Dr. Seuss: "'Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.'"

OH k .. so this is another early morning posts thanks to waking up all night! The keywords for this post should be:

• a cold aloo paratha,
• the track 'Tu Hi Re' from the movie Bombay,
• CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) !!
• Test 1 blues

RTINation.com
"Let's change India while having our cups of tea"

Watched the movie 17 again ? Alright ... I watched this movie a month back .. found it a good watch, a happy-ending-and-good-feeling kinda movie. Yup, so its been a month and why am i talking about it today ! Well, a chain of events took place yesterday,and finally, here we are, talking about the movie! Here we go:

Yesterday I watched another movie, I Love You Man ! Yeah, the message is right there in the name itself .. but trust me, the movie is not exactly about homosexuality. I'm not being a spoil sport.. just watch the movie for yourselves. Now, there's this scene in this movie when the guy makes the realization of his life and is driving his car and watching people.. but wait! There was something in here .. I paused it. The music .. the background score! I replayed that scene .. and keenly listened to the background score.. man, it was good! And I had heard it.. got no clue as to where or when, but I'd heard it and I was pretty sure of it. And I had probably liked it when I'd heard it the last time .. where ... where ... ah, I thought a lot .. on the radio.. no, I checked my playlist , no, I don't have it! Where were where ..
Fine! I gave up and continued with the movie .. and when it ended, i again went to the same scene and played .. and tried a lot to remember, but in vain !

Alright, next day (that's today), I was quietly having dinner and I suddenly .. damn! I remember where I had heard that track! Yeah, it was a scene in the movie 17 again!! Ha ha !! I know I where I had heard that track! Gosh, I got it! There was a scene in the movie '17 Again': somewhere around 20 minutes down the beginning of the movie there's this scenewhen Zac Efron comes out of his car in his new college. And in the background, the same track was playing! Ah, yeah! I looked into the movie 17 again, and yeah, when I scrolled to that scene, I paused.. and the played ... and the background score went:

Picture yourself in a living room,
your pipe and slippers set out for you,
I know you think that it ain't too far,


Bingo! I was right! I googled out the lyrics:

Title: Spoon - The Underdog lyrics

Picture yourself in a living room,
your pipe and slippers set out for you,
I know you think that it ain't too far,
But I,

I hear the call of a lifetime ring,
felt the need to get up for it.
oh, cut out the middle man
get free from the middle man.

You got no time for the messenger,
got no regard for the thing that you don't understand.
You got no fear of The Underdog,
that's why you will not survive.

I wanna forget how convention fits,
hmmm, but can I get out from under it?
Well I cut it out of me.
.....

Ah, the first day of the 3 day long little vacation just got over! Though work's always there, the freedom from lectures and classes for even a short time gives a lot of relief.

Career Development Cell inductions are going on .. first phase got over yesterday .. it was a written round where we asked the students to answer a few questions and based upon that answers, we selected some 30 odd candidates for interviews to be held today. An interesting feature of CDC inductions, which has been pertaining since the last 2 inductions is the last question of the first round, and that's the 'BLANK' question. After 4 normal questions, the 5th question is the 'BLANK' question where the students are asked to do whatever they like .. anything at all (in the boundaries of the a4 size paper they have! :)  ). Yesterday, some wrote poems .. some drew .. some wrote jokes (semi-lame ones) .. some wrote quotations , proverbs .. etc etc ..and some did something that we almost couldn't comprehend thanks to the illegible handwriting and the amazing drawing skills (and a mixture of both).

Anyways, I have to take the interviews today, hoping to rope in some talent by the end of the day! :)

[PS: For those who don't know about Career Development Cell, i'd write an exclusive post on it soon ..]

The wreckage of Air France flight 447 is now being found. All the passengers are feared dead. Its being said that this would be one of the most tragic accidents in the history of Air France, the last being the crash of a Concorde in 2000. The French PM has exclaimed that it is becoming extremely difficult for the military to recover the debris from the ocean since the depth there is more that 7 km , and the area under inspection is around 400 miles off coast! This distance from the mainland proves to be yet another hurdle for the deployment of military services.
Experts are giving theories on how the plane would have crashed but no concrete explanations have come out yet. Things should become much clearer when the black box is recovered, but till then all we can do is wait.
The friends and relatives of more than 200 passengers on board would be in shock. Most of the times we have either terrorists, or military or sometimes human error to blame, but at times like these, we have none!

sagar is at home
sagar is stretching his legs and basking away in the vacations
sagar is excited
sagar is waiting
sagar is teaching a calculator how to claculate
sagar is looking ahead

The aroma of steaming maggi noodles filling my room, thanks to the fact that the incredible dinner in the mess was casually skipped and later regretted when the stomach started shouting, "i'm hungry " !! Busy days ahead, and the ones that have just passed. Spree 09, the annual national sports festival of BITS Pilani, Goa Campus has just grown so extravagently in the last couple of years that it makes you notice the transformation when people refer to it now as 'the sports festival' from 'a sports festival' ! So many brains have worked, so many ideas have clashed to eventually make it the hottest sports festival. Ofcourse , things don't always go perfect, and sometimes, not at all perfect (like the flag getting temporarily stuck during the big inaugration ceremony), but it is definitely amazing to see the whole festival coming out successful.

Oh k this is one of those strange, and very unlikely 'sunday' morning posts :) . When Sagar Jauhari is blogging on a Sunday morning, it means three things: First, that Sagar had an exam early morning, or second, that Sagar didn't sleep the whole night in anticipation of something (possibly tests!! ), or third, that Sagar 'actually' woke up real early! Now, this time it is the second reason, and the reason for the second reason is also the most obvious, 'tests' ! And then, there's a YES!+ gathering and followup at 8am, and I just didn't want to miss it, so I kicked off the sleep out of me becoz had I slept, I would have definitely missed it ! And well, after I was feeling great about myself for being so 'considerate', 'responsible' etc etc for the followup, I actually went about in the hostel waking up all YES!+ enthusiasts! :) "I've waken up entire night, my friends, you think I will let you have the most adorable sunday morning sleep! No ! " And so , some people woke up instantaneously (my pleasure), some people woke up making weired noises (Walia opened his door rubbing on his eyes and grunted loudly when he saw I had woken him up @ 7:30 on a SUNDAY !! It was a squeeky sound similar to that made by rusty doors, or when you inflate a baloon and hold it tightly with your thumb and index finger and then let tiny gap of about 0.23 mm between them (Dums would surely appreciate this number!! ). I have other analogies, but let me keep them to myself for the time being ), some others like Rav denied straight away (they must be cursing under their breath.. I just wish they saw their clocks .. ah!! ).

And well, 13 minutes left for the meeting and just now Mudit came to my room to ask what time is everyone leaving for the SAC. Having just shaved on this 'Sunday morning' my friend hasn't realized that his entire left cheek is covered with foam :). And I am not telling him till we reach SAC !!

Just see how everyone transforms into on a Sunday Morning! I can still hear the sound of Counter Strike somewhere in my hostel, on a weekend, play overnight

Ohk, anurag is calling, I have to go !

That's the book I am currently reading, 'The White Tiger', by Aravind Adiga. Fresh style, that's the first thing that came to my mind after reading the first few pages. What I loved the most is the lucid language and the uncommonly short sentences! Keeping connectives at the bay, Aravind Adiga has very effectively shown how a common lower class Indian man thinks ('Indian' is the most important adjective here). He has written about incidents which we wintness everyday, but somehow, fail to acknowledge, or, maybe, dont' want to comprehend! Just like the recent blockbuster 'Slumdog Millionaire', this book describes the feeling, the thought process and the reactions of people living much below what can be called 'comforatble' in our terms.
The story is that of a man called Belram who works for a family in Delhi as a driver and is written in first person. The series of events that take place and the author lands Belram in a situation he had never dreamed of ! :)

An exciting beginning of a week, with time flying as never before ! Saturday had mid-sem exam, Tuesday (today) had a practical exam, and 2 reports, and a microprocessors lab on video graphics (of which we had no idea of , thanks to the earlier commitments ! And the gaps between all these events filled with strange, but unforgettable happenings! And each happening leaving it trace for the future in the form of a realization of a point where I had gone wrong, or where I had been simply waiting for time to run its course with me, being a mute spectator!

Life's very short, and time is now ! That's something I've learnt at last!

Now that I actually realize something I always thought I believed: Travel, apart from the temporary insomniac behavior it renders, the prolonged time of waiting to reach the destination it does has its advantages !
For example today, in the train from Mumbai to Goa, I happened to get a seat with a couple of elderly people. I noticed that the man sitting beside me had some complication with his left arm. He was continuously holding it with his other limb and lifting it with effort. Now and then he looked at his hand and unfolded his fingers with pain (the impulsive cross lines on his forehead revealed enough). I have always seen aged people with an eye of respect: men and women with experience, who have seen time much more than me, who might be feeble and weak, but their minds have stories which would take eons to narrate. But today, I realized another side of old age when I asked this person about his problem.

But, before that, let me rewind the story to the point where I actually started getting interested to know more. Earlier, after I had had my home-made lunch, I realized I somehow had a couple of candies in my bag. I offered one to the old man thinking that he would definitely reject it ( u know, mature stuff, candies are for kids and allied .. ), but he gratefully took it from me! And in no time he was fiddling with the wrapper trying to find a way how to remove the wrapper from the candy! His eyes were weak, and one arm was being used with effort, he was slow considering his age, but he was keen to remove the wrapper and wasn't being able to. I couldn't hide my smile and offered to help. At this. he hurriedly gave it to me as if all he wanted was to unwrap the candy by whatsoever means! He was impatient. And there, in the next 5 seconds after I had been successful in helping, he seemed to relish it in his mouth. That's when it struck me that we are born innocent, and towards then end, we tend to become the same! And then I started noticing this man sitting beside me whom I was unknowingly generalizing as a typical old aged person.

I told you about his arm, and after being a bit inquisitive about my observations, I asked him about the arm. He suddenly sprung up and started telling me with grave eagerness his answer in some language I didn't know. But I could make out that some doctor at some place in Mumbai had given him 7 injections in the chest because of the ailment. He told all this to me, all annoyed, and mentioned the 'injection' with great stress. Yes ! He was afraid of injections and was all the more proud of having let the doctor do it to him. Just the thought of having 'survived' 7 injections gave him such a deep sense of pleasure and made him feel brave ! :) It is just like children , when they do petty things that they definitely are proud of, then try to tell it eagerly to anyone they come across! They would tell it in detail, using as much gestures as possible, waving their hands, nodding to make you understand that they really have done a great job. And you just praise them and that's all they want ! And I could see the same thing here when he was pointing his index finger towards his chest and wrinkling his forehead when he was talking about he injections. I smiled.

So this is something I learnt! When we would grow old, we would revert back to what we were when we were kids. We would need help waling, talking and eating. And we would need people to praise us for things that we call 'petty' or 'insignificant' at this point of time. This is the circle of life.

Now why am I writing all this? In old age physical strength deteriorates, mental stability diminishes. And what are we doing to sort it out? We can't solve the problem but we can help people through this! We are establishing old-age homes, we are giving them concessions at various levels, we are giving them medical treatment at discounted rates. A minute. Who is 'we' here ? Did I use 'we'. I should have used 'they', because have 'we' done anything till now? It is 'they' who are actually working. It is the will of the men in Ahmedabad where 5 star facilities are being given to an old age home called 'shravan ashram'. It was in Chandigarh where the week-long NSS camp of Dev Samaj College for women concluded its valedictory ceremony at Old Age Home this New Year. Numerous agencies and NGOs are working in your city with the motive to bring a bit more life to the people in the sunset years of their lives. Again the question comes, what can 'we' do ? We can start with thinking about them as our immediate ancestors, fountains of experience and innocence. Not following the regular trend of seeing them as liabilities or as a burden, but feel responsible for them and their condition. There are mothers, fathers, grand mothers, grand fathers, uncles, aunts, old neighbors who need to be looked after responsibly, who need to be taken care of because they are just like the children we see. The only difference is that we are beginning to follow a culture of selective respect. Traditionally, in most world histories, you can find that the elders were always respected and given a rightful position in the family. All the family decisions would first be consented by them. They were taken care of and cherished as persons of knowledge. It becomes our duty to make sure these values are not forgotten.

Well, the first tests of the semester are coming again with all the
strange i-wish-i-had-studied feelings ! :D Starting from the 14th, with
not much gap after our 3 day annual technical festival, QUARK 09, the
testes are proving somehting like a surprise after the much enjoyed
times during the festival! Chalo, anyways, hoping for the best .. (hope
the average stays low low low !! ;) )

--
cheers,
Ocean