures in life.I dont think I can post it in the order of preference.I guess I am one of the last guys to post this .Even that intro tag was posted by me last December ,a good 4-5 months after it was being tossed around in the blogosphere.So I think many things will be found else where too.Lemme give it a shot-

1) Sit on the Bessie beach after some 10 in the night without any worries in life {Till the police shoos me away at 12.It did happen on a couple of occasions }

2) Eat Paruppu Kuzhambu cooked by Mom,Vetha kuzhambu cooked by Dad,Maggi noodles by Sis and kesari by Paati.

3) Simply sit and chat with my Mom.

4) Watch Sachin Tendulkar in full form.A morbid passion is to see Abdur Razzak's face bleeding on being hit by Sachin's lofted drives :P

5) Watch some old Hindi or Tam movie starring Big B/Dev Anand/Dharamendra or MGR/Sivaji with my Dad and discuss the dialogues{Hindi} and songs {Tam}.I am a huge fan of Big B and he is a huge fan of MGR.

6) Visit the temples of Kumbakonam with cousins and take bath at a pump-set in the nearby fields.

7) A walk in my colony with friends after the rain has stopped and have pani puri (or) Go on a long drive with beshtu buddies in some car with myself behind the wheels.

8) Hum and sometimes loudly sing desi film songs.If I am taking bath and you are in the vicinity ,kindly plug your ears.

9) Sit in my room on a hot summer afternoon,switch on the AC,take out the photo album and look at my old photos.

10) Reading a good book in the night with gentle ,mellifluous music wafting.

Will add one more -11) Making faces,karaoke singing,aping the thalam {hand movements} and teasing sis and Mom when they are practicing Carnatic music.

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list.The ones that came to my mind readily have been posted.I dont wish to tag anyone because almost all my readers have finished theirs.

FIRST WEEK AT IAF

I had plans of watching and ogling Bindi,Ghungroo,Payal,Kumud,Banno {typical northie names} back in March but then realised that I will have to settle down with sighting Thamilselvi,Kanimozhi,Muniamma when i learnt that Avadi wil be my place of interns.The first few days have evoked mixed reactions.4 of us-3 guys and one girl, were selected for the interns at IAF base in Avadi.1st jhatka-No aircrafts here as this place basically deals with not the aircrafts but with the supporting vehicles and some ground equipment like starters etc .The most fascinating equipment seen so far has been the arrester barrier.My project will in all probability deal with arrester barrier.{Google it for further details}.And as always I wont go into the details of tech stuff ,not because you might get bored,but mainly because I myself wont know what I will be blaberring then.

3 of us have been put up in a small 2 bedroom flat type quarters.The facilities are pretty good.Atleast I dont run the risk of being caught in the loo with air gushing out of the taps which is a very normal occurence in IITM.We get tea and newspaper in the morning and like I used to do in my school days have been spending more than necessary time flipping through the pages,berated by friends and consequently getting late.We have a Sumo to transport us from the house to the hangars at 8 am.We were told to get ready by 7-45 and the old habits of walking in late to the 8am class have embraced me and like a leech refuse to go away.After 2-3 warnings we did not yield,and our Sir no longer asks us about the delay and has accepted it.We,on our part have not been capitalising on the generosity and go only 10 mins late.But we have been very punctual in leaving on time.We pack the work by 1-45 and assemble outside the hangar for the Sumo which comes at 2.Food,something for which I live,and which has been denied to me in good manner thanks to the authorities here in college,has been awesome.Lunch has been particularly amazing with a proper 3 course meal being served.A bulged waistline surely in the offing.

We seem to be world-famous in IAF with almost everyone asking us "Ohh you are those 4 peepal from IIT naa?" .We chorus in unsion "Yes" .99% of the times the next question has been "IAF jaain karoge kya" and a chorus "No" has been the answer.They seem to be having wrong notions about our making a ground-breaking discovery there and so the non commensurate respect.The fox will soon show its true colours. A tea meeting with the Commanding officer {He is the Head of this place} was the high point of Day One.Tea seems to be flowing like a river here and has been following us wherever we go.Most of the technicians are Northies here .So the mechanism,parts etc were explained in Hindi mostly.I didn't have much of a prob and dont think will have it either unless he hurls bouncers like "vidyut chumbkeeya tarang"{ EM waves}.Of course the Biharis do chip in with their "vheri pphirst " and the Bongs have been explaining stuff like "taarbines".

One of the main difficulties in being with the fairer sex is the lack of freedom of speech.I have been forced to curtail,nah totally stop the usage of four lettered words,addressing the kith and kin etc and their corresponding translations in other vernacular languages.These actually are pasted on my lips thanks to my hostel life.On many occasions I have been uttering half the word,realizing the presence of females,being embarassed like a kid being jeered by his peers for peeing in the pants and wishing the earth opens up and swallows me.The other thing which beats me is the abysmally low amounts of food girls eat.I know the basic psychology is to stay slim {*and attract guys*} but that should not be at the cost of food.My co-intern has been having almost 1/3 rd of what I eat every session{or the other guys for that matter}.I shall devote an entire post towards this one as I cant do justice in one paragraph.

We have not had much work so far and boredom in the nights has been one of the few cribs.Having been accustomed to a life full of activity{read net},people all around ,etc this deserted and lonely quarters did disappoint me.I was teetering on the brink of madness in the first week not knowing what to do.Now Wodehouses,Forsyths{also Feminas,Womans Era etc :P} have provided some respite but still nothing rocks like free net.The weekend just flew away and its off to Central now to catch a train to Avadi.Hopefully next update after one week.

DONE WITH MY B.TECH

Last last thursday I wrote the last exam of my B.tech in IITM.I wanted to blog about that since then but slow net at my cousin's place prevented me from doing so.So I am done with my B.tech for all practical purposes.Wait,my engineering is not yet over.I will be entering the world of uncles-M.tech in August and have two more years to go to get the coveted degree from a "premier" college.Somehow M.tech in IITs is not at all "kewl".I mean B.tech has a pretty good brand image whereas M.tech in IIT has been suffering from an identity crisis.M.techs are fondly referred to as mataks or matkas in IITM by us and are synonymous with uncle like guys and a stitched trouser that doesnt run through the entire length of the leg.I do not know what the mataks call us B.tech.If its a similar process of christening then i guess we all would be called bataks ,which rhymes with a part of the human body.Due to the aforementioned reasons I somehow donot want to be called M.tech.Probably calling myself a designer{no ,not the Manish Malhotra genre} is a better bet I guess as my M.tech is in Product Design.

Well I guess you all dont want to hear the same story about my exams so even I wont delve much into that.Anyway a few lines will do no harm.The first three were very painful with me sleeping only for max 2 hrs in the night.After that the rest weren't so difficult.One thing I have been practicing ever since my childhood is not sleeping in exams and I can proudly say that I have never slept in any of the exams here.We had a pass-fail course this sem and pretty obviously complacency creeped in as a result of which i was inadequately geared for the exam and finished the 3 hr paper in 45 mins.In order to keep up the record of not sleeping I started cleaning all parts of the cell phone and reassembled it and also cleaned my calci.I also played antakshari with myself by singing in 3 different languages.To the best of my knowledge the only exam in which i dozed off for a considerable amount of time was a totally crap exam called DA-IICT{Dhirubhai Ambani's Engg Coll at Gandhinagar} entrance exam.I had no enthu in that and after completing the easy questions I dozed off after 1.5 hours.I think many others also slept accross the country because I found my name in the 1st list of qualified candidates.

The vacations are on now and visited a few of my cousins in Chennai and Bangalore after totally lazing around in my room watching lots of movies.As I have already mentioned if you have no work to do then IITM LAN is a total heaven.You can choose from eng,tam,gult,hindi movies,videos,songs,cricket and footer clips,amazing documentaries,hazaar e-books etc {and of course "you-know-what"} and all this comes without any price tag attached to it.My summer internship was originally scheduled to be at the IAF base at Palam near New Delhi and the Dept office dropped a bomb a few weeks back saying it would be at Avadi near Chennai.New Delhi became No Delhi and Avadi became KLPD.I have to report on 14th and I hope to atleast catch a glimpse of the fighter jets and defence related stuff.Of course I have absolutely no idea what a mechie is going to do there.Updates about that will be given after a few weeks.

I am back after a 4 day trip to Bangalore.It was mainly to kill time {and blow up money as I have spent a lot}.I came to Chennai this morning and will be leaving to Avadi at about 9am.I am already a day late!The seniors have said that its a very good campus and that we get royal treatment there.One thing for sure is that there will be no net there.I guess i will be posting sporadically this summer on the days when I get back to my room.I do hope to get back to my room on weekends and catch up with a few hostel mates,orkutting,chatting,movies etc.Will blog about Bangy trip soon.Now all set to leave.All you guys enjoy your summer and get roasted and fried like me.Ciao folks.