Two Months @ IFMR

An absurd way to start but just thought of bringing some life back to this inactive 'blog' of mine.. so what could have been better than giving a glimpse of my new life here at IFMR. It's been exectly two months today since 6th july,2008 when i arrived here at chennai. With a friend from agra,Reema, i set foot in chennai early in the morning and was welcomed by the station authorities charging us some heavy amount of money for carrying more than the prescribed amount of luggage. phew..!!! our start was not that good :) Reached our college and had to call another friend with whom i had just chatted and talked on phone and who had reached early & was sleeping at that hour to carry our luggage since we had rooms on the second floor :) But it was really sweet of him to wake up and come down for us.
Our college is a nice place, with greenery all around and especially the balcony attached to my room... from where i can see coconut trees and squirrels who start making strange noises at around 1 A.M. everyday. Life here is not only about assignments, group-work { where one or two ppl are sometimes inactive thinking others are there to work :) }, long hours of classes (all about bunking them also),late night group studies the night before the tests, but also about the fun and enjoyment with batchmates and seniors. The first 1 week here, we had the so-called ragging sessions, of which some were fun ice-breakers and one or two that ended in someone's tears.After that we all gelled quite well.

This place is full of active, talented and intelligent people who keep on practicing their hands at TT (including me ofcourse), playing carrom (with very different styles of striking coins ) , writing blogs, organising various fun club events etc. One such fun thing that happened in the first month was a 'treasure hunt' organised by seniors where we had teams of three ppl each and each team was given clues at different stages. The hunt started at around 9:30 to 10:00 pm. One could see seniors juniors running around like maniacs, wracking their brains with the clues, looking for places all over the campus to get to the next level , trying to cheat from other groups, getting "wet & white" in the process :) {now, this needs clarification. actually there were ppl in the organising team who knew where the teams wud look for the clues, they were waiting with buckets of water to throw upon us.. yes i say "us" coz i got drenched thrice and secondly "white" coz they wer not satisfied after drenching us, so some other threw flour on us... made us crawl from under the "TT Table alias tunnel " and clicked pics } .. Here's the proof but this is after i had washed my face a lot many times ........ :)

In the hope of winning some treasure, we picked up all sorts of insects, went to some seniors girls rooms ..clicked their pics and in the end performed stupid skits only to please the organisers. and yes i must show you what treasure my friends got .... he he he he he Nripen , Arun and Aminarta won some "chillar" for coming second

This is not how mad we can get... there's more, example the b'day parties (we had many b'days in the two months) where guyz get bumps on girls b'days ( ofcourse friend of the girl :) and if she has none such friend then nowdays its bhavnesh who is the default choice and for boyz, all the roomies of the boy if its his b'day.... and whosoever the guyz want to kick ... ) we girls enjoy the fun of cheering them. Sometimes we ppl get kiddish that is climbing down like monkeys hunting for TT balls and breaking tiles in the process, calling each other on gtalk while in class just to have fun (actually the underlying motive is to wake ppl up from their deep slumber coz of the lullabys our proff's sing )

As for me personally, the two months had highs as well as lows... but in all had many new experiences like visiting a disco for the first time , watching a late night movie show etc :) . Not just this but some constructive experiences as presenting a paper at symbiosis and winning the second prize though was least hopeful and yes the most exciting, trying to communicate with tamilians here esp. autowallas and shopkeepers with all sorts of "tuti-phuti" tamil, various gestures and sign language. Let me tell u some tamil words that i learnt.... "tanni-water", "anna-brother, "akka-sister", "illay-no", "venda- do not want" etc etc... otherwise my post will turn into an amateur level tamil to english dictionary...

Moving on, something that i enjoyed the most here was our freshers party .... danced for full 2 hours without a single break and with so many people around dancing as couples, in groups etc to both hindi and tamil songs not caring who was around, stomping each other's foot and some non-dancers showing all sorts of weird moves. Getting ready for the freshers was also a challenge coz we were divided in groups according to states, ie punjabis, haryanvis,bengalis, assamese, biharis, maharashtrians, tamilians , gujju, mallu etc and we had to dress according to our assigned state... i was a bengali... what u see in the picture is thus the result of the pains that i took to arrange the attire in just 1 hour which includes running to senior girl's rooms, calling up day scholars and then going to a seniors house who literally opened up her wardrobe and i selected one which we thought could pass for a bengali saree coz she didn't have the typical red and white one....plus around two hours of getting ready... trying to find someone who could help me wrap it in a bengali style... dunno how much we succeded but soma did a fine job on me... thanks to her !! We had to walk the ramp in our group and answer questions by the panel.It got all too funny when haryanvis turned up with lathis and the mallus and tamilians in their gold... the punjabis doing bhangra and the gujjus playing dandia...when we had to introduce ourselves, wat i did was saying this line with a bengali accent " aamar naam rani mukhrjee" :)

Reema and ME at the freshers DJ party

Apart from this we had various dedications from the very obvious duos (will not say couples ) for each other...some couple dances between them and ofcourse the popular "bhai-behen" dedication. :) and lastly great food!!

There's so much to write about but really the time is very less... and it is now 3:00 am and my sleep is beckning me :) i leave you with a video of our freshers... pathetic ramp walk of us bengalis :) chow for now !!

My very first visit to delhi !!!

It so happens that i was never excited with the idea of going to delhi. I always felt it's an unsafe city and had heard about the people being too egoistic and over-smart.But this march i happened to visit delhi, my very first journey all alone coz i had to give an interview... newayz inspite of everything, i was still excited to be going out of station, be it delhi also!! Actually i have two very good friends living there who kept inviting me earlier. so here was my chance !!
On 5th of march, i set out on my journey at 10 o'clock at night... it was fine and eventless. In the morning, my friend was at the station, waiting for me... people say there is no thank you or sorry in friendship but i would like to thank my friend whom i call "sethi" coz she was suffering from viral fever and a throat infection but still was there to pick me up early in the morning.. :) ..... next we took an auto and while going towards my friend's house i had my very first look at delhi, those big wide roads, fast-moving traffic and a glimpse of "The INDIA-GATE".
Let me tell u of a wild imagination that i had before coming to delhi, that i would land in delhi and a gush of soft-breeze would bring back some very old memories ( like they show in movies) :)
Now why do i say "old memories" when i have never been to delhi.... i am not to blame entirely... my grandparents told me that when i had barely learnt how to speak i told them something of my earlier birth that i used to live in delhi, had three sons and owned a red car!! :) newayz nothing of that sort happened so i can't authenticate this piece of information, neither do i remember anything now... :)
Coming back to the present, we reached our destination within 30 mins. My friend's room-mate was sleeping and sethi also chose to sleep... while i read some newspapers and then freshened up!! Now my other friend, "lovy", who was fast asleep in the next room, remembered that i had to be picked up and panicked!! Actually i later realised everyone had a tendency of getting up late there...Neway i enjoyed myself in their company. we prepared something to eat and took it around 12:30 to 1:00 and called it a break-fast :)
When i went to delhi, i was also hopeful of something else but till now there was no word from that side. Moving on, lovy later took me to the next floor of the building where all guys from her college had rooms. They were busy on net and watching movies but we chatted there and it was fun. They advised me to stay calm and take no tensions for the interview the next day. Still,I kept on thinking about the interview and was feeling uneasy so in the evening all of us decided to go to "saket", a popular hangout place for youth.They asked me to drive my friend's bike and i was over-whelmed to do that coz i like driving and wanted to have a taste of driving in delhi's fast moving roads but the traffic was fine, moreover we returned late at night (according to me).... for them it was normal :)
Now it was late- night, i was not getting any sleep... received an "all the best" msg. from a friend at lko, replied to him. Early the next day, 7th of march, sethi drove me to the venue for the interview. I don't want to say anything about it except that it was fine.However i didn't get selected then!!!!. But after it, i was relaxed..
Now coming to something that i want to mention about sethi, in her i saw my improved version as regards being a "safai-freak".... all the things have to be in their respective places, the bedsheet has to be free of any creases and all such stuff... for a change, i liked being on the other side.... otherwise at home i am the one doing all such things :) Later, on 7th evening, sethi and i drove to gurgaon where i saw the Dlf Cyber Park, it was awesome ...had all big offices.... gave a feeling as if we were not in india...later we saw the mall "metropolitan" and did some "trial-shopping"... (a new version of window-shopping)... sethi took my pics in all sorts of dresses...
I enjoyed my time fully, in the evenings , lovy, sethi and i used to go out and eat all sorts of sweets and so many other things that if i mention all it would give an impression that i eat a lot... :) On 7th night, i spent my time with lovy on the terrace, chatting till 3 O'clock at night, our talk comprising mainly of all philosophical aspects of life... :)
Next day was the best when i visited "Qutub Minar" with both my friends....we wanted to try to meet our hands around the "iron pole" as did by Amitabh bachchan in "cheeni kum" but was not allowed...as it was closed... Mr. bachchan had special permission... must have paid some lakhs to gain it .... Newayz we took all sorts of pics... climbed on rocks and trees to click them.....was all my idea ...clicked them till my friends were too tired to move.... there i came to know that i am a very good photographer... if only sethi would allow me to show "that picture" to people... i am sure i can get the best photographer award in some competition for that .... i tell u the idea is very innovative... lovy and i can't stop laughing everytime we see it...... if only i could show it... (sethi, give it another thought, plz) .... :)
Newayz when we returned, it was time for me to catch the train..sethi packed some food and they both decided to accompany me to the station... i really didn't feel like coming back... delhi was not that bad either... i was wrong... it's a nice city specially when you are with friends...
so, my friends left around 9:15 and i boarded the train around 10:00. The next day, i was back in lko and my journey ended thus!!
And to think it was only a 3-day trip... if it had been any longer, for u ppl, reading it, would have been a higher degree torture as opposed to now, it being a little torture ....!!!!!!! :) i still have lots to talk about, in all, it was a good experience!!!

Right to Stupidity !!!!

When people say there's a child in each of us, they are somewhat right... we all know that!! But we all also have a certain level of stupidity in us, different in each case... so here i want to talk about my Right To Stupidity!! It's not new for me, for u all it may be so :)

I threw a lot of gyan in the earlier post... so here goes a "light" one... so coming back to this post .... i am quite aware about my right and have been practising it from a very early age..won't give it away either... :) so here i am citing just one evidence lest you all consider me totally mad...

Scene I :My old house... me in my so-called little study ....

I entered my study room...here it's appropriate to mention the dimensions, 5 ft by 8 ft... so something just gets into me and i feel i want the colour of the room to be pink... i didn't like the original colour... the early the better.... now don't ask any reasons.. :) bas chahiye tha...!!!
so i bought the desired pink colour and found the paint brushes.I decided to paint it myself.Wanted to try my hand at painting walls...so i started the task...The room also had in-built almirahs, painted them also. Took a break in between and completed the task in one day!! Was feeling very good. Everyone at home praised my work, said it had come out quite smooth..and good finishing and all... newayz this was the happy part!!

Scene II : 2:30 or 3:00 at night. My bed-room....

I am asleep, obviously.suddenly my right hand starts paining a bit...then more,more...and so much that now i am unable to bear it... gets extremely painful..am unable to move it. so actually achche se kaha jaye to lag gayi waat !! :) Coz of sudden vigorous activity, i got some problem in some nerve or a muscle pull, don't know exactly what.. It is morning now and i got some medication.Next my hand is suspended with a string that hung around my neck, the same way like a broken hand is tied!! For two days, i roam around like that.

After this never tried to paint any walls... but did some tit-bits here and there...

Moral : We all have the right to stupidity... practice it...
But be ready to face the consequences also!!

My first amateur attempt towards poetry!!

"Slumber Visions"

She stands still surrounded by the fragrance of love;
secrets buried deep down her heart,
Dreading the world and the reactions of her family;
Yet i know there's an incessant rise in her feelings for me!!

Feelings that i too reciprocate,
i'll have to voice my emotions before it's too late!!

I planned to meet her and nurturing hopes
followed her to the sea,
The place was calm and serene;
complementing the deep expressions
that her eyes bore,
The only sounds were of the waves
rushing to the shore!!

I gathered courage and went near her,
Maybe my words could make her talk;
In an instant she disappeared
and the waves went back!!

With a shock i opened my eyes,
The place was familiar but still
i heard myself scream;
I realised then it was the same recurring dream!!

Why did i not gather the words that fell from her eyes everyday;
I know i'll gather flowers for her grave even today!!

Journey called LIFE.....

"Solitude" is something that most of us dread but there are still some of us who love it. It so happens that whether we like it or not, all have to face it sometime or the other... why not, if we just give it a thought, we'll see that we have come all alone in this world and it is all alone that we have to leave too...

I have been driving my bike since class 11th... some 8 odd years till now... most of the time alone... people often listen to music while driving... what i do is i recite 'shlokas' from the Bhagwat Gita in my mind... there's a constant tape running inside me while driving... newayz it's about recently when i joined some coaching which is about 18 - 19 kms from my home. The shortest route that i undertake happens to pass through the crematorium grounds of our city.Almost everyday i see corpses being taken morning and evening to their final destination.It's not much difficult to think then that i also have to endup like this... and while i go on driving, i feel as if i am trying to run away from the inevitable...no one knows what will happen next... life is like the same journey that can end anytime without any notice... what if i meet with an accident the next second...we youngsters are so energetic about everything but we feel remembering GOD and chanting HIS name is only the duty of oldies who have nothing to do and are in the last stages of their lives...we need to think again... saying a lot here would amount to giving unnecessary gyan but we deny the very truth of life...and people actually find it strange wen someone of my age says he or she indulges in praying and meditating everyday.Let them think so but i would never forget to thank HIM for giving me this life and would pray to HIM to show me the right path each day. Also ask HIM to be with me throughout my life coz people will come and go but i know eventually i have to complete this journey alone!!