You killed Kenny, u bas%%$*

“God is dead. Actually, He committed suicide. And the system swept the entire episode under a massive carpet before anyone got to hear of it.” -an atheist from Area51.
In our institute parlance, the word refers to someone outstanding, or someone who looks outstanding.
God. n. Someone who is outstanding or someone who looks outstanding. (syn. stud).
adj. god-level (syn. ultimate, too-much)

There is this legendary fellow, whose legends are unrivaled, at least not yet. History has decided to honor him with a new phrase attributed to his name, which for the nonce, shall be taken as K. As putting a grand-slam refers to bunking four continuous classes, putting a K refers to bunking all the classes in a week! (as of now he’s the only one who has done it). Our guy prefers to spend hours in the gym performing mental exercises, rather than getting involved in trivial pursuits. He has risen above the worldly issues like grades and classes. What are classes to thee for who quizzes and end-sem exams are, but a distraction? More bytes can be written on this guy than the entire rationalist universe has written on the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

This brings me to a pertinent issue. The unfortunate event that happened in Mumbai a week back has rung the panic bells in the establishment, and there are rumors of plans to cut down the internet hours to 8 hours a day (or night). The argument– a considerable slump in attendance due to heavy use (read abuse) of the net, and recurring cases of ‘sleeping in the class’. The students are too busy with the lan and internet at night that they miss classes the next day.

I have some points to make here.

1. Bunking classes and/or sleeping in class has no relation to having a comp or not. I personally know a guy who has 30% attendance and bunks classes because he’s too lazy to wake up. He doesn’t have a comp. His is not an isolated case. K, of whom I have ranted above, doesn’t have a comp.

2. Will trimming the surfing hours ensure that students won’t bunk classes for surfing? Those who have to surf/chat/play games will do it whenever they get a chance, whatever time it may be.

3. Lack of interest in a class is a liability of the professor and the blame should not be shouldered by the student(s) alone. There are profs who don’t crib about and don’t take attendance but still gather a sizeable number of students each class because the class is interesting. Profs should concentrate on making classes more palatable.

I guess it’s high time they ended this endless and relentless Taguchi simulation, with the students being tossed around as convenient golf-balls. (Anyone who gets this joke gets a gulab jamun treat at Dhaaba!)

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Movies, movies and more movies in the last few weeks.

• Crash
• The bicycle thief
• Rouge
• Revolver
• The man who copied
• Groundhog day
• Jimmy Page and Robert Plant: No Quarter.
• Closer
• Googlewhack
• Secret beyond the door
• Waking life
• Fear and loathing in Las Vegas
• Run, Lola, Run
• The elephant man

A brazilian zillion thanks to DC++. Reviews coming up in my ‘end-sems-over-what-the-hell-am-i-gonna-do’ period.

And I choose to be busy.

Waking Life

A metallic cold seeped through my skin as the muzzle pressed close to my chest, almost touching my ribs. That instant, fear gave me a strength – an infinite strength – that was adequate to displace the gun and make my escape. I ran for my life.

Passages, alleys, boulevards blurred past me as I ran, ran and ran. Perhaps, I would have run more had I not hit a dead end. The edge of a cliff, to be more precise. There was no way I could run back. I just could not do that. I had to decide, fast. Then it hit me – I could jump.

I jumped. I floated down like a feather, the winds carrying me tenderly in its arms. I experienced a holy moment – one that seemed to last for eternity. I was placed gently on the laps of a pool of water. Then, the moment came to an abrupt end as it dawned on me that I knew not how to swim.

But I just knew what to do. I decided to wake up.

*****

“And as one realized that one is a dream figure in someone else’s dream, that is self-realization.”
-Federico García Lorca

Lucid dreams are dreams where you are aware of the fact that you are dreaming. The movie “Waking life” (8.3/10) explains the phenomenon of lucid dreams pretty intelligibly. This guy gets trapped in a dream where he dreams and awakens in the dream itself, going on in an endless loop. It’s a case of false awakening, where one dreams of being awakened.

You can test if you are having a lucid dream by a few simple methods. Read some text, look away, and read it again, or look at your watch, and remember the time, look away and look back. In most dreams, the text or the time would have changed. Also, light switched don’t generally work and reflections on mirrors are blurred or distorted.

Lucid dreaming can be induced too. The knowing and thinking about it itself is a precursor to lucid dreaming. A concerted effort to experience it will certainly result in one, though the ability to control the dream may vary from individual to individual.

More often than not, I’m aware of the fact that I am dreaming while still dreaming. It seems to give me a chance to do stuff which I cannot do normally, in my real life. For instance, I can swim in my dreams, or take some steps in thin air which I am otherwise not capable of doing. And sometimes, when you are in trouble in a dream, or on the verge of having a nightmare, you can ask yourself if u are in a dream and snap out of it. I haven’t really explored the possibilities, but plan to whenever I have such dreams. One problem I have, though, is my inability to recall my dreams.

One aspect of this is having a déjà vu in dreams. A sequence of events which u know has happened before in a previous dream, but never in ur real life. There are even some people u have never met in real life, but keep bumping to in ur dreams. This is freaky.

Dreaming is something I have always loved to indulge in, perhaps concurrent with my desire to sleep. Maybe, it is time to take it a bit seriously. This line from the movie ‘Waking Life’ sums up my feelings fairly accurately.

"They say dreaming is dead, no one does it anymore. It’s not dead. It’s just that it’s being forgotten. I am trying to change all that. By dreaming everyday."

The last meeting

He heard his name being called in the distance. He recognized the voice; it was Jenny’s.

He had wanted to ask her why she was absent today, but before he could say anything, she had started to speak. She never stopped talking once she started talking.

“Your van has not come yet”, she observed.

His van was late again. These days, the driver was being very careless. He didn’t care much, but his mom was worried.

She continued, “We’re going home. Dad says it’s not safe here anymore. I don’t know if we’ll come back again.”

Jenny and Deep studied in the 5^th standard and were in the same section. While Deep stayed a few kilometers away, Jenny stayed along with her aunt in a flat in the teachers’ quarters.

He looked at her keenly, expecting her to continue talking, as she always did. But she unusually fell silent, and had stopped smiling. He hardly saw her without a smile. It was getting awkward for him.

“Why didn’t you come for class today?” he broke the silence.

“Aunt and I had to do some packing. Hey, do you think we are good people?”

The question took him by surprise, and it was not just the way she asked it. There had been some talk in the class about Jenny’s people being bad and all. But he hardly understood what it meant. Jenny always wore a smile and was nice to him. He didn’t understand why her people won’t be nice.

He saw his van arriving, and heard Jenny’s aunt call her.

“I have to go now. We can’t afford to get late”, Jenny said.

He wanted to ask her when she was getting back. But before he could open his mouth, she was already talking.

“We may or may not come back. I can’t say anything. Even my dad doesn’t know. My aunt is calling; I have to go now. You take care of yourself.”

“You too”, he managed to say.

She smiled. It was good to see her smile again.

He got in his van, and she walked away. She stopped as his van started moving, and waved. He waved back as his van started to pick up speed. She was still waving as the van went into the curve and before she went out of sight.

He hardly knew he was never going to see her again.