Thursday 25 October 2012

Train (of thought) II

......continued

I stumbled and fumbled with an intent to follow her as as she walked past me towards the vestibule and turned and went to a place where it would be plain illegal for me to follow. And I just stood there shocked and awe-struck. To be frank, she completely ignored me as I stared unsociably at her.

What? Were you expecting a Bollywood-ish hero-heroine intro sequence. Well, then let me remind you once again- I am an engineer (awkward). And I am a blogger (x1000).

Yeah, exceptions exist everywhere and there are various un-printable and fun-speakable titles to honor them, starting from the affectionate "Tharki" to complex ones like "#@%^&!%# " which involve various Freudian aspects. But let's put them aside.

Moreover, we male engineers never have much hormonal activity going on; unless there's a laptop involved. Introduce a laptop in the scene, and then there's a spike... In the hormonal activity.

And that's precisely the reason why girls fake being offline, because we boys, supposedly, sit huddled, like a group of hungry salivating falcons with tongues lolling out and intent eyes piercing the laptop screen, in search of a prey, which is an online-random-'friend'- girl, to swoop at the chat box and dig her brains out by 'boring' conversations.

% Myth-buster: We satisfy our urges and surges just by 'stalking', and during the process, accidentally 'liking'. (The reason for now-20-years-old you, getting a 'like' on your fifth-birthday-cake-pic, with a comment- "awww so sweet :):):):):)" ) And so don't require chatting.

I recently heard a girl saying, "Oh my god! Shameless stalkers. Thank heavens, I get notified every time someone 'follows' my profile." Well, chill out girl. That's called Quora.

Also, as opposed to various rumors floated by Aaj Tak, Software Engineers have not been successful yet in devising a way for crawling through the LAN cables and emerging into someone's laptop screen like an emergency pop-up window. So, feel safe being online. It's a friendly neighborhood.

(This ad, featuring Morgan Freeman's voice, has been issued in the public interest. Conditions applied.) %

There was a person sitting on a berth far off in the other side of the compartment with a bespectacled face and almost bald head staring into his Macintosh. Holy Shit! Steve Jobs. But shouldn't he 'drop out' of the train or something ? I approached him timidly.

He was running a media player as well as a reader side-by-side watching "Hello" (no, you don't know this) and simultaneously reading "One night @ call center" (yes, you know this)
He- "What a disgusting movie!"
Me-"No offense, but the book was crap too!"
He- "Still! This movie is downright diarrhea"
And we giggled at this poop-joke for 5 minutes.
(And my sincere apologies to the readers but, Chetan Bhagat totally looks like Steve Jobs from one rail-coach distance. You can check if you want.)

He- "Engineer, kid?"
Me-"Yeah! Chemical Engineer."
He- "Shit man! The last time I met a Chemical guy, he was all like, 'Bhaiyya. Yeh davaai iss dukaan mein                         nahin milti!' LMFAO"
Me-"Hehe. Yeah. Chemical Engineers and Chemists are totally interchangeable."
He- "Just kidding, bro. Chill out. I meant no offense. Lite. But, on a serious note, what alternative career options have you considered? Coz, you gotta eat something, right?"
Me- "I don't know. What's your secret of success? I mean, you had put your fingers in so many pies and then you blotched tissue papers with your smeared hands and... voila! the Indian 'paperback' king."
He- "See, I didn't know what I loved, so I did everything, courses and degrees and jobs, and shortlisted what I hated and bingo! I got my real calling."
Me- "Writing?"
He- "No. Being a housewife."
Me-"*Sigh* They call even you people Home Engineers these days."
He- "When they can call YOU engineers! LOL. ROFLMAO. This shit is so funny!"
Me- "Okay. But seeing today's trends, almost every engineer is vomiting a novel every alternate day about his oh-so-awesome-I'm-totally-nailing-it engineering life that includes various interesting and thought-provoking elements like mess-food, semester-backs, bunks-and-flunks, placement-heartbreaks and below-poverty-line-CGPA. That's how sad it can get. And there you are, playboy-ing in your college-stories."
He- "Who said so?"
Me-"You yourself. I saw your interviews!"
He- "Exactly. *wink* Dude, I was an IITian. I rest my case."
Me-"*speechless*"
He- "You are, what you write. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll write another novel about this train-meeting, which people will again needlessly go bananas over."


I was just flowing in the reverie when a ground-nut seller hawked the soul out of me.
"Babu, ek idhar dena", I said.
"Who the hell is 'babu'?", the seller scowled.
"What the hell?", was the smartest response I could come up with.
"What?", yeah, he said.
"I... I don't mean anything derogatory towards this noble profession and indeed it plays a key-role in the Indian economy, but why, I mean.... you seem educated. And ground-nut seller?", I zipped my mouth, finally.
"Ground-nut seller? Bitch, I am an entrepreneur", he said, shoving a packet in my trembling hands.
"Huh! Oh!", I said and continued being lame.
To avoid any further awkwardness, I added-
"Well, entrepreneurship is indeed a tough 'nut' to crack" and winked.
He didn't respond.
"And an entrepreneur has to be well-versed with the 'nuts' and bolts of his business" and winked again.
He didn't respond.
"In fact, I sometimes feel like a 'nut' for not trying my hand at start-ups till now"
He responded finally ending the pun-fest saying-
"How would you like your nuts? Salted? Or broken?"

And, I did what I do my third best, slipped away.

Now, this word 'Entrepreneurship' has always confused me. No, not the spelling. (Ignoring the fact that I got it correct the seventh time.) The whole concept is warped in itself. Everyone is an engineer nowadays. But at least it requires a certificate. But entrepreneurship? No, it's too cool for that. And the trouble is, it has infected all the professions and spheres of life.

Let me throw some light on a doctor-patient conversation I recently eaves-dropped into, to justify my point-

Doctor- Sorry to say, but, my scheme, 'Oh patient, Be patient' doesn't cover the treatment of your overly-fragile heart condition, but you can have a free sugar check-up benefit-voucher by donating your sperm at that counter
Patient- *facepalm*

Finally, shaking off all the cluttered thoughts, I wondered why engineers go into all different places starting from one common point; what is so repelling in our syllabus that alters our thought-processes; whether Engineering is more of an eye-opener towards actual interests rather than a course and whether the trailer of "Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola" made sense.

But, let's-face-it, we humans have this inclination to eventually neglect what we have in our hands and gape at the opportunities around (no twisted interpretations please) and I am probably exaggerating a simple phenomenon to a much higher level. And who knows, even I might end up doing something other than Engineering. (Considering my grades, which are skydiving more gracefully than Felix Bumgardener)


And shortly afterwards, I toppled from my bed into a fresh new morning at 3 pm.







  

Sunday 21 October 2012

Train (of thought)

After, updating the last post, I did the noblest task that an engineer performs in the scholarly stage of his life, in graciously large amounts. That is, slept.

And then I was in a train.

(Statutory Warning- No, this blog won't be as cool as Inception or even Source Code for that matter.
In case you were even remotely close to starting to expect.)

I was amidst four head-banging guitarists and exchanged stranger-yet-same-aged-hence-cheery glances and asked them what had gotten into them, I mean, where had they gotten into the train.
"Engineering Station, bro!", came the answer.
"Cool", I said, reluctantly adding "Bro" afterwards and added further- "Are you all some band?"
"No, bro. But we might form one, called 'Spastic Orangutan Constipation'".
"Oh!", I said with pain noticeable in my voice, completely sure, that the image of that tormented ape would never ever leave my mind.

I desperately tried to make a head-and-tail of the title, with the limited amount of usable brain that an engineer is left with, but you know, the poetic shade in the names of rock bands is so deep, that our present narrow-minded dictionaries can't attribute a definite meaning to it.

And, I don't know why, but, a peculiar thought kept occurring to me, of the PETA people head-banging in their concert wearing their favorite protest-costume, nothing (which is coincidentally our favorite too).

And then was shot at me, the icicle of a question, which every engineer chillingly fears-
"Do you know playing the Guitar, bro?"


(Contrary to popular beliefs, we engineers follow certain professional ethics and avoid asking each-other's CGPA, and thus avoid long awkward silences.
Thus, the question wasn't "What's your CGPA?" as you had probably expected.)


"No", I said shivering.
"*cold stare*"
"Sorry", I managed to add numbly having been overcome by profound guilt for committing the sin of having wasted my life by not being a pro in guitar by now.
"*cold stare continues*"
"What?", I said to break the ice.

And the next five minutes were spent by them in brainwashing me to move to the 'physically challenged' seat of the compartment, with a guitar being strummed in the background at every punctuation for a dramatic effect.

And I eventually moved.

Then, I saw a guy playing with a DSLR (don't know the full-form, but it's that camera which people hold in their profile pics to flaunt the rising photographer within. Yeah, those photos irritate me too.).

He twisted and turned whatever part of that poor camera he could twist and turn and after having thoroughly enjoyed the sadism, finally focused at something. I gazed at that thing open-mouthed, quite appropriately, as people tend to open their mouths over it. Yeah, you guessed it right, it was a wash-basin.

I let out a sigh and asked what insanity had driven him into doing such a ludicrous act, in these words,
"Uh..Photographer, what are you clicking at ?"
"Dude, I ain't a photographer, I am just an engineer with photography as a passion."
"Cool. But why the wash-basin?"
"It shows the pathos in a train-journey."
"Oh!", and almost felt thankful to him, for not clicking me (when I stood banging at the occupied washroom door in utmost urgency in the morning) in the name of pathos.
"Do you want to see an amazing thing?"

And before I could say anything, there was a big album titled "XYZ's Photography" in my hand.
It consisted majorly of two kinds of photos- without color and without sense.
And in some the watermark was bigger and louder than the subject of the photo itself, as if a narcissistic Shah Jahan had spray-painted his signature in black, right across Taj-Mahal. (Evidently, I suck at analogies)

"You know, only few people can see the creativity and the symbolism hidden in these pics. I don't show my photos to everyone, but then you seemed intelligent enough."
I serenely blushed for 1 full minute and then, realizing that he was eagerly waiting for compliments, added, "Yeah, they are very creative and.... What was the other word ? Yeah symbolic."
"So, like them."
"Yeah, I liked these."
"No, I mean below every photo there is a box, which you tick, if you like it, and on doing that you get to see my creative masterpieces everyday sealed in an envelope waiting for you at the door which will again have a box below that you can tick, if you like it, and then...."

I scratched my head reeling under immense deja vu of having seen this arrangement and album somewhere, but, you know, how the memory is tricked in dreams! I felt pity for that camera that had been staring at that spittoon for about an hour and suddenly the shocking statistics provided by the Camera Rights Association, that had been all over the news last week, 'flashed' in my mind.

They claimed that once in every five seconds, some wannabe, somewhere in the world, molested a DSLR.

And as I tried to slip away from that 'patho'-logical and infectious place and quickly turned away, I saw something that I had least expected to see in a place full of Engineering students and I was genuinely astonished by the presence, that had sparked a sudden amazement and wonder in me. It was almost a miracle witnessing the person in this compartment which could have been possible only by some railway "reservation" screw-up.

I had just seen a girl.

To be continued........



    

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Inertia

Ubuntu
The name that makes many a geek-head bang in silent adoration and encourages many a wannabe-geek to flaunt their love for all things 'Open-Source', which basically means free-stuff.

So, when a virus savaged my Hard-Disk (no AIDS joke intended) I decided to break the windows and let the Ubuntu in the world outside, flow through my ailing computer. And thus, my laptop acquired an orange-purple-ish-jaundice and I already started feeling it to be a pain in my... eyes.

"Ubuntu? Wow! Your Laptop is hot!", many friends commented.
I blushed then, but realized much later, that they meant that literally.

My laptop gradually started melting due to the excessive heat generated by the exhaustive applications being run for my activities of reading a sticky-note or staring at the Desktop reminiscing about how sweet my Windows-days used to be. Finally, the breaking point was, when I saw black marks of molten metal on my table.

So, Ubuntu was out, Windows was in. Then I downloaded some overly possessive Anti-Virus softwares for the system and internet security, which now torment me with so many questions that I sometimes feel guilty, for carrying out highly unsafe procedures that make my system vulnerable to virus; one of the procedures being updating a Facebook-status.

But then I wondered whether Ubuntu really sucked that bad ?
And then, after further self-evaluation, I dramatically discovered that the thing I was hating wasn't Ubuntu actually, but the change that it caused.

We, humans like the objects around, always have a kind of Inertia in all the things we do. We heartily resist any signs of change occurring around us and submit ourselves to it only if the changing force is too strong.

Take the Timeline format of the Facebook, for example. It itched our brains to look at that disgusting thing that our page had transformed into from that adorable format it was in before. Yeah, now we are accustomed and all, but didn't we call Zuckerberg names (which is anyways a fun thing to do) for that petty issue?

See? We hate changes.

Now imagine the plight of the early man who suddenly woke up and found his gorgeous tail missing without sufficient briefing from Darwin. How he might have stared at the masterpiece of nature, that a monkey's hind is, and contemplated extinction. Okay, that led to other good things like the invention of tools and fire for the purpose  of suicide and invention of wheel which ,according to some ancient hieroglyphic records, was made because the early man reportedly wanted 'not to live on this planet anymore'.

But the history, biology and the meticulous archaeology behind the research put aside, what's the moral? It was all due to a change, that too a small wagging one.

So, next time, before you start spewing venom on a new idea or innovation, check if it's the novelty you are hating or the change. And before the matter turns too grave, serious and boring, let's abruptly change the topic.






Monday 8 October 2012

Intro-se-duction

Social Networking.

The art of scarcely knowing a supposedly pretty reportedly girl from perhaps California who might be single.
And that's just Facebook.

Yeah! I may mock it and all but I am a member of this Network and one of its many worthless threads, scrolling down worthless pieces of information, life-threatening chain-mails, lies and thoughts and prejudices and dogmas and revolutions and what not !

Everyone's opinion matters, or say, you are absolutely free to publicly make an ass of yourself. For the internet is a court and we all its jesters- entertaining the rest with our half-baked knowledge, needlessly-high esteem and overly pompous show of stupidity. But it isn't all negative. We now can stalk..oops.. talk to, about, against, for anyone and anything freely. We are now being noticed in an international spectrum. (And I'm not dis-cussing that green-dot now.)

So seizing this opportunity, I have got my blog, which, according to dyslexicdictionary.com, is a large, free space offered to blabber, gabble and jabber about all those things you can't say to one's face because these are too boring or too obvious or too insignificant or too rude. Because, come on, you can't hit me sitting in front of your computer and you are too lazy, I mean, social, to log out of Facebook to come and catch me by my throat.

Hence, the blog.