Jani

I donno why out of the blue, I was reminded of my building dog(back in India) , Jani. He was the dog me n my bro never had (yeah yeah... like all kids, me n my bro wanted a doggie... and like all families, we had Amma who made these cliche dialogues like 'Onnu naan irupen indha aathila.. illa nai irukum' - translated as 'Either I stay in the house or the dog does'. It was one of those choices which really wasnt one! It just sounded like one.. hehe.. not that i cud ever trade my mom for anything...) Coming back to Jani, out of fondness we used to call him 'Jon' or 'Janet'.. hehe.. And he was my partner-in-crime for the many things I've done (notably, he used to eat my lunch - which I could never eat by myself - I mean my mom n Patti used to pack 3 huge chapathis for lunch!)

Basically, how Jani came to live in our building is something none of us can place perfectly. But our previous watchman called Poongavanam (- funny name coz it translates into 'Garden' and there was the seductive Nirosha song called 'Oru poongavanam...') bought Jani alongwith him and since then theres been faithful feeders like us and importantly there were these Sri lankan folks who lived upstairs to us who practically adopted him... They fed him and looked after him and so he was almost their foster dog. Jani may have been a street dog, but he was definitely the most intelligent in their 'breed'. This Sri Lankan Patti used to go out every morning at some 8 am and get back around 4pm. Jani used to walk her to the bus stop... Thats not whats so great.. But what was was that he would walk to the bus stop at 4 to bring her back! It used to amaze me that he developed such loyalty in no time and that he knew to gauge time!!

Another time, when Appa, Bala and I went to Tirupathi. Jani bid us a cheerful goodbye. When we came back to our surprise, he barked his lungs out and didnt let us into the building! It took us a while to understand what was happening. Appa had gotten his head tonsured and Jani didnt recognize him!! The whole sight was soo funny that me n Bala were in ripples by the time we'd understood what was happening. Hilarious!

During Diwali, Jani gave us all this look of reproach and immense sadness. He hated crackers and the sudden sounds they produced and could be found curled up under the staircase his paws around his ears... Pitiful sight... But I love crackers and I couldnt help it! (Hehehe)

Eventually, about 4 years ago, the Sri Lankan family moved and they were soo attached to Jani, they took him along. Last I heard, he was happy and well-fed with the family he loved most. Not many street dogs get as lucky as Jani.. For example, we had this dog in my building in Bombay, 'Vrandavan', called Soni.. It had a pathetic life and when I was very young, my dad made me cry by telling me that Soni had been electrocuted by the municipality! I dont know what happened to Soni and sometimes, I dont want to.. Somethings are best left unknown....

Rang de Basanti

Alright alright... I know I am late and I know that a million people have seen the movie already and have their views all set about it and what I have to say about it probably won't matter.. But here goes anyways..

Well, to be honest I did expect the world of it... having had my friends rave all over the place about it. And Naresh couldn't speak of anything else to me for a week! (Well, he pestered me to buy the audio CD when I was on vacation n I didnt relent..hehe) All that done, I had a bunch of people who were hooting at me for having not seen it thus far.. And well, I honestly tried downloading it three times, each time just before my 4hr oncampus job shift started, hoping that te 700 odd MB would download by then (UC has a 100 Mbps LAN connection... but the damned site would download at 30Kbps!!!) In fact I once had Ali to keep moving the mouse of my laptop so that it didnt go off to sleep! And tragically, each time the connection would get reset! Talk about bad luck! And so while I was walking past 544 Baldwin on Friday evening, as usual purposeless, I heard the loud n clear 'Lose control' from within... That meant the ISA was playing the movie (I'm the treasurer.. well, I know thats hard to believe... but I am anyways and I had NO idea that they were going to play it else I wouldve definitely been there!) As luck would have it, next morning, as I was Krogering and sifting through a pile of capsicums (ok.. green peppers if you'd prefer!), I heard the familiar voices of Tejas and Niranjan(ISA President!) To cut a long story short, I was armed with RDB in DVD! My dinner movie was decided and no Veer-Zaara this time.. ha!

So, that night we played the movie at home and I remember in the first half, we were cackling from some Aamir antics and enjoying ourselves... though I had to tell myself this wasnt a sequence of F-R-I-E-N-D-S played at a stretch (though it had the essence of that.. all fun n no substance). The real movie began after the interval and there was a dramatic change of pace and tone and everything and in the end though many many people had told me that everyone important dies, seeing it happen in the movie was something else! I was saddened! The way Karan (Siddharth) and DJ (Aamir) went to their deaths really touched me.. And in someway, I felt that we the youngsters of India had to do something for our beloved country.. (I'll get to that in another post..hehe!) And in some ways the movie maybe, just maybe had misrepresented things... I am not even going to question the corruption in politics.. thats out there for everyone to see... But in a real-life scenario, would there be a shoot-at-sight order for 5 kids who'd owned up to their crime? What happened to the normal judicial procedure? That disturbed me... And I donno why...

Indeed that night's dream when I finally managed to doze off at 5am after thinking up an unbelievable amount of stuff that we, the people could do for our country was a rerun of Ajay Devgan's 'The Legend of Bhagat Singh'. At some level, I realised that RDB was a success, simply because it had provoked me to think.. instead of ignoring it as just-another-movie... Hmmm...

When I first went to the pool....

Water has terrified me from since I was young.. I can never say why... I didnt have one of those romanchak close-shave with water things where I almost died and all to justify the fear. And what makes it stranger is that by zodiac, I am a Scorpion - a pure water sign (which means I should be hydrophilic... which isnt the case). And so naturally, the last time I did anything in a swimming pool was when I was 6 and I went to 'Hubara Club' in Kuwait with my childhood pals and waded in the 2 feet kids section!

So, when UC built its sexy new REC center, there was virtually no excuse not to try the pool. And my motivation was Ashwin, who was pestering every woman he knew to buy swimming apparel and get into the water. I resisted for sometime before my feeling that not-knowing-something-is-a-handicap feeling took over. (Besides, in Chennai, there is noooo water to live.. let alone swim) Besides the fact, its F-R-E-E.. the No.1 motivator for most desis!

After a lot of deliberation, there I was, finally excited yesterday and very shy in my new swim clothes, ofcourse all wrapped in a towel also after having made plans to meet Ashwin at the pool at a given time. (well, my first surprise came when I was instructed to shower with the swimsuit on! - Dont ask me what I expected) And then I was there in the pool.. and Ashwin's like, "Ok.. get in the water now.." We were in the 4-feet section. Again, I dont know what I expected... But I was taken aback at the suggestion and it took me like 3 minutes to tell myself, since I was 5'3", I couldnt possibly die in 4 feet of water!

I was in!!! Bobbing up and down, I had my first real feeling of buoyancy (I wasnt so aware of all these intricacies when I was 6 I think... which is why I wouldve learned swimming much faster back then!) After the initial bobbing and feeling the water push me up, Ashwin made one more ridiculous suggestion. "Put your head under water." This time I knew he was out to kill me... I mean.. How could a beginner put their nose and ears under water without dying? He showed me how.. And I knew I couldnt do it. After seeing him do it a bunch of times, my brain convinced me that if he didnt die, I wouldnt either and I could always come up for air. And so I took the plunge.. literally! And in like 3 seconds, I panicked and came up sure my ears would be clogged and I wouldnt be able to see/breathe again. I was wrong! I was perfectly alright and rapidly my fear melted away slowly but surely.

Well.. Ashwin should be a professor some day... He has the exact capacity to push for more and not be happy with what he's got. Me as his pupil was bad enough.. making me try incredulous stuff was even more and when I was alive and willing, he tried even more.. He wanted me to try floating... Thats a magic word as far as I'm concerned.. I have never understood the mechanics or kinematics of floating and stuff and tried everything my coach told me and well, all I can say is, "I'm getting there!!" And after a bunch of attempts, I was never really parallel and never really moving my whole leg... But well, I tried and in one day, you cant really get everything!

Learning to swim is like learning to ride a bike... There has to be some fallback somewhere... and I met my match in floating... I'm guessing its gonna take me a couple of attempts more to get the rhythm n stuff and probably ovecoming the fear of water all over again.. Atleast now though, I believe I can! :) Thanks da Ashwin!

Everyday...

1. Get up - Panic-filled... What if you overslept (highly impossible with me -- Snobbish as it may sound, I am yet to be late for any appointment I've made)
2. Get ready - Hot shower, hotter tea and good to go
3. Campus job - For all the hurry at home, you have 4 nice hours to chill (sometimes even this can get hectic... come on, there are days when the professors cant spell 'professor' for their username and you have to go out of 'office' to help them out! Blogging falls under this umbrella too!)
4. Head to Office - This is lab for most people... Its office for me.. Being in microelectronics has its advantage - u have a lab (to do some work), a cleanroom (to do MAJOR work) and an office (to do timepass)
5. Set up laptop and check email - what if someone important (like there could be anyone) mailed in the 10 minutes it took from the oncampus job place to your laptop at the office
6. Mentally make a list of items that you need to do/accomplish/complete on any give day - You're desparately trying to make a list and you know that a list HAS to have more than ONE item!
7. Set out to do it - Well, if it was reading a paper, you might as well kiss it goodbye. Midafternoon who wants to read a boring pdf? Have you noticed that the document has this smudged look in PDF format that makes it even lesser interesting to read?
8. Wonder why your prof isn't meeting you? What EVER happened to that administrative decision on the nitrogen cylinders? You don't have forever to complete your research!
9. Hunger strikes! After all its close to 3pm and without any food in your system theres only so much you can do. Be it Wendy's or Sub, grab some grub!!
10. Back in office - Well fed, content and importantly sleepy - Ideal time to remind yourself you were up till 2am just plain chatting with the people you spend all your evenings with!
11. Do some work - FINALLY - Run a test experiment for instance - Takes a couple of hours but is probably worth it - makes you feel that the day's not been wasted and you have something to show your prof!
12. Tea time! Whats life without evening chai? And you knew it would eat up the evening - but the day's work's been done (look at no.11) and so whats the harm?
13. Timepass - This is just talking away to glory or (rarely) the gym or REC center.. Fun when it happens!
14. Cooking - Someone has a cooking turn - it could be you... Or you might as well watch them cook!
15. Movie time - How can food go down your food pipe without something on TV/Laptop (whichever applicable!) You've got to watch something! Even if its a pathetic re-run of 'Veer-Zaara'! (yes, some days are that bad for the lack of choice!)
16. Sleep - Thats for others - not insomniacs like me - Dialogues that are useful for justification then - Abhi to raat jawaan hai! - Turn on the laptop, turn up the music, logon to the messengers - GO!
17. Sleep - Finally thats for me!!! Hehe.. Another day to look forward to..

The glove and the lions

I used to read a lot of poetry.. And though William Wordsworth, Alfred Noyes and Ogden Nash rank amongst my favorites, I think the poem that stands out in my memory is 'The Glove and the Lions' by -- James Leigh Hunt. Wonder why..

King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day, as his lions fought, sat looking on the court.
The nobles filled the benches, with the ladies in their pride,
And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he signed:

And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show,
Valor and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.
Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws;
They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws;

With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another,
Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thunderous smother;
The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air;
Said Francis then, "Faith, gentlemen, we're better here than there."

De Lorge's love o'er heard the King, a beauteous lively dame,
With smiling lips and sharp bright eyes, which always seemed the same;
She thought, The Count my lover is brave as brave can be;
He surely would do wondrous things to show his love of me;

King, ladies, lovers, all look on; the occasion is divine;
I'll drop my glove, to prove his love; great glory will be mine.
She dropped her glove, to prove his love, then looked at him and smiled;
He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild:

The leap was quick, return was quick, he has regained his place,
Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady's face.
"By Heaven," said Francis, "rightly done!" and he rose from where he sat;
"No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task like that."

What OS are you?

Sorry Saif... I saw it on your blog and I couldnt help but try out the dumb quiz for myself.... And I like the results... So, here they are:

For those who know me, I'm sure you're wondering if I can actually come out of my 'shell' anymore.. but come on...in some way, it makes sense. I am a very private person and you can get to 'know' me only if I want you to. Hehe.. Without further ado, if you want to take this test, here's where you go:
http://bbspot.com/News/2003/01/os_quiz.php

Have fun!

The 'out-of-school-early' feeling :)

Have you ever had that feeling? That feeling when you were in 7th grade and the teacher walked in just before lunch and told you - "Afternoon periods (yes, back in India we didnt call them 'classes') have been canceled because of rain" -- That feeling of euphoria? Yes, it was a measly 3 hours.. but it was also those amazing 3 hours which you could mindlessly spend on whatever you wanted with no questions asked... No Geography or Civics..no homework... Just the India-Pakistan match on TV accompanied by Patti's steaming pakoras...

The walk to the busstop in the slush wasnt icky.. It was the way home and to freedom... The dark clouds, the smell of rain-in-the-mud (manvasanai - one of my favorite smells), , the swishing of new raincoats, the humid breeze-- aah pure heaven! When you went home, you were given the quizzical why-arent-you-in-school look by Amma while you launched into an explanation about what History Miss told you about the cyclonic storm, even while turning on the TV surfing channels for the match.

As you snuggle under warm sheets, the aroma of steaming pakoras fills the air and you ask fondly - "Patti.. Chai..". As India starts the first 15 overs, the first batch of pakoras and a nice, hot cup of chai await you. Just the way you imagined... The perfect rainy day!