Ingrediants of an extracting sem

"Just 2 more years of hard work till you get a good seat, then life will be totally easy. Come on.." The encouraging words of my aunt 4 years ago, reminds me now of the best ironies in life.I pity every secondary schooler working his ass off due to blind faith in the above statement. Especially, when it so happens that with every year ahead, the going gets tougher. Thanks to my faculty, I cant expect a greater torture in my course after this sem. WHy? EE2001. THe terror of every electrical adn computer engin student of NUS. the subject that is designed with the whole purpose of killing the students by exhaustion, sheer mental and physical exhaustion.

A toolbox, 200$ , a topic( an intelligent health device), 4 months time - recipe for torture.

Its effects:

- being woken up every saturday and SUNDAY morning at 8 am sharp by an over enthusiastic project partner, who unfortunately happened to stay in my hostel.

- 12 hour tete a tete with my tool box every weekend, screwing up wires into dumb processors, writing endless pages of asm codes, grtting ur teeth to make the stupid machine follow a simple algorithm.




- scrounging on the same instant noodles and nescafe mud coffee till my tongue became dead and i lost my ability to taste any food.

- spending every instant of my free time in lab, staring at the dumb machine i am supposed to create, cursing myself for taking up engineering.



- Night outs at engin, com hall, turning myself into a sleep deprived machine, capable of working for 30 hrs straight, napping on chairs, benches on the faculty corridors,mid night talks abt unimaginable things with terrible aquaintances just to keep the eye open..

- Waking up every single day with the worry of the system failures, the problems in codes and circuit designs, desparation to find the solutions atleast on that day.



- Being holed with one of my team mates(whom I happened to like before), for weeks together, till we drove each other crazy.I came to know how dreadful the effects of clash of personalities could be when put in close quarters for a prolonged period.Anyone who claims "opposites attracts" must be deaf and dumb.

- Periodic upheavels of out-of - the -world happiness and ectasy the minute our integration finally worked only to be replaced by ground-hitting-gloom and devastation when it would automatically crash in the next minute.



- afraid to death on THE day, we were supposed to present our "working" machine. Praying till the God himself couldn't have borne it any longer. And the blessed relief., soaking my entire body in bliss, when our half impaired system decided to put up a decent show..

The prize of succes :
A PASS. and A "PHD" - Personal Health Detector,the solution to a perfect home health care.


But Above all, a feeling of winning a huge battle, surpassing a herculean challenge, great relief of never having to repeat this mess, a tolerence and endurance for all sorts of people and Of course, a happy confidence that even I can become a passable engineer.

Puppets in Strings.

Thursday evening, post gruelling exam bliss, McD burger + coke dinner, engaging the mind in an enjoyable vettiness, I enter the YIH TV room and meet my freinds after 1 week of intense cramming.Amidst the vetti talk, snide comments, xam cribbings,the topic suddenly turned to Mumbai. Caught unawares, my bewildered, ignorant, just out of a cave look was the instantaneous response. "Yea right", i laughed. Stunned looks, a chilling silence followed. THe thrashing began.
Somehow,when i managed to get hold of a comp, the astonishing, out of hollywood, action thriller headlines greeted me. It was like getting sucked into a dream. a ridiculous dream. my ususal type. Half hour later, the news flash still kept coming , more deaths, more tortures. THe dream got more ridiculous, fanatical, evil. A look of a gunman, in black clothes, resembling a hateful aqaintance . the witness statements screeching along..“My brother, Manish, died in the firing at Colaba’s Hamaal Galli.” ..THe shock, the idocy hooked me to the comp for the rest for the night. Worried chats with Anxious friends from Mumbai, unable to contact their families at home...Why, How, Who, What next??. Thousand questions pounding , yet the most terrifying of all, the sick feeling, the frustrating regret "What can I do!" As discussions turned to heated debates,as speculations and predictions were thrown in 'bout the involvement of Govt, as calm voices analysed the issue like a talk during tea time,the paralytic realisation struck - to be hung helpless as puppets on strings of some power, helpless to do nothing but yap about the misery, attacked by rage and guilt. Still in shock, I remembered I still got an exam the next day.

AAAAAAAAAAA

That felt great. If you are wondering about my crazy, hair- pulling state, I have been studying for the past5 hours about the rise of Malaya and the effects of South east Asian maritime events in Singapore's globalisation. Anyways, I wanted to say a personal good bye to all those who care to read my useless blog before I die. Bye friends, meet you in hell!

best quotes

Men are haunted by the vastness of eternity. And so we ask ourselves...will our actions echo across the centuries? Will strangers hear our names long after we're gone...and wonder who we were. ...how bravely we fought...how fiercely we loved?
The gods envy us.They envy us because we're mortal.Because any moment might be our last.Everything's more beautiful because we're doomed.We will never be here again.
Men rise and fall like the winter wheat but some names will never die.


If they ever tell my story, let them say..I walked with giants.Let them say I lived
in the time of Hector..tamer of horses.

Let them say...
I lived in the time of Achilles.

The Irony of lifelines.

You never know what you love till you miss it.

Though the word "love" is a bit far fetched in this case, I certainly realised the sentiment well enough this semester. All that with the thing I thought i hated the most.Yea, I am talking about the gruelling torturing tiring university life, chipping away your confidence, happiness, youth, energy slowly and by the time you graduate, you will be ready to kiss the muddy ground after your first step outside the walls of the academic prison or become a hollowed out shell that ceases to have any sort of feelings.Maybe I am exagerrating a little bit here, but I guess one has the right after suffering from exhaustion, sleeplessness, starvation for the past 2 weeks .Thanks to the light schedule of tests and assignments..

Anyways, inspite of my passionate feelings towards my uni life, I have been proved wrong, yet again . A little trick Fate played on me - give an opportunity to spend 3 days in a small piece of heaven on earth, away from books, away from my uni, away from the the city that makes a mockery of time and relaxation. A quick trip to Bintan , an Indonesian island, few miles away from SG would be a God Send to anyone in my position. The pristine beauty of the little town, fresh air, clear skies( I could actually see starts at night!), the beach- such beautiful beaches..the first view of the place was a straight kick in the gut. Isolated, quiet, lovely. my dream. or so did it start with..

The very first day on paradise was enough to drive me crazy, senselessly crazy. When I settled down in our stilt house- bunglow, well fed, relaxed, novel in hand, staring at the similar expressions of contentment in my friends' faces, the question stikes me out of nowhere. WHat to do now?! An hour passed, a couple more trailed after.. It was a slow world- completely different and muddled up one with nothing to do other than watch the day pass by you..THe nightmare began. Hours and hours of isolated idlessness , time was killing us inch by inch. The stunning beauty of the land became a prison detached form the world- no phones,no people, no communication, no COMPUTER!
It was just too horrible to go through.

After managing to occupy ourselves for the next 3 days with everything from snorkeling to Spa massages, we were tired.. tired of conjuring up things to do. Somehow in the beaches of the Malaccan Straits, I faced the truth- I am an incurable city mongrel. The rush , the activity, the killing schedule of the city has somehow become the lifelines of such creatures. The name " entertainment" in my dictionary is unanimously associated with a movie in bed, a movie at the theatre, bowling, great dinner or a walk along Clark Quay. Just as we reached the shores of Singaporean waters, for the first time in my life, I was thoroughly , extremely, devastatingly happy to be back into the millieu of mindless work -a-holics. Maybe living in a concrete jungle of people,pollution and power of communication makes us appreciate the world of Tarzans only in the cine boxes. Considering our dependence on the EM signals of this wired world, a future of X men and Resident Evil alikes arent all that hard to believe in.

For all thats worth, with 2 submissions on the morrow, a CA on the day after, drained of energy, filled with headaches,wanting to curse God for this hell I am in, it just takes a 5 minute browsing through those pleasant Bintan snaps to force me back into my life with a renewed vigour.

past vs present

I thought I would understand the world better as I grow up. Now after 19 years,I am much more confused than I ever was. We say the 21st century is more broad minded, liberal, free , with less restrictions than the times past. Especially in Indian context, as I recall the life of my grand ma at my present age, burdened into wedlock and forced to support a family, the past statement becomes a gross underestimation. I cant imagine living the life of our previous generation. ever. The decisions to choose your own future,enjoy a great career, form your own ideals: this freedom of choice ,of thought is unique to the present millenia. Food, clothes, habits, lifestyles, every thing has changed. I believed for good.

or is it so? The same grand mom I mentioned before is also a remarkable lady of extrordinary courage. Illiterate, unemployed, she has single handedly raised 5 kids with enough values ingrained in the blood , ensured to be passed on with their genes.At 80+, she now lives on her own, stable and shrewd, proud and valiant. Strong stock, strong blood, a few might say. I believe there is one such grand mom in every family. inspite of the restrictions, social pressure, backward treatment, they were the anchors of their homes, their society , their progeny.

Now,coming back to our forward 21st century filled with smart, forward and powerful women , ready to excel in all the spheres and take their rightful share of equality in this Men's world.
I met up with a cpl of friends back home recently. A few of them happen to be 'well settled', among them was one of my very good friend since childhood. Nothing agianst being happily attached for life, yet I could not help feeling let down when one such person of a very frank and forthright nature, sensible and always sure of herself suddenly turned gooey and talked non stop for 2 hours about her partner till the my ears started bleeding.. Not to mention my surprise when she sends a 100 sms in between our convo to update her boyfriend on her location,health , mood, company, God knows what else.. IT turns even more horrifying when the never ending talks of their "future plans" is dished at you . Put it together with the sympathetic glances thrown at you when you happen to be (un)fortunate enough to be enjoying the same pleasure as them, you wonder if this is all one can hope/wish for in this magical century. The death blow strikes when they stuff your nose with their engagement photos (even before they graduate) and gaze at you expectantly to shower compliments when all you want is to scream at them for voluntarily wasting their entire life ..

A degree for namesake and a lookout for foreign allainces has become the golden dream of a "happily ever after life" today. Covering a donkey with a passable amount of sheep's skin ensures enough success and appreciation in this world of hypocricy. The place is so flooded with imitators such that those who refuse to wear the costumes are either termed as rebels or madmen. Sometimes, I long to travel back to my grandmom's era to look at honest men,proud and courageous enough to be themselves and simple women who go thorugh their life with the strength of a rock and endurance of a mountain. l

annoying gadgets.

It was a scary night. The huge , fit for nothing black box, cursed to mal function when I most needed it, began its suicide attempt once more. The provocation of a few drops of cofee was enough this time. Thanks to my extensive hardware knowledge and magical trouble shooting skills, i could save it this time around and bring it back to a passable working state. With some major threats of midterms and project submissions,its worst situation to put ur life on the hands of a stupid gadget , that breaks down 90% of the time.. Well, this episode atleast proves some meagre chances of me actually making it as a comp engineer. Now, all i need to do is buy the screws I have lost while tearing down the box.

a good movie after a long long time

boredom of vettiness usually chases a person out of home and turn to other sources of intelligent interaction. Miraculesly, I found such a refugee in "Saroja".
Just a friendly suggesstion: DONT MISS IT. Funny,punchy, tangy was how I found it.
Venket Prabu shows his brilliance in how to bullshit with class and humour and turn it into a good 2 hr entertainment.After a long time., a tamil movie is here, worth seeing. Hope ppl learn from this effort adn try to make less mokai movies.

BOOM! Here goes the next one in smoke too.

It was a calm and uneventful evening. I should perhaps add frustrating too. How else can I describe spending nearly 6 hours of a prime Saturday evening at the study room, writing a 1500 word essay about evaluating the authenticity of web resources for a dumb Singapore History module?! Ploughing through my research with an enthusiasm that I usually show in the Culinary department, I must say that I was barely able to survive my homework only due to some God blessed lifelines like Youtube, Facebook etc developed for such dying souls. Anyways, coming to the point, at around 7.15 pm while browsing through some CNN blogs, I was hit by the sudden news flash about the Delhi Blasts. After a few moments of initial shock , the familiar resentment abt our sincerely lazy Goverment, its spoilt,money sucking bureucrats, the whole bloody policital organisations that are slow enough to wake up even if an atom bomb burst on its face and ofcourse the terrorists groups fed by enemy governments, built the same old bitching fire that makes us , Indians, get together to either throw a few punches on opposition parties or other religious grps or huddle together and bitch, complain, yell abt the sodding mess of the system we are stuck with.

It adds more oil to the simmering stew when each organisation points fingers at the other and involve in active blaming while they make up a "ABC" terrorist group to dump the blame on and close the case. The royal sucker punch thrown at the end when we sit glued to the TV, strikes home as they finally tag the dead by hanging a compensation amount on each corpse and leave a lesser sum dangling for the injured if they make it through. With this the curtains on the scene are closed shut and a few announcements reg the inverstigations are thrown in between by some Tom,DiCk and Harry.

oh yes, I forgot to mention the main role played by us. After swearing, protesting, sympathising with the victims and well, going mad ( for those who suffered the loss) , we wait. we wait in fear, for the next incident., the next strike to hit, desparately hoping its not our town , not our family that is affected.seems this whole blast series is termed as operation BAD. wow, I am so amazed at the ingenuity of the person who came up with that..

THis feeling of helplessness experienced by the many thousand billion people that turns into anger and later becoming hopelessness is the worst damage of all to our country. I dont understand why this happens, this sudden mob of destruction caused by men on men, I dont know how to stop it, I dont know how to take it and live with it.I write blogs unable to do anything.

well, if you are still with me and are reading this, then you can better check in these links.
http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/15/stories/2008091559731200.htm
http://www.mid-day.com/news/2008/sep/140908compensation-for-victims.htm

And an asshole has taken the liberty of speech and expression to print this shit in
a blog.
http://islamicterrorism.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/delhi-blast-victims-is-manmohan-singh-having-sleepless-nights/
hell of a read to know if PM sleeps or not! and ha, just when i was wondering why no
prig has dragged in communalistic crap.

After 45 minutes of intense digging and scrounging to collect every additional scrap of info abt it, I became tired. tired to the bone of everyhting around me.ok, enough.Lets all rest, study hard, make lots of money,get married and reproduce in bounty as long as it stays away from our family. IS THERE ANY END AT ALL? IS THERE NOTHING WE CAN DO? Pushin up my sleeves, I unsuccessfully try to clear these thoughts from my head and continue with my essay. After all each living thing is stuck with its own immediate misery to worry about. .

and so goes the cycle till the next one blows up in smoke.

inside the deep hole.

it was midnight. I lay quietly staring at the florescent light from my digital watch. The alarm went off mildly signaling the completion of 40 years of my life on this planet. I had turned 40. I tossed around to make myself fall asleep unsuccessfully. They kept plaging me. The same doubts, the same questions and in the end, the same feeling of restlessness.I know not the answers, dont know where to find them. I prayed for sleep to wash away this confusions. I tried to remember the scores of assignments filling up my day, the long list of pending ones to complete. I hated it. There was no time. just no time to relax, to enjoy, to remember my dreams.those long forgotton ones that haunt my sleep in the long lonely nights..a hazy picture of a boy running in green fields, the boy flying kites, the same boy lying near the beach, gazing at the star studded skies ..he yearned to know more, learn more, suck up every bit of knowledge about the fascinating world surrounding him . above all, he yearned to fly , be free to explore , rule the skies , far away from the grasp of any control. oh, how wonderful life can be, how sweet it is to uncover each of its little mysteries layer by layer, to marvel at its complex intricacies in the process, to rediscover its forgotten beauties.. with so many places to go, so many things to see, so much more to know.. All of a sudden, a whirlpool arrives to snatch away the freedom. He was tossed around the wind, powerless to stop , helpless to escape.. the world gets torn apart, life changes upside down. Everything is blurry, muddled up. He is trapped in the heavy chains of the nature, the nature of things, the nature of life itelf. The whirlpool sucks him onto its bottonless vortex. Along the void of a mundane hole, he falls deeper and deeper for the rest of his life, for eternity..

Atlast I fell into the same pattern of disturbed sleep in those few patches of time, a mere few hours spent in a bliss , away from everyone, everything. . There i lie, in a land of green fields, orchads, of kites and beaches. I smile in my sleep , something that is becoming extremely rare in the 40 years of my life.

A harmonic evening with Harmonica

Tired of being vetti, I dragged one of my friends to attend a free concert of HArmonica recital at University cultural centre yesterday. From what i could see from the advertisement pamplet, harmonica is something like a mouth organ. So, planning an emergency escape route in case of extreme mokai, we sat v. close to the exits. TO our astonishment, it turned out to be far more than fantastic.An instrument , totally dependent on numerous tongue techniques, its supposed to be v. helpful to one's social life too. I could only then appreciate the talent of our balloon vendors playing 5 rs mouth organs on the roadsides.. THe second surprise was the soprano song .HAving seen opera as a joke on bollywood films all the time, with fat women screeching our heads off, i was truly stumped when the lead singer started her piece. The voice, the vibrations ,the emotions all bottled up in a sound so pure and magical, it brings out the most exotic and esctatic feeling, carrying us to the realms of strange far off lands. I wish ppl stop portraying wrong images of art forms they know not just to create a joke out of it for commercial entertainment purposes.

One of the advantage of being a layman in music is that we can happily enjoy the art, appreciate it, relish it without having the burden of identifying mistakes or having an inclination to judge and compare it with other musical forms. So was the case in my first experience in witnessing live wierd music.

My wonder visit

The clear blue skies and the fresh burst of mountain breeze welcomes one and all into this paradise on earth. What else can it be when a picturesique panorama of majestic mountains, rich in its lush green vegetation, plentiful rainfalls, spectacular snowy peaks, energetic rivers, valleys with its tiny villages and absolute beauty- fresh and innocent and unspoiled, greets the dusty, suffocated, straining eyes of city dwellers?! My 3 day stay at Manali or the place of human rebirth, nestled in the valleys of Himalayas, verified the authencity of its title to me. After leading a gruelling and beaten life of hustle- bustle with every waking moment spent as per timed to the minute, I was truly healed by the breath taking serenity of this charming village.
The trip to Rotong pass, though having failed us in our penance to see our first snow , still managed to provide an awesome adventure by trapping us in its maze of thick fog and mist. For the first time, I experienced what a fog blizzaard, a powerful wave of nauseating cold and frigid air , lack of O2 can do to a hale and healthy body. Our trip to Beas kund was successful and we managed to see the origin of the river that rules this part of the mountains, sweeping through the towns of kullu and manikaran.

Other must vist place in Kullu includes the Vasihnavi devi temple. Though still under construction, the temple induces peace and serenity to one and all alike, its setting over the Beas river mystically mersmerising the devotees and the wooden artwork in the tapestries- just fills us with awe. But the most remarkable of the lot are the idols of the Gods housed in its caves. Powerful, imposing, beautiful, a spark is felt by even the most athiest onlookers .

I guess i could write a complete tour book if I dont curtail my enthusiastic thoughts right now. So, I will just close up by asking all my jobless readers not to commute anywhere by Rajdhani express ever. A definite spoiler for any level of satisfying and happy journey, it just SUCKS BIG TIME.

The Last Sight

Thunderous waves crashing on the rocks,
A dense deep gloom filling the skies,
Torrents of wind ripping at my clothes,
I stand on the cliff, my heart over its edge.

Darkness closing in on all the sides,
Dangers flashing out from the angry tides,
Howls of the storm defeaning my ears,
my breath caught up in its furious gears.

The Black magic began, the heavens broke loose,
Spears of fires striking from the wretched hell,
Screams of fright and pains amidst,
The Dance of the God ruled free in all its might.

A beauty beyond perfection,
A power beyond imagination,
With the grace of an eternal fury,
Energy inconceivable by any mortal soul.

My sight blinded,my body, frigid
A life at the tip of Death's deadly jaws,
As my last second stretched away,
I plunged into the eye of this unknown Power.

-rt

ghosts of a bygone buddy

12 years ago..
in class 1 C, JAwahar Vidyalaya..

There was pin drop silence in the class of 48 monsters. All eyes were fixed upon 2 figures in the front of the room besides the teachers'vacant desk. THe air was filled with hostility and hatred. Proud and valiant with hair all wild and loose from a long undone plait, a huge black crease of correlium slashed across her small forehead, deeply wrinked and dirty pinoform clinging to her tiny frame, stood a girl facing an opponent twice her size and weight. She was my model of Xena,the warrior princess. The villain, the class bully, Parthiban circled around her watchfully and began the bloodshed with a fist on her face.Her howl was the cry of wild bull ready to kill. In a lightning fast movement, she jumped on her enemy's back, tearing at his hair. The fight has begun.

This is my friend of the past 15 years.Always ready for a fight, she was the terror queen of our class and my best friend. She was also my sole protector,defending my unberably shy and timid self against anyone who dared to taunt me in my trying, difficult childhood. Most of all, she was my role model(a solemn heroine who steals from her enemies, huge crayons n pencils to distribute amogst her allies,the voiceless )We swore to be blood buddies till we die.

Alas, fate couldnt help but challenge the strength of our friendship.Barely managing to pass the 2nd grade and having failed 3rd grade, my friend was moved to a different school. Yet, we kept in touch, true to our promise, even if we were not that blood buddies.

1 day ago:
I walked into my house, dead tired after driving in a monstrous Chennai traffic and drenched wet in the rain. Enters Xena (now clad in a neat salwar, pinned dupatta, long plaited hair, adorned with matching earning,necklace, bangles,rings, a new additional nose ring, and a purse)

me :HI!! HOW ARE YOU?! been such a long time..

xena: HEY Aarthi!ya.m fine.how r u?! well, m not speaking to u, dint even inform me that u came back! u ve changed a lot! A LOT! Look at you..OMG..wat have u done to ur hair? i hate it..(cries in horror)I so hate it.

me: just an unsuccesful experiment, it 'll grow back.chuck it.tell me, hows college?

xena: shut up. u ve changed so much.OMG! y are ur nails so long! wat r u? a tiger? its do dirty..Aunty, look at this..tell her to cut it NOW. wat u wearing! Aunty!send her shopping with me once. u r in college for God's sake. (pulls my ear and scrutinises it.) not wearing a earing! wre r those long lovely ones i got for u last time?
rants about my pitiful appearance, lack of dressing skills, pathetic sense of fashion for the next 15 min. pauses for a breath.
continues..
hey u gotto c this..my new diamond nosering. my mom got fr me for passing all my exams!its beautiful isnt it?! to think that i was last in my class to get my nose pierced!
runs over to my mom in kitchen to flash the tiny blob

after giving me a few blissful moments of privacy and peace,comes back to me.

gosh! its late..gotto head back. come, drop me home! cant travel alone..its already past 8 and the streets r dark..u kno, there is a psycho roaming around Chennai these days..cant go alone at all in nights! come on..

A mild migrane was already forming on my head. I dragged my beaten body to do us both a favour and marched her home. I managed to come back alone yet safe,caught in a daze more frightening than any phychos let loose , marvelling at the ways life can change a body, the ghosts of my friend,philosopher and mentor still haunting my mind.

the traumatic times of festivities

Its been two years since I spent a proper Diwali with crackers ,pudu dress, ofcourse cable TV movies), a proper Navrathri with our usual 5 storey golu bomma sets, hordes of maamis haunting our house and being forced to visit their houses and put under extreme tortures of singing my off key ,long forgotten carnatic songs. Its been 2 years since I celebrated a proper Krishna Jayanthi with plenty of home cooked sweets (unfortunately I dont happen to like most of the sweets) or a proper Karthikai deepam or ganesh Chaturthi. Yes, for tha past 2 years, I was completely absent form my home and dint have any opportunity to witness any of the trademark Hindu festivals which turned my house upside down when I was growing up there.

This came out as a surprise for me yet when I was thinking about the absence of cultural elements, of joyous festivities in my present life and lamenting the fact that I may never in future get that chance to participate in those again, there came a sense of peace and relief instead of worry and yearning. Being brought up in an orthodox (well, almost orthodox) Tam Brahm family, I was forced into participating all the usual religious rituals and festivals which I did with an air of complete indifference. THis has even started many disputes in my family as I happened to be unfortunate enof to not like things that are liked by all. i hate having guests at home, I am eco concious and forbid to bursting crackers on Diwali and I dont like sweets that I am forced to eat on every function. My mom has indeed taken pains to explain to me their significance yet it has failed to reach me as I could no longer connect them with the modern world we are all living in.

For example, NAvrathri festival which signifies the end of demon mahisaasura by godess Durga is a great ,enormous festival in India. It was also a great torture I had to endure every year. I cant understand why people still dont get the inconvineances of celebrating with golus is (>>> and != ) the intended meaning to inculcate the spirit of worshipping the GOdess Shakti in her differnt forms on the 9 days. It is a foremost chance for girl children to be tortured. I can hardly forget the times when my mom's ardent enthusiasm led her to dress me up in various veshams of Krishna and Rama (yes, with the flute , bow n arrow etc)and send me off to be admired to various houses of neighbourhood maamis, where I was to be owwwed and aawwwed at in my dad's veshti and an unforcomtable kondai complete with peacock feathers,to which I honestly cant accept the justification that Lord Krishna really arrives in our homes to admire the innocence and beauty of these child Krishnas ( I bet the children hated every single minute of the costume party and were cursing the God himself).

No.2, The popularity of distributing sundals, redistributing soap seepu kannadis that was already given by others, discriminating ppl on blouse bit issues might have been acceptable once upon a time as it served as the only source of entertainment , gossip, a fun fare for the brahmin women till mid 20th century.
But now it is merely an absolute waste of time and energy to have these extra pains of saravana stores shopping or calling on neighbours (whom we genrally hate), keeping track of beetal leaves and blouse bits amidst the usual strenuous household chores after a hectic day at work. I bet women now invisibly cry out in pain everytime a visiting maami insists on singing a huge krithi (which are now a days getting uncalled for ) and worse, prompting the hostess to sing an aarathi. The memory of my mom desparately trying to manage the guests, checking on sundal stockage while I am shouting for her help with homework still brings me a smile (ofcourse I am later to be scolded for not helping her out with chasing those maamis sooner by distributing the sundals earlier).

Its just that a lot of such traditions and rituals though meant well in earlier days are becoming completely useless in these changing times of the IT world. People, in the name of conservatism just dont realise the importance of moving forward and adapting to these changes . It is not that our traditions should be forgotten but why not change the rituals more suitable for today yet restoring the essense and spirit of the festivals?

Now, I have atlast found my peace with the dassara days. I do worship each of the significant Godesses on all those days privately, enjoy the beautiful golus at the temple and eat sundal prasadam for 1 day. how much more fun can Dassera get now that am even beginning to like sundal?!

Cab Dramas

Living in Singapore makes one accostomed to a lot of strange things. One such is the regular mundane convos with cab drivers. Every cab ride here is a different experience in itself. Infact I have had some of the best fun in cabs. There are basically 3 types of cabbies- one who constantly chatter your heads off in irritating Singlish.Usually these are over friendly elderly Chinese uncles with the same old question." what are you doing here la ?" and when the usual answer is computer/electrical engineering, he immediately tops it up with grand icings of advice
"what! computar?? why la? u coming india here doing computer..all computer everywre here, no jobs oredy la!..i tell u, computar no good la! no good".... for the entire ride.

type no 2 is the silent mum types which is a great relief after travelling in type 1's cabs . Yet the problem of the strict silence is that it dusnt give us a chance to decipher his mother tongue and sometimes makes us receive dark looks when passing the usual cabbie coments. Not to mention the common prob of hiring a cab, only later to realise the absence of money in the purse, and the apologetic request of paying by NETS which wont be unfortunately available on the cab , turning the scene even more fantastic. After the string of his vulgur swearing in Chinese when we try unsuccessfully to scrap the few 5 cent coins at the bottom of our wallets with a desparate hope to equate it into the enormous fare, "the get out" spitting out at the end needs no second telling. If looks could kill, i am lucky to have survived till now

type no 3 is the most interesting. I will have to mention a personal experience to describe them.
my frends and myself took a cab last year after dining at an excellent Indian restaurant.Tired to the bone after eating till our stomachs would burst, we got into a cab with a huge relief.The cabbie was a young Malay guy.
Sprawled on the back seat and amidst our sleepy talk about a satisfying meal, we heard a sudden high pitched scream..
"latchumeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"
and again..
"latchumeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee"

the blood drained off from my friend's face when we realised it was her name he was screaming in the 6th kattai pitch.

a hysterical laugh followed suit. and agian the screming started.
i couldnt hold back the storm of my laughter anymore. It was the hardest laugh I have had in my life, watching my friend's face during her name chanting.. I laufed till I was about to puke.
Later when we all stabilised, the guy cried out in full enthu, to my friend,
"your name is latchumeeee? my wife also latchumeeeee...i love latchumeeeee"
He supposedly so loved the name as he insisted vehemently on screaming it till we finally paid the fare 20 min later.

Last but not the least,few but not frequent, there are the "Anadha rakshaka" types. Recently, I met one such when we were going for our weekly Friday nite movie. My brilliant friend had booked tix online beforehand and we comfortably arrived at Jurong IMM 1 hr b4 the movie fr dinner. Our so planned scouting to dine at a new resto shattered as we were left to gawk at the mountain high prices on the menu cards. We regretfully accepted our destiny and made way to a Mc D outlet fr the usual junk. As usual we had miscalculated the timing and distance of the "nearby" theatre and had to run fr 800 m at top speed to catch the movie. The horror on our faces when the counter lady sweetly said we had arrived 5 min late at the wrong theatre must have been unmistakable. Alas, the same brilliant friend had muddled up the cinemas as well. We piked up our marathon and praying with all our mite to catch a cab, ran to and fro on the streets. After an agonising wait of 5 min, enter the good hero cabbie on the scene. The rush to Boon Lay theatre passed in a haze of cursings, swearings, shoutings, fightings. Thankfully the cabbie dint talk much but acted swifly using his brains. 20 min later, when we were seated on the correct theatre for the correct film, watching the title "Sex and the City" come up on the screen (due to a delayed movie start coz of too much advertisements) , I realised Gods do exist in this world and thanked the timely anadha rakshaka with all my heart.

of conflitcs..

what is right and what is wrong? our society dictates the rules of righteousness, our parents preach them, our religions decide them. and we follow. many times, we face a thin border between the dos and donts. maybe its just temptations, impulse or the supposed evil part of our mind that forces us to cross the line..v justify it later on grounds of circumstances in life.. we pacify ourselves and sometimes give a damn about the comments of the society. life's too short, i live the way i want. no one can tell me otherwise types..yet in some rare moments, we wonder, was that wrong? am i really doing the right thing? should i change? can i change? what if not? its always there..this tiny shade of doubt, guilt..burried under thousand other wants and desires..how many of us address it and face it, this jury within ourselves? is this a type of courage too? i know there is not a living soul that has walked this planet with absolutely no blemishes or acts of the wrong. as we age, so does this burden ..keeps gaining weight.The falsities that every man projects to the world yet fearing to face the facts within him..This makes me appreciate how blissful and peaceful infancy is , v can even say its the purest period of ones life..

A nowhere quest

I came across this article while surfing randomly.
http://is.gd/xHW
Its really a fascinating read..like real version of reel movies. But is this really necessary??
Human curiosity always drives him to lurk into any mystery that catches his fancy. and it does result in outstanding discoveries..But this is a bit far-fetched considering the wastage of time and money involved in the project. I wonder if they have thought what they are to do when they finally produce some erratic version of dinosaur..maybe a real Jurassic Park??
To know that this effort when used in productive causes like finding a cure for AIDS perhaps, may help millions of people and yet waste it to recreate a past that is best to be undisturbed makes us clearly see the flaw in human nature- a senseless creature with a 6th sense .

A book beyond imaginations - Eragon series

It has been a month since I read the book Eragon by chance but I am still under the spell of Christopher Paolini's enchanting magic cast through his 2 books. I can hardly wait for Brisingr to be released now. So, what is it about this book that has made countless like myself mad about it? Firstly,I would say it is the setting- dragons, riders, elves, drawfs, middle earth land types, sorcerers and the list goes on. On the first read one may find it a stereotypical Lord of the Rings copy but it is definitely not so. The Next beautiful aspect of this book is the writing. The words take the readers right into mystical dragon worlds till they would argue its authencity against every logical minded person dismissing the idea as childish and frivolous. For someone who is addicted to the fantasy world where nothing is impossible, I was so immersed in the story that I sat up debating with some of my irritatingly logical and sensible friends on how the concept is real, more real than their idea of real worlds. The characters especially the protagonist has more of flaws which makes it more realistic and interesting. I loved the parts where Eragon struggles with his futile attempts to master sword fighting and the lives of the ant explained by his mentor. We can discover a lot more than fiction if we read carefully through the lines and the language used to describe simple settings like a night sky is just brilliant. Moreover this sort of mythical stories invokes the hidden sense of imagination and absurd in all alike, helps us visualise and appreciate impossible things in a perfectly logical way. We develop the bent of mind to explore the sleeping Neverlands within us and what more than a beautiful story to cheer us in this mundane world of numbers and logic?

ps: please do not see the movie that is made out of this priceless piece of art. It not only rips the life of the book but also successfully shatters the wondrous fascination and destroys the beauty of the characters. It is absolutely a curse on the theme of magic.

A Summer of Work

This Summer adds itself to my 'list of firsts' as I am spending it productively for the first time in my life. No more whiling away time with all day naps or watching boring programs in a set top box - less cable connection and sinking into the deapths of vettiness all the while desparetely searching for anything that is not boring to do. Well, its been so good so far, with an interesting assignment and a no time for vetti jobs period.Just into week 2 of my stint, I have discoverd a lot more about work life...

1. I am completely physically drained out by each evening even though I couldn't think of any considerable input I had made for the day.
2. The long forgotten pain of waking up at 8 am every morning is an absolute torture.
3.Friday nites ,especially is simply a magic symbolysing the beginning of the short term freedom, a period of absolute bliss
4.My college life is now joined to the list of my happiest days of life.
5. A job with facing comps all day brings about a reformation so great that I have quit fiddeling with my comp in my free time or even watching movies and rediscovered the magic of books.
6. Lying in bed with a book bcomes one of the rare pleasures I treat myself to whenver I can.

No wonder people become staid after they join in the work mill.It feels like travelling on a never ending stretch of a land extending far into space and time until we lose all our strength to go forward anymore. I guess watching my dad come back from work everyday for the past 18 years with the same expression on his face popped this thought into me..Nevertheless, I believe its upto us to turn our own career moor into a colourful scenary with mountains and waterfalls to explore every day. After all, its better to do nothing than to do something you don't love brilliantly well. Hence my new goal : become an undercover tech investigator. Well, what's life, if u don't risk it and relish every moment by living on the edge!

The wall with the view

"Good Morning" greets the soft streams of yellow,
To the gentle breeze, fresh with mist.
Next begins the song of the tiny blue birds,
Welcoming the dawn with their dainty true words.

As I wake up with my heart full of pleasure,
To the magnificent magic of the morning sounds,
From my usual seat on the high terrece wall, I view,
Enraptured at the sight of the rising red king.

A huge sigh escapes from a longing soul,
The picture snaps shut with the elevator knoll,
Turning back from the CL balcony, burdened with quests,
Of solving innumerable tests..
My heart yearns for the wall with the view,
I console myself with poems of long lost loves in lieu.

The art of mugging

After spendind 2 yrs at the kingdom of mugging, I have successfully picked up a few tips on how to mug at last min fr the xams.. For those who are not familiar with the term mugging, it is tenting in the library 27/7 before the finals , robotically studying an alien subject with a tiny hope of passing the xam. Its a very challenging and complicated process that is highly taxing but makes one learn that there are some things in life that can only be left freee.. To xplain further, this is how it goes:

1. waste time choosing the " best " place to study which usually means goin around entire campus with a 4 kg back pack before suffereing from a back ache and settling down at a random useless place.

2. place issue over. 1 hr gone.. too tired to delve into studies now..so, open laptop - check mails ---> check orkut , facebook --->look at latest gossips, friends' albums etc.. 2 hrs productively spent. (at the worst case, some with a creative bent even write blogs about mugging then..)

3. BREAK OVER! come the studyings...open lecture notes, books reluctantly, stare stupidly at it for half hour, verify portions, stare stupidly for some more time and realise u ve become a dumb ass .noooooooooooooooooo.

4. open the gtalk (the one place where the entire cohort hangs around) and bitch about the subject, xams, NUS, singapore, life to evry online character.

5. become too much stressed ..u r freaking out..need a break desparately..open youtube, watch any videos- good, bad, ugly..still not satisfied ..move to sitcoms to peak at just one episode, another one, one more.. a season..goes on for 2 hrs b4 u realise u ve wasted 6 hrs altogether..

6. get even more stressed out. open lecture notes with a new vigour . " I gotto fight it..win..pass the subject somehow or the other"... mug, mug, mug..mug like crazy ..

7. look at past year probs to practice..just alien figures. turn all notes upside down to find if the prob is in or out of syllabus..no clue. look at other papers, realise its even worse.

8. accept the inevitable fact that u r doomed. go back to watching sitcoms till u fall asleep on top of the laptop. sleeeeeeeeep. beautiful sleeeeeep

repeat the same the next day till u go for the xam..do it pathetic. run to the nearest temple that weekend n start bribing God.

reality of lost love

A chance encounter in one of my friend's blog set me thinking about this: What do you do when you discover that you don't mean anything to the person you value the most ? Does "true love" actually exist? I am sure most of us would have experienced the first issue..if not they are indeed lucky! Getting emotionally attached to another person is one of basic human nature. The need for companionship along with the increasin sexual jizz creates an urge to involve in a relationship . But on one fine morning, when we realise that we are worth null to the other person, the sense of betrayal either pushes us to extreme anger towards that jackass which is soon followed by self pity and dejection. But is it that bad to reject life in general? Focussing more on self pity and comtemplation of death just gets us to the noose. I was surprised when some one I know stated the pain caused by love failure is greater than death.

I agree I haven't experienced this amount of dejection in all of my 18 years and I am kind of happy for it. But I think its rather stupid to expect "true love" as described in novels or films in the first place. Everyone one is born into this world without their own choice and so every one tries their best to adapt and survive. More than just survival, we want to gain power, compete with others, have more than other people and "achieve" which means doing somehting different that gives you a recognition over others in the world.In order to solve the problem of loneliness throu the way , most of us get married. I , who is getting the life sucked out from me through total lack of interest in my studies and grinding pressure of my univ to force me into it , lack of motivation and sense of inability to do anything worthwhile attest that people plunge into marriage pool just to escape this hell of skool and even more dreaded work life. With all these monsterous things torturing you in life, you find your sole happiness in marriage and voila, there is love.

Some one asked me what is the meaning in life, if there is no one to return your love.. If we all live till the age of 70, making the best out of what we have, we 'll definitely have someone who loves us before we die. if not, we can die being proud about the vast amt of experience ( even if entirely bitter) we have had and how v managed to live throu all that without quitting. In the meanwhile, why worry about it and waste time when we have so much things to explore in this wild jungle!

singapore speaks ?

hey! Due to some micracle of God, there is finally some spice in the ever monotonous life in this concrete jungle. The case of an escaped convict! It is extremely hyped about as there are not many convicts who actually manage to escape the iron grip of the Singapore police force and also, because of the extremely scarce info released by the Government on such a rare case. The first question that pops in our mind on hearing of a prison break is "how". But this still remains unanswered even after scrounging through every issue of the state controlled newspapers. I found out from some public blogs that he managed to escape through a toilet in a detention centre. We are forced to conjure up a Shawshank redemption dupe scene for the secret of the shocking escapede as the press sleeps under the thumb of the close mouthed government. The most ridiculous thing is that the press permits the readers comments on such sensitive issues only for a very short period and is published on rare occasions after heavy sensoring . The amount of state domination in press and information sector can be seen clearly through this incident. People are denied basic facts to cover up the mistakes of government and there is absolutely no platform for them to even voice out their opinions in the activities of the State. A clear monopoly in politics is established by raising each MP' s pay to 1 million $ per mnth. The same party rules irrespective of the public vote, the same rules apply no matter what people think. Infact the people here are afraid to form any sort of judgement on political issues. Many of my Singaporean friends just don't bother with the trouble of thinking about certain issues and voicing out their opinins as there is simply no use. I really have to say though admn of Indian Govt is a mess, it is so much more livelier as every one in the country knows whats happening and doesnt hesitate a minute to dish out comments and take part in the gossip mill.

long time musings

Now, I know for sure that some words like responsibility , resolution etc. have utterly no meaning in my life. My previous blog was my umpteenth try to instill the habit of blogging just for the heck of testing a long time hypothesis which has been proved correct - Habit is not in my genes. I can't remember the web address of the first blog I had written in my life due to the persuation of literally ALL of my friends. My second blog lies stranded in a web site , the password of which is buried amidst the unfathomable depths of junk thoughts inside my brain. My third attempt at it is slightly better off as I sit down to continue with it after a break of 3 months. This time I got the drive to write after suffering from a strong inferiority complex that arose from browsing through the never ending blog of a childhood friend, who honestly, cudn't open his mouth and manage to string 2 sentences together in class. I fear my personal journal is lagging behind by 1 year already.

Well, since I have successfully re opened my account , I plan to fill a huge entry pooling everything I want to say for all this break time . My fourth sem in college started in a surprisingly smooth fashion and I slipped into the way of things seamlessly in my foreign home. I don't think I 'll ever understand the amount of changes I have undergone since I came to singapore. Even for someone who embraces changes, its quite disconcerting to find those changes amidst constant struggles. One of the biggest of which most of the foreign students face here is the struggle to find themselves a real identity. In a land filled with a kaleidoscope of different cultures, languages and people, the greatest puzzle is to figure out where we to fit in, how to feel recognised and how to belong . One of my friends had written a precise article about this issue. I still can't cope up with it most of the times, however hard I try. The weight of being just another of the 33,000 students studying in this campus, the quest for trying to create a true self identity, the disappointments on its failures puts a nice hollow feeling of demoralisation at the end of the day . I never ever imagined all this troubles spewing out in my happy fantasies of travelling and living abroad. Sometimes, I wonder about breaking free from this place and returning to my homeland but will I mesh in there? I feel the difference growing every time I travel back to India during my vacations. The familiar homested becoming strange to adapt to, my long time friends drifitng away, frustration with the way of living...There are a few cross roads in life where you make some decisions that change you forever, those that once made don't offer you an opportunity to turn back. All you can do is to move on and find out what else is in store. With that thought, I too go through one day at a time, relishing the unexpectedness , overcoming the daily challenges , in search of a destiny that stubbornly remains shadowed yet showers the path with doubts and confusions.

note : I am seriously considering to change my major to philosophy since even in my blogs, i can't think of anything happy to write..