Inspiration & Stuff

So, I was busy lazying around this one month trying to realize my purpose and goals in life. Seriously. It has been my most unproductive semester in the campus with no electives, valley-low attendance and scuba-diving C**A. Yes, it sucks, when you say "CDCs" and people think you are stating your mid-sem grades. And when that too is, unfortunately, true. So, somehow I tried to get out of this sulky mood and started watching inspirational videos on DC. Now, here are the reasons why you shouldn't watch inspirational videos when you are desperately in need of inspiration:

(a) Zero relatability- : "Holy Trinity! When that one-legged black guy, with partial paralysis and traces of cancer, with a side dish of herpes, whose wife divorced him, twice, leaving him homeless in two installments, can skateboard through a turbulent tornado by directly cutting across a rainbow and bouncing off a volcano, why can't I study for my test which is in like, fifteen minutes?", felt no one ever.

(b) Background music- So the inspiring guy in the video starts with a narration of his sad beginnings. There are violins and flutes playing. Good enough. He lays the foundation of his success story. Violins and cellos again. Okay. He encounters many hurdles and overcomes all. The damn flute makes a guest appearance amidst the violins and cellos this time. Damn!. Then comes the dramatic climax and the hero finally steals the show. Violins. Cellos. Flutes. Again. Now where the hell are the bass guitars when we really need them?

(c) Temporary Arousal- Sometimes we do feel motivated but that phase lasts for only about 59 seconds after watching the video. Just like the way you feel like screwing bulbs into every damn socket visible, for a day after watching Swades or how you dream of repeatedly pushing Abhishek Bachhan into all waterfalls and canyons, for a month after watching Raavan. But after sometime you'll be back to your usual/useless self.

I don't know much about the inspirational books as I have read just one "You can win", and yes, it surely helped to score in my board exams. I used it to write an essay on a book I had recently read and learnt nothing from. I still think I should have read something else to feel high and happy, but then, "Fifty Shades of Grey" wasn't yet published.  


So how to come out of this illogical depression and get your act together to do something worth doing? Well here are some tips I have recently learnt (Okay I hate writing philosophical stuff, still):

(a) Avoid Assholes Always. Assholes come in all shapes and sizes and live camouflaged around you. But there's a reason nature considered only one of it enough for survival. Assholes are just like black-holes, only that instead of matter and light, they totally suck out your positive energy until you are degraded morally, and start taking lite in all matters. Hence stay as far from them as possible; and never give anyone a chance to bring you down. Even if it is an elevator. Because it shows how frigging lazy you are to not walk to the floor below.     

(b) Know your Strengths. Yes, you might have heard/read many times about knowing your weaknesses. Well, screw it. The society has already been doing the job of reminding us of our drawbacks quite well. So it's time to concentrate on your pros and show what you're a pro in, rather than being conned into despair by your inadequacies. So the next time some discouraging soul acts like a pain in the neck, shove your awesomeness so deep down his throat, he wouldn't even be able to puke without praising you.

(c) Forget Time Tables. We all have in our lives tried out laying out detailed schedules of the activities to be done the following week, which we have miserably failed to follow. But things should be done, when you really feel like doing it, to get the most productive results. Besides deadlines and due-dates, you need not always stick to a plan and extinguish the spur of the moment. And you know what, even the Joker feels the same.
   
(d) Give it a Shot. Anything good is definitely worth an attempt. As life is too long to fear a petty failure and too short to not do your liking and regret later. And even if you fail, hide the sad story until you succeed. Then, you can use it to spice up your Oscar Winning Speech or in your autobiography or in an interview or... okay whatever, just remember the damn thing.

(e) Be Positive. Enough said.

And with this I would like to close the scroll and promise never to preach again. As for the Compre, we'll anyhow manage it as always; and in the meanwhile, join the Pool Party Facebook Event, even if you haven't come, just to look cool in front of your friends from other colleges. Yes, you may study now.   

Batons & Baltis

Yeah, it's that time of the year again, when the 3rd year people dust off their responsibilities and let the juniors get dirty. So, 'Passing on the batons', as they call it, is basically the act of turning few core-members into coordinators, helping them accomplish their long-held dream of dining at VGH wearing suits; while the borderline-fortunate are granted posts like Hypothetical Head, Nonsensical Head, Psychological Head, Empirical Head, Ironical Head etc And the rest are given an imaginary balti to cry over while they ponder upon the futility of their lives.

Well these selections happen in various ways. Interviews are involved in most cases and so are SOPs (Statement Of Power-hungriness) In the SOP, you are asked to write what you have done/ pretended to have done/ accredited to yourself what someone else has done, for the department/club. And also, why you feel you are the only deserving person in the Milky Way and the neighboring Andromeda region, capable of holding that post. The second question is obviously answered in the most honest and sincerest way possible, with the applicant humbly recounting all his/her virtues and merits, real and probable. In short, if egotism wiped off, SOP would be its toilet-paper.

Then comes the interview part, where the applicant is questioned by the previous coordination committee on his ideas, opinions, interests, cuisine preferences, views on liberalism, religious beliefs, past medical history and so on. Here is an excerpt from one such interview I eavesdropped into-

Senior- So, what has been your contribution to the department?
Junior- I've devotedly attended all the 5 outings and have contributed Rs 200 for my food and transport. But seriously I'm too bored of always going to Bogmallo for the outings now. Seriously. It has been so many times, that nowadays whenever John sees me entering his shack he is like, 'Dude! Not you again.' But the chicken lollipop there is incredibly awesome. Anyways, what was the question again?

Senior- Where would you like to see this department in the future?
Junior- Utorda. I mean it is the most awesome white-sand beach I've ever seen. And did you eat at Zeebop? It's amazing. Yeah, we'll go there next time when I'll give my chief-coordinator treat. *wink*wink*

Senior- Tell us why you feel that you are best-suited for the posts of Chief-co, Waves-co, Spree-co, Quark-co, Zephyr-co, I-have-no-clue-why-this-post-exists-co, *Insert-a-stylish-sounding-word-here*-organizer, *Another-one-just-for-you*-manager, and 52 other randomly generated posts.
Junior- I have the potentiality, the capability, the caliber, the capacity, the talent, the aptitude, the competence, the faculty, the... Okay I've run out of all the synonyms now. What's the next question?

Senior- Who would you like to remove from the department, if you could?
Junior- That jerk named XYZ. I mean he's such an asshole he almost looks like one. But I only wish he could keep his shit to himself. LMAO. What? Didn't get it?

Senior- C'mon now! You don't get brownie points for being a bitch. And what's your CGPA?
Junior- Dude! CGPA seriously? What are you? My mom?

Senior- Let me give you a hypothetical situation, in which a girl from some outside campus comes to our fest, Waves, gets kidnapped, is released in BITS Hyderabad on-stage in a fashion-show, and gets all famous on FB, and gets some 873 likes on her pics. Now, how will you prevent our department from earning a bad reputation for this incident?
Junior- I would totally take her to Waves-ball and write a story about us on BITS Confessions. I just love  hypothetical situations.

Senior- Who of the other applicants do you think, should be given those posts you have applied for?
Junior- Well, throw me a title and I won't give a damn even if the rest of the posts are allotted via a game of musical chairs, played using Reshmaiyya's discography, on a broken gramophone. But as you are asking let me figure out. Okay choose one of these fingers. Yeah, make ABC Spree-co and PQR Quark-co. Now choose again. What? It was your question!

Senior- Okay. We are done.
Junior- Smoking Amazeballs! I'm the chief right? Wait I'm calling up my mom.

Well, I'm surely a racist when it comes to life. I want it to be fair. But sometimes we fail in getting what we want. Some feel infuriated and blame others, some feel defeated and distressed, while some accept it and rectify themselves. But the trick is to move on. With optimism and dignity. And if we contemplate on a philosophical plane; whenever it seems like the world is not responding to our pleas in a... HOLY SHIT! The video I clicked on yesterday has finally buffered. Catch you later. Bye!

Confessions, Compliments, Custard, Whatever

These days, there has been a disease that's rapidly infecting the campus, making the students involuntarily spray their stupidity all over the Facebook. Okay, that's basically what FB is for, but wait, now we have specific pages for that, reading which may leave your brain in a comatose state of WTF (what's this foolishness?) Of course, this trend too has reached the campus via the same age-old traditional route of ,"I actually started at some American University, that makes me unreasonably awesome by default, then IIT spotted me and went bananas and nuts, and then stepped in, the BITS, thinking,'Okay, what exactly are we waiting for?' and so on..."

So the page that is in the spotlight is called 'BITS Confessions'; it consists of numerous outpourings of students' darkest secrets (as only a retard would dare to do those things in broad daylight) which obviously are very true, in the same way as I'm true, when I say I go to C-Mess, for its mouthwatering dishes. And the confessions can be roughly divided into these categories below-

(a) I am amazing- No, seriously. I mean, how else could I force my Prof to give me an A, by claiming to be a zombie with moderate make-up and threatening to eat him alive otherwise? Or when I smoked heavily in front of a Security Guard and silently escaped vomiting and swaying, while he wondered whether ghosts could puke! And did I tell you about, how I had written my own recommendations, while my Profs wrote my exams, in exchange of some false medical-prescriptions? And someone else is doing my MS in MIT by the way. So, in short, I am awesome.

(b) I have an adventurous love-life- Yes. Me and my partner are so into each other that we frequently go behind *censored* and continue with *parental advisory: explicit content* ending it with a final touch of *rated R* and then return to our hostels. In fact, I am not a human. I am a blob of testosterone walking. Hence, at the end of my college-years, the probability of me getting gonorrhea is greatly greater than me getting graduated. But in my defense, why should only the boy take all the blame?

(c) I rock at revenge- I am known all over the campus for my temper, which is, like my various other attributes, very short. So, I instantly got irritated when my neighbor continued spamming in DC and FB about some stupid event, and thus set fire to his laptop and later, to him. And the wonderful thing is, he still doesn't know who killed him. But it indeed was a very funny incident. (But I still can't understand why our warden couldn't see much humor in it!)

(d) I am a Die-Hard despo- I am a total chick-magnet; only that, magnets, unfortunately, also repel. I have till now proposed 95 different people with feminine nicks in DC main chat. And sadly got rejected there too. I tried calling girls from my phone-contacts but all of the numbers seemed to dial up Liam Neeson from Taken. (Or were they the annoyed fathers?) Seeing my starved condition, even my friends left me saying, 'Sorry bro. But we can still be frien... Shit!' Sadly, my laptop too has been infected by Dropper and various other viruses so many times, that even a 'performer' from Las Vegas would find it too filthy to use. In short, if you find me hanging somewhere, think twice before touching the suicide-note lying nearby.

(e) I am confused- I, actually, was about to spam on FB, about how attending these fest-nights would change your life forever, for a price of Rs 250 of course, or of Rs 200, depending on whether you'll order those two shirts, a jersey, a petticoat, a doormat, a tissue-paper, a used sock etc on SWD. But on seeing this link, I posted my plea here. I also wanted to praise someone, but owing to my vocabulary, which is so poor even a Somalian would feel posh in comparison, I've posted that too here, instead of doing so on the BITS Compliments page. I sometimes feel that even the teachers should start making announcements here instead of sending Farmville requests, for instance:

Confession #420
All you Chemical people may/may not have a surprise-test/assignment in the lecture/tutorial class of Material Science/Mass transfer. So do attend all the classes. Teehee!

#keh-ke-lunga
#sadis\m/
#FB>>>Photon

And there are other weird categories too, like the one where a person anonymously replies in his confession, to another confession made by some other anonymous person. I mean,what's this? Omegle?

And worse is the page, 'BITS Proposals' where-
(a) In case of girls- A someone proposes a girl, thus increasing her self-esteem exponentially, making her famous and proud, without any point, as he still remains incognito. So, in a way it's like, you conducting a vigorous PR Drive for the fest of some college you aren't even a part of. In short, useless. But if you really want to compliment, then post it on BITS Compliments. At least it looks neater there.
(b) In case of boys- Dude, chill! It's just your slightly gay friend making an advance at you.

I still didn't get the point of BITS Abuses. Yet I think it's okay, for those who think that throwing expletives on someone, while safely hiding in a pit themselves, is mature enough. But on a whole, it's all good, as these pages are at least trying to stimulate the creativity of the frustrated souls in the campus, as they desperately try to pen down a power-packed Sunny Leone movie (Yes. Movie.) into a paragraph.

So seriously guys, grow up. And if you'll excuse me, I have to go propose myself on BITS Proposals.

Will you be my...?

"Dogs bark. Bitches friendzone."

                                                                                                                - Aristotle, on canine behavior

So, it's that time of the year again when we start feeling as desperate as that poor Tyrannosaurus Rex, which hid under a tin shed to prevent getting wet due to heavy rains. Sadly, it was raining asteroids and it died.
Yes, tomorrow is 14th February; that esteemed day, when the Dutch Drees government presented its plan to build 30000 houses, in the year 1949. And also the Valentines Day. Meh.

So, now there's an inflow of cheesy apps like Love-calculator, Love-simulator, Love-refrigerator, Love-alligator, Love-thermoregulator, Love-superadministrator etc all over the net. (One of which calculated a 100% compatibility between me and Mayawati. (No I didn't enter any surname))

And this day, like diarrhea, comes with various symptoms before finally squeezing the shit out of people; namely-
07/2 - Rose day
08/2 - Propose day
09/2 - Remember the slap you got yester-day
10/2 - Stop stalking her FB profile (and her!) from to-day
11/2 - Damn! Why is it Mon-day?
12/2 - WTH! The street dogs are celebrating Kiss-day
13/2 - Shit! I'm again with my pet octopus on Hug-day
14/2-  Say 'Valentine' again and I'll bloody hammer your brains. Yeah; day

But if you believe in directly coming to the point instead of wasting money on Teddy bears and gummy bears, here are some tips for all you single-helplessly-waiting-to-mingle to make this day an unforgettable memory. These are some acts you have to perform to successfully change your relationship-status on FB from "single" to "it's complicated (coz I accidentally lifted few relationship tips from some evil loser's blog)"

So here goes the list, with the success-probability and difficulty-level increasing, as you go down. *Drumroll*

Level I- Wear a rose (or roses, depending on your budget) on your shirt permanently for the whole day. It is also cheap, as you may use that unused rose from the Rose Day. Yeah, it looks odd and weird. But it totally helped Nehru 'mount his baton'.

Level II- Go guitarist. Come on, we are all engineers, and our first and foremost duty to our nation is to play that godforsaken 'Godfather' theme on the goddamned guitar. So take that wooden stringed instrument wherever you go and keep thrumming it periodically. The guitar, I mean. And you may add a medley of songs like Bruno Mars' 'Grenade' poisoned by a sadistic potion of 'Sheela Ki Jawani' and 'Jeena Yahaan Marna Yahaan' and end up driving all the musically-challenged girls crazy. But it works only if  you are called Gajendra Verma and you are playing in an auditorium.  

Level III- Act blind. Wear your goggles, take a stick and walk coolly, until your crush comes and you abruptly fall on her. Now, there are two possibilities:
(1) She may pity you and sympathetically ask, 'Are you blind?' Reply, 'Yes' Now, gauging her emotion, gently add, 'And so is my love.'
(2) She may freak out and shriek out, 'Are you blind, asshole?' Reply, 'Yes' Now, without gauging her emotion, cuttingly add, 'And so is your grandma.'
In case something good eventually happens, (the probability of which would be as less as ethics in GTA) you can suddenly drop in the Titanic's classic line, 'I see You', one fine day and open her eyes too. (And stop giving me those cheap looks. I'm doing social-service here.)

Level IV- Tell tales. Things needed- few trustworthy friends and an armor, preferably shining. Wear the armor and roam around your crush with your friends when she is alone. And when she is suitably shocked by your unearthly appearance, she will yell, 'What the hell is that costume?' Your friends will now step in and act like you are just wearing the same clothes that you initially planned to give for laundry a month ago. Now, when she goes out of her wits and shouts, 'Why does it look like an armor to me then?', your friends will casually suggest, 'Perhaps, because, he is your knight-in-shining-armor'. Now it's time for you to act royal, which you've never been in your whole life, and live the tale. Note: If you lie anywhere below the Tropic of Cancer on the map, smoothly add, 'And you can call me... the Dark Knight.'

Level V- Play gay. Now this is an interesting one. You have to come out of the closet even if you don't have one and tell about it to your crush. It'll be highly awkward at first but will turn easy and comfortable gradually. And then, when the time is perfectly ripe like a yellow banana, go back inside your imaginary closet. Convince her with a straight-face that her presence has dramatically changed your mindset and you are Khushi-wala-gay now, but not the mushy-wala-gay. Heck, you may even become a celebrity by joining and publicizing Ramdev Baba's quest of 'curing' gays via Yoga. *Happy Ending* *Claps*

Level VI- Pick-up positively. When it comes to pick-up lines, I position myself at very high ranks just like Laden positions himself in the list of Nobel Peace Prize nominees; as the only pick-up line I know  immediately gets you a handshake, but unfortunately, can be used only once a year. Because it's 'Happy Birthday!' And a humble request to all the CS guys- stop using 'Hello World' as a pick-up line. That isn't the correct syntax. And EEE/ENI people, you can use this line- 'I thought the DC is the most electrifying thing until I met you.' Don't know about the rest, but if your crush is a Chemical Engineer, the ideal one is, 'Are you placed?' Because when she asks why, you can romantically reply, 'Coz you are one in a million.' Despite looking easy, this act is placed at the 6th position because just like the snake-reborn-to-take-revenge stories, it works out only in the movies.

Level VII- Be You*. This is the most difficult one. Seriously. Because try however you may, there is always the actor within you who forces you to pretend, to feign, to fake. But in the long run, being yourself ultimately helps you emerge victorious. Yeah you can wipe those tears now.

If you found the whole content to be directly opposite to the word 'useful', do remember, that I promised to help you make this day 'an unforgettable memory', nothing else. And that I guarantee. If you have any better and safer ideas, do drop them in the comment-box and take part in this noble and altruistic activity. And who knows, that might make some lonely writer somewhere lucky. So everyone reading this, wishing you an advanced Happy Solo-people-hiding Day and for all the girls, 'Happy Birthday!! :P :D :F :W'



*No this isn't a publicity article for any sort of an awesome conference, but if you've been lazy enough to not register still for something called TEDx, here goes the link, http://10.10.10.120/ And yeah there's a shirt too. Yeah that black one, which doesn't look like a copied football team's jersey. Signing out. 












  

Bunking may cause Cancer*

Yeah, it's a statistically proven fact well documented by a very esteemed and responsible news channel, India News. (Keeping aside the fact that, it has also once reported, with accurate astronomical evidence, obviously, that 'Hell' is actually a planet between Mars and Jupiter; but come on, telescopes with dirty lenses are to blame.)

So that night, exactly at 23:41:05 hrs IST (GMT+5.5), I over-ambitiously set the alarm at 5:45 am, after searching that rarely-used app for about half-an-hour in the phone, switched off the lights and then flew and fell on the bed strewn with all the clothes I would wear the following month. It was then that a rascal knocked at my door and shrieked, "Night Mess!" An hour, a Rs.35-debt and a sandwich later, I was back in my room and wondered whether going to an incomprehensible class the following morning was worth getting into rare (and sometimes cool) psychological disorders triggered by sleep-deprivation.

I had always suspected that alarms were crafted with the art of black-magic to be used as a tool to torture the mankind by waking them up from their sweet slumber at the oddest times possible. Yeah, my phone was damn punctual in its sadism and 'alarmed' me sarcastically.

Half-an-hour (or was it an hour-and-a-half?) later...

Here I was, after one month of educational hibernation, stepping into the lecture theater. I don't know what was so brutal in the way the professor glared at me, that he started resembling a 'Trespassers will be prosecuted' board. I ignored the sudden creepy silence, the burning stare of the students and wondered what had gone wrong and checked if I had my pants on. Or perhaps, it was just due to me being bag-less and interrupting the class, by being 15 minutes late. I quickly walked to the farthest corner possible and dissolved in the seat with utmost silence.

There were so many symbols and alphabets on the board that if Dan Brown would see it, he would get enough material to write 7 different sequels to The Da Vinci Code. But no! The professor was actually teaching Thermodynamics, which had now elevated to such a high level that if a NASA scientist would plan on landing a rover on its face, he would first systematically calculate all the transitions, trajectories, tangents and finally, backed by sufficient scientific proof, conclude- "Abey, lite ley"

After sometime (which was 10 seconds), I checked if I had dozed off, but the AC had taken care of my lack of sleep, by being OFF and letting the sweat pour from every pore. No, the professor wasn't tired at all and felt reluctant on leaving before he completed the 50 precious minutes of his lecture.

Anyways, I drifted back into my daydreams, and imagined an octopus riding a dragon, flying across the theater, gobbling up all the nerds and spitting spectacles everywhere and waving an eight-handed 'Hi' to me. And I pretty much deserved this friendly gesture as I had always been a die-hard fan of Oswald.

(And this vision just got my blog a U/A certificate from Pogo for disturbingly portraying its cartoon in a surrealistic imagery.)

But, I have to admit that, however hard you may try to ignore, the topics being taught in the class always leave an impression on your imagination. Like that time, when the prof was teaching about "French Revolution", and I was imagining a conversation between The Eiffel Tower and The Leaning Tower of Pisa (after contemplating Paris Hilton, of course)

E.T. - "Hey, L.ToP, I am straight. How about you?"
L.ToP- *hell-bent on not responding*
E.T.-  "coz I heard you have some strange inclinations!"

Or when the Maths prof was trying to prove the controversial equation- '1 2 ka 4, 4 2 ka 1' (strategically incorporated in the Anil Kapoor song, 'My name is Lakhan') by the method of Contradiction, and then adjusting his tie screamed- "This is gonna be Legen...wait for it...dre's equation!" Or was it just another day-dream? You will never know.

And have you met one of those students infected by this miserable disease of perpetually making notes of what all the teacher does? They don't even bother looking at the teacher, as their heads are eternally pinned to the notes. Take this excerpt from the notes of one of my nerdy friends, for example-                                                                                                                                

"...so I was stressing the importance of Entropy which is a major issue in running a machine *coughs*  Because it lays the foundation of Second Law. Hey, wake him up man! *pauses* And these laws are to be followed for energy to be profitably transformed. Why is he still sleeping? Hey! Good Morning to you too! Get out. *sends me out of class*..."

Yeah, Profs love eye-contact! So better give them some.

Now let's get back to the Thermodynamics class. (That kept trying to keep up to its name by continuously frying my brains.) The digital clock now indicated that I had to keep my delicate mental-balance for a one hour long minute more. It almost felt like watching an atom-bomb ticking its countdown, only that this bomb would explode, spraying chocolate and Miami beaches in all directions. I closed my eyes as sweat trickled down my face and the theme 'Rise' from TDKR played in the background. And finally, the miracle happened. The clock struck independence and I came out feeling like the hero from the 'Shawshank Redemption' after he prison-breaks. There was confetti falling from the sky, people exchanged hugs and handshakes with moist eyes and trumpets merrily farted. At last, I was liberated....


Oh wait! What was this post about?


*This post was actually written in the last semester but has been posted now as I couldn't find sufficient time  to mock Quark owing to my excessive sleeping sickness. My apologies.
   

On Air Again

"...and then Wilbur was all like, 'Dude, did you get the stuff? Let's get high bro' and then it all began. But bringing the ladies to serve was my idea. But I still don't understand why he was so shocked when I brought spanners, screw-drivers and wood to the place.." -Orville Wright in an interview.

So, after lying jobless at home for almost a month, I had a dramatic change of mind and returned back to BITS. And now I lie jobless here. It was Jet Konnect that helped me in reaching this holy abode of 40 inch LEDs and yeah, education, of course.

It was my FFE (fifth flight experience) and I'll recount some facts about this hyped mode of transport.
The most important part of a plane is the air-hostess. I say 'part' because they are definitely clones/droids/transformers and definitely can't be considered Homo sapiens. These are the reasons-
(a) Smile is their only expression. They will smile the hell out of you and keep on smiling even after you kill yourself of Paranoid Schizophrenia.
(b) Their accent is American; the American being the Terminator; which is due to their vocal-cords having been replaced by the Automated Voice Response System that you hear in the Customer Service phone calls.      
(c) There is a thin line between make-up and plastic surgery. And unfortunately they are playing Kabaddi across that thin line.

But despite all these reports from various conspiracy-theorists it has been proved that they are humans too. And below all those layers of cosmetics and plastic smiles lies a delicate heart; which wants you to buy that exorbitantly costly coffee worth Rs.60

At the beginning of the journey, you are explained the number of ways in which you might fail in completing the journey. They tell you what to do in case the plane lands on water, on a volcano, on Mars and all the other places in the universe except the airport where you initially planned to reach, before involuntarily registering into Space-Tourism. But none pays much attention for the obvious reason of not being Saif Ali Khan from 'Cocktail'. But it certainly hurt the sentiments of an old woman sitting beside me who at last growled, 'Kuchh toh shubh-shubh bol kalmuhi!'

And then starts playing low volume music with pianos, saxophones and violin, which seems classy and elite at first but after few minutes you feel like asking the hostess, 'Do you have Honey Singh? The non YoYo one?'

The window seat is amazing though. But only the first time. Because only once can you feel excited and elated on watching towns looking as tiny as your CGPA and the land looking like Abstract Modern Art, which doesn't make any sense unless you are thoroughly stoned. And in case of the clouds surrounding your window, these are the respective reactions-
1st time you watch a cloud: Oh! The divine froth materialized by the holy endeavors of His hands that made the flowing rivers, the rising waves and the growing seed. I bow to Thine supremacy. Alas! My eyes took so long to realize this magnanimous beauty of such celestial nature and heavenly intensity. Pardon me for such a brutal sin Lord. Amen.
2nd time you watch: Yeah, it's very lovely and pretty and white. And I am an agnostic actually. What are your views on the world mythologies?
3rd time: What's the time? I don't think this plane is even moving. Isn't this tasteless sandwich I just ate complementary?
4th: What's this irritating white thing I see all the time? Did some bird shit on my window?

Meanwhile the air inside the plane keeps on entering and leaving your ears without any rhyme or rhythm finally giving you a slight headache. Just like a CDC lecture basically. Simultaneously, the air-hostesses tempt you with various products, which you should profoundly avoid unless you want to land bankrupt. Because the rates are certainly sky-high. (Now I had to use that, didn't I?)

After some staring and boring moments, we finally land and are thanked by the crew for choosing their airlines, or in other terms, clicking at their name which was placed topmost in Yatra.com  for being the cheapest airlines in that route and are bid goodbye with the same tormenting smile.

But airports always make me nostalgic, as the large foreign population there reminds me of those childhood-days when I used to shriek 'Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!' whenever I saw a hairy white man. Now I have turned a full-fledged Pastafarian and believe only in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, so it's no more a problem.

And so, I end narrating my experience with a noise-making flying-box that frequently roars above the campus teaching us a very valuable lesson of life- 'Brrrrrrrrrrshhhhhh......'






 

   

   

Aata Majhi Satakli

Yes. That's precisely what 'Epidural Hematoma' is called in Marathi.

In case you don't know what EDH means, it's what happens just inside your skull when it falls in love with a hard thing and then falls on it with the speed of light. And I am talking about it as a boy I knew had it, who two days later in half-forgetfulness discovered he was myself. Wait... *Brainfart*

So, it all began after... Well, I don't remember much of it, except the MedC, two other hospitals, strangers poking my veins, friends making guest-appearances, ambulances and making sense of the annoying urine-bag that stalked me everywhere. But the one thing I surely know is, how and why I fell is still a matter of medical mystery. So let's silently blame the cause of my fall on alien abduction and experimentation.

Reportedly, the three weirdest things that I did in the inactivity of my consciousness were:
(a) Trying to talk some sense into a Punjabi friend. That too in Telugu.
(b) Banging my injured head against the CT Scan machine thinking that the doctors were sealing me off.
(c) Explaining a fellow neurological patient that we don't call a barmaid 'Chemical Engineer' in BITS Goa
But then, it all felt justified after I came to know that I had once replied 'Ammeter Rheostat' on being asked 'How are you feeling?' by a doctor.

But the 'Blunder of the Year' award should certainly go to the SMRC hospital which planned on conducting an unnecessary neurological surgery on my brain. And the thing with an unnecessary neurological surgery is, it's even worse than passive smoking. Because both are harmful to health, but passive smoking at least has the decency of being FREE.

But in all these odds, I must admit, it was the all-comforting company of my friends in the Goa Medical College that kept me going, with their highly encouraging comments like, 'You look very smart in your CT Scan' and 'You are all right. See that patient. Is that brown thing his brain?'

Though the highlight was, acknowledging me regarding the free services provided by the GMC including the glucose and saline drips, in these words, 'Abey ek aur bottle ghusane bol. Free ka hai!' And obviously my hungry wrists obliged.

Yes, the days were very strange as was my face, with hair so irritatingly fuzzy that even my comb went- 'lolwut' So, facially I looked worse than Joker from TDK and physically I was worse than Bruce Wayne from TDKR. But of course, the Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham moment happened when my parents entered the scene and hugged me, as opposed to my expectations, in which I imagined them to break in 'Holy Smokes! Our son is special now!' slow-motion scene.

Then I was shifted to the MedC, which is the best place that one can get in BITS because the AC actually works there and your routine is something like- Sleep. Eat. Sleep. Eat. Shit. Constipation? Sleep again then.
Moving on to the menu. It too is quite exotic, with fascinating options like- Warm Khichdi, Cold Khichdi, Warm Khichdi being cooled and Die hungry.

On the flip side, you have nurses attending you the whole day. Let's leave aside the fact though, that the most killer pick-up line you can manage is only the- 'No mam. I didn't vomit today *innocent smile* ' But then you are supposed to be 'patient', aren't you? (Though I sincerely regret not using the line, 'I fell for you', anytime.)

But speeches are where mothers are. And thus, I became a victim of the vast maternal oratory in which every sentence ended with- '... and that's why you fell down' Well, she accused events ranging from the Portuguese influence on Goan culture to my low CGPA for my fall and I being left with no options of debate or discussion, continued with my silent slumber.

The doctor then wrote me off for a month of hibernation at home, with a hearty request for a haircut, with belief in the saying that one should have a good wrapping at least, if the gift is bad. And thus, I now rest at home with two hours of computer-time a day, officially bunking classes. Now, when I come to think of all of it philosophically, I feel that it's just a nature's mysterious way of saving me from the tortures of ERP, this semester.

The whole last week came with a moral for me- that you should always have good number of calories in diet and good friends by your side, because they will be the ones saving you, when you fall. And yes my friends did save me. And so did Dr Raghu sir, my warden sirs and my dear hostel-assistant sir.

An ending advice- Don't forget to take care of that huge chunk of meat in your head because, believe me, it can ache in a hundred different ways and subtly show who's the boss, if it wants to.

Signing out!