The End

Some Leftovers From The Filmy Quiz

I did a cine quiz on Tuesday, the 15th of September. The turnout was pretty decent all thanks to Bhattula's poster I guess. I simply have to give credit to Sunki as well considering the fact that he is hell bent on being credited as the 'inspiration' behind the poster. Sushi, Dheela and Gauraab went on to win the quiz (expectedly I might add). I have a few leftovers from the quiz that I didn't feature in the quiz simply because they were a bit too difficult for people to answer in a traditional quiz. With the internet to aid you however, the questions should be a little easier. Leave your answers as comments.
Here you go:
1. Simply connect:














2. Made in 1925, this is considered one of the masterpieces of World Cinema. A particular sequence in the film (known for classy editing and the image it creates) has been much copied by Woody Allen, Brian de Palma and an Indian movie of the late –eighties. Seventy-five years on, it is advertising rather than cinema which most regularly resorts to these techniques. Name the movie, the director (who wrote and edited it also) and the sequence.

3. Again, connect:

4. This actor had to assume a screen name for himself. . Looking around for inspiration, he looked at a movie poster in a nearby theater and came up with the name he is now famous with. Once, he joked to an interviewer that had he looked the other way to another theater, his surname would have been 101 Dalmations. Which Oscar winning actor?

That's about it. I have a few others but am feeling way too sleepy to upload any more.
P.S. Congratulations to Dheela and Prondi for winning the Patiala leg of the Mahindra and Mahindra Auto Quotient-2009. Once again, the 'golden goose' and the 'precocious quizzer' have made us proud.

Gone Off the Radar? Nah, Here I Am!

It’s been a long time since I made my presence felt on this webspace. Unfortunately, circumstances and my now legendary lack of willpower have joined hands to architect this inactivity. But with the last ounce of determination left in my system, I am back here to continue the rather sordid saga of Kumar Abhishek. And now that I am back from the dead (I flirted with the idea of quitting blogging), I rather think that consistency will be more of a participant than a bystander from now on. Of course, my usual self will always be lurking in the shadows, so you never know.

This summer saw my first foray into the professional world in the form of an internship I pursued at the Pune facility of M/s Tata Motors & co. It was a chance to acquaint myself with the rigours that are so much a part of a mechanical engineer’s life. And rigours are aplenty, mind you. The internship was largely uneventful up until the final day, the day of my presentation. Till then, Dhingra and I had whiled away time in a manner that would have made The Big Lebowski proud. We reduced our daily working shifts to 2-hr sojourns and even those two meagre hours were spent in entertainment-related activities. The Tata Motors people could not have been less bothered about us. For all practical purposes we were invisible to them. All this was up until the final few days. The following transcript of a piece of conversation that took place between us and our mentor should make things clear. (Please note that no part of the following transcript can be reproduced, reprinted or brought up in court for litigation purposes.)

K&D: Good Evening, Sir.

M: (With mild to heavy surprise) Oh! you people. Yes what is it? Good Evening. (In that precise order)

K&D: (With cooked up innocence) Sir our intern is getting over tomorrow. When are we supposed to give our presentation and submit our report?

M: Don’t try to fool me. You intern doesn’t get over till September right?

K&D: (With genuine innocence, plus some concern) No sir, it ends tomorrow.

M: (In a moment of divine enlightenment) But you people have done nothing. What will you write in your report? What will you present?

K&D: (With little or no embarrassment) that’s not true. We have done something. We have some matter with us. We will come up with a good presentation, don’t worry.

M: (With an air of finality) Well then. Tomorrow, 11 O’clock. Be ready.

He then went on to invite the entire office for the presentation. Knowing fully well that we were not in a position to dazzle the world, this was his way of obtaining retribution.

Let’s fast forward to 11 O’clock the following morning. As expected, the entire office turned up to watch a presentation of little or no importance proving my hypothesis that the entire world is full of sadistic people. Questions were coming in thick and fast all laced with the kind of lethality that was reminiscent of the fearsome foursome of the WI fast bowling battery of the 70’s and 80’s. But we were in no mood to be toyed with. We summoned all the guile and tenacity that was stored in the little corners of our cerebrum. A fight of gladiatorial proportions ensued. They we would punch, we would parry. They would punch again and we would parry again. It was a question of who would surrender first. After an hour that seemed an eternity, the lunch hour struck. Suddenly two innocent 3^rd year students were inconsequential in front of the hunger raging in their stomach. The ordeal was over. For the record, we had lifted our presentation from two presentations that had already been given. It was like Danny Ocean and Rusty at play. We had finally conned our way to intern certificates. Some heist, some job.

Apart from the intern, I saw quite a few movies. And with quite a few, I mean quite a few. Time was also spent roaming around in multiplexes and malls. The weather in Pune is heavenly. The people, not so much. I also read a couple of really good novels. If you haven’t read The Picture of Dorian Gray, I suggest you grab hold of it as soon as can. It is as much an essay as it is a novel, full of things to ponder over.

The summer also saw quite a bit of activity on the footballing front. Real Madrid made a mockery of all the recession talk by splashing out close to £200 million on only 4 players. If you are a Manchester United fan, or if you are obsessed with them for reasons other than fandom, you might want to visit http://www.11reds.com and leave a comment or two. I know this is cheap publicity, but as they say no publicity is bad publicity.

That’s about it. If you want to hear more from here, do put in a comment or two. Man, I am on fire today!!

Back With A Vengeance. Literally.

Every person has a passion in life. Whether its becoming an incredibly rich person or romancing a hot girl or even having the best cuisine available in the world, it is this passion that drives people towards the destination of the Journey of Life. I pondered a lot over what my passion is. Was it doing well in academics? Was it watching movies? Was it quizzing? I do like scoring good marks in whatever subject I pursue, but is this a passion in life? Nah. I love watching movies and am absolutely besotted with quizzing. But again, calling them a passion in life would be taking it over the borders of truth. What is it then I ask myself? Am I one of those rudderless souls that go through their entire lives without passion in their hearts? Just then an answer pops into my head. Not an answer per se but an image, an image that has been burnt into my conscious so vividly that my existence would be grossly incomplete without it. That image is the red crest of Manchester United FC.

I have been a United fan for about 9 years now. Those were the days of Beckham, Giggs, Yorke, Cole and co. in ther full pomp. Since then I have been riding this rollercoaster of fandom. When exactly was it that I turned from a fan to a zealot I don't know. But what i do know is that right now Manchester United runs through my veins. It brings joy so unadulterated into my being that I find it overwhelming everytime I so much as look at that crest. I share their happiness, I feel their pains, I rise with them and I fall with them. I can say for sure that in the moment when Edwin Van der Sar saved Nicholas Anelka's penalty, I had been the happiest I have ever been in my life. 

Having said all this I feel obliged to add that I am not only a fan of Manchester United but also a worshipper of football/soccer in general. May be not with the same fanaticity. But to be a United fan or for that matter any club's fan would require one to be inevitably a football fan first. To love one would require one to love the other. To not do so would just amount to pretentious behaviour. Imagine loving the Beatles and hating Music in general. Preposterous isnt it? Being a lover of football I love and respect everything that is genuinely to do with it. I respect good footballers and I respect their desire to win. Even if you are a Liverpool fan or a Chelsea fan, I would at some level respect you if you are a true fan ( even if it would be tremendously hard for me). Of course there would be a certain amount of pleasant banter. That is something unavoidable because it brings out the raw passion that underlines football.

However, if there is someone who calls himself a Liverpool fan or a Chelsea fan or an Arsenal fan just so that he has a pretext for hating Manchester United then that person is a disgrace to football. The same goes for the so called 'fans' of any football club. How are you a fan when all you are obsessed about is booing the other team just because they are more successful than the others. How can you not see the effort that they have put in to get there? How can you be so cynical that seeing the rival team lose causes in you more joy in you than seeing your own team score? How can your life be so sad that you vociferosuly jeer the rivals and merely applaud your team's efforts? If you want your team to win the title and because of that you want the other team to lose, then that is acceptable. But if you want to watch your rivals stutter just to derive sadistic pleasure out of it, then it borders on conduct so malicious that you might as well grow horns and tail and call yourself Lucifer. 

There might be people who think that this guy is getting frustrated just because his team's performances have hit rocky waters. To this I would say: Ofcourse I am frustrated. Which true fan would not be? Our shortcomings cause me more pain than anything. But watching people jeer us for no conceivable arrogance on our part brings about in me disgust. Disgust in such copious amounts that it is always advisable to let it out lest it spread poison in my system. 

Its a call from me to all the true football fans. Save football from such frivolous hatred. Save it from these so called 'FANS'. Otherwise what once was heavenly fun would soon become nightmarish paranoia and loathing. As for me, this is my first and last outburst against this menace. Now I will go back to the shadows and continue my personal quest for achieving NATIVITY IN RED.....

The True Meaning

Aditya was perspiring. Heavily. Beads of sweat adorned his brows which were trying to reach out to each other. His brain was all fuzzy unable to comprehend, analyse, feel or process anything. Why was it so difficult for him? Others did it without batting an eyelid. All the hours spent just last evening convincing himself had been a waste of precious time. His mind immediately raced back to 2004.

There he was..beaming..his parents looking at him with unadulterated pride. His father had always taught him to be downright honest with oneself. " Even if you don't succeed, your heart will always be pure, there will be no wrenching guilt and there will always be an avenue left for redemption." His mother had never doubted him. They had an unseverable bond which could never be hacked off. She never said it out aloud..but he knew that Mamma would always love him come-what-may. All these years his parents had been his pillars of strength something on which he could always fall back on. Who needed friends when he had such wonderful parents to look over him? His peers had always made fun of him but he never took it seriously. In fact he had always had pity for such souls, sadly they hadn't been provided with a morally sound upbringing. He had his parents and he had his God. Yes..Yes..they were enough..he didn't need anyone else. Hadn't he always been top of his class? Hadn't he been the Debating President at school? Hadn't the principal of his school admitted that he was probably the best student he had ever taught? Yes..Yes..there was no need for friends. As for the limp, his parents had already told him that God couldn't have made him perfect. The most important thing was inner peace. He had inner peace and that was his shield for all atrocities that the world inflicted on him. 

Sadly things change. College wasn't as easy as school. It was huge. The place was teeming with people. Evil people, joyful people, morose people, reclusive people. It was difficult. He had realised that his protective orb of inner peace had been disturbed. But the most herculean problem was the absence of his parents around him. Of course cellphones were there. But the warmth of feelings almost always gets filtered out when transmitted through mobile networks. The fact of the matter was he was alone. The art of making friends was alien to him. Soon they had all their own groups to 'hang out' with. There were one or two curious glances in his direction but that was it. He might have been invisible for all practical purposes. As he sat alone in his room, tears came splashing out of his eyes leaving scorched paths on his cheeks. The longer he was alone the more he withdrew into his shell. By the end of his first year his isolation was complete.

Hope had given way to cynicism, tenderness to stoicalness, politeness to rudeness. Without any hope or aspiration he had no zeal to succeed. He felt guilty for how he was letting his parents down. But what way was there? Without co-operation nothing was possible. He could not have, in any way, completed the entire syllabus all by himself. So he gave up. He often contemplated suicide but he had no courage. He was a coward..there was no doubt about that. The misery continued uninterrupted in his life. 

But even the darkest of shadows has a bright spot. Amidst all despair in his life, she stood out as a beacon of light. He had an inexplicable surge of emotions in his heart whenever he saw her. God she was beautiful. He had overheard two boys talking about her in an indecent way and his blood had boiled. He didn't know why but he felt protective of her. Of course talking to her was out of the question. He would take this 'thing' that plagued his heart to his grave. He couldn't concentrate in class when she was around. But simply looking at her was bliss. So what if he was unable to score well in class? In any case even if he concentrated there was no way he could make it to the top. There were just too many intelligent people around..no..no looking at her was easy and comforting. But all went awry one day.....

How could she do it? That jerk.. he isn't even polite to people and moreover he has already dumped two other girls.. She deserves better. He couldn't stand this. His heart was heavy..breathing laboured. Looking at them hanging around hand in hand killed him every single day. He couldn't take it any more. There was only one way left. He had to speak to her. Yes, this was the only way. He would speak to her first thing tomorrow in class.

There she was, as beautiful as ever. He could hardly hear anything around himself such was the pounding of his heart. But this was unavoidable. He had to do it. He went up to her and said " Sonia, can I speak to you?". All eyes swivelled around to look at this most peculiar event. The boy who hardly opened his mouth was talking to the most stunning girl in class. This ought to be fun. Sonia was of course speechless. Aditya was however in a rush to get whatever he wanted to say.

"Kunal is a jerk..don't go out with him..he doesn't deserve you..you deserve so much better..I.." SMACK.

"How dare you, you moron..look at yourself you pathetic piece of lump..don't ever come near me..do you..."

"Hehehe..heehee..She slapped me!! Why did she slap me? Why? Why?..Nooooo.Nooooo..." The silence was deafening.

" I will not take this. I will not.. I am better than this.. Mamma..Papa.. I am so sorry.." 

"Has he lost his mind??"

"..looks like it."

But Aditya knew that his moment of realisation had come. His mind had never been clearer. All his mind could think of was his parents. There they were..smiling at him. The time to repay their faith and love had come. He will do it for them. Yes.. Yes..

The inner peace was back. And as they all laughed at him he couldn't have cared less. The true meaning of his existence had dawned on him..hit him like a blinding ray of light. There will be no looking back from here. Mamma..Papa I will do it for you.. I will..I will........

A New Kid on the Block

Rajeev Masand does it. Taran Adarsh does it. The Great Bong does it. Enough hints to tell you where I am heading. If your guess was Movie Reviews pat yourself on the back as thou art right.

One and a half years of intense movie watching has made me a connoisseur as far as appreciating this form of art goes. So why not do movie reviews I ask myself.. Stop asking stupid questions and start typing jackass is what my inner self tells me. So here I am with my first movie reviews.

Sinnnnngh Is Kinnnnng: Did I put enough n's there? Anyways, with or without the n's, Sinngh is Kinng is another product from the Akshay Kumar Masala Factory. If Namastey London, Heyyyyy Babyyyy( again not sure about the number of y's), Bhool Bhulaiya and Welcome werent enough, Akshay Kumar comes up with another one of his long and tedious line of movies that try desperately to tickle your funny bone..but instead of tickling, they start smashing against all your funny bones until they start to hurt. This time Akki sings and dances his way to the position of the head of a mob organisation in the land of Oz. In the meanwhile, the incredibly pretty KK acts incredibly stupid and tries desperately hard to salvage the movie by strutting her stuff. Sadly we have seen all of it over and over again and most of us remember all such scenes so vividly that it becomes pointless watching it again. Some fine actors like Om Puri and Ranvir Shorey are wasted in an incredibly profligate manner. All in all this saga of a rustic who through his antics ends up as a crime boss in Australia is extremely thunda and starts getting on your nerves.

Bachna Ae Haseeno: The title of the movie should have been Bachna Ae haseeno and also the non-haseeno.Stay away if you can..This is typical bollywood fare wherein the newly crowned heir of the illustrious Kapoor khaandaan, Ranbir Kapoor falls in love not once but thrice. Needless to say you get bored not once but thrice. Ranbir Kapoor is the quintessential playboy toying with the heart of pretty ladies before breaking it only to be handed a dose of his own medicine by DP. Now he must mend his ways and apologise for his sins. What a load of crap!!!

Acting obviously was a non-criterion during the casting of the movie- even Arjun Rampal can emote better than some of the actors here and that is saying a lot. There are songs that keep playing so many times that you start getting bugged. Another movie that was a sheer waste of time.

A Wednesday:Now here is a movie that breaks out of the stereotypical mould. An extremely pacy thriller that never lets you doze off even for a second. Naseeruddin Shah comes up with a masterclass performance as the common man who has had enough. Anupam Kher is great too and reminds you of his Saraansh days. For a change Jimmy Shergill is not stupid. If you havent seen it, go and see it at once if you want your belief in meaningful cinema restored. Only dont analyse a lot because there are obvious flaws. Just let yourself be carried away in this 95-min thriller.

P.S.:All views here are strictly of the author and need not be taken to heart by the filmi buffs.

And even if you do..who cares????

The Chronicles of Lalooland

A sudden lurch from the Patna-bound Sampoorna Kraanti express woke me from my deep slumber. It took my senses two long minutes to come to terms with my surroundings. Just a minute back I was jumping for joy standing on the hallowed turf of the Theatre of Dreams holding the European Cup in my hands. It took a hot cup of something that resembles tea to finally wake me up. The entire compartment was dead silent. Probably the only time it will remain so. The glow and warmth of the sun's rays hadn't yet fully perpetrated the morning air. I looked out of the window and immediately saw a man relieving himself on the empty railway track. It was impossible for me to suppress a smile. Home, I knew wasn't far away.


For the past 4 years I have lived outside Bihar. Naturally, I have met many people who have never been there and will probably never do so in their entire lives. So it is amazing that inspite of never having gone even close to the place pre-notions and judgements have been formed. Every time I introduce myself as being someone from Bihar, I have seen people coming up with a variety of responses. Outright disgust, disbelieving eyes, ridicule, and even fear. I have seen them all. My own response to each one of these has evolved over the years. A tendency to engage in a verbal duel has given way to a slight mocking smile. What do they know, I ask myself. I have called Bihar my home for the entire 20 years of my existence and all I have got in return is warmth and security. But then why then such prejudice? The answer is simple and is one-word: LALOO.

Laloo is someone who has misrepresented Bihar for a terribly long time. The man is a maverick and shrewd politician no doubt. There is hardly anyone on the The Great Indian Political Scene who comes even close to matching the wit and verve of the Railways minister. But his well documented involvement in countless scams and corruption cases has led many to believe that Bihar has gone to the dogs. The common perception is of people living in fear, living amidst neglected social structures and living with regret. People, you cannot be more wrong.....

A hawker's incessantly uttered monotone then brought me back from my deep reverie. The bustling Patna Station came into view thus filling my heart with incredible fondness. Immediately, hordes of red-dressed gentlemen shouting 'coolie coolie' came crashing into my compartment. Having being burned out by the long and tedious journey I asked one of them to help me out." Kitna loge?", I ask. " Jo dena hai de do sahab" was his polite and humble reply. My mind involuntarily went back to the events that panned out at the Delhi Station where the coolie apart from being rude, asked me for an outrageous amount of money and asked me to literally f*** off when I came back with a no-nonsense reply. Bihar and rude huh?? No way!!

I then hired an auto rickshaw whose driver turned out to be another warm-hearted fellow. He talked pleasantly of the weather in Patna, of the IPL fever that has gripped the country of late. He talked of Kerry Packer and the pyjama cricket culture that had permeated into international cricket back in the 80's though of course he didnt remember the exact name. "Koi tha firangi jisne shuru kiya tha" he says. He talks of how difficult it is to make ends meet for his family in which there are 11 members. Quite amazingly I find that we are already at the verge of completing our journey. The conversation had ofcourse filled me with immense compassion. I offered the man an extra 10 bucks. But he soundly rejected it saying" Jitna kaam kiye hain utna hi paisa lenge". I was shocked and visibly moved. And this was coming from someone who has been time and again labelled emotionless. If this is Bihar and if this is what people make fun of then clearly its a case of people being blindfolded by an illusion that has been manufactured by a news-hungry media. If you can trust me on anything its this: If Bihar is unsafe and if it is inhabitable, then I cant think of any other place in India that can be called otherwise.

Agony and Ecstasy

Life is full of opposites. Good and bad.. truth and lies.. light and darkness.. and many more. Infact these opposites accentuate each others' effects. There would be no joy in victory unless one has tasted defeat. Light would not have had the same comforting assurance had the uncertainty of darkness never shrouded us. Benevolence would not have evoked the same respect had one never encountered a miserly soul in one's life. Three examples are enough right? I am sure you get the point.. But philosophy never makes sense unless one can relate to its principles through some personal experience. Last week for me was one such phase where the co-existence of opposites was utterly conspicuous.

For those of you who do not know I had my final exams last week. Much has been said and written about how devilish this creation of man has been. So although I can go on and on ranting about these monsters, I simply wont. The only positive side of the exams here is the fact that they get finished pretty quickly. Its like a tornado that passes across your house in seconds but when it is gone you are left with a vast rubble of destruction. Also being a mechanical engineering student means that you will be left with a broken spirit along with a broken exterior. Last semester I worked and worked on those damn MD sheets but to what avail? A meagre C+ doesnt compensate for those infinitely long hours I spent toiling away trying to complete the sheets in order to meet the deadline set by the unrelenting prof. Anyways lets not talk about the last semester as one of my three new year resolutions was to not discuss things in which I sucked or major catastrophes of my life so far. This semester, though, has had its own share of monumental challenges. Negotiating two crackpots who also happen to be professors has been no easy task at all. This semester has seen us trying to understand how vapour power plants work, how fluids flow and what really is the driving force behind a machine among other things. Of course it goes without saying that I still dont know the answers to all the above questions. Personally speaking the sheer volume of it is intimidating and if you have to answer questions on these subject for three long hours, it amounts to a kind of punishment that could be used as an alternative to capital punishment rather being used on unsuspecting undergrads.

So the last two weeks were pretty tough. Exasperation and agony had reached a zenith and slowly and steadily all hope was being sucked out of me as if the Dementors had all left Azkaban and come straight out to Roorkee. It was at this moment of pure despair that a joyous feeling overwhelmed me and it was then that I realised that moments like these are the ones that make your life a worthwhile experience.

May 11,. The Barclays Premier League title race was still on in full throttle. Chelsea and Manchester United locked on points. But a win for Manutd and a 10th title would become a reality no matter what Chelsea did. The stage was set at the JJB stadium. Wigan Athletic were a team that had an enviable record at home for the last 5 home games. Could they possibly have it in them to stop the Red Devils? The early signs were that they did. They fought and battled and ran all around trying to match if not better their illustrious opponents. Could it be one of those days where United would be surprisingly toothless in attack? As the pressure was mounting, Rooney while trying to latch onto a loose ball inside the Wigan penalty area, was brought down. PENALTY!!! The man of the moment Cristiano Ronaldo stepped up and coolly slotted it in. The rush of relief inside every single Red was palpable. But we needed another one to make sure. What if Wigan equalised as they so nearly did with Heskey. In comes the legendary Ryan Giggs equalling the record of Sir Bobby Charlton for the maximum appearances for the Red Devils. With just a few minutes left Giggsy controls a magnificent pass from Rooney and makes it 2-0. And then we celebrated.. and then we all hugged each other cause now we knew the trophy was ours..The final whistle came and it brought with a feeling of happiness that was purely unadulterated. And now it was easy to breathe again..

And to cap it all off, Chelshit drew 1-1 at the Bridge. If there ever was a better icing on a cake.

Fighting for scraps

My tryst with Orkut doesnt go that far. Infact its been a mere one and a half years since my association with the 'world of scraps' began. I was as excited about this new phenomenon in my life as a toddler getting his first lolly-pop or as an adolescent laying his hands on a Playboy for the first time in his life. Back then it was all about getting my scrapbook littered with as many scraps as possible so as to lose my amateur status in the world of orkutting. I still remember how happy I was when my scrapbook had achieved the magical 100-scrap status. But even then there were other orkutters who solemnly reminded me that there was one Mr (yellow+pink) pants who was already well past 15000. I was also dutifully reminded that I had a long regimen of hard work in store for me if I had to even get close to the 400 fans mark. Being as naive as I was then, I set down to scaling the Everest of orkutting. Unknown and long lost friends were added to the elite list. The usual pleasantries were exchanged and promises were extracted and made to exchange scraps for eternity. Slowly and steadily the 200 and 300 barriers were broken and i was well on my way.

As time wore on, the fascination started waning. The once-dear charm of getting a scrap was replaced by sheer annoyance at having received unfounded directions to unlock all my friends' crush list. Its funny how people get so besotted by the prospect of seeing their names engraved on the crush list of someone they know is far beyond their league. Anyways, the exponential growth that is associated with a newly formed profile was now replaced by a growth rate that would have pleased the economy of Sierra-Leone. Communities that were so enthusiastically joined were on the 8th run of their very own OR-game. Testimonials that should be means of telling someone how they honestly feel about a person had now turned into a means of improving the popularity rating of a particular profile.

But even though the attraction of orkut is lost on me, I do not miss the opportunity to visit 'interesting' profiles whenever I am feeling down. From the most artistically done guitar-portraits to the most grammatically sound testimonials you can find them all. Of course the occasional 'enjoying myself in nature's lap' photo is always there as The Bulk so thoughtfully reminds me. Also another amusing fact is that boys have to work doubly hard to enlarge the volume of their scrapbooks whereas any girl's scrapbook has so many 'will u be my friend' scraps that they hardly need to break a sweat. And then they say girls always have to work harder to achieve something in our chauvinistic society.

Now that I have orquitted for ever I can safely say that I dont miss the rush of getting a scrap..I dont miss the excitement of getting a new member of my fan club. But then how am I going to spend my idle time on the internet you ask? Well, heard of Facebook anyone????

Bihari Potter Times

Since I am writing after a long time I feel it is my duty towards my faithful readers( who I admit are not very high in number) to appraise them of the significant events that have taken place around me recently. One month might be a long time in the eyes of many but for me the distinction between a week, a month or a year has blurred such has been the uneventfulness in my life. True I undertook a much looked-forward-to trip to my home but after I came back I realised that in those 7 blissful days I didnt do anything that might be called constructive. I slept, I ate and then I slept more with only the idiot box keeping me company.

I vividly remember the time when I used to cherish visiting my relatives. It used to be something for which i couldnt wait. I used to go there, play with my cousins and gorge on the delicacies that had been prepared for our occasional visits. When the trip ended I used to feel terribly sad and I immediately used to rush to the calender hanging by one of those nails especially earmarked for that purpose to find out when another one of those visits would take place. Trips taken with family members used to be blissful days, days that I would cherish for the rest of my life. But as I grew older, I started becoming more and more of a loner. Suddenly all those trips became irksome..the process becoming more of a formality than a matter of enjoyment. Even the most desperate methods of persuasion from my parents and sisters couldnt budge me from my stand. All I wanted to do now was to stay at home and eat and sleep and watch television. And this is how my transformation to an epitome of sloth got its initiation. The result of this is I have not seen some of my cousins for years. I wonder whether this has anything to do with the evolution of our society into nuclear units or whether mine is merely a personalised case.

Anyways moving on, this month also saw me attend my second Cognizance after coming to IITR. Cognizance, it should be noted, is one of only two chances for us Thomsonians to lay our eyes on some better specimen of the fairer sex. However I must admit that the quality on show was a tad disappointing and so was Cognizance itself taking into account the overall performance. A major influencing factor in this assessment was the absence of Nirula's. The quizzes are always fun to attend. The Bulk, The Sulk and me managed to win some money in one of the quizzes that being the only highpoint in a somewhat dull Cognizance..

The month was capped off by the instrument of Satan himself- the MIDTERMS. Two days of the worst kind of torture that can be inflicted on mortals. Those 48 hours seem to hang on for eternity. Hours and hours of cramming are followed by the realisation that all that cramming you did last night was a sheer waste of time the moment you lay your eyes on the question paper. The only bright side of these midterms is the fact that when they end you start understanding the true value of life and start living it to the fullest by wasting more and more of your time. But then another set of exams come around and you find yourself in a much worse situation than before. Its a vicious circle that pushes you deeper and deeper into an irreversible whirlpool from which there is no coming back.

That's that then..everything you needed to know about me since my last post.
Oh I forgot.. Manutd beat Arsenal.. Again.. Just had to mention that..