Sunday, August 28, 2005

Security Protocols

For an early bird like me, mornings are subject to be of the usual boredom unless blissful sleep or flying monkeys are seen. Today, unfortunately, I couldnt see either. so, with the only aim of spening time doing something unique, I hopped around the hostel to find a room with people still alive. Twas around 5 I guess, an so people were still up and an 'obscure' telugu movie called BABA was being screened.Every five minutes or so, there was some or the other action with things flying, getting blown, stuff being broken, all while the background rap was still going on..It went like this: B to the A to the B to the A...It's me, yo!! Baba.....All Iwanna be is Baba....B to the...
A few minutes later, Rajnikant was trying hard to groove his pelvic girdle while manisha Koirala(wonder how she agreed to sign the movie) was moving every organ(or rather, meat) of her body.Anyway, that was when I realized that I had kept an alarm to go off at 8:30, an it was already around 8:15..It was quite a simple thing to o..Either go back to the room an switch it off...or assume that the roomie guy does it ...Now, I do not count this one as a nut, but he certainly does have his share of problems with me around..So, finally I went back to switch it off at 8:27 just like in some ation packed hindi movie..An then, proceeded to unpack my stuff and stuff everything I found into the almirah...Tat was when I spotted the new suitcase I brought. it had a number lock and looked really cool..I wondered why i had never use this thing for security an immediately put the zip(of course, the zip of the case, u nutcase) inside the lock and tried fiddling around with the numbers..When I was finally satisfied with it's security, I realized that i never knew the code to open that piece of shit. Wonder what happens next..

Saturday, August 27, 2005

My first Official holiday in the last 3 years

Ok!! so, the title says most of it...Here's the rest: I was never ready for the trip. Every moment that led me close to the bang bang time, I was more and more gettin dull and wanted to escape for the moment away from the bus and away from things that would make me spend money. Busy in shifting stuff to my new room , at about 7pm I finally decided that it would be a huge problem for the poor organisers if I dint show up coz it would mean another 1375 missing. So, I finally ran back to the campus, begged a tote bag and filled it with all the clothes I could find and ran toards the bus.

And Hey!! smoking just ouside the gate of the college, I felt really good...The guards were staring, but were all HELPless!!!!Yey...Anyway, The bus looked small and stuffed and in we went, and I found myself a cozy last seat near the window and settled my self down and off went the bus...
As we left the college behind, my disgust for the trip slowly died down...Something new was going to happen and something new always means something exciting..The journey seemed never ending, with people already dozing off..But, I found it rather interestin to look at all the buildings i had never seen, or never cared to watch, and check all the new roads..And enjoy the faint distant lights of small bonfires and wave at people smiling..

A quick check of what all I carried with me:
3 tees, two jeans, one of them used for about a week, and the other used everyday since a month while playin football or in the gym.3 books, a carl sagan,the fountain head,and the road to omaha...3 underwears and a brush.A pair of shoes that I threw in the bus coz I found no place for them in the bag. And BTw, of the 2 jeans, I was wearin one.

First Pitstop: the regular dhaba, I guess..At around 11 pm, our stomachs were growling and so, we stopped at this place near the highway about 140 kms away from that dreadful college and had some dinner. A CD of dungston checks in was followed by half a telugu movie and finally I lost interest in searchin for lights in the dark...Sleep hardly seemed like a necesity and so I lay there awaiting the destination...Come morning and the cool breeze was hitting like ice..the sweet smell of earth drenched by rain filled the nostrils and the eternal fear of the driver riding us through a cliff was dreadful.. But, the clouds, the fog, all those things , those fancy, sceneries somehow digitized or plastic sheets kept in those movies...Everything was just coming alive...It looked like everypart of a poster was dancing to life and was becoming real.....If anyone said, that 75% of the world, is water I never believed it till now...But here, There was as much water as there was land...If u saw land for a couple of minutes, hang on...There'll be huge lakes soon and water all over...Water from the sky, water flowing from mountains...There was water just about everywhere...
Breakfast time was when poha was made at some small hut in the mountains, just off the road, that was the time when a guy ran into the ladies toilet and shut himself in for an hour...Anyway, we were supposed to reach lonavla sometime in the morning, but it so happened that the route we took was a bit hard to drive on,(the ghat roads) and so, we ended up going @20kmph.
Lunch at a dhaba, was sheer ecstacy followed by a lassi!!slurp!!
lots of stuff yet to be written in.....

That dawn itself, we could feel the difference in the air, with the wind beeing mildly cold and smelling really fresh...Allday, we kept seeing water , water and more water...
finally, we managed to find ourselves in lonavla.Sleep and rest was the timetable for the day and so, out we ran tothe nearest wine shop, got some beer and a quarter vodka, and one economical dinner later, came straight back to the dorm to finish the bottle.

Come day2, the actual day of the trip, when we weere supposed to do something. we were dropped at this place called lohagad where land touches the sky through mountains or hills....And clouds keep hovering all around us as we keep climbing. We were sheduled to go see a fort and come bak before,...hmm..I think 1500 hours...The way up the hill was terribly winding and the wind and the cliff at the end of each wind didnt seem to be helping us poor travellers. we, took the lead by over 20 minutes overthe others and kept a fast pace so that we could seemore stuff than others, whatever it was in the fort....As we kept encountering people, we saw that every one in every group of people, wore some piee of rubber to protect himself from the rain..we were the only people going with normal clothes.....anyway, we kept walking and walking..an this in a loop ...And finally we reached a y-fork...with a tea shop at the jn. the guy directed us towarsd the fort and off we went, back on track.now, started the fort climbing....steps cut out off the hill, full of moss, and water literally flowing over them like you have some 2000 taps open just a floor above them.the stairs seemed never ending and so was our determination..At one wind, we decided to rest and I rested onthe stairs and just turned to my left to see if anyone behind us had made it to our position....and then, i realized....you do not see stairs from there...You cannot feel mother earth from that place...There's fog all beneath you and all around you...and between the fog,are small pieces of land..And with all these, comes, the eternal fear of heights..Anyway, we finally reached the top of the fort, unharmed and alive. so, we kept walking here and there to find a place to relieve ourselves when a guy choose a place about 2 metres away from an started peeing..I was wandering about looking at the sky when I could see a stream of yellow water flying towards me in the air...I ducked ,and escaped somehow....The rain became a bit more intensive and we could feel it. The water droplets were hellbent on putting us throw unlimite pain.Each drop was like a stone thrown by some one...someone up there sure is getting his saddistic pleasures satisfied.Anyway, I lost my way around the fort, and a lil'dog, took us back to the entrance of the fort, where we had kaandi..or pakoda.Off we ran down the stairs to find ourselves staring into the eyes of 4 monkeys.It took us about 15 minutes to collect enough courage to decide that we will somehow cross the monkeys without further assistance. So, down we went, still clean and clear...
and back to the y-jn, from which we were to go to the hmm....fort no.2.(help: wat was it's name plz??)
off we went, covering all the swamp, we coul find, "keechad" everywhere, till our shoes were covered with it. every ten minutes or so, we would find a water source to cleanse ourselves off all the dirt. and so, we kept venturing, till we came to a spot,at which there was a recent landslide...
and from the landslisce, we took the path that we found wider an cleaner.We kept walkin on an on in the swampy area till we reached a sharp turn where about a dozen monkeys screeched simaltaneously and scared the hell out of us.
We trotted back only to take a second try along with two different musketeers and reached the possible end of the path till where a mortal can walk. The swamp was too thick to walk.And there was a y-fork. the left one ended in a lake and the right one into a dark swamp with fog all over. A distinct sound could be heard. the sound of a bell ringing. a small bell....Later on, we were to realize that it was made by one of the buffalos there.And then, the ultra clean house...
we ran back to base camp to end the day somehow....
and when we came back to the foot of the hill, we realized this was not the end. Ther was this huge waterfall, huge enough to drench 15 people at a time, and we swarmed into it and the natural forces showed us their vigour...this is the smae thing that I drink at home and now, it was there, overpowering me, water, in it's basic, original state, and then it dawned that the water we see and we drink is no more natural than coke. water, that scares the shit out of you when you think of it, is real. water which makes you grasp and grope at anything soild nearby to protect you from falling is real. water is too huge, and its butchering by us, perhaps too small for it to reflect upon....Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, water

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

Eyes down, kid!!!

"I am three years older than you ..U bastard...What the fuck are you staring at??? wanna black eye?? or a punch straight at the solar plexus?? Do u really think you can get away with this ???Get the fuck away from my path....What the fuck do you think you are ,wearing that orange wierd piece of a tattered cloth???.... "
This is what i try to tell every fresher who gets anywhere near my way...
But, as Mr.Lenin(not the great socialist who brought about a revolution, but the warden) has other ideas for me, I end up moving out of the way and crawling away...
Anyway,
Have you ever wondered the importance of the way of interpreting anything that is written?
What is the effect of a left justified line on the user?? and that of a right justified one??

How would small look like place near big?? small big

something looks really wrong here..Why shouldnt the word small be a bit bigger than big??? Is it an implicit assumption that not only the objective that the word is intended for but also the means, the word itself, should be self-explanative. If so, then, what really is the necessity for me to use language?? anything small like a rat, can be written in real small font and an elephant in huge font...
Look at this one:
n a r r o w wide

Can you really read narrow and interpret pefectly at first glance?? Each time I look at narrow, again and again, it appears to me as n followed by the word arrow..Each space between letters is of the same length.But our mind still refuses to accept narrow to be really wide..though I wonder why wide can be not so wide. ..But narrow can never be wide...

have a look at small and big in the webdings font:
small small big big
now the only impression of big in this word is that huge block for the letter G in the word which makes it really look big...try finding words with G...huGe,Giant...Was G supposed to be the keyword for something big???

Now suppose I was in this farm in some small quiet village.The whole scene with a setting sun and me with a straw hat and a rake in one hand and looking at dry leaves will be
silence
And this does not look odd...But what if it was not silence, but SILENCE ??
It would look very weird describing something that is peaceful and quiet so boldly and loudly...

Now try this:
sex sex
the sex on the right is a lot more explicit than the sex on the left. See what I mean?? The brains is merely a spectator..It's the eyes and the scene that play the magic on us...
Anyway, to summarize, I wanted to say that a HOT female would help my brain develop a lot...Eye Candy please..My eyes are the only source for my brain to interpret and learn things...Get this in your heads ,faculty

and thinking of all these things.... can u imagine the context I am using 'pant' in, if I type pant ..

I still cannot make out the use of italics.But, at times, it has worked miracles... and of course, the exclamation mark is just to good for our brain to grasp a situation of just words and make a perfect scene that an author tries to convey.
. how about bark?? If I type bark!!!! it shows the barking of a crazy dog that amazes the writer while if I type BARK, this looks more familiar to a tree's main portion.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

The Power of One

there are two hundred and forty people in my batch. More than, seventy of them maintain their GPA above three. In these seventy, I am familiar with more than 50 people. The other twenty or so people are the ones that I keep thinking about. I know what goes in the head of the people I know...What about the others???
For instance, I recently shifted into the on campus and one of those guys I mentioned in the anonymous 20, is my new roomate. He has his own computer, he has his own headphones and his own stuff. He can hardly resist sleep after 12 in the night.He hasnt uttered a single syllable to me till now.People who didnt see him talking might even think that he's one of those deaf and sumb guys. he has got a job. He studies well.He attends each and every lecture that takes place anywhere in the next square km. Be it his elective or not, he is bound to be there if there is a free slot. As I joined this college, I was a cute lil overgrown kid.But slowly, my mind adapted and learnt zillions of things, I never thought I could ever learn. But, yet, what remains abstract to me is the fact that no one, no one can ever think the same ....but , yet...everyone ends up doing the same thing and leaning on the same wall..
I do not dictate uniqueness as a quality of necessity, but a quality that exists, inside each head, no matter how dumb it looks or acts. Then, why do people do the same damn thing again???
I am no philosopher or some guy who wants to make something clear to everyone. After all my ramblings, I know I still remain groping in darkness here. But, what I see ist that, everyone has caught one light or another. Be it a small torch, that might work only for seconds, they are satisfied that they have light with them. This to me, reminds of moths. Whatever be the result of the encounter with fire, the moth shall never stop going towards it. Well..Why??? maybe it thinks that light is a safe place...But, then...we have a neocortex that makes us stay as human beings.
Here's the thing. How much ever anyone jeers or mocks me or stops me...And remains happy that he has a job and will remain happy...Just remember this:
There are billions of people who live in this world and most educated people do something or the other to get food,entertainment and sex. But, how many of them do we know?? How many of them have died and lived happy??
Everything that everyone puts is a mask. I know people...People interested in writing, reading, math, science, biology, mass commn. ...but because they are her..They need to continue here...
I have no idea of what it'll take to get what's inside my head...But I also know that it is better to try and faint than stay ignorant and happy...

Even now, I say that getting a job is not tough.I can call up someone and land my self somewhere or the other..But ..Is that it? A desk, a comp, a few papers and copying data?? The sole question of our existence marred by things that never yield happiness ...(oops!!!money does that)
I find it quite wondeful the way life existed a few hundred years ago. People did what pleased them. NO..Not in India..Say whatever you may, but India has never had an open head ...there were few people who could break out and excel..But, elsewhere, people who loved to dig, digged...people who loved to bould, builded(built, in fact) and people who loved to write, wrote(writed will suit the sentence, but will crack my hidden reputation for bad vocabulary) and people who...Wonder how I keep writing stuff just for the heck of it......
Anyway

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Raj and the Art of Thinking

Carl Sagan is not someone I know....Some one just handed over a book written by him that taught me that life was more than just looking at notebooks , writing stuff and rewriting stuff to memorize it...NOw now!! People might wonder why I am writing this if Carl Sagan already propagated all this stuff...Well Well!1 He wasnt sure of all this and now!!!!

In spite of the fact, that I have done zero research and have zero experience in what he said, I am quite sure, that i might just become a multi-grillionare(a grillion is billions of millions of billioons of............) by what I just found out...
Have you ever thought of how Our Brain works?? how does it store and retrieve data?? how does it remember things and help us recollect??? Doesnt this seem exactly like a computer??? and how does a computer's har disk work?? A small needle keeps hovering all over the disc and retrieves data from the necessary place by stoppin over there...And the brain, is not any more complex than that..poor Sagan guy.. He couldnt think of this... We can start clipping electrice alligator clips all over the head...Bout hmm.....1,00,000 to be precise, and randomly start giving the person with that head of alligator clips, shocks of voltage good enuff to improve his memory....And one day..Ta daaa................All humans will come to Raj and stand in a Q to get their head treated with my proven and tested alligator electric clip method...

Everyone is invited to volunteer in my honest operation towards the development of the homo sapien civilization...Funding is always welcome and soon,....... read this carefully, may be you might be given the right to open a head improving Thinking branch of Raj's elite Head-Exponentiator technique....

Move over Carl Sagan, the $@v!0r 0f da worlD is Here........
And by the way, if you guys happen to be thinkin that I am totally crazy...remember, I wont help u exponentiate ur head capabilities...

And sooon, I am thinkin of releasin a beta version of this ultra modern head expo..thing
It 'll b in the shape of a hat and will hav thousands of circuits inside and t'will use solar power to generate shocks and u can use it in exams to remember stuff u canT remember normally..