I rant without standing on ceremony

Today, I attended a function in the family, a sacred thread ceremony (Upanayanam) for a cousin. As in all other Tamil Brahmin ceremonies I have attended (or been forced to attend)
over the years, this required me to wake up at the unearthly time of 0430 hrs. This, the morning after the Cricket World Cup finals. The religious festivities were apparently scheduled to start at six. This got me thinking, and led me to pose a very profound question - "Why the HELL does everything have to be so early?!".

I vaguely remember my own Upanayanam (I think it was about 13-14 years ago). I was shaken awake at a similar ungodly hour and was tortured with a series of rituals I had no idea about. (The jolly course of things also included standing around for hours at end smiling at people I'd never met before - and probably never met since - and multiple baths in @#$#$@ly cold water.) The same early start principle was applied to weddings (not mine, of course), house-warming ceremonies, exclusive TamBrahm bingo sessions, EVERYTHING. Apparently that (by which I mean the period of 5 to 7 ante the freakin' meridian) is a very good time for the Gods, my reliable sources tell me. I guess the Gods work on American time.

My usual course of action at any such function, including marriages, is simple. I walk in with bleary eyes, glare at everyone around me, give the obligatory What-Ho to the (un)lucky boy/couple and head for the food. However, if I were to take a minute, sit down, take a deep breath and try to actually cast my mind back and recall the scenes of the various functions, smaller details come to mind... little things that appear, unfailingly, in every tableau of such an event. A wedding (or, yes, an Upanayanam) would not be a wedding (or, yes, an Upanayanam) without these.

If you were to give me an untold sum of money and say, "Go forth AC/Kaka/Arvind/whatever-moniker-you-know-me-by, and throw me a typical TamBrahm wedding!" I would ensure the presence of the following
a. Food. Lots of food.
b. Several middle to old aged ladies, commonly referred to as maamis (singular: maami).
c. Several arbitrary children running around at random.

Other add-ons such as the priest, the gifts and the poor saps actually getting married are practically a sideshow in the face of the above three constituents.

Let's take them one at a time

a. Food. Lots of food.
Served by often shady looking yet enormously gifted cooks, helped by shadier looking but astoundingly organized chaps serving the hungry hordes. They juggle 30 different forms of dishes and answer to random calls such as
- "More rasam!"
- "Water, dammit, water!"
- "There's a hair in my payasam!"
- "Has anyone seen my bride?"

Their phenomenal Logistics Management would put RaviC to shame. Armed with nothing but
- an array of eversilver (stainless steel) utensils,
- stentorian voices that wouldn't be out of place in a military exercise,
- a dynamic memory of which diner of the 300 in the hall was last served what dish, and
- a patented method of tucking their dhotis so that they never unravel,
they travel the world serving up a storm... on call 24x7 to cater to your TamBrahm wedding.

b. Several middle to old aged ladies, commonly referred to as maamis (singular: maami).

They are in general pleasant people whom you would be inclined to dismiss as gentle, harmless and rather ineffective in any sphere of human activity. At your peril! Gentle they are, indeed. Harmless would describe them to a T (or a filter kaapi). But completely ineffective they are not, for there is one activity in which their collective might is unparalleled... match-making! And no, I do not mean either the incendiary device or the sporting encounter, so can the sad jokes.

Any function is a beehive of information exchange, and God help any eligible bachelor or bachelorette who steps into the area. If a personable young chap in his mid 20s were to walk into such a gathering, all conversation would freeze, and the air would be as thick as the special wedding payasam with expectation. All the maamis would instantly swivel around to focus on him, size him up, figure out who they knew of in need of a groom ("He'd be a good match for Radha's second cousin's daughter-in-law's granddaughter, no? Such a sweet girl... and he's an MBA! Let's exchange addresses!") Marriages aren't made in heaven, they're made in maamiland. I can imagine the computing power behind all the contemporary matrimonial
websites, much like Google's Pigeon Rank, except this is probably no prank!

c. Several arbitrary children running around at random.

This is a universal phenomenon, one that is seen at every occasion across geographies, religions, races and sexual orientations. One only needs to step into any marriage hall and take a look at the hordes of screaming children to realise the Government's family planning initiatives aren't working. (So what's happening to all the free Govt distributed condoms? Well, the next time you attend a Govt party and there's a water balloon fight with astonishingly strong balloons...)

The children don't even seem to have a plan. They merely run around in circles, weaving through the throng skilfully, taking a minor detour to step on my toes. Some chase each other, others merely follow a mental path all by themselves. At least one child will have his arms outstretched like an aeroplane. At least one child will be dressed in an obviously uncomfortable mini-three-piece-suit. And at least one will be crying. Exactly which child is crying will never be known, but it will continue to haunt one as the evening's background theme. I am inclined to believe this faceless lachrymator is the same one who follows me on every train or plane I board in my life, letting loose his 140 decibel bawl exactly two microseconds before I drift into a much-needed nap. Maybe this kid and the others are not kids at all. Maybe they're machines, programmed to run around aimlessly, yell at the top of their voices and bang against your knee every 2.15 minutes. That would explain how they are present in the hundreds at every event, and yet India's population isn't a gazillion. Technology rocks.

To those who are still reading this, thank you. I'm done. Really. Whew.

To pee or not to pee is hardly the question

There is something extremely disconcerting about having to pee on demand. We have spent a lifetime learning to control the urge to relief ourselves, crossing our legs and thinking desperately of anything but a loo to avoid embarassing ourselves on trains, in classes, at a shop or whereever. We have been schooled to a reasonably high-degree of self restraint, and have built the ability to hold on (and I mean that in a purely figurative sense!) until an appropriate opportunity to pee presents itself. Forcing the mind to work the other way - encouraging a tinkle - simply does not work, and disproves everything psychosomatists have ever said about the mind influencing the body.

Alright, backtrack. I realise a little explanation is in order, some elaboration on the context of this sudden discourse of urination. A few days ago, I went for a medical checkup, just a routine formality. And one component of it required a urine sample. So there I was, banished into a fairly spacious and well-maintained bathroom, with a little transparent plastic container in my hand that I was supposed to have brimming in a minute. The kindly nurse asked me to leave my bottle (with my name stuck on it in what I felt was a completely unncecessarily large font) on the rack along with the samples of others who'd been through it before me.

I don't know why, but it's always in times like this that I truly come to understand what performance anxiety is. There's nothing particularly complex about micturition. I've spent a good number of my mornings involved in the activity. At one time, I was so good at it I did it in my sleep. And yet, on this one day when I needed it to happen... nothing. It was embarassing, it was frustrating, it was frightening. And it's not the kind of situation you want to face at eight thirty in the morning on an empty stomach.

I balefully eyed the other samples lined up against the wall, in their varying shades of yellow. All the containers had fetchingly colored caps (red, blue, pink...) that did nothing for my mood. The whole arrangement looked straight out of a Asian Paints commercial ("Presenting the widest choice in India - blue, red and 37 shades of yellow!") They seemed to be mocking me, all of them filled well over the 75% mark with the morning cheer of random strangers. And here I was struggling to do my bit...

Add to this the fact that the mouth of the container was agonizingly small, which essentially made the whole exercise less of a clinical activity and more target practice, and I was - if I may be pardoned the pun - thoroughly pissed. What kinds of thoughts and images would one need to conjure in such a situation to ensure the job got done? This wasn't as simple as in the case of a blood donation (where you manfully steeled your features and silently yelled blue murder in your head while someone stuck a smacking big metal stick in you) or a sperm donation (where... erm... ahem.). I had to fall back on memories of feared exams, near accidents and other such incidents that had caused me, at those times, to come close to wetting my pants. I don't know if this is what worked but five minutes later, I found the container not entirely empty. The level of fluid in there wasn't anywhere near as much as in the the bottles along the wall, but I didn't care. Just how much would they need to test anyways? I zipped up and zipped out.

It's easy for this guy, his Government pays to ensure he pees. But mere mortals like you and I must fend for ourselves, and make the best of a messy situation. Sigh.

The Big RB

Today is, my well-informed sources tell me, Raksha Bandhan. The Big RB.

And as is the case every year when this occasion comes around, there is a sudden surfeit of

a. Mushy RB based ads promoting everything from chocolates to electronic gadgets to underclothing. (Keep your beloved brother warm this RB with our premium knitted innerwear!)

b. Uneasy half-jokes among guys about steering clear of girls in the fear that they might be converted from ‘friends’ to ‘brothers’.

Point (a) above, I can't really grouse about. The great marketing wheel turneth. Point (b), however, is something I'm increasingly beginning to feel rather strongly about.

I actually happen to know several guys who have this attitude - the conversion fear. And they're really serious about it. That surprises me.

Being a South Indian, I come from a culture where the concept of RB is not particularly well established and is still seen as a North Indian import. Consequently, the dedication to the concept, and the seriousness with which the RB procedures are followed up North, are not something I have usually seen at close quarters. I know some of my North Indian friends prepare for weeks, searching for the ideal Rakhi and gifts and so on...

I am not very experienced in all this but I find the concept of RB very interesting. Quite beautiful, actually. And I don’t subscribe to the views of those who avoid girls (or claim to) on RB for what I feel are inordinately silly reasons. I think tying a Rakhi is a sign of friendship, acceptance, trust and faith... qualities which are really really important in one’s life, and ones we should find people to share with. It indicates, to me, a deeper connection of minds, a simple and pure sense of belief in the other person, and a knowledge that you will look out for each other in life.

These are emotions I would love to have someone to share with. I would really appreciate it if someone I knew genuinely trusted and cared enough to tie me a Rakhi. It would honestly mean a LOT to me. (I realise this para has just dropped my... er... 'market' value about 50%, but what the heck.)

Anyways, for all those who've actually bothered to read this far... here are a couple of popular Rakhis (taking some liberty with the spelling...) Take your pick. And let me know what you think of Raksha Bandhan.

Frustration

Few things in life are more frustrating than writer’s block. A really bad case of writer’s block can result in one becoming completely incapable of verbal expression of any form. Consider, for example, the hypothetical situation of a blogger whose last post was published on 31st December 2005. That makes it six months and 19 days. Close to 5000 hours of sheer mind-numbing aggravation at the fact that the mind is brimming with thoughts, emotions, ideas, anecdotes but the brain is simply incapable of organizing them into any sort of coherent text. 5000 hours of melancholy, of depression, of disappointment, of self-doubt. A sinking feeling that one is simply not living up to expectations, even though one would love to (“Hey, awesome blog! Why no post for ages?” “Looking forward to your next post!” “Knock knock. When are you going to start writing again?” “Please don’t stop blogging!”) In this purely hypothetical scenario, the blogger (if he still qualifies to be called one) finds himself stuck in a downward spiral of communicative frustration and self-directed rage. Every failed attempt to write (11 posts – all begun, none completed - each more bitter and contrived than the last) further compounds the desperation, a sinking feeling that what was once one’s art, one’s talent, one’s passion, one’s window to the world is no more the force it once was. The flow, once effortless, has all but ceased. The energy is ebbing, the flair is missing. The ability is wilting, it’s waning, it’s dying. And, in what can only be a karmic ironic twist, the only topic he is finally able to bring himself to scrape together a passage about is the damned Writer’s Block.

Three months and thirteen days

To stretch luxuriantly, all alone, over a double bed.

To ride my bike like a maniac through the familiar potholed streets.

To raid a well stocked refrigerator at 3 in the morning.

To be fed all my favourite dishes.

To laugh with old friends over a lingering drink.

To sleep 14 hours at a stretch, and not feel guilty about it.

To know that, in a few hours, I will once again see the waves rippling onto the beach.

To have time to put up this post.

To work on a Hindu crossword for the first time in ages.

To have someone to cuddle up to when I'm cold.

To begin clearing the first of 467 unread emails and 104 unseen Orkut scraps.

To call up classmates from IIMA, and realise I miss them already.

To spend 40 minutes in the loo with a good book, and not worry about missing a class.

To watch the happiness on my parents' faces as I show them pictures of my life over the last three months.



To be back home.

Absence does make the heart grow fonder

I'm typing out this blogpost from home. In Chennai. I've been home about 30 hours now, and I realise how much I missed the people and places I had taken for granted earlier.

I zip around in the chaotic Chennai traffic with careful recklessness, feeling a strange sense of liberation as I feel my car leaping down East Coast Road (which, for the uninformed, connects Chennai to Pondicherry) under the touch of my feet on the accelerator. I trade colourful abuse with an irate autodriver, doing it with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart. I shake my head wonderingly at the sight of a potbellied policeman harassing a harmless urchin even as a PTC bus driver roars past the junction in blatant defiance of traffic laws. I sit on the beach, curling my toes in the crunchy sand and watching the timeless waves rising and ebbing, rising and ebbing, rising and ebbing...

It feels great to be back home, to catch up with old friends and see they haven't changed at all. To go to all my usual hangouts and relive memories of what were, in many cases, happier times. To learn of the problems, triumphs, romances, expectations, plans and adventures of all those who matter to me. To call up and rebond with friends who have left for foreign lands, pursuing dreams vastly different from mine. To test the strength of my emotions and relationships, even though its only been 11 weeks.

So much to do, so many people to meet, so many places to go, so much emotional baggage. I'm loving it. (Copyright, McDonalds')

But I also find myself, very strangely, missing IIMA. Already. So much so that I call up my classmates all over the country, just to ask them what's up. To hear their voices and feel the warm emotions that course through me as we both realise it's simply awesome to hear one another's voices again.

I think back over the last term at IIMA, supposedly the toughest grind one is likely to go through in one's two years at IIMA, perhaps through most of one's life. And I realise that what stands out, the memories that stick, are not of getting an F grade in a quiz, staying up several nights to complete assignments, long fruitless hours hammering away at a MANAC case where the accounts refuse to balance, crying in frustration over the workload, angering the Professor by sleeping in class, pages and pages of course material to cover overnight, desperate last minute rems from the acad studs in my class, being repeatedly told that we have to mug and mug and mug or else we will lose out in the race...

Nope, the images imprinted in my mind are of Antakshari at CT (Cafe TANSTAAFL) at 3 a.m., eating ice cream all alone at LKP (Louis Kahn Plaza) at night, sixty people shouting 'Aala Re Aala' as one, dancing in public and forgetting all the steps, walking around campus barefoot and in a dhoti/veshti (Why? All will be explained over the next few posts...), people sleeping on the desks in the classroom with a half coloured T-Nite banner as a sheet, chilling out with friends during power cuts, jiggying to arbit Punjabi songs (even in the presence of a Prof!), smiling understandingly at those who stare at me when I eat with my hands, celebrating birthdays with bumps followed by a mad dash for cake, discussing life with close friends until 5 in the morning, the entire class dressing up in formals just for the heck of it, tempo shouting till I lose my voice, surprising a half naked Oka in his room with a GUSSHOW and embarassing the two girls who were part of the group, putting up arbit replies to arbit responses to arbit posts on the Section NB in DBabble, cracking the most atrocious of PJs at the worst times possible...

Opening up to people and realizing that I need a shoulder to cry on just as much as the next person, sharing and caring like I never have before, getting used to the fact that I instinctively call my dorm room 'home', making friends and building relationships that really matter and that I hope will last all my life.

I love Chennai. I love IIMA.

At Long Last!

Yup, long time. Over a month since my last post. The cry goes around town: Where the @#$% is AC? In Suze's words, did I "die/fall under a truck/get caught in a natural disaster/faint??!?!?" (Of course, the context was different but the general underlying emotions are the same.) I've got loads of mails abusing me for not posting anything for so long, thereby depriving my working friends of another avenue to waste the free Intenet time they're offered at work (obscenity filters rule out other forms of entertainment, you see). I must thank you all, it makes me feel so loved... and thus I'm back after a little hiatus...

So the next logical question (yes, this blog does have some logic) to ask would be - so where the hell was I? What was I doing? What kept me away from my blog for so long? In no particular order indicative of anything at all, I have spent the last 35-odd days:

1. Sleeping in my room
2. Sleeping in my friends' rooms
3. Sleeping through group meetings
4. Sleeping in class
5. Writing a whole series of painful exams (our midterms, and a coupla quizzes)
6. Playing the occasional game of footer
7. Participating in T-Nite!

The first four are rather self-explanatory. The fifth - the MidTerms - is a periodic ritual that every student must endure at some point or the other. It's the most cruel, shocking and disturbing way to expose several things you had a sneaky suspicion about but weren't willing to investigate or admit. Examples being:

1. You haven't read half the cases in the material for the course. EVERYBODY else has, in addition to poring through thick reference books and high-funda websites.
2. What you thought was merely an insignificant appendix to the core chapter turns out to be the only paragraphs of any consequence in the textbook.
3. Scratching one's cheek with a pen, however assiduously the act may be performed, does not give any insight into an HR case.
4. You are presented with a surprisingly easy paper. Initially, you're pleased you've scored 22.5 out of 25. And then you realise 40% of the class has scored more.
5. Teaching/Research Associates can be astonishingly stubborn when facing a student grovelling for a hike in grades from C+ to B-.
6. Inky-pinky-ponky does not work with Multiple Choice Questions in Economic Analysis.

And quizzes... don't get me started. IIMA thrives on scaring the living daylights out of facchas by springing surprise quizzes on them after the last class of the day. Picture the plight of someone who woke up late and thus rushed to class with nothing in him but last night's dinner and, if he's lucky, a banana. He struggles through 4 hours of classes, propping his eyelids up with toothpicks if necessary. Come 1:10 p.m., he heaves a sigh of relief and conjures up images of him tucking into a hearty lunch of roti, rice, multiple curries, the works. Just then, the news filters through... QUIZ! He breaks down and begins blubbing all over his desk, his dreams of an afternoon of a leisurely meal and siesta shattered.

A little explanation is required here. When I say 'quiz', I don't mean the Landmark/KBC types. I mean an exercise in academic demoralization and panic that is conducted from 2:30 p.m. onwards on any working day the PGP Office picks. In fact, I can clearly picture the chap in the Office who schedules quizzes leaning back in a comfy chair with his feet up in the air, holding a large number of darts. Which he then proceeds to throw at the weekly faccha schedule 5 feet away. Given the high ratio of darts to days, and the years of practice he's had, he's bound to hit atleast 4 a week. Which means, for us beleagueared victims, an hour of frantic shit-when-did-he-teach-all-this, Rem-Balaji-Rem!, hunting for calculators, desperate prayers and, on occasion, skipped lunches.

But on to more pleasant topics... like footer! That's football/soccer, by the way, and after an excruciating gap of two years, I finally got my rear end back onto a footer field. Which was just as well, coz it had been ages since I had indulged in any activity that could remotely be considered exercise. And it felt gooood. My thigh and back ached like hell for the next two days, but it was well worth it. And then we went on to win the inter-section footer tourney, amidst a blaze of glory, a flurry of missed shots, energetic drum beats and a nail-biter of a penalty shootout. Awesome fun, and one hell of a welcome break from the rigours of everyday academic pressure...

Speaking of which, it's very interesting to note how my morning schedule has changed since the time I entered the leafy and run-your-ass-off environs of IIMA. Here's what I mean.

Monday, June 27, 2005

Wake up at 0720 to the polite beeping of the alarm clock. Have a good bath, comb my hair, fold my dirty clothes into a neat pile, pick up my bag (already packed with the required books the previous night), lock my door and push off the mess, ambling along peacefully, savouring the fresh morning air...

A leisurely breakfast with friends at 0800, laughing and chatting over an impressive spread of omlettes, bread, dosas, a banana, cornflakes and piping hot coffee. Leave the mess at 0830, and head to the classrooms.

Enter the classroom at 0840, only to find 60% of the class already present. The rest trickle in by 0850. Review my notes and go over the key points again. Classes begin at 0900.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Wake up at 0815, after having hit the 'Snooze' button on the insistent alarm clock seven times. Have a rushed bath (perhaps just a quick wash of the upper body), chuck the dirty clothes in the approximate direction of the laundry bag, wear fresh clothes decided upon the previous night, throw books and papers into the bag, run to the mess.

Grab a quick bowl of cornflakes and an omlette. Maybe a sandwich, if I'm feeling adventurous. A glass of cold milk to wash it down. Rush out of the mess at 0850, and head to the classrooms.

Enter the classroom at 0855, and find 40% of the class present. The next 3 minutes see all the others troop in. Try to remember a few arbit points and catch a few winks before the classes begin at 0900.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Wake up at 0840, after 4 phone calls from concerned friends. I am, by now, absolutely immune to the banshee wails of my alarm clock. Then a tough (managerial?) decision - a. bath, b. breakfast, or c. none? Usually something between options b and c.

Wash my face to ensure that I don't look too sleepy. Change T-shirt if I can find a clean one lying around on the bed or under the papers. Grab my bag praying all the books are in it, and run like mad to the mess.

Head straight for the coffee, help myself to one hot glassful of essential caffiene (essential in that it helps me avoid sleeping through all 70 minutes of the lecture; my average now stands at 54 minutes). Grab a banana and head out the door at a brisk jog. Time: 0855

Enter the classroom at 0858, and find just 15% of the students in the room. Miraculously, all the seats are filled by 08:59:59. Ask my neighbour what class we have, and settle in for a little snooze until the class begins at 0900.


I notice I mentioned T-Nite on the list of stuff that has kept me away from you, dear, respected, patient and well-beloved reader. It's the single most incredible and life-changing event any student in IIMA can experience across the two years he toils here. It totally changes your perception of life! But considering the fact that it happened over two/three weeks ago, I'm sure you've read all about it already. In any case, I'll give you my two cents in my next post. That, and sundry other stories about G-14 (excited whispers across the galleries: "What's that?" "Sounds exciting!" "Is it a new type of missile?" "A new political formation!" "Mommy, can I go to the loo?"), campus romances, WIMWI learnings, adventures in the uncharted territory of the bathroom and more, coming soon to a browser near you!

D0604: National Park

He watched her through narrow eyes, judging when she would be close enough to be taken... She moved closer to him, then further, and then closer again, dancing to some unheard cosmic rhythm. She flirted and teased, flitting about just beyond his reach, taunting him to take her... He would wait. He knew his chance would come. When the trance-like movements ended, he knew he would have her. Only a slight shifting of his lithe body indicated his rising excitement... Blissfully unaware of his heightened senses and the small crowd watching the silent battle, she drew just a little closer. Too close. One quick snap of the jaws and two gulps later, he had had his fill...

I watched, fascinated, as a huge lizard ate an enormous moth just outside my room. I'm getting to watch a lot of this sort of live Discovery Channel stuff in my dorm over the last month or so. Even as I'm typing this, my eyes intermittently stray to a weird bug doing what appears to be a figure of eight on my Human Resources Management textbook (Which means it's touched it more in the past week than I have.) This insect seems to have a shiny black back speckled with bright green spots. It seems beetle-ish, though given the depth of my knowledge of natural history, you'd be well advised to bet against me on that one. Elsewhere, a grasshoppery crickety insect is performing a pirouette on my wallet. Yonder, a mini-cockroachish one is scrabbling up a wall in a desperate attempt to prove Newton wrong, watched interestedly by a dark brown spider.

There are so many more lifeforms... mosquitoes with weird stripes on their backs (anti-malarial tablets every week), brilliantly coloured birds, brightly hued butterflies, all manner and sorts of six-, eight-, twenty four- and one hundred-legged insects, a frog (that seemed even more surprised to find itself on my balcony than I was to find it there). Throw in the stray cats and dogs, with peacocks crying in the background, and the only things missing are a coupla big cats and a stall to collect entry fees.

All this is probably due to the heavy rains we had about two or three weeks back, which swamped large parts of the campus. Here's LKP before and after.

Anyways, I don't mind insects at all, they give me company during long nights spent cursing the chap who developed accounting standards. And when I'm not listening to arbit Tamil, Hindi, English and Telugu songs (in that order), their chirping and trilling and fluttering forms a very pleasant background score...

But my love for all insect forms nosedived last week because of a traumatic experience...

I gave my jeans, which were in desperate need of a good hard scrub, to the dhobi who serves my dorm. He usually does a reasonably decent job on my clothes, and I only thought twice before entrusting my beloved denims to his care.

"Kab milega?" I asked him, still clutching the jeans, unwilling to be parted from them.

"Sirf do din, saab," he said.

"Pukka?"

"Pukka milega saab."

"Theek hai, iska khayal rakhna...," I said, giving it a final farewell pat.

Somewhat buoyed by the thought that I would be jeansless for just two days, I returned to what turned out to be a rather productive session of Operations Management.

As expected, he brought back my clothes eight days later. I fell upon my jeans like a starving wolf of the steppes falling upon a plump villager who had been on a month-long holiday. A couple of loving caresses later, I placed it on my bed, ready to wear it to class the next morning...

My class starts at nine. I woke up at eight thirty cursing all and sundry, had a half-hearted bath, crammed my books into my bag, pulled on my jeans, locked my door and rushed off to the mess. Halfway there, however, I felt a strange sensation in my pants. A... scratchy sort of feeling. It made my skin crawl. What's worse, it literally felt like something was crawling on my skin! All thoughts of a refreshing and much-needed dosa abandoned, I rushed back to my dorm, barged into my room, slammed the door shut and ripped off my pants. (I wonder how many women are swooning as they read this...)

I adjusted my specs which had gone askew in all the excitement, and peered into my pants (a picture of this would make an awesome topic for an abstract GD!). And my breath caught in my throat as I beheld... ants! Not one, not ten, but a rough estimate indicated their population was somewhere in the region of 2.3 million (OK, give or take about 2.299 million...). It was an entire bloody colony there in my jeans. I had no doubt that the queen was churning out hordes of them even as I stared at the ant farm in mute shock.

Practical considerations saved the day. Fascinating as it was to contemplate spending four hours in class with ants in my pants, it was more fascinating to think of the ways in which my grades would suffer if I turned up late for class. I let out an expressive oath, grabbed a spare pant that had suffered use for the whole of the previous week and ran all the way to class...

As a result of this life-altering episode, I am firmly anti-ant at the moment, and until an ant saves my life or helps me pass an Economics paper or performs some such miracle, I am unlikely to feel any warmer towards the ant community at large.

Just a little something to end this post - if I had been bitten or harmed in any way by the ants, what medicine would I have taken? Antibiotics!

I'll keep this brief, I swear...

Yesterday, I saw no less than four people (unless my eyes deceived me, it was three guys and a girl) walking ahead of me. Not very unusual, you might say. No, it's not, I might reply. So what's the big deal, you might say. I'll tell you, will you let me finish, I might retort. Oh OK, go on, but make it quick, I've got to pee, you might plead. Right, I might say.

All four of them were wearing the kinda low slung jeans that seem to have become very popular among youngsters who have too much money to spend and too much body to show. I don't really grudge them wearing what they want, to each his own (It would have been far more impressive had I said that in Latin, but I don't know Latin, so please act impressed anyways. Thank you.) But what irked me was that for three of them, their underwear was showing.

The perverts among you who seem to frequent this site with alarming regularity and send me dirty messages are probably going, "Snigger snigger... u saw the girl's underwear..." Actually, I didn't. A clear and unobstructed view of her backside, fetching as it was, was not possible coz it was blocked by the bag she was carrying. One must take life as it comes.

Anyways, back to the undie-flashers. Come on guys, what the heck are you trying to prove anyways? That you wear underclothes?! What do u think I have in my pants? OK, that needs to be rephrased... what do you think I'm wearing below my waist? You don't have exclusive hold over the undie-market, the rest of us make reasonably regular use of our jocks too.

And presuming that the uppermost thought in your mind is not the erroneous assumption that others prefer walking around without their intimates, why on earth would you want to show yours? Does it make the region of your waist feel more airy? Do you believe it contributes in some way to the aesthetic beauty of the environment? Trust me, the sight of a polka dotted or pink striped or dirty yellow or boring white undie poking out of someone's jeans doesn't do much by way of pepping me up and making me feel good about life. It only makes me wonder what the hell the world is coming to and causes me to hammer out a blog post on it.

If you, dear reader, thought that was a pointless and uncalled-for rant, get some popcorn and settle back in your seats, coz here's more.

What's with all the swearing nowadays? Everywhere I go, I find unmentionable four-letter words being flung about with gay abandon. (I could make a joke about it also being flung about with straight abandon, but I don't know how many people would get it.) I'm no saint myself, I enjoy a good swear when I'm in a particularly lousy mood or I'm in the throes of deep tension and someone hides my spectacles so I go bumping around flailing my arms wildly and stubbing my toes and knocking things over and banging into doors and injuring people and... heck, I'm getting worked up... (deep breath).

I believe the occasional swear helps, especially when things aren't going well. A few choice, heartfelt curses can go a long way in letting out one's pent up emotions and cooling one down. Cursing also helps clear one's throat effectively so one can then proceed to loudly shift the blame for the cockup to someone else. But swearing practically all the time, for no reason whatsoever? I just don't get it.

Conversations just aren't like they used to be in the good old days... (For convenience, let's consider 'fish' to be a really bad word. If you think that's stupid, fish u.)

Then: Could you please pass me the butter.
Now: Where's the fishing butter? Oh, there it is. Who the fish put it there? Pass it here.

Then: Please do not give me bumps, they hurt. If you do not desist immediately, I shall be forced to take action against you.

Now: You bloody fishers! Just wait till you put me down, I fishing fish your happiness!

Then: (Laughing) That was rather humorous!

Now: Fish! That's fishin' hilarious, man!

Then: Why do you want to do that?!

Now: Are you fishin' crazy?! Why the fish do you want to do that?!

Then: Uh oh. I appear to have dropped my pen.

Now: Oh fish! I dropped the fishin' pen.

Then: I am not interested in dealing with you.

Now: Fish you.

Then: Please explain what is happening here...
Now: What the fish is going on here?

Then: Kindly remove yourself.

Now: Fish off!

Then: (Exasperated) I don't think I'll do this.

Now: Oh, fish it.

You catch my drift... I just don't see why inserting a swear word for every 2.5 non-swear words is essential for inter-human communication. I guess that's just the way the world is.

Have to catch up on a LOT of lost sleep, so gonna crash now... so long, and thanks for all the fish!

Week 2 - whoooosh!

Hell, the last week went by really fast... it flashed by in a flurry of group meetings and quizzes and assignments and unsolvable accounting problems.

I'm really beginning to love this place, the lifestyle here, the customs and the oddities and challenges. I feel I'm growing in many ways. Learning to fend for myself, having to decide my priorities, trying to stay afloat in a tidal wave of intense competition and mindblowing intelligence... Finding new depths to myself I didn't know existed, pushing myself beyond boundaries I had assumed could never be breached... I take up an assignment and think, "What the hell am I doing in this place? I can't do stuff like this!" and then, three hours later, "Whoa! Did I really do that myself? I rock!"

Of course, it helps that we have totally GODlevel professors, who confront us and challenge us and coax us and bully us into coming with up answers to our own questions, and throw up streams of thought and debate that we would otherwise never have considered. They aren't called teachers - they're 'instructors'. And we aren't students, we're 'participants' in the programme. All of which makes for a very unique and stimulating learning environment, worlds removed from the pedantic boredom and pointlessness of engineering. And classes can actually be a lot of fun, as this post of Oka's indicates...

The only major downside of life here is that one has to sacrifice sleep in the interests of passing the course. A very reasonable sacrifice to expect, of course. I slept a sum total of 8 hours over the nights of the 6th, 7th and 8th of this month. And didn't catch up on much in the weekend coz there's just so much happening on campus! Like last night's (this morning's!) dance party that I was at from 2 a.m. till 4 a.m... and the rain dance where we got totally drenched and threw ourselves about madly, glad to let loose all the pent up energy... and last weekends dorm party that lasted a whole five and a half hours, till 3:30 in the morning...

Such nights out are usually capped by a visit to Cafe TANSTAAFL (non-WIMWIans, guess the funda!) on the campus for a soothing cup of hot chai or a sandwich... nice food, but it totally pales in comparison to our mess.

Let me state this loud and clear - the mess here ROCKS. So much so that when we went out for dinner to a popular local restaurant, I found myself thinking, "So what? Our mess is just as good!" Here's a sample menu...

Menu for Sunday, July 10 2005

Breakfast:

Rava Dosa with Sambar

Boiled eggs

Omlette

Bread with Jam

Bread with butter

Cornflakes

Tea/Coffee/Milk

Fruit

Lunch:

Giloda Masala

Mushroom Paneer Masala

Dal Masoor

Curd

Dudi Ka Raita

Onion rings

Aloo salad

Roti

Fruit

High Tea:

Aloo vada

Tea/Coffee

Dinner:

Cabbage Dry

Dum Aloo

Curd

Onion raita

Rice

Dal Arhar

Veg salad

Moong salad

Roti

Ice cream

We sometimes have awesome naans and baturas, apart from jalebis, gulab jamun and a host of other sweets... and we're allowed as many helpings as we want! My hopes of losing a little weight by the end of the term have been dashed by my tendency to hog on all this good food...

And one of the best things about the mess is the music. Beautiful music, lots of old Hindi songs, a very pleasant accompaniment to dinner. In fact, there's music everywhere, at the Cafe, in the admin office, even in the bank!

Music has actually become quite an important part of my life here. I finally got myself a pair of speakers a few days back (woohoo!) and my comp's been playing practically nonstop since. And nice, peaceful music, not the overdose of Bunty aur Babli (grrrr) that the other dorms seem to be pumping out all day long.

There's just so much happening, so much to keep track of. In times like this - running to submit an assignment, tearing your hair out over an Economics problem, cursing a balance sheet that doesn't tally, wondering why a company doesn't just sack all its employees instead of discussing HR issues with them, frustrated that your Excel Sheet cell keeps showing #!REF - small pleasures take on added beauty. Sharing a joke with a complete stranger, trading a smile with a cute girl, raiding a well-stocked pantry at one in the morning, putting up a Juice on DBabble in a friend's name, giving people bumps for arbit reasons, eating icecream at night all alone in the vast expanse of Louis Kahn Plaza...

It feels like a whole new life.