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!)

#

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.

A apwptga pmpt

Thp gp jtpt tm andtpd wmt? Dmdpmt pdakw mdam amwthmg. Wmt bm pgq gm wmtp pamtp dmp ak g bpd

'Kant' explain[ed]

Cause: Sunday morning. 8: 30. And u can’t go to sleep. There’s nothing u could be possibly doing.

Effect: Blogging.

A priori synthetic: When u have nothing to do, u HAVE to do something.

A posteriori analytic: Sunday mornings are meant to be spent in the bed.

The Transcendental Unity of Apperception: The blogger is unknowable. “I” is aware that there is an “I” subject, or self that accompanies all of my experience and consciousness. But since I only experience it in time, which is a "subjective" form of perception, I can never know directly that "I" that is appearing in time as it might be "in itself", outside of time.

Noumenon: A mess-worker bringing ur breakfast to ur room.

You have two cows

Unimaginative/Pragmatic people: You have two cows.

Light bulb Jokes: How many cows does it take to change a light bulb? Two

Absolute Monarchy: The king has two cows. At the end he gets hanged, and so do the cows.

Cambodian Communism: You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

Enron Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank. He then executes a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by your CFO who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on six more. The public buys your bull.

Fatalism: You have two cows. You die.

Pure Communism: Your cow is my cow too. My cow is none of your business.

Representative Democracy: You have two cows. Your neighbours pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

Totalitarianism: You have two cows. The government takes them and denies they ever existed. Milk is banned.

The 3 Dot Language: ...

Two Cows: You have us.

Catcher in the Rye: This one time, you had two cows, but then you got to thinking about all the phonies getting their milk and that made you kind of sad so you let them go.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: You have 42 cows.

The Fountainhead: I have two cows.

Terry Pratchett: You thought you had two cows, but in reality one was the Death of Cows and went 'MOO' all the time, whereas the other was actually someone who had severely annoyed a witch. This sort of thing happens an awful lot.

Nietzsche: Two cows are dead.

Rastafarianism: Let's smoke these cows!

Nihilism:

Pragmatism: There are cows.

Minimalism: Cow. Cow.

Yoda: Two cows, you have.

R2D2: beep beep blip beep

Michael Jackson: Hey, are those two calves?

Oscar Wilde: "You have two cows." —Oscar Wilde

The Oracle: "Having two cows is like being in love, Neo."

Monty Python and the Holy Grail: We are the Two Cows Who Say Ni!

Descartian Analysis: You think, therefore you have two cows.

Cowell Analysis: Those are quite possibly the worst two cows I have ever heard.

Unknown Analysis: To err is to be human. To have two cows is bovine.

Tamil: Ungalidam irandu Pasukkal ullana. Pasu paal kodukkum.

Manipuri: Nangi san ani lei.

Pink Floyd (Syd Barrett): I've got two cows. You can milk them if you like.

Pink Floyd (early 70s): You have [17 minute instrumental] Two cows

Q&A

Q: Imagine u are a kid studying in say, 9th or 10th standard. What is more satisfying than going to a reputed institute, playing against their team, and getting to drink lots of cold drinks for free?
A: Going to a reputed institute, playing against their team, raping them and getting to drink lots of cold drinks for free.

Q: Which one is better, a dreamless sleep or one with a dream?
A: Dreaming 4 or more dreams at a stretch.

Q: What is better than chatting, playing football, watching endless episodes of 'That 70's show' and 'The Scene' and reading Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen?
A: Chatting, playing football, watching endless episodes of 'That 70's show' and 'The Scene' and reading Thomas Hardy and Jane Austen, when everyone else is slogging his ass off for quizzes.

Visi, vidi, vici

Four hectic days of Shaastra (arguably the best technical festival in India; those who disagree may google for ‘directions to hell’) just got over. And its end has brought in a terrible lethargy in me. Basically, things are back to normal.

Shaastra, to a lot of people in the institute, is a time for an extended siesta. In fact, a lot of people just ‘crash’ through it. For some, it’s a time to DC++ all the movies and series they have been craving to see for long . Yet, for some, it’s a time for a trip to a nearby hill-station or to go home.

But then, there are the participants, which I have taken in a wider perspective to include those who come here for bird-hunting (or watching) and not for the events. I’m sure they had lesser to complain this time. The birds were indeed a soothing balm to the sore eyes of tired participants . They would not participate in any event but just stand like mannequins the entire day. It would make good economic sense to use them rather than posters for ads. Most people look at them, not at posters.

The events occupied my whole day and the nights were spent in planning (which took more time than actually making it) and making a model or two for the next. Squeeze in two hours of football practice and a match (which I unashamedly admit we won; so what if it was against a bunch of school-kids) in the torturous morning sun. And, u know I am grateful that I’m not a vegetable yet.

On the flip side, we did win an event (The Incredible Machine) on the first day and came second in a major event later (The Puzzles Championships), which is more than enough reward for our toil, before and during the fest. And then, there’s a rocket and a glider that we made out of our own sweat, blood, and anabond. Though, we were a bit disappointed when they performed below par. At least we got a lot of oh’s and ah’s for our aesthetic design!! Lesson learnt: Anabond sticks almost anything, and quick.

(An anabond ad would look something like this: A guy is caught in a not so flattering situation with a girl. The culprit, however, is not his intention, but anabond, which has stuck his limbs in all the wrong positions. The girl’s dad comes and gives a stern look at him. The guy manages to slip an anabond tube to him. And everything is cordial again. Then, comes a subtle tagline and a voice-over – “Anabond bonds everything. In seconds.”)

Coming back, Shaastra as a whole has been better and won the ISO 9001:2000 certification again. What with better organized events, less events cupping, bigger budget and most importantly, more prize-money. Most events started on time (which was indeed a surprise for some Shaastra veterans), perhaps thanks to the QMS team, whoever they are. The spirit of engineering models – both the hovercraft and the smart-bridge worked (after two years of disastrous failures). And the main quiz was what it always has been – elitist (though not many are complaining). At least it doesn’t start at midnight to go into the wee hours of dawn like the Saarang MQ. U know what to expect when u are shown 2/3 vague pictures with the quizmaster breathing a constipated, “ Machha, put fundaes da.” Or “ Connect da.” But it sure is an unforgettable experience going through the very well-researched (read vague) questions with equally vague (and quite creative) answers.

Some events were scrapped for varied reasons, most notably Tech Cluedo and Ai-wars. In fact, Ai-wars/ AI- bots was the most searched strings in Shaastra this time!! Seems like the co-ords did too decent a job last year leaving little room for improvement! I would love to see the event bounce back as it has a special place in me, having come second in it in my second year (which I did with less than 500 lines of code compared to the thousands people made). A lot of people called it a fluke. I still call it a stroke of genius.

Anyways, it has been quite an experience indulging in the plethora of activities, as consuming and exhausting it may have been.

Cut to the present-
Alarm. Classes.
Life goes on.

8:40 a.m.

Alarm. Class.
Life goes on.

Confessions of a peculiar mind

It is that time of the day (night?) when my mind works at its weirdest. There’s no-one I can bug in the wing, and that sweet slumber is eluding me. There’s nothing that seems to interest me. My mind is in a maze – not a maze exactly, but…. u know what I mean. I’ve tried doing every possible thing in my book – watched T.V., surfed all my favorite sites, chatted, orkutted, smsed, called, tried reading a book, watching a movie, listening to my favorite playlist and what not. I would have ended up watching a movie but for the faggots who wont give me any slot to download from. I’m gonna buy another hard disk to store all the movies I want and I wont give them to anybody, I swear.

I even washed those clothes that have been soaking in the bucket for the past two days. Still, my mind is like a taut string, ready to snap any moment.

I want to bug someone on phone, but the validity on my cell just got over. I want to bang someone’s door and ask the time, just to see that look on his face (it’s not that funny, actually). But then, my conscience suddenly starts screaming at me, and it's not using the most decent of languages. Suddenly, the clock chimes 2:30 and I realize what shit I am stuck in. It’s another matter that I don’t have any clock that chimes, and even if I had, it won’t have chimed at the half-hour. In fact, it was 2:30 quite sometime ago. And presently, my clock is out of batteries. Bacially, the whole thing I said above is just fart.

I have a class at 9 in the morning tomorrow morning (in fact, today), but it still seems all too distant to me. The thing is, this prof has this contorted look on his face that makes him seem to hate giving the lecture more than we hate attending it. U hardly get inspired by that.

Ideally, I should be asleep and dreaming of some sweet and beautiful things. Though the dream part really doesn’t matter cuz I’ve not been dreaming of late. But I should be sleeping, at least. Sleeping without dreams is fine, u always seem to get enough sleep that way, but sometimes u want to have a beautiful dream – some deja-vu-ish ending to a beautiful day. Sometimes, it so happens that even though my mind is a bagful of oozing creativity and restless activity, my body demands a befitting rest to a tiring day.

I am c's weary body. Stop this. It’s 3 o’clock, for chrissake!! I can't type anymore.

ding!

Where is my home?

Was google-earthing..
Thought of taking a snap-shot of my place. It's not very clear. But A looks like Kangla-park. The yellow line must be Tiddim Road. And, B sud be my place (the circled part is the airport).
Nostalgia!!

A dream

i was hugging her
i slept

i dreamt
i was carrying her
she was a child

i woke up
i was hugging her

Because We Can

“I was floating above heaven; I think that’s why nothing made sense.”

“Do you hear yourself? You’re not making any sense!”

“I know, it sounds crazy, but I’m telling you, the only reason we didn’t know is because we brought it with us.”

“What?” His fists had unclenched he was interested again.

Johnnie just smiled, ” Earth.”

There was a long pause, the interrogation had to have a break, and the officer just paced the room looking around, thinking hard, as one does when given a paradox of their reality. He turned, curious as ever, and began again. “Why did you do it, then? Why would anyone do it, Johnnie?”

Johnnie just shrugged and grinned, as he was prone to do since he got back. “Because we can.”