virtual pencil

TO START TRAIN PULL CHAIN

2010-03-27T13:05:00.000+05:30

to stop train pull chain.

doesn't that single melodious line convey everything about indian railways i.e. there’re infinite ways to delay a train journey but none to speed it up. i keep drawing a parallel with democracy where madcap chain-pulling has brought the country to a standstill. wouldn't it be better if all chains became accelerator pedals instead of brakes?

TOP OF THE POPS

2010-03-18T20:22:00.001+05:30

no wonder mtv no longer calls itself music television – there’s no bloody music on it!

skewering mtv for replacing music with reruns of rannvijay’s hairstyle and cat-fighting girls is the latest fad. till it struck me: what if the channel was a victim instead of the perpetrator here? contrary to popular belief, music stopped coming to mtv instead of the other way around. and the channel’s bastardization is just another saga in the death of indipop.
there was a place and time in the 90s when imported perfumes liberated noses, fast food set the tongue free, hollywood got its eyeballs, so it was only fitting that pop became music to our ears. desperation to cut an album was high – heck, even shubha mudgal did it– before pop went bust. kaput. khallas. what went wrong? let’s introduce you to the villains in this downfall…
first up is my favourite punching bag: the pakis. the padosee quickly realised that desis hated paying, even for taxes & electricity. and voila! if you download from songs.pk (full disclosure: i do), you’re partnering pakis in piracy. in essence, pop didn’t die out because it became unfashionable, but because it got unprofitable. of course, they tried to fill the vacuum by sending adolescents like jal but mahesh bhatt patriotically nipped that cultural invasion.
this brings us to the 800-pound gorilla: bollywood. when indipop stole the filmi duniya’s mojo, the whole industry went as berserk as vidhu vinod chopra. so they put their ears and heads together and hijacked the pop bandwagon. and the bhangra bandwagon. and the rap bandwagon. and just about any other bandwagon that was becoming the next-big-thing.
the verdict is clear. daler mehndi went into trafficking, mika got busy kissing, and two-bit acts like band of boys started doing gigs in ranchi to make ends meet. there’s plenty of underground music going around online, but nobody in the mainstream media will have any of it. and thus came the end of the road for pop.
indipop is dead. let’s hope himesh doesn’t last very long either.

DESSERTS OF THE DESERT

2010-03-08T17:59:00.000+05:30

in rajasthan, cuisine comes in only two extremes: terribly spicy and wickedly sweet. while the fiery dishes are justifiably well-known, there’s no reason for the sweets to be any less famous. the right royal manner of celebrating these sinful sweets is thru festivals. here’s the lowdown on the three conspirators to get guilty with…
colours from a pichkari aren't the only things that stick during holi. there’s no scientific evidence to prove that gujias are addictive. however, there’s plenty of irrational opinion available to concede that sweet khoya with dry fruits cocooned in crispy lightly -fried dough is as enslaving as the bhang that accompanies it during holi celebrations.
there are sweets, and then there’s ghevar. how could something so cripy melt in the mouth so easily? how do they manage to get the sugariness just right? why is any teej festival incomplete without it? i’m as flummoxed as anyone by these questions, but a bite does come handy in coming closer to the answer.
milkcake is that perfect jugaadu recipe that couldn’t have originated any where except for alwar. the ingredients (milk and lemon) are easily available, it needs no elaborate preparation and can be stored without refrigeration for weeks on end. but that’s not why you shouldn’t take a mouthful. when sweets has become a debauchery of dry-fruits, pure ghee and vark, milkcake stands-out for its back-to-basics appeal.

THE GRAVEYARD MOMENT

2010-01-25T18:17:00.002+05:30

mumbai, 12/11/2009.
it's official. today is the first day i got paid for working 24 hours without catching a wink.

as i gather my thoughts in this cold-blasted cubicle, at this ungodly hour of 05:17 in the morning with my colleague snoring soundly in the corner on my first night shift in the company, my memory reverts back to that fateful day an year back when i first worked thru the night. only difference is, i didn't get paid that time.
it was the first day of campus recruitment, and my first gig as a student coordinator. every worst-case scenario i'd imagined - hysterical candidates, demanding employers, lazy peons - had combined into one heck of a perfect storm. all hell broke loose as the carefully-structured placement process went for a toss, and my colleague jubin & i spent much of the day and all of the night managing the crisis erupting around us.
by the time the fire-fighting was over, the placement interviews had spilled over into the night. working in the graveyard shift is a hard-to-understand concept for most people. if you're nocturnal creature like me, you'd have no difficulty in appreciating the delight of sleeping late and waking up even later. in my experience, there comes a point in time during the night shift - which i'd like to call the graveyard moment - when you start relishing the slack pace, the quiet ambiance and the lack of pressure of it all.
which brings me back to today: though my day didn't turn out to be as eventful as the one in bit mesra, the night has never been better. cheers and g'night!

BOOM DE AH DA

2010-01-18T01:33:00.008+05:30

as they say at the very beginning, i can't this song out of my head. musical commercials don't get better than this, so here's take 2 of discovery's 'i love the whole world' promo. i can't think of a better way to welcome the new year. cheers!

MMX

2010-01-02T17:54:00.000+05:30

no, this is not another article reminding you that you’ve aged as another year has arrived.

i don’t quite understand the point of celebrating new year’s eve. not that i’ve anything against rejoicing santa claus’ joblessness for another 360 days, but what’s there to be happy about? in fact, there’s a good reason why i become increasingly worried as new years eve approaches, because first january forces you to make decisions that impact the rest of your year. let me illustrate with...
resolutions. here’s a good ol’ tradition. except that traditionally, it only matters for a few hours. it’s like hanging a ’caution wet paint’ sign: there’s an element of fun in breaking the rules. and before you know it, these promises begin to mirror one’s memories of new year parties i.e. they become increasingly hazy & unclear. but i’ve made up my mind to buy up some tyres and befriend vijay mallya this year because of...
calendars. this one’s a biggie. you want to make sure you can tolerate the scenery for a year, and that it magically arrives at your doorstep for free! getting one out of the two is not that hard actually, but discovering good taste in freebies is easier that mining unobtainium. fortunately for humankind, pirelli and kingfisher still believe that the best things in life are free and distribute their time tables gratis to the exclusive list of contacts in their...
diaries. in an age where contacts reside in nokias, hotmail and facebook, what’s this piece of paper worth? at this point, you must be waiting for some witty comment on how diaries saved anil kapoor from mogambo, but you’d be wrong. i completely agree that they’re rubbish. diaries are so yesterday: everyone’s on blogger and twitter now.

20 CULTURAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RANCHI AND MUMBAI...

2009-12-31T23:23:00.001+05:30

in ranchi, lunch on saturdays means khichdi-chaukha. in mumbai, you lie hungry in wait for the evening’s liquid diet.
in ranchi, all the establishments close down by 8 pm. that’s when the party begins to roll in mumbai.
raj thackeray is ranchi’s latest pin-up boy. sons-of-the-soil in mumbai have a thing for lalu.
in ranchi, political parties protest by calling bandhs and beating people up. political parties in mumbai haven’t succeeded in shutting the city down, but they beat people up anyways.
travel time between ranchi and jamshedpur is 3 hours. you don’t get from a to ba in that time driving in mumbai.
locals in ranchi can be identified by their surnames: mishra, jha, thakur, sinha or kumar. more often than not, home-grown mumbaikars sport last names ending in -kar, -ani or –walla.
mumbai is surrounded by water on three sides but cannot sake its own thirst. ranchi has all the coal deposits in the world, but no electricity to show for it.
in ranchi, you’d hop across town to make it to the ccd to hang-out with your friends. in mumbai, you’d choose between the multiple ccd, barista and mocha outlets in your neighbourhood to do the same.
living in apartments in ranchi would classify you as urban. in mumbai, even the slums are multi-story.
driving in ranchi is a matter of hard-charging thru non-vehicular traffic while hoping they don’t get hit. driving in mumbai is the art of continuously dodging everything else that’s moving on the road while still managing to progress in the general forward direction.
in mumbai, no matter how jam-packed the bus or train gets, there’s always room for more passengers. ranchiites have a more elegant solution: they ride shotgun on car, bus and train rooftops.
mumbai has got chattrapati shivaji’s name slapped on every important landmark in the city, including the airport. ranchi has got birsa munda’s name slapped on every important landmark in town, including the airport.
every kid in india dreams of landing up in mumbai’s film industry, taj hotel or essel world. every kid in india is shit scared of ending up in ranchi’s mental hospital.
mumbai thinks it’s the cricket capital of india. ranchi remains content captaining that cricket team.
if you paint the walls in mumbai, it’s called graffiti. if you paint the walls in ranchi, it’s called advertisement.
extremists in mumbai will blow up the 5-star hotels if they can get away with it. extremists in ranchi want to do the same with a local supermarket.
its bad manners to break a queue in mumbai. in ranchi, no one queues up and your ability to fight to the counter first is a measure of your masculinity.
paisa rules the roost in mumbai: you can buy your way thru anything here. in ranchi, results and outcomes are achieved thru a complex arrangement of influence, approach and leverage known as pouwa.
mumbai has the bse & nse to manage its money. ranchi has madhu koda.
life in mumbai resembles a bollywood movie: it’s twisted, larger-than-life and supremely glorified – but still manages to deliver cheap thrills. life in ranchi resembles a bhojpuri movie: it’s loud, crass and you hardly understand a word of what is going on – but still laugh all the way thru it.

this (slightly exaggerated) post marks two years of blogging. thanks for tuning in. cheers!

COLLISION COURSE

2009-12-26T16:04:00.000+05:30

if you had to pick a place in the Muslim world least susceptible to any kind of religious extremism, it would be hard to find a better candidate than indonesia.

thus began one of the most insightful articles on indonesia that i remember reading in the indian mainstream media. a culture thats very similar to ours is being rapidly uprooted by the radicalisation of Islam in indonesia. residing in india, it may be hard to see our connection to that far-away land. but it lingers on in everyday names, dances, music and literature being subtracted by arab thought from the collective conscience of indonesians.
the adoption of ‘Muslim fashion’, cursing people by calling them ‘bush’ and bilingual street signs - in bahasa indonesia and arabic are just some examples. the problem starts early, in the indoctrination across schools and colleges, and that’s where any solution must have its greatest impact. i wonder if obama would become president studying in a government-run school in jakarta today.
it’s impossible for india to match the arabic hard power and petro-dollars, but we have an ace up our sleeves they don't: soft power. every indonesian remotely interested in badminton still runes swie king’s defeat at the hands of prakash padukone and bollywood’s star-power is matchless amongst the locals. the need of the hour are initiatives like this year’s ‘festival of india’ that widen the cultural exchange.
culture is not a question of us versus them. between indonesia and india, it has always been us and them, and that is how it should remain in future.

UNDER ATTACK

2009-12-01T01:16:00.000+05:30

so the day has passed, the candles have melted, the speeches delivered, the flowers withered and we still have a dead soldier and an alive terrorist.

i happened to be on cst station on 26 november of this year and it left a lump on my throat. the entrance to the station had a 140-picture exhibition by the thane press club showing a blow-by-blow account of the attack. if the image of kasab – posing to the camera holding his rifle – with a sarcastic smile on his face doesn’t anger you, perhaps the pile of 4 dead bodies piled on top of each other in a room painted with blood would’ve done it.
somehow the police presence made me feel even more insecure. you couldn’t fault the ministers’ security apparatus – they efficiently kicked, pushed and shoved every soul within 10m of the ministers away from the homage ceremony. a year ago, the public had bore the brunt of the attack while the politicos faced the cameras. a year later, are we any different?
i went to get inspiration, i returned troubled; i intended to honour the dead, i saw betrayal for those alive; i traveled to find answers, i returned with more questions. i try to be optimistic about what i write but when cynicism is all that you see, you begin exporting fear instead of hope. i hope i’m wrong this time.
for the sake of mumbai, i hope i’m in the wrong.

REMEMBER REMEMBER

2009-11-28T02:18:00.002+05:30

remember, remember the twenty-sixth of november,

the mumbai treason and plot,

i know of no reason

why the mumbai treason

should ever be forgot.

RE:

2009-11-19T00:11:00.000+05:30

dear a-hole,
if calling or sms was possible, i'd have delivered this message personally. but seeing that you've flicked my phone, i'm going to do this with a wee-bit more publicity.
you've screwed my life nice & proper. it wasn't just any phone you nicked - my first earnings are enclosed between those two metal cases. if your pea-sized brain cannot grasp the magnitude of that statement, start by earning your money instead of pilfering it.

as for payback, you know i won't stop at lodging an fir at the local thana or blocking the phone. you'll answer to the karma police and you better watch out too - because i've asked for a sentence of lifelong impotency. and oh yeah, you forgot the earphones.

go [my mum told me not to swear, so i deleted this word] yourself.

polite as ever,
sidhartha

GRASS, OR SOMETHING LIKE IT

2009-10-27T20:01:00.001+05:30

chetan bhagat did it with the iits. so it’s about time we got some dirt on the iims too.
‘keep of the grass’ is karan bajaj’s debut novel about a 25-years old abcd who decides to return to india (via iim-b no less) in search of his roots. i won’t even attempt at objectivity in this review – the author is an alumni of my institute and i heard about the novel from his classmate. and though the novel isn’t about bit mesra per se, the shades of ranchi are unmistakable.
the plot is a racy run thru a 2-year mba course interspersed with the usual clichés: search for spirituality, patriotism, placement fever and uhh, plentiful grass. for indians addicted to mba-education, the story is remarkable for showing the slow destruction of a high-flying manager in b-school. the book would have been run-of-the-mill if not for the heavy dose of sarcasm which never fails to humour. the drugs really fuel the twists & turns of the plot and end it on a high.
there’s a genre in literature called chick lit that deals in light-hearted stories of twenty-something women. if so, this books falls squarely into what i would call ‘guy-lit’. i’d put a buy rating on ‘keep off the grass’ because it’s puff worth inhaling. the folks at mosaic media seem to agree with me because they’re turning it into a soon-to-be-released film!

AN UPHILL CLIMB

2009-10-16T16:29:00.000+05:30

beating the flab is an uphill task but it never hurts to kick-start with a soft option. imho, junking the elevator in favour of the stairs counts as one. of course, it reduces carbon footprint and saves on gym membership but that’s not really the reason for trying it out. it’s the elation of reaching home after a hard climb of several floors that makes it all worthwhile.

LESSONS FROM A CORPORATE LIFE

2009-09-29T16:15:00.005+05:30

i get a lot of dos & don’ts in the corporate training designed to convert me into a happy, productive employee from the sarcastic, lazy college grad i’m right now. what months of lessons couldn’t pull off was achieved by three short stories. it’s surprising how the complete wisdom of office conduct can be filtered into 3 simple tales. sometimes even advice that’s bullshit tends to make sense...

lesson #1

a turkey was chatting with a bull. “i’d love to be able to get to the top of that tree,” sighed the turkey, “but i haven't got the energy.” “well, why don’t you nibble on some of my droppings?” replied the bull, “they're packed with nutrients.” the turkey pecked at a lump of dung and found that it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree. the next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch. finally after a fourth night, there he was proudly perched at the top of the tree. soon he was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot the turkey out of the tree.

moral of the story: bullshit might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

lesson #2

a crow was sitting on a tree, doing nothing all day. a small rabbit saw the crow, and asked him, “can i also sit like you and do nothing all day long?” the crow answered, “sure, why not.” so, the rabbit sat on the ground below the crow, and rested. all of a sudden a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

moral of the story: to be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

lesson #3

a little bird was flying south for the winter. it was so cold that the bird froze and fell to the ground in a large field. while it was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on it. as the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, it began to realize how warm it was. the dung was actually thawing him out! he lay there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy. a passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug it out and ate it.

moral of the story: 1. not everyone who shits on you is your enemy.

2. not everyone who gets you out of shit is your friend.
3. and when in deep shit, it’s best to keep your mouth shut.

INDIASTRUCTURE

2009-09-29T16:07:00.004+05:30

there’s only one truth in the lie that is indian infrastructure: we don’t have enough of it.

when it comes to basic amenities such as roads, power and water supply, the rich buy it off, the poor steal it and the middle class is left to fend off for themselves. the use of diesel gensets and bore well pumps has shifted the problem-solving from government ministries to individual households. so it’s about time that the administration reclaimed its role as providers-in-chief.

nothing riles the public more than the lack of bijli, and the cure currently being offered is the construction of 12 large scale power plants across the country. i had the fortune of visiting mundra in gujarat, a site for one of these proposed ‘ultra mega power plants’ a.k.a. umpp and came away impressed. the huge concrete-and-steel structure is not only a great sight, but also a powerful idea.

here’s why. firstly, it’s a win-win partnership between the government and private sector where the country gets plenty of power and the corporate get their profits. secondly, in a country of billion-plus citizens, it shows the benefits of thinking big – really big to solve problems on a large scale. and thirdly, it’s a sign we’ve shed our inhibitions about using world-class technology for solving problems that are uniquely desi.

in the infra sector, mobile telecommunications has been a riotous success and it’s heartening to see electricity generation follow a similar strategy. perhaps it’s the only way to make electricity as widespread as mobile networks.

TATALKING ABOUT TATANAGAR

2009-09-29T15:46:00.005+05:30

as celebrity worship goes, jamshedpur beats everything else hands down. so how does it actually feel being a tataployee in tatanager?

the day begins with a tatalarm that makes you rush to your tatoilet and tatub. after a quick wash, it’s off to the tatactory by, you guessed it, a tata bus.

at the tataffice, it is customary to greet other tataployees in the local language, called tatalk. tatalk is a rapidly growing dialect learnt even by foreigners in companies like torus, taguar and tatover. this post too, is part of my tatraining for tatalk fluency.

after drinking some tata tea, coming around for small tatalk with colleagues and drinking some more tata coffee, its back to tathome sweet tathome. on arriving at the hostel for food, the familiar sight greets you: utensils by tata steel, water supplied by voltas and food garnished by tata salt.

evenings are definitely the best tatime of the day here: the horizon blazes orange due to slag dumping at tata steel. and the day ends as you switch off your tata power electricity to go to tatleep.

THE DAILY OLYMPICS

2009-09-06T01:24:00.005+05:30

daily life in mumbai is an olympic struggle and best described by pierre de coubertin’s expression citius altius fortius.

citius: faster. if life in mumbai was a race, the local trains would be it’s timekeeper. the trains are, quite simply, the most impatient transport system i’ve seen in india and there’s a rush you get in using them. entering, standing – never mind sitting – and exiting from the bogies is a pain but this daily struggle just spurs commuters to push the tempo even further. speed is a drug on which every mumbaikar wants to get high.

altius: higher. what mumbai lacks in square feet, it makes up in stature. every inch of available space in the city is being taken over by new skyscrapers, flyovers and elevated tracks. the entire city seems to be adding another floor to itself to tide over the lack of space. it must be the only pace in the world where real estate of dizzying heights & prices stands alongside derelict slums where people live for free. the difference could not be any starker.

fortius: stronger. every indulgence can be bought off in the metro – for a price. the madness of materialism is antithetical to the indian idea of wealth that’s supposed to be spiritual, but nobody can argue with the financial clout the city commands. the bse, nse and rbi are just some of the potent symbols of this authority. the flow of power beats to a heart of money in every part of the city. strength, then, is just another redeemable currency.

THE NEW PANDEMIC

2009-08-30T18:22:00.002+05:30

the h1n1 swine flu has been beaten by a new endemic condition in mumbai. the cheer of Ganesh chaturthi has the whole city up in religious fervour for their favourite god. the time-tested rituals of installation, worship and immersion of Ganesh idols embody a prayer for wisdom. everyone’s invited to the festivities - all you’ve to do is shout Ganpati bappa morya!

IN COMPANY OF FRIENDS

2009-08-30T18:05:00.004+05:30

the milaap 2009 welcome party given to the graduate engineer trainee batch in our company had all the elements of a perfect evening.

as fresh trainees, our schedule over the past month-and-half has been a whirlwind of technical and corporate lessons. so the invitation for a welcome party from our senior batch came as a pleasant surprise. all the class training was soon forgotten and the party was on everyone’s lips.

on the 28th, all of us trooped inside the banquet hall of the mca recreation centre in bandra-kurla complex in all our formal finery. all invitees had been neatly organised into teams so that people of all ages – from the directors to trainees – sat on every table. true to tradition, our live-wire hosts kicked off the proceedings with a safety drill, and followed it up by introducing the senior management to us.

the party got really cracking once the team competitions started. from quizzes to creative editing to clay modelling, nothing fosters collaboration better than contests. working as a team, everyone around the dinner tables turned from strangers to acquaintances to friends in no time. it’s not often that one gets the opportunity to team up with cfo of the company sitting beside you.

at the end of the day, it was time to share experiences and our directors were suitably impressive in their diagnosis. but the evening held one more surprise before the start of the sumptuous buffet. mr dilip vengsarkar paid a surprise visit to the party and as you’d imagine, he was swiftly mobbed for autographs and photograph requests. not only was he the chairman of the party’s venue but also turned out to be a company employee of several decades!

in retrospection, the glamorous night had it all: fun, friends and food. what more can one ask for?

THE KOHINOOR FROM KURLA

2009-08-24T23:46:00.002+05:30

sitting in one of mumbai’s yellow-and-black taxis is something of a history lesson because of the car you make the trip in: the premier padmini.

the ‘pal’ badge is a near-dead symbol for indian car bonnets today but it wasn’t so two decades ago. premier automobiles was one india’s major manufacturing companies and it’s most famous product – the padmini – established a comfortable duopoly along with hindustan motor’s ambassador for decades. the car, a local version of fiat’s 1100d, debuted in 1962 and became well recognised symbol of affluence in those days.

a ride in the yesteryear’s luxury car of is still possible thanks to the enduring love affair between the jalopy and mumbai’s taxi drivers. the car looks remarkably similar to its bigger nemesis – the ambassador – but suggests a different image. if ambys convey machismo, off-road ability and ruggedness, the padmini is more about (70s) sophistication, road manners and modesty. in today’s age and time however, the car is a misfit with its cramped interiors, ill-fitting parts and restrained engine.

the padmini’s miserly sales were the last straw for the company and even the taxi market couldn’t halt its production in 1998. just like the textile mills around mumbai, the factory shut shop and sold out its premises in kurla to a real estate developer for a bomb. this brings us to kohinoor city – my current residence – that’s built upon the grave of the premier factory. the large-scale real estate development has flattened all signs of the location’s history save one- a lonely battered padmini that’s parked in my apartment’s basement.

a forlorn reminder to the chequered past of a gem of a car.

WALKING ON BROKEN DAS

2009-08-24T23:28:00.003+05:30

is vir das the funniest desi stand-up comedy act in the country today? it would seem so if his ticket sales are anything to go by.

indians have taken to stand-up comedy like a house on fire. while tgilc jumpstarted the trend in hindi, there’s an equal audience for stand-up comedy in english too. like so many others, a video of russell peters sparked my interest into desi stand-up comedy and i’ve scoured the net for similar acts ever since. so it was with considerable anticipation that i went to watch my first live comedy gig.

‘watching on broken das’ was part theatre, part monologue and part rock show by indian comedian vir das at nehru planetarium in worli, mumbai. the show started with an opening act by debutant comedian sorabh pant. unfortunately, the guy’s punch lines were a silent catastrophe and his quick exit was a welcome relief.

vir started his act on stage as mystic spiritual guru called ravi darshan dreamily preaching witty one-liners to the audience, all while dreamily playing the keyboard. his observational jokes were spot on and had the audience in splits. the guruji was succeeded by theatrical performance of sarah samdhan - portrayed as an elderly delhite lady with a habit for bad-mouthing. she was quite convincing as a theatrical performance with her rocking chair, shivering hand and raspy voice though her sense of humour was a notch below par.

and finally, it was vir’s turn to take the stage. from bollywood and cricket, relationships to politicians, he deftly sized up each and every topic with the skill of professional humourist. his act didn’t do as much of audience participation as one is used to see in russell’s shows, but he surely carried along the audience with him in all his capers. and to cap it all off, his band alien chutney performed two songs of comedy rock to end the show.

i came off learning two things that evening. as the audience of all ages spilled out loud guffaws one after another, maybe we have finally learnt to laugh at ourselves. and secondly, vir das - and english stand up comedy as a consequence - is here to stay in india.

A CLASS ACT

2009-07-03T04:35:00.008+05:30

what do you want to be when you grow up? the answers for my class have been indie music singer, fashion marketer-cum-dj, medicine man, computer science engineer, englash-as-foreign-language teacher and even a celebrity. in places such as indonesia, korea, england, singapore, united states and india.

diversity doesn't get any better than this. cheers to nehru memorial international school!

TRUE COLOURS

2009-06-30T16:40:00.003+05:30

the only thing worse than discriminating against foreigners is to do it against your own countrymen.

in discussing the recent racist attacks on indians in australia, we seem to be fixated over the attitudes of foreigners towards our fellow citizens. nobody has had the gumption to look inward and question our set of prejudices when it comes to matters of race. if what’s happening in australia is bad, what about indian prejudices towards expatriates residing in our country? the ugly truth is that indians routinely take their first impression about outsiders from face value i.e. skin colour.

that both graham staines and african-americans fell foul of our sensibilities should tell us something. but this bigoted behaviour isn’t limited to expats alone. any person who isn’t falling into the two general categories of north & south indians is either ignored, or worse disparaged. and people from the north-east of the country are subjected to both.

race relations are all about perception, and people from the north-east fall foul of appearing ‘un-indian.’ which is funny because if i had to pick the ideal citizen, i’d choose a stereotypical guy from mizoram. they have a liberal outlook, friendly disposition, resourcefulness with work and trendy hairstyles. and not to forget the best part, they’re huge fans of rock music.

to me, the clutch of separatist movements existing in the north-east prove the capability of negative stereotypes. if anything, indians need to examine the race issue within the country before peeping out. on balance, can there be anything worse than making a fellow citizen feel foreign?

THE FAST AND THE SPURIOUS

2009-06-29T00:14:00.005+05:30

the answer to reviving the fortune of indian motorsports might just be staring at us in the face - literally.

on 2 wheels (splendor to the ‘busa), 4 wheels (nano to rolls royce) and beyond, indians have never had so much choice when it comes to cars. but this sales explosion hasn’t translated into a local automotive culture. think about it - we’re well and truly on our way to being a great motoring nation and yet haven’t developed a broad based enthusiasm for motorsports.

of course, there’s narain karthikeyan but his shine is fading fast. there are other drivers too, but the problem may lie in the sport itself instead of the players. by indian standards, competitive motorsports like rally driving are dull and colourless. where’s the drama of a cow sitting in the middle of the racetrack or the ear-splitting honking during the drive? i think the answer may not lie in 2 or 4 wheels but somewhere in between…in auto-rickshaws.

this is no joke – nothing comes close to sitting on the back-seat of a three-wheeler on indian roads. why shouldn’t it be the same for television then? plenty of rickshaw-walas are adept at overtaking manoeuvres, the racing cars will come dirt cheap and indian city roads are the perfect tracks for revving these splendid machines. it’s a match made in motoring heaven.

gladly, some like-minded people have already thought this out and started the indian auto-rickshaw challenge. it’s the bleeding best thing to hit our roads since cows became holy. so i expect the day is not far when supercharged three-wheelers will amok about nürburgring with thousands of cheering fans. bajaj vs. paggio anyone?

SMASH HIT

2009-06-27T22:33:00.004+05:30

when a room full of 7000 indonesians start cheering for india instead of china, you know the indian is doing something right.

india has a lot of brand equity in indonesia - thank bollywood for that - but it doesn’t feature prominently in the local passion of badminton. thing is, badminton has an analogous position in indonesia to cricket in india. but lately, victory for the indonesians has been few & far between and nothing resents indonesians more than losing to the current title holders i.e. china.

enter a young 19-year old called saina nehwal. saina, previously ranked 8, is one of the most promising badminton players in the circuit and at the recent indonesian open she proved exactly why. she didn’t just defeat players ranked above her, but did it in immaculate style. this victory is huge. no indian has ever won on indonesian soil. heck, no female indian has ever won so much on any soil.

and indonesia might have played a bit role in saina’s victory. i’ve never seen so many indonesians shout “india, india” continuously for 49 minutes at the top of their voices. part credit also goes to atik jauhari - saina’s travelling coach and the reason behind the indonesian teams’ successes over the past 2 decades.

so next time i’m playing badminton in indonesia, my head will be just a little bit higher knowing that nothing will ever be the same again for indians here.

JOY HO

2009-06-15T18:42:00.004+05:30

first came the ecstasy, then consciousness, but after a month now, these holidays have become plain dull. when i lacked a net access in college, i longed for a broadband connection. now that i have loads of bandwidth, i can’t seem to find enough uses for it. since i suspect that my college mates are tired of going to facebook, youtube and saved gtalk chats for entertainment too, here’re three sites i’ve found tailor-made for that unique indianism called timepass. happy surfing!

of all the things one expects from the grand-mommy of news services i.e. the bbc, irrelevant pointless articles aren’t one of them. but that is exactly what magazine monitor excels at – it’s an irreverent take on news, culture and everything else in between. so if you’ve always contemplated whether laughing apes sound like humans or if neil armstrong fluffed his lines, this is a must-visit.

economics is as boring as theory subjects go, so a book tackling this subject that goes on to sell millions is nothing short of a miracle. and if the freakonomics book was good, the blog is even better. sometimes witty, sometimes sobering but always entertaining, this site contains some of the consistently best reading material available online. economics and boring just got decoupled.

there are plenty of video sites available but ted produces some of the best thought-provoking speeches out there. the website contains the lectures – called ted talks – organised during the annual technology, entertainment, design conference on broad topics by eminent personalities from all over the world. as they say, ideas truly worth spreading.

THE FRENCH MIRACLE

2009-06-12T14:43:00.005+05:30

the french then. what good have this lot done for this planet except for an imprononçable language and onion soup?

quite a bit it seems. turns out that the french have it in them for speed – lightning fast speed of the record breaking kind actually. the fastest production car in the world is french, and the same goes for trains and commercial jets. of course, bugatti is really owned by ze germans, the japs have made a faster rail prototype and the english had a hand in the concorde. but i digress.

the link between france and fastness is indisputable, and the time is ripe to introduce the country’s latest innovation in the field of mass rapid transport to the world. contrary to what you might expect, it involves the human body and is christened parkour. now those of who’ve seen db 13,damien walters or even top gear know what i’m talking about but if you haven’t, investing some time on youtube should help.

defining it as l'art du déplacement sounds like a load of tosh, but it’s only when one watches those fluid body movements artistically overcoming one obstacle after another that real understanding starts to gather. which brings me to the true genius of this idea. in an age when internal combustion is becoming uncool, video games take precedence over physical sports and public transport is bursting at its seams, the panacea could lie in relearning the way you move your body.

so to summarise, global warming – check. mass rapid transport – check. fat bellies and obesity – check. coming to office on time and impressing your boss – double check. and all this, thanks to the french. viva la france!

THE FINAL SALUTE

2009-06-04T10:44:00.005+05:30

this song was recorded on the last day of college (what better time) in a hostel room (what better place) by students of the 2005 batch (what better batch). this is a dedication to birla institute of technology mesra by my batchmates, a home for many of us for the past four years. songs are meant to be shared, and if you like what you hear, please do pass it on.

college ke, yeh din yaadgaar, aayenge fir laut ke naa.

socho toh, kaise beete din hazaar, aise mein kyun naa soche hum yaar.

teri yaadon ke saaye mein gujregi ,zindagi apni yahan.

jab bhi sochenge tere bare mein, hoton pe aayegi sadaa.

bit tujhko salam…

kaagaz ki kashti pe sawaar, aankhon mein sapne the hazaar.

kabhi main jeeta , kabhi gaya haar, gaam nahi sang mere the aise yaar.

jo bhi hua tha lamhe the yaadgaar, saath mere harpal the aise yaar,

jab bhi sochenge tere hi bare mein, hothon pe aayegi sadaa.

bit tujhko salam...

credits: animesh (music, words, vocals, lead guitars), rohit (words, bass guitars), vivek (words, background vocals, rhythm guitars), arnab & vivekanand (sound engineering)

UNITED WE STAND

2009-06-04T10:29:00.004+05:30

growing up, you can change friends, food habits and fashion sense but not your football club.

in sports, it doesn’t get bigger than football and in football, it doesn’t get bigger than manchester united. man-u, as it’s popularly known, is a global phenomenon and nobody generates praise and revile in equal measure quite like them. as a t-shirt wearing fan, it’s hard to wrong with the red devils.

so how do they do it - season after season, player after player, trophy after trophy? hard to say, but the man-u brand stands unique in the sporting world. their success is a lesson in recruiting the right people - from manager alex ferguson, to world player-of-the-year ronaldo. they have renowned facilities- like old trafford - and a celebrated scout programme. and their popularity is not just a by-product of match wins, but the outcome of a wildly successful global marketing offensive.

but most importantly, man-u has taught that success in football cannot be bought, no matter how much money your owner - arab sheikh or russian oligarch - is willing to shell out. though there are more decorated teams, pricier players and richer clubs out there, nobody has been able to match their consistency in top-flight football over the past 15 years. and though they’ve lost the recent champions league final, they’ll always remain winners for their legions of fans worldwide.

may the reds march on…

THE ROMANCE OF TRAVEL

2009-06-04T10:24:00.002+05:30

so when was the last time you travelled by an airline and actually enjoyed the experience?

when i was young, sea travel was already non-existent and automobile use had achieved critical mass. only air travel remained a class act, making pretty much everything about flying beyond cool. airports, airlines and airhostesses were the stuff of fantasy and travel by air lingered as the last abiding medium (after land and water) romanced by the millions.

the situation could not be more different today. the combination of low-cost airlines, discount fares and budget terminals has led to an explosion in air travel worldwide. airlines are no longer a preserve of the rich and famous but at the same time, you feel neither rich nor famous flying them nowadays. unless one flies first-class, flights have transformed from being a pleasure trip into a quick ride between two points.

which is a real disappointment and here’s why. the airline business has been reduced to a numbers game - ticket fares, paid onboard-meals, legroom - and competitors vie for passengers by juggling this same set of tangibles. however, i suspect what passengers are really looking are a few intangible qualities - quick check-in, an attentive staff, a quality cabin - which cannot be calculated yet make all the difference during travel.

for me, nothing quite beats the excitement of a ride in the skies and i lie in wait to fall in love with air travel all over again.

BREAKING THE RULES

2009-05-20T17:30:00.006+05:30

if you’ve ever wondered if the second law of thermodynamics holds true, a look at delhi traffic is all it takes.

new delhi’s roads are a mess and getting worse by the hour which, by the way, also proves the law of inertia. objects don’t move until they’re forced to and whatever is in motion never seems to stop. in fact, give me any law and i’ll prove it using delhi’s transport system. except for one place that stubbornly refuses to follow any law or norm of the land – the delhi metro.

the metro sets a bad example for the rest of the city. take punctuality for instance. the metro is never late, shamelessly substituting the indian stretchable time for the indian standard time. whole new tracks, tunnels and lines are completed ahead of schedule which gives other infrastructure projects an inferiority complex. the system seems to be warped - running in its own time zone.

but that’s not the worse bit. it’s the feeling you get of not being in delhi that’s so unnerving. no paan stains, no honking and shouting, no chaotic ride. the envelope of an air-conditioned calm which surrounds all activities is a danger to delhi’s loud reputation. and i know exactly who to blame it upon: a soft-spoken, honest man called e sreedharan who has single-handedly spoilt the image of sarkari babus in dilli.

so maybe we should outsource the entire delhi government to dr sreedharan. for once, nobody will complain when the rules are broken.

CORRIDOR OF POWER

2009-05-20T17:08:00.005+05:30

rajpath is a road in new delhi but then, it’s not just any other road. This stretch of tarmac from the rashtrapati bhavan to the national stadium is arguably the most important avenue in the country. The place reeks of supreme authority with the president's house, parliament, prime minister's office, india gate and what not all in close proximity. it is a sight worth beholding.

my personal discovery lies in finding the significance of another road that makes an intersection by crossing the rajpath. janpath is the official residence of the congress president and makes a befitting contrast (in name and otherwise) to rajpath. there’s a lesson in here somewhere.

KABULIWALA

2009-05-09T12:38:00.002+05:30

pænnnnnnn. the call of the soan-papri vendor is a sound that generations of bitians remember.

i have learnt hindi right up to 12th grade, and while i can story-tell many a tale from my english textbooks, only one hindi story has spun its yarn around me. the kabuliwala’s simplicity and affability with the story’s mini has always struck me as poignant. though bit mesra has adults, not five-year olds, and he doesn’t sell dry fruits but soan-papri, the warm persona of the soan-papri vendor always brings back memories of the abdurrahman-the kabuliwala.

a veritable institution on campus, his soft nasal-like droll is difficult to reproduce in print, but hard to forget once you hear it. his unique call, solitary merchandise and trademark cane-stand-and-metal-boxes kit make him a class apart from any of the local vendors on campus. curious to unearth more of his mystique, i took the opportunity of a chance encounter to talk to him.

he first came to bit as a teenager in 1978 and has been selling his solitary sweet on campus since then. on any sunny day, he roams the campus hostels in search of customers for his delicious sweet. the man’s profile would be incomplete without a description of his product. white as snow, his sugary concoction of soan papri is a gastronomic explosion of a thousand strands in the mouth.

here’s to man who is just as sweet as his merchandise.

LAWS OF LABOUR

2009-05-04T12:49:00.002+05:30

all bad things come to an end, and in engineering this takes form of the final year project.

according to my friend ankit, project work is one of the tragedies that engineering students have to face in the course of their study. well i won’t disagree with the generalized assumption that the ‘research’ is more of regurgitated junk that’s decently packaged . but on that rare occasion when you stumble upon something innovative, you realise the true value of the idea.

my classmate shrikar is true blue automotive junkie – after all petrol, not blood, flows in his veins. while most of us would be pompously arrogant about making a working model as part of our project work, he pushed the proverbial envelope by demonstrating his hybrid concept with a state-of-the-art functional prototype. for once, this project isn’t a sad summary of insurmountable obstacles but a statement of pioneering spirit.

caught up with the infectious spirit, i couldn’t wait to run the machine with him. the last time we tested it the glow plug came apart, the 3.6cc ic engine redlined with a violent clatter and fuel got sprayed all over our shirts, engine and the floor. i had the time of my life in those few seconds. dirtying my hands on a prototype that night seemed like a baptism into a new religion, and convinced me that engineering – like final year projects – is all about the labour instead of the laws.

and in that sense, shrikar is a truer mechanical engineer than the rest of us combined.

SHOETING PRACTICE

2009-04-30T23:45:00.002+05:30

muntadhar al-zaidi would be proud watching the election process in india today.

i don’t think indian politicians really understand their increasing use for target practice with shoes. the method (i.e. flying shoes) might be wrong, but the message couldn’t be clearer: the public is deeply frustrated. and angry. and indignant at the utter lack of concern of politicians towards the common folk.

i’d liken it to a typical indian traffic jam. all political parties are caught in a (ideological) rut where they can’t see beyond their own dashboards. the opportunists (a.k.a. third front) have driven across to the wrong side of the road. but the most pathetic sight is the continuous, incessant and irritating honking – everybody who’s anybody is crying out hoarsely to be heard.

it’s no wonder then that nobody can hear what the janta wants to say amidst all the noise. no surprises also in watching the entire country come to a standstill for a few sitting cows. is it too much to ask to the lawmakers to follow the rules they enacted for the rest of us? india is currently holding the largest democratic elections ever – the least they could do is show some respect.

otherwise the shoes might start hitting their intended targets.

YOU KNOW YOU'RE FROM BIT WHEN...

2009-04-21T17:29:00.004+05:30

1. you get a blazer cloth in the first semester even though there’s no uniform in college.

2. you’ve tried every trick to stop your parents from figuring out that exam results are now published online.

3. you have laughed, cried and occasionally shouted at the sign which says “site for swimming pool”.

4. your pleading to the professor on the very last day of class just got you beyond 75% in attendance.

5. you can’t remember the last time you took a bath.

6. or ate breakfast for that matter.

7. the classroom fans stopped working during the examination of the semester’s toughest paper.

8. you make members of the student placement committee your best buddies for two months of your final year.

9. you cursed the dispensary doctor for refusing you an extra day’s medical leave for your non-existent illness.

10. you know piya milan chowk. period.

11. you wonder why bit doesn’t have a united cultural and technical fest on campus.

12. you can’t help going to the canteen again and again despite its crappy food of dodgy quality at inflated prices.

13. you’ve stood on other people’s feet in the student bus while two other people did the same to you.

14. you didn’t know what ‘pouwa’ or ‘proxy’ meant till the day you arrived and have become something of an expert on the subject now that you’re graduating.

15. you shudder every time people call out “oh, so you’re from bits ranchi”.

16. you totally believed that mesra meant “military engineering services restricted area” the first time you heard about it.

17. you’ve scratched your head countless times over the presence of a roundabout in the middle of a jungle on the oc road.

18. you’ve fantasized about whipping the electricity dept people from cutting off power just before the exams.

19. you wish ranchi prison had the same level of security, curfew times and amount of barbed wire as the inmates of hostel 9.

20. you’ve found books from every part of the universe in the library – except for the one you’re looking for.

21. you’re afraid – really afraid – that the insti will report you to your parents for not signing on the mess attendance register.

22. you wished that winter timings could be carried over for just a wee bit longer.

23. your common room is used only once a year: to store your luggage.

24. you know that the male:female ratio in the mechanical batches sucks. (60:0 in mine).

25. you can’t wait for bitotsav for a chance to sleep for 4 straight days.

26. and love the vc for cancelling the morning half after it’s over.

27. you’ve added the choicest bhojpuri slangs to your vocabulary.

28. you managed to pass 3 semesters with a single notebook.

29. you’ve learnt not to mess around with the babas.

30. you’ve eaten a truckload worth of potatoes in 4 years time.

31. you’ve got all the physics lab experiment results wrong, not for lack of trying but because of the state-of-the-art instrumentation made available to you.

32. you wonder why he’s called ‘chaddi singh’ before comprehension hits you.

33. you can’t stop drawing comparisons between the current and former vice-chancellor.

34. all the toilets you’ve visited stink.

35. you’ve cursed dc++ because all the important users never have free slots.

36. you’ve got kicked out of all shops in ranchi while asking for sponsorship for a college fest.

37. you know another accreditation team is coming when the buildings start getting painted all over the place.

38. you can’t be bothered with mundane activities such as classroom learning.

39. or remembering the professor’s (real) name.

40. you see half the class disappear from the lab after the attendance is over.

41. all your exercise in the gym goes into fighting with the crowd for the few pieces of equipment lying around.

42. all your jobless hours are spent into discussing that unique specimen known as “psycho sunny”.

43. you make sure to lay the first claim to all the comics, magazine & newspapers circulating in class so as to not fall asleep.

44. you try fruitlessly to sing the ‘institute song’ (written in gobbeldygok) at the back of your lab journal.

45. you even know that the institute has its own song (no, i’m not talking about the ece one).

46. you never forget to pray, just before the vivas.

47. you know the exact force and angle required to hit the guy sitting on the 3rd bench to the right with chalk.

48. you visit bajrangi, the class topper’s room and mishra xerox (in that order) to prepare for exams.

49. your dream company’s criteria just about excludes you from sitting for it.

50. you wish the professor’s would star speaking in local language since his bhojpuri-accented english isn’t working out anyways.

51. you alternatively wish you’d worked harder on iitjee (1st year), wonder why you’re here (2nd year), hope time flew faster (3rd year) and can’t-wait-to-get-out (4th year).

52. you hate the nris, but would love to stay in h4.

53. there’s more hair on your pillow after a night’s sleep than on your head.

54. you declare yourself above all the bitching & dogfights behind club posts, and then contribute to it.

55. you know the exact auto fare to town, but never fail to haggle with the driver.

56. you rightly recognise any disgusting pink and pale yellow coloured building when you see one.

57. despite your efforts, attendance in the 8 o’clock class remains permanently low.

58. you remember khalsa and munna’s menu better than your mess’ food.

59. your final year project report is copy-paste job from the world wide web.

60. you spent the better part of 15 minutes reading this post and totally loved it.

any and every contribution to the above are welcome. click on ‘spam’ below and supply your reasons...

CIRCUS JOKERS

2009-04-16T12:44:00.003+05:30

bijli sadak pani – the 3 point agenda which politicians use to ask for votes every election are absent in bit mesra this election season

so the democracy circus is well and truly on the way – that’s the good bit. the bad part is all of us are looking like jokers in the 40 degree heat without electricity, water or transport. the problem afflicting my institute is just a case-in-point in the penny wise-pound foolish actions of the government.

there’s a reason why electricity was supplied for 6 out of the past 24 hours in bit mesra – ranchi town is facing a shortfall of 320 mw. but this isn’t a natural disaster but a man-made calamity because of the prevailing anarchy in the state. here’s what happens: the political parties snatch (that’s right snatch) trucks for election rallies, the truckers stop services, coal supply is hampered and power plants run below capacity.

as for the sadak, bus services have been hit (for the same reason as trucks) all around. as our campus is a good 16 km from the town, the autowallahs get away with any exorbitant amount they wish to charge. which brings us to pani: because there’s no bloody electricity around this place, nothing’s getting pumped. and drinking water has joined ceiling fans as “luxuries” instead of commodities.

so let me put it straight - these politicians promise us the basic necessities while nicking whatever little we’ve got behind our backs. no wonder we’re disillusioned with politics.

AND YOU CALL THIS WORK?

2009-04-13T15:04:00.002+05:30

the most thankless job today is getting jobs for other people.

it’s hard to believe that a year has gone by since i joined the student placement committee (a.k.a. spc) of bit mesra. it’s hard to remember when our initial unfamiliarity with each other morphed into cushy camaraderie. it’s mind-boggling to imagine how we got our batch placed, while being recruited ourselves along the way. but mostly, it’s impossibly difficult to digest a separation of our individual threads that destiny knit so closely.

the spc is primarily tasked with assisting the campus recruitment process, yet the members are truly multi-taskers who assume just about any role thrown at them. there’re really few tangible incentives to work for unending hours, without pay, thru the year, to facilitate a process of matchmaking. but the intangibles of this job that make all the difference: good food, valuable managerial experience and a great working atmosphere! not to mention working with mr bb pant.

though we’re all professionals in the office, it’s always the personal quirks of teammates’ that’re easier to recall. anurag’s entertaining company to animesh’s hilarious mimicry, vidhyaa’s enthusiasm to jubin’s crisp smses, niyati’s defiant jeans attire to surabhi’s disarming smile, rahul’s shudh hindi to ankit’s existent accent, to rishi and sudeep their collective capers, and sakshi who can really burn the dance floor. with friends like these, work became play in no time at all.

this role gave me a lifetime of unforgettable friends and memories. i’m not sad that it’s over, but thankful that it happened.

HARI PUTTAR

2009-04-12T21:10:00.005+05:30

if there are a set of children’s books that even adults love to read, it’s harry potter.

like all booklovers, i’ve always preferred reading the hp series to watching it. the whole point of fantasy is to provide an altogether other-worldly experience to readers and no amount of daniel radcliffe can ever accomplish that. recently i decided to go the whole hog: a back-to-back reading of all 7 titles which helped me put the entire collection into perspective.

that harry potter is a global phenom is an understatement. the fame is not without reason: they’re simply unputdownable. i couldn’t help reading them thru classes, mealtimes and quite a few midnights. the author has used foreshadowing thru chapters and across titles for a calculative build up in tension. there’s the growth in the characters (even magical ones) that lends maturity to the narrative. and of course, the plot thickens perceptively with every chapter thru birth & murders, recollections & prophecies, you-know-who & dumbledore.

no discussion can be complete without naming a few favourites so here goes. best book: the thrilling 7th is an undoubted masterpiece but the 3rd comes a close second. fav wizard: sirius black the fallen hero, surrogate parent and superlative magician. stupidest magical object: the deluminator (what’s the wand for?) fav muggle: non-magical folks get a pretty raw deal but the award rightly belongs to jk rowling.

today only one of my questions remains unanswered: will there ever be another harry potter story?

A VIEW TO REMEMBER

2009-04-12T18:46:00.006+05:30

it’s official. the mechanical class of 2009 (or the 2k5 batch as we prefer calling it) is graduating. on a bright sunny april afternoon, we gathered to reminisce about our shared past thru 66 units of engineering education, to make the most out of our present and to celebrate our diverse futures in every part of the world.

engineering education has its merits, but nothing beats the learning outside the classroom! amen.

NET NANNY

2009-04-08T10:21:00.009+05:30

the good news is that net access is no longer a dream. the bad news is that smooth surfing is still far from reality. pray, what basis has bit mesraused for internet censorship? orkut's banned but bharatmatrimony faces no such problem. youtube is blocked but not thepiratebay.

maybe all this restriction isn't such a bad thing at all. instead, we should applaud the folks over at cyberoam for teaching each and every bitian proxy, bypass and anonymizing techniques.

DARZI FIT

2009-04-08T01:35:00.002+05:30

india on a tee: that’s the best description of india’s cult clothing brand.

i’ve always wanted a message t-shirt but finding the perfect match can take ages. it’s all about the slogan really and you want a bit of everything in it: masala wit, desi humour, nutty illustration, ageless appeal, eye-catching colours and then some more. the reasons are hard to pin-down but tantra t-shirts are effortlessly cool.

it’s the ultimate jugaadu enterprise: two college mates that came together to supply a mushrooming demand: first-world tees at third-world prices. the products’ cult following across college campuses thru word-of-mouth publicity and below-the-belt branding must be a remarkable study in marketing. from the recycled paper bookmark-cum-tags to the eco-friendly pigments, the makers obviously take pains in manufacturing too.

every tantra tee derives its mojo from an idea that’s meant to surprise. the same irreverent inspiration lies behind my shirt too: a harmless red-coloured cotton printed with chinese symbols. watching gawkers understand it’s coded message makes it worth all the effort. thank you tantra, for spreading those smirks.

UNEARTHLY HOUR

2009-03-31T23:42:00.009+05:30

4000 cities in 88 countries switched off their lights between 20:30 – 21:30 on 28 march 2009 to raise awareness about climate change.

earth hour seems like a noble scheme for an honest cause and inspite of its intentions, i’m double-minded about the outcome. should i celebrate new delhi ‘s 250 mw power saving, or laugh at an offer to forfeit electricity in a country having 18.1% nationwide peak shortage? black-outs may be a voluntary gesture in western countries but they’re a cold reality in india. the problem is sugar-coated in a euphemism: load-shedding.

case in point: bit’s electricity provider has unfailingly cut supply every single evening for the past two months between 8 and 10 pm. that’s why i didn’t celebrate earth hour this year – as always, jseb was kind enough to do it for me. in a grotesque way, we are switched on/off depending upon energy availability instead of the other way around.

this is a most vicious circle: a proper earth hour celebration can only take place when we’ve ample electricity, while the chief reason for marking the occasion is to prevent construction of polluting power plants.

the answer then lies somewhere in between: not a one-off blackout but a change-over to sustainable energy sources. who says you can’t have the cake and eat it too.

HATS OFF

2009-03-31T01:27:00.007+05:30

three thousand two hundred and eighty nine. that's the number of degrees given at the xix convocation of birla institute of technology held yesterday. there’s something distinctly funny about a solemn occasion as this: those colourful robe-and-capes look distinctly un-muggle and no matter how sombre a face the authorities made, nothing could wipe off the silly smiles from the graduates' faces.

which makes the one-year wait for my own degree even more torturous.

ONE IN A BILLION

2009-03-28T22:27:00.003+05:30

when it comes to india, size does matter.

equal measure of thrashing & hailing before a single sale makes a car too popular for its own good. the tata nano carries an enormous baggage of expectation. it’s brilliant piece of engineering and yet, media attention suggests a bit of a ‘compromise’. as a mechanical engineer myself, here’re my two pennies worth.

indian firms have become world-class service providers but the nano comes across as the first home-grown manufacturing icon. the tata nano is an indian answer to a local problem: inexpensive personal transport across millions of middle-class homes. a well-packaged contraption that travels from point-to-point with minimum fuss. from all these viewpoints, the car is multi-dimensional success.

shooting the messenger won’t work because the problems attributed to the nano aren’t unique. a single car model cannot be held ransom for lower emissions, better safety, jammed roads and public transport which are the domain of lawmakers. impeding the aspirations to personal transport of a large populace would be a greater disservice. microcars – like the nano – are part of the solution to a low-carbon economy instead of obstacles blocking it.

it ain’t perfect, but a nice try all the same.

CLOUD 9

2009-03-27T20:34:00.002+05:30

it’s been a year of anticipation, frustration, and finally relief in which which hostel 4 of bit mesra went without internet. now that it's finally back, the saga of lan’s return to h4 is a tale that’ll put salim-javed to shame.

once upon a time, in a land far far away only known to fans as dhoni’s birthplace, there was a lan connection in every room of hostel 4. this information superhighway quickly became the umbilical cord for residents to megabytes of possibilities and terabytes of shared media. so when the connection snapped, all hostellers acted like rational, sensible mature engineers are supposed to behave.

we cried, we wailed, we howled as loud as we could in front of the authorities against our broken lan server. it was divine intervention really: the lightning strike came quietly one march night frying electronics worth lakhs in a sweep. the thunder was anything but quiet as students swamped the authorities with the politest of requests and were assured internet would be back in month’s time.

we should have known better. here is where bollywood can a learn a trick or two about tragicomedies. any fool will tell you bit mesra is a top engineering college in india with one of the best electronics & communication branch to boot. so it was heartening to see them realise (promptly enough) that they needed surge protection – 6 months went by. but that didn’t solve the problem because somebody conveniently forgot earthing the hostel’s electrical connections – few extra months here.

we almost tasted victory on arrival of the gigabit switches, digital ups and all the other mumbo-jumbo. but clearly, we still hadn’t appeased the lord of fortune yet. He sent His minions – rats to be precise – just when everything seemed to be going right. the hungry rodents feasted on a lunch of 6 optic fibre cables worth rs 16000 each - calculate the damage yourself. as a result of rat poison, physical room sealing and lots of wire meshing, i’m finally able to blog from my room today after a year.

so this post is dedicated the heavens above: if you can’t guarantee us internet, have mercy on us and remove the net for the rest of the hostels too! amen.

BLOGROWTH

2009-02-21T22:34:00.007+05:30

blogging is a solitary pursuit, so it’s always nice to know that you have company. in bit mesra, talking tails has always been the starting point for finding acquaintances. in the same vein, here’re the voices of fellow 2k5 batch-mates that keep virtual pencil company on world wide web:

1. Aastha: Nuggets of Imagination

2. Alok Talekar: Quotes from Across the Universe
3. Ankit Arora: The Virtual Chronicle

4. Ankit Jain: ..thought of shadow..
5. Audreza Das: Shadow..The Expedition
6. Bidu Prakash Das: A TAKE ON LIFE... I DONT GIVE A DAM

7. Bikram Koiri: MyWoRlD

8. Brajesh Gupta: अक्स, वक्त का...

9. Deepak Jain: Voice of LOVE

10. Dilip Kumar: "ONLY INDIAN" from the core of my heart.

11. Gajendra Mohan Jha: Food For Thought

12. Jagannathrao Sanjeev: knowledge++
13. KVS Kartikeya: BLOGGED EXPERIENCES

14. Neelakshi Joshi: BITandPieces

15. Neeraj: JustAnotherBlog

16. Neeraj Raj: ||~Illu$ion~||

17. Nithin Das: Evanescing Streak of the Dominant Freak
18. Pawan Kumar Gupta: 5 dot Spirit Continues
19. Pawan Kumar: vagrant's dream

20. Priyesh Sharma: Looking at life, My Way
21. Rahul Anand: aggression
22. Rahul Ramadas: Eternal Ramblings of a Befuddled Mind...

23. Ritesh: Limits Reached

24. Sandy: O-Turn

25. Sorabh Tandon: Technicalities of Technology

26. Susmith Karan: susmith_karan
27. Vidhyaa Murlidharan: words etched on the mirror of time

28. Vivek Kumar: vivek unleashed...

DESI RAP

2009-02-21T22:20:00.003+05:30

we’ve had parallel art movements & cinema and it’s about time now that we have parallel music too.

isn’t it the irony of ironies that exactly when the west has started applauding eastern music – thru zakir hussain and ar rahman – that india has chosen a westernised 60’s-style track by the ‘presleys of patna’ as their new chartbuster? emosanal atyachaar doesn’t belong to bhangra pop, hindi rock or any other bollywood genre meant to appeal to the youth. it’s part of a whole new breed of desi rap soundtracks that shouts out a rebellious outlook.
99% of india’s population haven’t even heard of bc sutta by the zeest, gmd by bodhi tree and many others, but a certain 1% that has can’t get enough of it. mainstream music has failed to capture teenage angst and defiance and this space has been taken over by underground music. in its essence, these songs have a lot in common with western brand of rap – the background tune remains simple, the focus is on the lyrics, the subjects are decidedly taboo and expletives & slangs flow free.
the music isn’t called underground for nothing: due to its risqué nature, mtv and big fm won’t play these songs, no music label is willing to cut an album deal for these folks and neither are their reviews available in magazines. but that hasn’t stopped the primary audience of these songs –well to do 20-somethings in colleges across india – from tuning in. social networking sites, blogs and p2p sharing forums on the internet have combined never-seen-before way to spread a new collection of hip & edgy voices from across the country.
as for emosanal atyachaar, it too has a x-rated version that’s gathering rave comments online. now doesn’t that want to make you plug in too?

THE GIFT OF KNOWLEDGE

2009-02-21T22:16:00.002+05:30

books are gold and never old – that’s the philosophy behind the latest initiative by a group of bitians.

two choices face job seekers in a slowdown environment: accepting compromises in job offers or being bold and turning to entrepreneurship. engineering education in india rewards good team-players but provides no thrust to technical leadership. few engineering graduates take up projects that produce tangible results and that’s why ideas such as pustakseva are always a welcome surprise.
pustakseva – book service in hindi – is an online used-book exchange portal. its provides a simplified means to search, buy and sell books from other users without any commission paid to middle-men. the site itself doesn’t make money but seeks to act as a sharing platform for book-lovers. and that’s not all: it accepts book donations and forwards them to the underprivileged sections of the society.
second-hand books is a virgin area of business in the indian e-commerce space. considering the desi penchant for low prices, the lesser cost of used books is a sound strategy to attract customers. attracting new users is critical to grow pustakseva and a healthy dose of promotion via social media tools might generate some useful buzz. an easy interface, simple buy/sell mechanism and zero-commission model are all included to keeping users satisfied.
it’s too early to pass any verdict on the website, but i do hope varun kumar and his team of path-breakers succeed, if only to motivate the next generation of entrepreneurs from bit mesra. you can help too – start by clicking here.

SUM TOTAL

2009-02-17T19:19:00.004+05:30

2009 year. 500 participants. 200 volunteers. 55 hours. 37 events. 20 sponsors. 10-day radio publicity. 8 glow-sign boards. 5 days. 4 guest lectures. 3 workshops. 2 mahindra scorpios. 1 international unnayan.
statistics are useful in putting experiences into perspective. but numbers are no substitute for the reality of having completed the biggest techmeet-cum-symposium ever in the history of bit mesra. cheers to everyone involved!

NUMERO UNO

2009-01-30T15:37:00.003+05:30

question: what is the name of india’s original muv?

if you guessed a mahindra commander or tata sierra, you’re dead wrong. the ambassador wasn’t the only iconic car produced by uttarpara-based hindustan motors. launched way back in 1976, the hm trekker is a familiar sight on the roads of eastern india, especially jharkhand. the 9-seater jeep is a charming picture of resilience that’s sadly alien to a majority of the country.
as a car enthusiast and blogger, i couldn’t resist doing a profile on india’s earliest people-mover. a road test of a car is pretty pointless when you realise it’s been selling for over 33 years, but here goes nothing...
• comfort: the car’s comfort might not seem much at a first glance, but rewind to more than 3 decades and you realise the foresight in placing benches instead of bucket seats that seat more people per sq. inch than local trains.
• safety: the carmakers paid keen attention to the safety of passengers that travel ‘outside’ the car by placing handles, nooks and crannies all over the body’s exterior. probably the only double-decker car in the market today which provides a open-air seating arrangement on the roof.
• performance: i seriously don’t know mileage kya hai, but i can say it runs on the ambassador’s diesel engine so it can’t be all bad!
• ride: because my jaw has never broken over countless trips i’ve had, a ‘comfortable’ tag would suffice.
• refinement: investigating the vehicle’s refinement is a difficult task when 20 other people are stuffed over, under and beside you in the car but you might want to call it dodgy.
• handling: it handles quite like a whale. the slow, steady and surely pace allows passengers to hop and off without skipping a beat – now that’s an innovation no modern tamasha car can beat!
• build quality & strength: like the amby, the car has survived the worst conditions the world can throw at a car - indian roads - for decades now. what better proof is there of its toughness? as for strength, it officially seats 9 but averages 17 humans, several jute bags and can squeeze an extra goat too. period.
• value: some things in life are priceless, and that’s why you can’t buy a trekker with a mastercard. the service rendered by the trekker is worth its weight in gold!
the verdict then. as you might have guessed, this isn’t an objective assessment of a kick-ass 4wd plush leather aircon-standard mountain munching suv with a 30 lakh price tag. the trekker appeals solely to the heart over the head, and bowls you with its understated classiness. it’s an underdog that’s absent from every car buying guide of the past century, but just as you secretly crave the exhilaration of an auto-rickshaw in your everyday drive, one cannot help but marvel at the straight-faced jeep that quietly revolutionized eastern india’s public transport.
in a world of copycats, here’s a tribute to the original.

AT THE HEART OF DARKNESS

2009-01-30T15:19:00.003+05:30

be careful of what you wish for because it might just come true.

scratch the surface of jharkhand and chances are you’ll land up some mineral deposit. as a resident of its capital, i’ve always wanted to visit a mine - any mine. would you believe it then that i now have an opportunity to work in one? recruitment isn’t very different from marriage, and i’m currently living thru the honeymoon phase. here’s my musings from a visit to the in-laws...

awestruck is an apt word to describe an open-pit mining operation. nothing, not even discovery channel, can prepare you for a ride on an 8 metre high dumper trucks with tyres taller than a 6-footer. but even that’s peanuts compared to the kilometre-across and hundred metres deep black hole of the mine. this desolate landscape of yellow trucks hauling 95-tonnes of coal round and round the benches of the pit begins to look like a gigantic ant colony. watching a coal mine is a jaw-dropping moment.

employment is a funny thing. as fresh recruits, the joke oftentimes is on you. as the new kid on the block, your position is not unlike a circus animal with you every move being closely monitored. after all, the primary purpose of cross-functional training right after college is to make each person in every department – from the chowkidaar upwards – take a good look of your appearance, watch you mumble-jumble through the standard questions and generally provide entertainment. only time will tell how long it’ll take to progress from the centre of the ring to the spectator’s seat.

3.5 years through college and i’m still a bit confused about the entire myth surrounding engineers. memories of school days make it hard to believe that my employment is around the corner. but help is definitely along the way in form of the engineer’s gear. kitted out in a hard-hat, high-visibility jacket and heavy-duty boots and being shaken in a truck as tonnes of coal dumped around me, i realised that the attire wasn’t just for safety. it was also highly symbolic of a metamorphosis from pupil to a practiser. jai ho!

TWO THOUSAND AND NINE

2009-01-14T23:48:00.001+05:30

new year is a time to leave the old year behind. new year is a time to slowdown the slowdown. new year is a time for optimism. new year is a time for making resolutions, and then breaking them too. above all, it’s time to start afresh.
two thousand and nine is here. let’s go!

FACTOR OF SAFETY

2009-01-14T23:46:00.000+05:30

teaching indians rules is like hanging a “caution: wet paint” sign. everybody understands the risk but that doesn’t stop them from disobeying anyways.

‘factor of safety’ stands out as the most intriguing term i’ve learnt during the course of my technical study. other than an allowance made for engineering design, to me it’s also a metaphor for the manipulation of numerical figures in our society. india is an imperfect nation where certain abnormalities, contradictions and deviations have become accepted as routine. we uneasily tolerate the bending, if not breaking, of the laws of the land. this limit is our factor of safety.
time is the obvious starting point. from office starting hours to the train arrivals, punctuality has fluid characterization that ranges anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. whereas belatedness is a source of discontent for many, bollywood employs it for ensuring satisfaction. the epic size (averaging 3 hours) and substance (elements of romance, suspense, drama, action, etc) of masala flicks safeguard box-office success. the price paid for gratifying a billion-plus audience is one measured in size.
closer to engineering, anyone who criticizes indian car quality obviously doesn’t consider the stuffing they’re subjected to. overloading is an understatement of the cramming of scooters used to the capacity of cars, hatchbacks as sedans, sedans as jeeps, jeeps as buses and buses as train coaches. exploiting every inch of available space is an art that is amply visible in our vehicles, slums and even luggage suitcases. despite all regulations, every desi air passenger takes a few extra kilos of baggage to check-in. carrying bags lesser than the weight limit is almost a crime out here.
factor of safety, then, is much more than an obscure technical term. it is, and remains, a way of life.

FROM OVEN TO FREEZER

2009-01-14T23:41:00.002+05:30

i love airports arrival halls, as they must be one of most cheerful places on the planet with so much affection flowing around. to spread the happiness, i decided to go on a mad air-dash across three countries, three time-zones, three airlines and countless transit hours. here’s my airport musings on flying from the hot tropics to the cool shores of bay of bengal...

@ jakarta, 2/1/09 & 1420 hours: when you go to a group of islands with tropical weather, you expect bagsful o’ sunshine, lots of palm trees, weird tribal art and short people with big smiles. jakarta airport is endearing because it ticks all the above boxes. its beauty lies in replacing the endemic glass-and-steel terminal with a stone brick-clay roof structure that may not be the newest, glitziest or largest but is definitely one of the most lovable. the exotic flavour of soekarno-hatta int’l airport makes it second to none.

@ singapore, 2/1/09 & 2005 hours: it’s hard to find fault in something that’s, well, perfect. honestly. there’s no other word to describe the faultless environment of changi int’l airport. it’s got everything that a passenger could possibly need, down to a postage stamp vending machine, and then some more. but i think i’ve found a chink in the airport’s armour in the name of the “budget terminal”. budget is putting it mildly –it’s plain cheap. check out the floor tiles for instance – they haven’t even colour coded them to the walls. or the staff uniform for that matter. for all its faults, singapore still remains the, one and only, benchmark for terminals worldwide.

@ bengaluru, 3/1/09 & 1530 hours: walking thru bengaluru int’l airport, you can’t help but get the non-sarkari vibes. everything from the building to the bus conductors operates in clockwork efficiency that’s difficult to digest in a country accustomed to chaos. bengaluru has got its share of criticism but changing the rules of the game is never easy in india. the airport is a breath of fresh air for its humungous skylights, technology implementation and choicest food joints. my favourite bit remains the free wi-fi facility. finally, a gateway that bangalore city can be proud of!

@ kolkata, 3/1/09 & 1950 hours: my regards to the bloke who came up with kolkata airport’s original name: dum dum. i wonder why he/she didn’t add some ‘da’s and ‘dee’s to make the airport name sound more memorable: da da dee dee dum dum. but jokes apart, netaji subhash chandra bose int’l airport has got a size advantage over every other airfield out there. while everyone if thinking bigger, kolkata remains stubbornly diminutive which makes it easy to get around. plus, the smiles out here are automatic – factor it to the sweet-toned bengali language. what more can one ask for?

2.0

2008-12-30T14:02:00.004+05:30

what better way to celebrate a year’s worth of blogging than by delving deeper into the web 2.0 rabbit hole.

inside the blogosphere, twitter has taken-off as a popular form of medium. it’s got quite a few things going for it – 140 word limits, multiple platforms, media coverage – which all came out of the closet and went mainstream during the mumbai terror attacks. unfortunately, the terrorists were supposedly reading tweets too. because of it’s rocket-like take-off, it may just be the toy for a hyper-connected generation.

obama isn’t the only one peddling the virtues of change. those funny orange square with white waves is actually a really nifty to play catch-up online. really simple syndication a.k.a. rss tracks and feeds the change in data with time – it’s really that simple. the preferred medium for blogcasting.

ironically the most popular web 2.0 phenomenon – social networking - has completely by-passed me. as a substitute to the peer pressure about facebook and orkut, i’ve discovered linkedin. the intentions are strictly professional, the amount of useful – instead of useless – information is quite mindboggling and control is easier to exercise. networking made easy.

CITIUS, ALTIUS, FORTIUS

2008-12-20T14:33:00.003+05:30

if you thought abhinav bindra was the only sporting star this year, think again.

2008 has been kind to indian sports. not only have we seemingly got our act together in cricket, the country has made noticeable advances in field hockey, football, golf and racing too. our stature in international sports relative to our sizable population is still a joke, but a few determined sportspersons are bent on changing that perception.

it doesn’t get any better than an indian champion in an indian game: viswanathan anand has been making all the right moves this year to become undisputed grand-master of the 64 square arena. in a country that suffers unpredictable form in its sportspersons, vishy’s top-notch consistency in world chess for over a decade is a remarkable feat. all hail the king!

despite boxing’s recent surge, the sport’s most decorated indian proponent is an unknown entity. mc mary kom, an unprecedented four-time gold medallist in 46kg category women’s boxing, must be the most under-rated champion in the world. more incredible than her latest victory is her comeback from maternity to the boxing ring. showing no signs of slowing down, the puncher is a role model for manipuris - the most sporting people in india - and indians everywhere.

she’s a hyderabadi, a rising star in the court, serves a mean forehand and has similar sounding name to sania mirza to boot. but that’s where saina nehwal’s similarity with her namesake ends: she’s the first indian to break into the badminton top 10 and looks set to rise even higher. her hopes for an olympic medal were cruelly dashed at the last-minute, but that’s made her even hungrier for success. she's one hell of a smash hit!

THE UN-FESTIVE SPIRIT

2008-12-20T14:22:00.003+05:30

the spring semester starting in colleges across india holds one promise for all college students: festivals!

an easy, if slightly unconventional, metric to rank engineering colleges in india is by checking the size and scale of their annual campus festivals – both technical and cultural. today mood indigo, techkriti, kshitij et al are brand names in their own right numbering a hundred events, participation in thousands, prizes worth lakhs and budgets over a crore. so why are bit mesra’s fêtes: unnayan, drishtant and bitotsav, still relatively unknown?

there’s no easy answer to why we’re still organisers of lesser events. bit mesra currently follows a strategy of permitting any number of clubs & societies that cater to the similar interests. on one hand, the market forces ensure that the competing clubs outdoing each other ultimately benefit the student community. but inexplicably, we must be the only college that organizes not one but two tech fests, all because of college politics. we do have a unified cultural event in bitotsav but it’s hardly a model worth replication. it suffers zero external college participation, a misguided judging system and lack of crowd-pulling celebrity shows.

as a member of technical club in bit mesra, i’m essentially a part of the problem and not the solution. despite our numerous failings, i sincerely believe that we have the depth of talent available amongst us for a managerial prowess second to none. at the end of the day, it’s always the people that make or break an organisation.

the need of the hour are leaders, not politicians.

THE WORLD IS JUST AWESOME

2008-12-19T23:46:00.003+05:30

in times when we’re constantly made to feel depressed, maybe we need to divert attention to the miracle known as life. it’s time to feel inspired by all the forms of life that surround us: earth, air, water, fire, ether and everything else in between. there’s no bad mood that a catchy tune and skilful lyrics can’t cheer up. here’s a new carol for this christmas season: boom de ah da doesn’t make much sense at first glance, but they’re the most stirring set of syllables once you hear them out.

KISMAT KONNECTION

2008-12-15T12:33:00.002+05:30

in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, even an attempted one on ranchi’s big bazaar, i’m braving the terror threat facing my country today by chipping in my bit: buying a foreign holiday. since a vacation off the coast of somalia is not really to my taste, i did my homework about the safest sanctuary for indians living outside india today. no, it’s not birminghistan or vancouverpur but indonesia.

hear me out: cause i’m a pragmatist and not a racist, i figured a muslim-majority nation would be the best bet. good weather was essential which basically ruled out the middle east. then came a revelation swung it in favour of the islanders: indonesians love shah rukh khan more that gauri khan ever will.

that’s right; indians can thank their stars (literally) in indonesia because bollywood is huge amongst the locals. consider this: dubbed versions of masala flicks run daily on multiple channels, the latest flicks release in multiplexes on the same day as india, gossip magazines have large circulations and srk has honorary citizenship. ok i made the last one up, but the awareness about indian culture does rub off positively on desi folks. for once, it feels nice to be prejudiced for, not against.

life is just like the movies out here and so, despite the occasional bump in the smooth vacation, i’m confident it’ll conclude in a happy ending.

THE FOUR YEAR ITCH

2008-12-10T23:45:00.008+05:30

who’s an engineer?
it’s a question i’ve been struggling to answer, and the 3.5 years of engineering education haven’t helped one bit. the best answer i’ve found wasn’t in oxford english dictionary or wikipedia but with an engineer who’s not really, uhh, real. dilbert’s right about one thing: every engineer is diseased with the curse of curiosity. it's no wonder we've got the knack.

STATE OF DENIAL

2008-12-06T06:13:00.001+05:30

balls. the answer to every question being asked is: we lack the guts to pick a fight with terror.
as your typical happy-go-lucky college-going kid, i’m a fan of computer gaming. specifically, my interest lies in a first person shooting game called counter-strike that, amongst other things, involves role-playing a terrorist by holding hostages, bombing buildings and killing counter-terrorists. as the three-day mayhem in mumbai panned out, my first reaction was of revulsion. never in my worst nightmares had i expected virtual to turn reality.
then came the shock. how could any extremist have the bloody balls to land on our shores and kill common citizens indiscriminately? how come nobody had any clue on what was coming? and as the body count piled up, i started seething anger. the burning facade of the taj started to resemble our tattered cloth of national dignity. the bumbling home minister, safely cosseted in the rajdhani, giving idiotic rhetoric to the press represented all that is ill with the country.
today, as i perform a retrospective on the matter, i’m sad to say that i currently lie in a state of denial. if the terrorists came at 9.30 in the evening to catch us asleep, they needn’t have worried. the people tasked with keeping us alive have been napping since time immemorial. i just can’t seem to hold back my disgust at the typical sequence of political gimmickry in the aftermath of the attack.
what grieves me more than those 100+ graves is the political dance that is currently taking place over them. i can’t help but think, with the unprecedented outpouring of emotion of the janta; don’t the members of the ruling class feel the same way as individuals, as indians, as humans? and if they do, being in the position that they are, why don’t they stop barking like dogs and start biting like some?
today, the enemy has ample balls to fight us. question is, do we?

KISSA K-SERIAL KA

2008-12-06T06:11:00.002+05:30

to know why the idiot box is called so, all one needs to do is watch the k-serials that pollute primetime television in india.

oh joy of joys! in the domestic fight against terrorism, we can finally claim victory. citizens can now breath safely knowing that the mastermind behind repeated assaults on indian soil, kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi a.k.a. ksbkbt, has been eliminated. it’s the klearest klue yet that telly viewers have kome to recognize k-serials for what they really are: kompletely krap.
some dissection is in order: all of the serials funnily sound the same (why can’t she just change her own name to kta kapoor from ekta kapoor for all the world’s luck and happiness?), their plots move slower than an injured tortoise (ksbkbt took 8 years, and still wasn’t finished) and bring back spouses from the dead and kill them in the same vein (even rajnikant hasn’t done that, yet). monkeys emote better than their actors, and convincingly at that.
i do concede one defeat: their power of persuasion. these daily soaps could compel housewives to cry, just as they convinced me that we were growing at 8% per annum-in the wrong direction. but now that this parasitic programming is dying out, your channel-surfing will not be in vain. as bhajji and symmonds have taught us, the only thing better than reel-life drama is the real version. let the games begin.

FESTIVAL OF FLIGHT

2008-12-06T06:07:00.001+05:30

move over sivakasi. as diwali rockets go, the folks at isro have launched the biggest one to celebrate this year’s festival of lights. after weeks of deft manoeuvring, the chandrayaan-1 is finally home, going farther than any indian contrivance before it. which just proves that our space scientists can promise us, and deliver, the moon. it’ll be hard to beat this diwali present for quite some time.

AWAKENING

2008-11-13T15:47:00.001+05:30

hope noun: when a black man enters the white house.

politicians have a pretty crap reputation amongst the desi middle class. while a coloured president-elect is busy unifying a country down in economic dumps with a message of hope, we have raj thackeray balkanising maharashtra, mayawati staging “social engineering” and mamata banerjee laying road-blocks. and rahul gandhi says he avers nepotism in his party. yeah right.
but to get the correct answers to the above problem, you have to start by asking the right questions. for instance, who’s more corrupt: the lawbreakers-turned-lawmakers or the apathetic voters electing them into power? indians like having all their civic rights, without fulfilling any of their duties. it’s hypocritical to curse politics (or the lack of it) without participation.
whether it’s by casting a simple vote, filing an rti application or pressurising the local municipal councillor, the power to change resides in each of us. leverage, pull and influence wield a whole new meaning when exerted democratically. because it’s about time that we relegate the policy of divide-and-rule to where it belongs: the pages of history. all it takes is a little hope.

FOUR-PLAY

2008-11-13T15:44:00.002+05:30

in automotive terms, four wheels are better than two and the same goes for four cylinders, four valves and four seats. so it’s no surprise that four-wheel steering fares better than the conventional version.

indians love cheap purchases and gaddis are no exception. unfortunately, our reputation as low-cost manufacturers hides the price of shoddy safety in made-in-india autos. safety isn’t the sexiest of subjects, but it does save lives. four-wheel steering is the latest, albeit slightly unconventional, take on this subject. normally, drivers wish never to use their airbags, but 4ws has an everyday impact in driving. despite its numerous benefits, it isn’t hard to pinpoint the reason for its absence in the indian marketplace.
that’s why i’m excited about the launch of the spanking new bmw 7 series in india, the first time 4ws is landing on our shores. it wouldn’t be long before the feature filters down the price range, just like the paddle shift gearbox which went from f1 cars down to the honda city. but wouldn’t it be nice to have the best of both worlds right now: a sasta price for a tikaav 4ws?
which is precisely what i and my mates are attempting for our final year project. here’s to wishing for some kickass foreplay, uhh fourplay.

GOING CRITICAL

2008-11-13T15:36:00.004+05:30

indians seem to have a penchant for creating mountains out of molehills: first the nano and now the nuclear deal.

circa 1971, the powers-that-be created a nuclear suppliers group (ergo nsg) in response to india’s “smiling buddha” nuclear tests. i think our ironical shoo-in to the very group designed to ostracise us is a consequence of our 1998 tests. the nuclear deal is undoubtedly a significant milestone for our country in more ways than one.
let’s face it: the indian government gets less credit than it deserves, because 60 years hasn’t turned us into our neighbouring anarchistans. yet, our current sarkar failed to build a national consensus with the janta or other netas on a landmark agreement. the opposition hasn’t fared any better: the right-wingers seemed to oppose the deal for opposing sake. the leftists performed their repeat telecast of the same show: thwarting progress on a cobwebbed ideology.
my eureka moment about the deal came while listening to every infrastructural firm selling their nuclear credentials during pre-placement talks. nuclear energy has its own problems, but it does come with huge amounts of energy at lesser co2 costs. just like telecom and airports, maybe power too can script a success in infrastructure with private sector participation.
thumping our chests at clinching a nsg waiver should be accompanied by some hard-nosed diplomatic introspection. it’s pretty darn clear that one, we don’t have too many friends around the world and two, nobody is going to gift us the status we crave on a platter. the country needs to start leveraging its soft and hard power worldwide if it wants to seek profits in global realignment of power.
this isn’t the end of long wait, but the start of a new beginning.

RITES OF PASSAGE

2008-10-02T20:28:00.003+05:30

pre-placement talk, written test, group discussion and interview: that’s the straight path of placements currently on campus. recently however, innovative hr practices have added some twists to this tale.

if the recruiters offering internships are less, the ones doling out pre-placement offers (ppo) are fewer. ppos are an attractive proposition all around and i wonder why more hr functions haven’t warmed up to the idea. apart from the usual benefits, hired interns become ambassadors for the recruiters on campus, sending positive vibes in the student community thru the most effective marketing channel: word-of-mouth.

the indian avatars of ets inc. have descended upon campus to add a professional touch to hiring. testing companies, such as merittrac, overtake a portion or whole of the placement process and do a superlative job at it. e.g. in online tests. although employed mainly by the software industry, the mass recruiters that really need their help (i.e. the big three of indian it) aren’t asking yet.

despite the economic slowdown, the overall demand still outstrips supply in the fresher job market. in this student-oriented environment, some recruiters have taken pains to prevent poaching by interacting with the freshly hired at a personal level after interview stage. by making themselves accessible, the newly-recruited students are made to feel a part of the organisation.

FOR GOD'S SAKE

2008-10-02T20:10:00.003+05:30

i asked the holy trinity: the Creator, Keeper and Destroyer. didn’t work. so i prayed to lord Ram & Sita and read the Hanumanchalisa a few times. no reply. i even pleaded with Lakshmi and Kuber for a turn of fortune. same result. i’m feeling lost amongst the million deities of hinduism, so will somebody please guide me straight to the Lord of Connectivity so that the lan & internet facility might get kick-started in hostel 4? some divine intervention certainly won’t harm anyone here.

DAY ONE

2008-10-02T20:04:00.004+05:30

in placement lingo, there are dream companies, there are star companies, there are first round companies and then, there’s tcs.

tata consultancy services is a name often heard across engineering campus in the country and increasingly, abroad too. every engineering college worth its salt flaunts their tcs recruit numbers as a yardstick of placement performance. closer to home, it’s no wonder then they get the prized first slot year after year.

day one began, as these things usually do, with a delay of the pre-placement talk. now making 550 anxious engineers wait in the cramped ‘cat’ hall for over 120 minutes is a recipe for mutiny, but the spc had a trick up their sleeves: lion king. there’s got to be something going right for the hit animation flick: i’ve never seen the hall so full, yet so quiet. the ppt finally started when a team landed on campus. they were pros at hard-selling, and i even detected a version and copyright notice at the bottom-right corner of each slide!

which brings us to the second innovation of the process: an online test. a computer-based test eliminates the logistical nightmare of organizing test papers, blank sheets, classrooms and what not, but our panacea to cure all ills failed when the network couldn’t connect to the net. so after a short delay of only 2 more hours, the test finally went online. there wasn’t any remedy available for the 15 people spc managing 550 candidates though and the half-kilometre separation between the cat and computer lab certainly didn’t help.

all that was left now were interviews and by sheer luck, i was handed the gauntlet of managing them. if there’s ever a pressure cooker situation, it’s this. on one side you’ve got your friends literally pleading you to send them to the easiest interview panel. on the other side is a team composed (almost) entirely of bengalis. now don’t get me wrong, i’ve plenty of bong friends but problem for a non-bong: when one bong meets another, they always start talking bongoli. and amongst 15 of them, i felt apparated to bongland.

but all’s well that ends well. it was all worth it, to see the 273 happiest people on earth.

TESTING TIMES

2008-10-02T20:01:00.002+05:30

i hate to love exams, and i’d love to hate them.

another mid-semester exam has just passed by, and i’m feeling tired. not of exams, but by them. tests really are a mixed bag for the final-year people: everybody wants to take it easy, but nobody wants a compromise in the gpa. love it or loathe it, there’s nothing better than an exam atmosphere to learn something new.

the good: the sense of camaraderie between hostel boarders is something to cherish during the days spent cramming. while making the best-tasting coffee at 2 in the night, when giving a wake–up call at the break of dawn, in the frantic last-minute search for calculators, by passing a sarcastic smile to your neighbour after receiving an out-of-syllabus question paper, the hard times brighten up a little.

the bad: using an indian text book is a pact signed with the devil: the price is cheap, but at the cost of peddling outdated history instead of cutting-edge tech. like explaining about the projected power scenario in india after 1980. like ending a chapter on the balancing of steam engines by clarifying “locomotives are obsolete nowadays.” it’s no wonder then that our subject name was modified from “modern power plant engineering” to “power plant engineering.”

the ugly: what rankles me the most is an examination system geared towards knowledge acquisition instead of understanding. everybody is a culprit: the students who study only the night before every paper, the teachers who hurry to finish the syllabus at all costs, the photocopy shop which sells tute-sheet solutions and the syllabus that rewards crammed theory over independent thinking. may be its time to ask: where has the purpose for exams been lost?

THE NUMBERS GAME

2008-08-26T14:22:00.005+05:30

an engineer’s life is dominated by numbers and there’s no better proof of this than examinations.

after years of test prep, you’d expect all final-years to say good riddance to examinations. but though placements are booming like never before, the trickle of wanna-be masters is slowly turning into a flood. so even after obtaining multiple job offers, many of my batch mates are busy demystifying a number of acronyms: gate, gre, toefl, ielts and cat.
the graduate aptitude test in engineering is the post-graduate version of the iitjee, aieee and all other engineering exams rolled into one. over the years, bit mesra has produced some top rankers in the exam and this year is set to be no different. the only problem here is of demand & supply. the industry does not significantly value (read money) post grads over under grads and only a handful of indian colleges imbibe a productive research culture.
which brings us to the graduate record exam, the passport to a phoren degree. sometimes i wonder whether it’s a positive sign that thousands of indians are receiving a western education or a negative sign on the inadequacy of our own higher education setup. money and language are arguably the biggest stumbling blocks here. the battle with prohibitive education costs has opened new destinations worldwide, from australia to canada. the language hurdle in english still has to be leapt over, with the angrezi international english language testing system or the amrikan test of english as a foreign language. bitians tend to always prefer toefl: it’s hard to beat the logic of a test centre on campus.
as iims have turned into the new iits, the common aptitude test is arguably the biggest fad amongst indian under-grads currently. the cat paper pattern is never identical, the cut-off percentiles are dizzyingly high and the pay packets are fat. however, the fraternity are at a distinct disadvantage here: b-schools prize diversity and a majority engineer population in a class is a no-no.
we are thus witness to the genius and tragedy of having a billion people: the ability to filter out a few gems, but incapacity to cater to the rest.

THE ROAD TO FREEDOM

2008-08-26T14:03:00.003+05:30

freedom holds different meanings for different people. what better a way to mark our independence on august the fifteenth than by combining the past (a trip to the eight hundred year old konark temple), present (biking seventy kilometres with ten people on six bikes) and future (a prayer for a successful jump from institute to industry). liberty thus transforms into a journey instead of a destination. jai hind!

KHANA KHAZANA

2008-08-26T14:00:00.001+05:30

in an age where cholesterol is a health risk and trans fat is taboo, expressing your love for unhealthy, fatty snacks is hara-kiri.

not that i give a damn. let us all admit it: banned foods are invariably the tasty ones, and the devil lies in their temptation. sometimes you just yearn for the simple sins in life, and mango juice, aloo bhujia, top ramen smoodles and pani puri are some of mine.
indian summers have only one positive upshot: the mangoes. although they are available in every form, from “mango bite” toffee to kulfi, it’s the juice that tastes heavenly in all of its avatars, whether aam ras or mango milkshake. it comes as no surprise then that frooty is an indian household name, just like hajmola and amul. mango drinks rule. period.
americans have chips, mexicans eat tortillas and desis go berserk on aloo bhujia. The potato snack is a pan-indian passion today: a far cry from its humble origins as supplements for the british indian army. the favourite flavour award goes to haldiram’s nimbu masala which has the managed to get the chaat taste right.
maggi is synonymous with noodles in india, but for a select few connoisseurs, it’s the top ramen smoodles’ curry flavour that makes tongues roll. the tomato curry carrying a hint of herbs and spices together with flat noodles is the epitome of fun fast food. it’s near zero brand recall makes it a difficult item to shop for, but one encounter is all it takes to convert sceptics into believers.
there’s something about pani puri: men convert into boys, kids to teletubbies and full stomachs turn empty. golgappas are the most tempting amalgamation of opposite tendencies: hard puris mated to the softest potatoes, mild potato fillings dunked into the spiciest panis, the long and theatrical preparation culminating in the succinct taste explosion inside the mouth. this chaat item is street-side salvation.

A FEW GOOD MEN

2008-08-25T19:57:00.001+05:30

the indian olympic association lists 24 objectives in its official charter – winning a medal is not one of them.

when abhinav bindra stood up on a podium in beijing, every indian noticed. my first reaction was confusing - i didn’t know whether to feel over-joyous about a golden olympian, or sadden about the pathetic medal tally incommensurate with our “potential”. that’s how we would always be– prospectives, emergents and potentials – were it not for a few inspirational organizations who are giving talented individuals a chance to excel at the highest levels.
every sport needs its heroes - that’s the motto by which mittal champions trust has become a model for corporate investment in sport. a brainchild of mahesh bhupathi and a lovechild of lakshmi mittal, it selects the most talented sportsmen in the country – like abhinav bindra - and provides the necessary support system for them to focus on a single goal – their game. for future golden glory, my bets are on this chosen group of beneficiaries.
the indian army treats success at the olympics as a matter of national pride, which is why they have taken up the challenge on a war-footing. the indian army’s mission olympics aims to produce medal winners – nothing less. the secret lies not only in nurturing but also spotting talent, whether military or civilian. if rajyavardhan rathore is any proof, this soldierly approach could herald many a victory on the sporting battlefield.
is there a bigger example of indian inaction than our olympic medal tally? with the commonwealth games around the corner, these are the sporting stories that give me hope. just like jaspal rana’s 1994 victory, abhinav’s midas touch could just ignite the next big wave of sporting change in india. till then, thanks abhinav, for the independence day gift.

WHEN NATURE CALLS

2008-08-19T14:35:00.002+05:30

which fat, slimy and downright disgusting creature feeds off others? it ain’t politicians i’m talking about here but the lizards in my room.

if a list of the most useless, worthless and talentless animals on earth were compiled, lizards would be favourites for the top spot. with their pea sized brains and sickening habit of mutilating their own body parts (namely the tail), i certainly won’t weep when they achieve the distinction of an endangered species. so what’s the eff-ing point ranting about them?
as if red ants weren’t enough, two dodos have invaded my privacy by ambushing upon me at unexpected intervals, periodically falling off the roof and generally making life hell for me in my – i repeat – my own room. and so, watching them crawl over my solitary jeans really was the last straw today. i just had to call in the exterminator.
supple, armed with a broomstick, tried each trick in the bag – cajoling it out, tickling & rubbing it off and clean-sweeping it but they just don’t get the idea. the dumdums seem to like my room more than i do. what bothers is their terrific knowledge of room 111’s nooks, crannies and hiding spots.
now, if i could just teach them the exits too.

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

2008-08-19T14:30:00.002+05:30

‘tis the time of the year when freshers arrive and the stink of you-know-what is heavy in the air.

ragging, like cricket or evening tea, is a british legacy. it’s been a part of campus culture for quite some time now, but somewhere along the way things got really really crooked, which leaves us with the problematic practice we see now. this desi version of the orientation programme now holds a dark, sinister connotation which raises one hell of a stinker.
to me, ragging always boils down to one thing - its extent. ragging could be a means for informal interaction with college seniors just as it could be a painful physical ordeal. it’s near impossible to govern because it remains a student-led initiative, and no fine line exists to separate the right deeds from the wrong. the curbing of freedom remains the hallmark of ragging, though nobody can figure out exactly how much.
defending ragging is akin to denying the holocaust, but i genuinely miss the fresher’s and farewell party between batches that were an unforgettable part of the college life until a few years back. a hardening of official stance has created an artificial barrier between different batches – and that’s never a good thing. ragging itself is bad, but it had a few positive side effects which should be preserved.
after all, i’d hate to leave this place without a memorable farewell.

IMPRINTS IN PRINT

2008-08-19T14:25:00.003+05:30

kyunki the tv doesn’t work properly, the net connection is broken and nobody listens to the radio, print publications are winning the media war with news-hungry hivians.

in the recent indian media explosion, only a few magazines and newspapers have managed to remain standing on their own two feet. a mind-boggling variety is available to cater to almost every curiosity, but as secretary of the hostel’s reading room, i’ve come across only a few that are in tune with the times. so what are the engineers of hiv reading?

basing an opinion solely on the country’s two largest selling newspapers is a dodgy proposition given their current pro-establishment credentials. nevertheless, the times of india and hindustan times remain the best bet for regular pan-indian and worldwide reporting. the telegraph is handy for its local perspective and eastern region focus. when it comes to business, the economic times remains the standard in india - blame it on the times group’s clout.

india today and outlook are worth a read simply for their sheer presence in the newsmagazine category, but the kudos goes to the magazine that has constantly pushed the journalistic envelope in india – tehelka. with its intelligent story selection, bold analysis and no-nonsense presentation, it’s got a finger on the right pulse. tarun tejpal needs to take a bow.

every year witnesses the release of another auto mag, but autocar india remains the clear leader for its overall brilliance. if auto magazines were cars, top gear would be a volkswagen (too foreign for indian taste), overdrive a tata (lacking overall refinement) and others unremarkable brand names. the suzuki sx4 of magazines checks most of the right boxes – local news, global reviews, f1 reports, moto coverage and lots of tests & comparisons, which is why it remains top dog year after year.

pc magazines are constant source for reference, with chip and digit being the two most known peddlers of this genre. opinion remains divided, but chip gains a notch above digit with its broad-based coverage of all things computer. the dark horse in this race is pc world, a lesser known but equally competent source of information technology for enthusiasts.

filmfare scores over stardust in the box office stakes since it’s cocktail of trendy infotainment tastes better. but bollywood isn’t the only object dominating the hivian mind space – a rock sub-culture has always existed in h4 and feeding this passion are some lesser known magazines. rock street journal a.k.a. rsj and the rolling stones’ indian edition comprise our head-bangers guide to the galaxy.

the indian media’s obsession with the sensex mirrors the number of biz journals on newsstands today. business is a subjective topic, but one magazine that succeeds in making sense of it is business today. amongst its many talents, its obsession with market surveys & polls and penchant for analysis instead of data makes it a fascinating read each time, every time.

the best of the rest are readers digest - an evergreen hit catering to the widest possible audience. competitive success review is a manifestation of the indian obsession with examinations – and the subsequent industry thriving upon it. sportstar has its own loyal following for its in-depth reports that thankfully do not focus just on cricket. and lastly, there’s men’s health for the gym junkies.

GASTRONOMIC MAKEOVER

2008-07-23T13:09:00.001+05:30

the walls are freshly painted, the floor scrubbed clean and the table lowered by a level. but the most significant change in the hostel mess lies elsewhere.

only the lord knows how many gaalis the mess food has accumulated over the past five decades. since i’ve been here, the institute has changed in multiple ways but the food has remained as crappy as ever. the sigh of relief accompanying bit’s decision to privatize all the messes is therefore understandable.
in the hands of the “calcutta caterer,” cooking in the hostel 4 mess has transformed from being edible to flavoursome. pieces of dal are no longer invisible, the rotis are thicker, the aloo sabzi contains masala and the fare is generally warm, if not served hot. water gets immediately delivered to the table and they even provide the luxury of salt shakers.
so is everything as hunky-dory as it sounds? well not exactly. the self-service is a chore and the absence of extras i.e. eggs and aloo chips gets me all nostalgic. the missing ingredient in the culinary equation is the mess bill, which certainly won’t be a walk in the park.
but all said and done, it’s hard to reason against the simple logic of a contented stomach.

I'VE GOT THE POWER

2008-07-23T13:07:00.001+05:30

getting rejected during recruitment is like cutting off the electricity at night: you don’t understand how it feels until you’ve experienced it.

watching your friends get hired while remaining a spectator yourself is one of the most painful experiences anybody can go through, especially if you’re a coordinator intensely involved in the entire placement process. the hires happily answer all the queries of supporters on being selected, but all the eliminated are left with are unanswered questions.
rejection is a bitter pill that unearths a range of emotions, from disbelief to denial followed by despair. the fear so engulfs the mind that it becomes hard to accept the fate that fifteen minutes of conversation brings to three years of perseverance. the solitary cure for shrinking self-confidence becomes self-belief.
sadness is a lonely feeling, and the only way to begin looking at the silver lining in the cloud of thoughts is by trusting yourself. there’s no better motivator than the hunger to win that failure generates. literally hundreds of tips are available to ace tests, gds and interviews but here’s the best: you only succeed when you desperately want to. and that’s the truth i learnt while getting hitched to tata power.
getting hired is like finishing first in a race: you never tire of recalling the elation.

A REAL-LIFE DRAMA

2008-07-23T13:01:00.002+05:30

i’ve played many roles in one life, but never so many in one as a student placement coordinator.

ask any bitian about the pros of the institute and placements will figure amongst the top three. campus placements are a huge deal, and a chosen student placement committee exists to facilitate this process. however working in the committee is not just another day at the job.
every day, coordinators meet a hundred different people and enact a characteristic part for each. amongst the students, we are news broadcasters to aspirants, colleagues to candidates, invigilators to test-takers, annihilators to rumour-mongers, supporters to the successful and consolers to the beaten. through coercion and coaxing, by parading old rules and making new ones, we keep the process running through day and through night.
for interviewees, acquaintance with the recruiters is a matter of minutes whereas coordinators are constantly judged on their behaviour. we’re in a extended interview of sorts with the placement teams as hosts at the dinner table, aides during pre-placement talk and buffers during interviews. by becoming the change we’d like to see, we try to improve the college’s placement record.
in a way, one could say that we are actors. it’s just that the stage doesn’t get more real than this.

FLYING ON A PRAYER

2008-07-16T20:13:00.002+05:30

it’s nice to be part of sweeping the revolution that is indian airports. it’s even better to be part of two, by including low cost carriers.

a read of newspaper nowadays and you’ll be forgiven to think that indian airlines are struggling to stay aloft, with a sleeping pilot or near-miss collision story printed every other day. so i decided to take the plunge myself by indigo-ing from bengaluru to kolkata.
that travel sites are a godsend only dawns upon you in emergency situations. booking on indigo website was quick & easy, and their seat blocking function is a handy innovation. the “low cost” phrase they perpetuate is a con considering their extravagant fares. in fact, the atf surcharge exceeded the base price of my ticket.
the airline uses two ways to make money. cutting the frills means no in-flight magazine, video screens, seat pillow, legroom, toffee at check-in counter and – horror horror – life jacket. in times of misfortune, they literally expect that you to hold on to your seat cushion for dear life. the other way of minting cash is by charging extra for every trimming. not just the food, but you pay extra for the emergency door seat too. pricey safety this.
their general level of service was decent both on ground and in air. there seems to be a inside joke running throughout their system – the ground support staff are labelled “ground force”, the safety card’s mascot was a confused villager and the sick-bag had a “get well soon” sign. in spite of the jokes and devoid of the toffees, they got me from point ‘a’ to ‘b’ efficiently and in the end, it’s all that matters.

BENG-FLEW-RU

2008-07-16T19:52:00.003+05:30

my sight-seeing itinerary this time in bangalore was limited to a single landmark: bengaluru international airport.

success of high-profile projects is a measure of india’s infrastructural development, and they don’t come bigger than the silicon city’s spanking new airport. it started with the airport shuttle ride from koramangala. ksrtc deserve appreciation for rigging comfortable buses that follow the timetable, even though there were just two passengers on board the bus. airports are not meant to be located in the heart of the city, and considering the efficient transport and roads available, i don’t see how the much-maligned distance is a problem. it’s no different from any other indian, or international, metro.
no sarkari blue-and-white board shouting the airport’s name greets your arrival. instead there’s a modern glass and steel edifice shaded in green and black: all very subtle, very cool. the open surroundings are refreshing change from the moshpit that was hal airport, though it makes the domestic terminal look smaller. the toilets – the best gauge of a building’s condition - don’t disappoint. then again, it’s harder to figure the significance of a 15 feet long, 10 feet high louis vuitton bag kept in the terminal’s forecourt.
inside the terminal, the x-ray check has been skipped in favour of direct flight check-in: a revolution worth replicating nationally. counters are aplenty and the presence self check-in machines is a good sign. the place is designed intelligently with plenty of skylights and absence of closed places that furnish a sense of space despite the smallish size. plenty of food and commercial joints do duty here and free wi-fi kills time. from here on, it’s standard boarding procedure till lift-off. all in all, a very satisfying experience.
bengaluru international airport is a breath of fresh air and for that reason alone, it tops my list of desi airports.

TIRANGA

2008-07-01T15:17:00.001+05:30

in the run to the beijing olympics, the mood of the nation is tepid at best and the reasons are not hard to figure out. the effect of the absence of a single game on a billion-plus population is telling. i'm no cricket fanatic, but this illustration from time touched a nerve: cricket in india is as ubiquitous as the national flag. jai hind to that!

ATITHI DEVO BHAVA

2008-06-26T21:24:00.006+05:30

despite my love of food, i never had the urge to review any food joint i visited. and then, i ate at annalakshmi.

annalakshmi restaurant, located on chennai's mount road, is unlike any other restaurant i have been too. the ornamental teak double-doors dominating the entrance lead to a lavishly decorated interior that's a cross between a palace and a temple. works of art from the entire country lie abound and the seats are comfortable. the staff is extremely courteous, since they're technically not "waiters". considering that the restaurant is run by a trust, the staff are comprised entirely of volunteers, amongst them ias and ips officers.
there is an extensive vegetarian menu to choose from, and one exclusively dedicated to juices, but we went there to feast on the three-course preeti bhojan. there are other options too, going upto a customized swarnalaksmi bhojan served in gold cutlery.
and feast it is. the first course of tomato soup and some cauliflower pakoras got lapped in seconds. then came the main course of puri/chappati, salad, raita and rice along side paneer, aloo, luaki sabzi. each painstakingly created dish tasted delicious without being too flashy. the same ethos of home-cooked food continued as cuisine shifted to southern dishes. even with a full stomach, the mango ice-cream and payasam was too irresistible to ignore, topped off by paans.
finding faults about the place is a tough task, except in the prices. at 350 per head, it's not economical by any means, but then that's the price to pay for being treated like kings for an hour. besides, the profits are invested in charity. so next time there's an occasion to be celebrated in chennai, gather a few friends/family and make a reservation. it offers a diversion from the idli-dosa-vada routine and really nice service.
after all, atithi devo bhava is not a mere saying here, it's a practice.

TRES BON VOYAGE

2008-06-26T12:19:00.008+05:30

whats makes the perfect vacation? is it the journey to a new destination, the hobnobbing with unlike-minded people, or even the taste of exotic cuisine. my version of idyllic holiday, encompassing all of the above and more, found expression in the french, no tamil, make that french seaside resort of pondicherry. here's to some random musings about the trip...

to be honest, the trip started badly enough when our bus hitched the wrong grand southern trunk née g.s.t. route from chennai towards paradis instead of the sea-hugging e.c.r. one. turns out the ecr route bus met a crash exactly that afternoon. at lunch, my delicious french onion soup's mix up with the chicken version got so confusing that i ended up drinking half a bowl of each; later we learnt someone forgot to add the chicken essence. the close shaves didn't end there: we sped halfway through chennai on two bikes at ten in the night on our way back to the bus stand with green lights and light traffic all the way, and still reached it late. the conductor was thankfully waiting, and gave us a solid drubbing before allowing the final two passengers to board. he may have spoken in kannada, but never before has the language made so much sense.

i don't know of any other indian resort that makes for a more exotic eating and staying experience. our "room", located a hundred metres from auroville beach, was a converted boat anchored to the sand, complete with an attached bathroom, electrical connections and soft mattresses. maybe they got the idea after the tsunami but you can't ignore the novelty value. as for the food, where else will a roadside dhaba serve tagliatele with shrimp sauce, honey pancakes and french onion soup? the best part: it's all a bargain. the sea, though, comes as a bit of an anti-climax.

you gotta hand it over the french: they've got style and some of it has rubbed off on own côte d’azur. they buildings look right out of the french riviera, the road signs are bilingual (française and tamil), cafes line up the coast and the local police look chic in an attractive crimson-coloured version of the gendarme hat. its comes at no surprise then that india's foremost fashion brand, hidesign, has its roots here. a unique cocktail of french and tamil is apparent in all walks of life, except for the buildings. the boundary between then french and tamil quarter in town is more metaphorical than physical: all walls free from tamil movie and political posters lie on the french side.

the place is best explored on bikes, which we unfortunately didn't have. the auto-wallahs are thugs but the buses are decent enough. they don't bother with frivolous trimmings such as glass windows in buses down south, which allows an unhindered view for the pasengers and a natural sea breeze to cool the cabin. the east coast road a.k.a. ecr is best experienced in the comfort of a personal vehicle though. the 150 kilometres never steer too many metres from the sea and the destruction wreaked by the 2004's tsunami ensures a clear view at all times, with the possible exception of a brief encounter with half of india's nuclear arsenal of course, at kalpakkam.

its easy to fall in love with pondicherry; one trip is all it takes. the place is still a well-kept secret, and thank god for it. commercialization on the lines of goa will ruin the charm and its uniquely french air. if you crib about the lack of activities, you're in the wrong place, mate. the place is good for nothing, which permits the luxury of spending productive time most unproductively.
finally, bliss!

TATALK & TATHOUGHTS

2008-06-07T20:15:00.001+05:30

as celebrity worship goes, jamshedpur beats everything else hands down. so how does it actually feel being a tataployee in tatanager?

the day begins with a pleasant tatalarm when tata power cuts off the electricity supply. after a quick bath, its off to the tatactory by, you guessed it, a tata bus.
at the tataffice, it is customary to greet other tataployees in the local lingo, called tatalk. tatalk is a rapidly growing dialect learnt even by foreigners from companies like taguar and tatover. this post too, is part of my tatraining for tatalk fluency.
after drinking some tata tea, having a few tatiscussions and drinking some more tata coffee, its back to tathome sweet tathome. on arriving at the hostel for food, the familiar sight greets you: utensils by tata steel, water supplied by voltas and food garnished by tata salt.
evenings are definitely the best tatime of the day here: the horizon blazes orange due to slag dumping at tata steel. the day ends just as it begins, as another round of power cuts gently puts you to tatleep
i can’t tatake this any more. this post ends here.

FIVE ONE KA THREE

2008-06-07T20:14:00.001+05:30

in a nation desperate for success, an iit-iim degree combo guarantees recognition.

but even this fails to explain why chetan bhagat outsells salman rushdie, vs naipaul or even jeffrey archer. so how did an investment banker by profession turn into an indian publishing phenomenon by reputation?
chetan bhagat’s success seems a quirk of fate with the right book, story and timing. “five point someone” picked the correct audience in the indian youth, which forms a large chunk of the english speaking population. the campus-based narrative addressed a pent-up demand that was hitherto ignored. the storyline was a filmy blend of teenage romance and personal triumph. minimizing the number of pages and price helped too.
to be fair, the author has his fair share of critics too. bhagat has been largely unable to replicate the magic in his subsequent novels. the apparent lack of literariness in his books comes as a common criticism, but maybe his popularity stems because, and not despite, this deficiency.
his latest work, “three mistakes of my life” is a thoughtful return to the author’s original strengths: teenage romance that’s innocent yet feisty, victory against all odds and the power of friendship. the plot’s timeline is dictated by cricket and politics, and the regular twists keep the tale interesting. his books therefore, score a number equal to their respective titles: on a scale of five, the first gets full five, the second scores just one and the third gets three points.
chetan bhagat sells, and there is no better reason to pay attention to him. who better, after all, to introduce the pleasure of reading to a whole new generation?

CARMASUTRA

2008-06-07T20:12:00.001+05:30

christmas seems to have been advanced by half a year this time, with my first-ever sighting of a running concept car

you’re probably asking how the sight of a show car can require a dedicated post on the subject. as any auto enthusiast will tell, the prospect of spying on a model prior to its production is like winning the lottery with a free ticket. fact is, all road-going cars today compromise and conciliate in order to win the widest audience. concepts, the rarest remaining breed of auto animals, junk all common sense for carnal instinct, and therein lay their appeal.
to be honest, the concept was actually a truck instead of a car, given that i’m currently working in the commercial vehicles unit of tata motors. nevertheless, it had all the usual trappings of a pre-production model on a testing spree, a sight i’d previously seen only in auto magazine pictures. hiding itself completely in an envelope of black cloth, it revealed just enough of its design to make its presence felt.
since i don’t want to get kicked out for biting more than what i can chew, i’ll restrain myself on the specifications front. like all good things in life, concepts unfortunately don’t last long. the elaborate process of making a car ensures that the beasts get tamed several times over even before a single nut is bolted. but i’m hoping tata makes an exception for this edgily-designed truck.
god only knows we need good looking ones plying on our roads.

THE TALE OF TATANAGAR

2008-05-14T19:19:00.002+05:30

jamshedpur. tatanagar, jampot. my residence this summer has been given various names but the asian birthplace of iron is only done justice by the title “city of steel”.

ranchi & jamshedpur are 80 km apart as the crow flies, 131 km by road and miles and miles of mazy motion as the river subarnarekha flows. even though i’m biased as a ranchiite, it’s hard not to like jamshedpur at first glance. the two major towns of the state make for an interesting comparison, and a national parallel can be drawn with new delhi & mumbai.
ranchi is the seat of power in all forms: political, religious, cultural. jamshedpur, on the other hand, excels commercially as the industrial heart of a minerally gifted state. take the rail connectivity for instance: while ranchi has better connectivity through rajdhanis and shatabdis, tatanagar station is ultimately superior in size and maintenance.
the best part about jamshedpur is the charming surroundings. as a walk in the telco colony will show, this place seems to be stuck in a 70s time warp: broad leafy avenues, snow white padminis, company clubs and kaiser bungalows. against the usual steel & glass structures, the town is representative of an urban vision that’s years old yet refreshingly original. its continued existence is proof enough of its success.
talking about infrastructure, it’s probably the largest such town in india operating without a municipality. yet the roads are butter smooth, power in uninterrupted and water can be drunk straight off the tap. i don’t know of any other indian city that has an industry right smack in the middle and residential areas in the suburbs; it’s usually the other way around. the verdant greenery foresting the entire city makes you forget the presence of heavily polluting industries. this high quality of life comes despite, and not because, of the government. there’s a lesson here somewhere.
it’s not only the commerce and the infrastructure which rival the best metros. the cosmopolitan character of the town comes as jamshedpur’s biggest surprise. people from all over india have flocked to work at this mecca over the past hundred years and this reflects in the daily encounters with the residents. for example, the local version of breakfast is idli-dosa and the dialect in office is an intriguing blend of bhojpuri and bengali. with tata steel and tata motors swallowing corus and daewoo trucks respectively, how much time till the civic makeup turns international?
in a town where the electricity, water, buses and even salt comes from the tatas, it’s no surprise that i’m currently undergoing training in a tata group company. short of living with the graduate engineer trainees (which i was prevented from), i don’t see how closer my life can imitate that of a tata motors employee: i do the same jobs, eat at the same hostel and work the same hours.
like all of my bitian classmates, the similarity of the menu in their hostel mess came as a shocker. it’s almost as if the cooks read our minds when they heated the dinner’s custard to precisely the same temperature. atleast i now know why tata motors is designated a dream company for campus placements at bit mesra: it’s the feeling of homecoming.

BONG VOYAGE

2008-05-14T19:16:00.002+05:30

a hundred years ago, the citizens of the british raj vacationed in ranchi to escape the summer heat of calcutta. so where do bored ranchiites celebrate their summer holidays now-a-days?
kolkata is hot, humid and downright dirty in summer. it is also extremely fun in the company of friends that turn the foul weather fair. a trip to kolkata is always short on time, big on food and full of surprises. time flies when you’re having fun, but here are a few snippets i managed to keep before they were blown away.

a huge part of the kolkata appeal is pure nostalgia. the british invasion of bengal is prominent in victoria memorial, tea houses and the names of the city’s hot spots: hastings, fort and hungerford street. at a time when modernizing seems to be bengal’s new mantra, it’d be wise to remain old fashioned by retaining some quirks, transport for example. sunny yellow ambys, languorous trams and hand-pulled rickshaws have their speed and style quotient inversely related: the rick is retro & chic at the same time.

celebrity encounters at regular intervals made for an interesting side scoop. problem is, they were more imaginary than real in nature. we had our fill of buying books in front of tagore’s patronized coffee house, gorging dal tarka in a dhaba where husain sketched madhuri and visiting a friend’s house located behind sauravdada’s mansion.
we even figured out a link to the father of the nation. the hypothesis stated that every major indian city has an mg road, just like ranchi and bangalore, but we weren’t sure of the four metros. as we sped down kolkata’s version, we made peace with the mahatma.

the only passions with pan-indian appeal are bollywood and cricket and kolkata forms centre-stage for the biggest experiment yet to combine the two. shah rukh khan deserves full marks for the smash hit publicity of his ipl team which seems to have generated a groundswell of local support. he, however, doesn’t seem content with only these two mediums and seems hell bent on winning the telly audience too. what’s next, radio jockeying?

BACK WITH A BANG

2008-05-14T19:14:00.001+05:30

nurturing a passion and then allowing it to die is criminal, which pretty much sums up my current attitude towards blogging
it’s frustrating to be hampered from putting into writing some of the most formative years of your life. willingly or otherwise, i haven’t been able to match my previous pace of posting over the past two months. during this period, i have started acting in roles of a college senior, a club vice-chairman, a summer trainee, a jamshedpurian, a vacationer and many more, but the dialogues to this drama seem to be missing.
now that there’s finally a semblance of stability in life, the art of push button publishing is again under focus. the quality this time will hopefully more than make up for the quantity.

HAT TRICK

2008-05-03T00:25:00.002+05:30

three years is a long time to spend in a single place, especially when you have another one left.

as i stand today on the verge of becoming an engineer, my quintessential memory lane looks more like a roller coaster ride. the exhilarating highs are combined with equally depressing lows in a blitzkrieg that seems to have lasted 3 minutes and not years. all the gut wrenching twists and the euphoric turns have ensured that there has never been a moment of boredom throughout life in college personally, professionally or socially.
much as i may hate to admit it, i'm a changed person after three years. my past experiences are bittersweet: failure to score is pepper and getting an internship is salt. but i like to believe that every single event and occurrence had a purpose, and i've ended wiser because of it. the only measure of personal satisfaction with life is abstractly through happiness and fulfilment, and i definitely am more of the above today than a few years back.
in the race of life, college is the qualifying lap after all the years of schooling. it’s this professional aspect of life that transforms the most as you step from academia to corporate. when i first entered college, the youth in me cursed and rebelled against everything that i detested about this place. in three years time, the tables have turned and i’m now explaining the official position to people. i'm in a position to make change and this accountability has made all the difference. i may no longer be a beginner and not quite the professional, but i'm surely getting there as a rookie.
when i look at the snapshots of my memory, it’s not places that i remember but the people. my close-knit coterie of fifteen has probably been the best part about bit mesra: friends are the only reason that keeps me coming back to this place. between the continuous chaos, it’s nice to have a set of constant companions that make hostel life special. funnily enough, i'm now party to a new gang of the same number and though its early days yet, the mood is socially upbeat.
if there's a single theme running throughout these three years, and this post, its change. life in college has brought about a metamorphosis which i still haven't fully comprehended. maybe it’s because the change hasn't stopped yet. and so, here’s to looking forward to the final loop in the coaster ride.
cheers!

harsh says….completing b.e. is like giving birth to a child. everyone appreciates the outcome but no one knows exactly how many time you got eff-ed.

AUTO MOTIVE

2008-03-27T17:59:00.004+05:30

who would have thought a few years ago that an ultra-cheap car would become a symbol for the dream rise of indian manufacturing?

looking at the million permutations transforming the indian industry today, some patterns come to mind. it all started with services sector when it, ites and telecom boomed, with retail and healthcare being recent shiners. manufacturing largely lacked credible stories to demonstrate its success earlier, but the tata nano changed all that.
yesterday’s jaguar-land rover deal is only a very visible milestone in the meteoric rise of an industry, one that was plainly visible at this year's auto expo. this development hasn’t been without handicaps, overcoming shoddy infrastructure being one. as i see it, india's emergences as a small car hub changes perceptions by quite a margin, especially for budding engineers like me.
today, there is finally an alternative to the dream sold by the infotech companies during campus recruitments. r&d in core engineering disciplines will finally receive a kick-start with the help of industry. just like the it sector mushroomed bpos, growth in auto components looks to be a cinch. the world is surveying the local auto sector, along with steel and pharma, for proof of manufacturing prowess.
india badly needs this dream to, once and for all, come true.

the telegraph states....from no-no to nano, ratan tata has deliver on a promise he made years ago.

THERE AIN'T NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH

2008-03-27T16:53:00.005+05:30

we always knew the cat would return to bite one day. here's the proof:

BIT Ranchi IT Usage Policy

[Content] I shall be responsible for all use of this network. In case I own a computer and decide to connect it to BIT Ranchi network, I will be responsible for all the content on it, especially that which I make available to other users. (This provision will also apply to any computer or device for which I am responsible, and is included in the meaning of "my computer".) In case I do not own a computer but am provided some IT resources by BIT Ranchi, I will be held responsible for the content stored in the designated workspace allotted to me (examples: file storage area, web pages, stored/archived emails, on Computer Centre or Department machines).

[Network] I will be held responsible for all the network traffic generated by "my computer". I understand that network capacity is a limited, shared resource. I agree that physically tampering with network connections/equipments, sending disruptive signals, or making EXCESSIVE USE of network resources is strictly prohibited. Repeated offenses of this type could result in permanent disconnection of network services. I shall not share the network connection beyond my own use and will not act as a forwarder/ masquerader for anyone else.

[Academic Use] I understand that the IT infrastructure at BIT Ranchi is for academic use and I shall not use it for any commercial purpose or to host data services for other people or groups. Also, I shall not host or broadcast information that might harm others or may be otherwise considered objectionable or illegal as per Indian law.

[Identity]I shall not attempt to deceive others about my identity in electronic communications or network traffic. I will also not use BIT Ranchi IT resources to threaten, intimidate, or harass others.

[Privacy] I will not intrude on privacy of anyone. In particular I will not try to access computers (hacking), accounts, files, or information belonging to others without their knowledge and explicit consent.

[Monitoring] I understand that the IT resources provided to me are subject to monitoring, with cause, as determined through consultation with the BIT Ranchi administration, when applicable. The monitoring may include aggregate bandwidth usage to effectively manage limited IT resources as well as monitoring traffic content in response to a legal or law enforcement request to do so. I authorize BIT Ranchi administration to perform network vulnerability and port scans on my systems, as needed, for protecting the overall integrity and efficiency of BIT Ranchi network.

[Viruses] I shall maintain my computer on this network with current virus detection software and current updates of my operating system, and I shall attempt to keep my computer free from viruses, worms, trojans, and other similar programs.

[File Sharing]I shall not use the IT infrastructure to engage in any form of illegal file sharing (examples: copyrighted material, obscene material).

[Security]I understand that I will not take any steps that endanger the security of the BIT Ranchi network. Specifically, I will not attempt to bypass firewalls and access rules in place. This includes not setting up servers of any kind (examples: web, mail, proxy, DC++ Hubs) or any other softwares without concern of network team. In critical situations, BIT Ranchi authorities reserve the right to disconnect any device or disable any account if it believed that either is involved in compromising the information security of BIT Ranchi.

[Settings] I understand that I will no change or tamper any settings for the network setup which are done by the Network team.

[Penalties] I understand that any use of IT infrastructure at BIT Ranchi that constitutes a violation of BIT Ranchi Regulations could result in administrative or disciplinary procedures.

HOLI DAY HOLIDAY

2008-03-24T20:27:00.005+05:30

holi and happiness go together, especially when you're celebrating in the city of joy. looking back, the two day bengali sojourn was the correct prescription to combat the daily drudgery of college life. i didn't play with colours this time, yet life has been seldom been more colourful than this holi. so here's my collection of musings, a travelog of calcutta.

the best part about getting away from hostel was the sense of liberation completed by the absence of computers. it took me a step away from my laptop to realize the magnitude of my addiction to it. the difference between loneliness and company struck me hard and fast this time around. in fact, i'm not the only one disillusioned with this over-exposure. there seems to be a counterculture building up in 2k5 with two batch mates voluntarily giving up their laptops. only time will tell the practicality of this move

a resurgent bengal has made park street the hippest place in town, with all the toniest addresses to boot. along with the usual mix of discos, resto-bars and fast food joints, the area's usp lies in its trendy tea rooms. these haunts deserve two thumbs up for making tea fashionable amongst the youth brigade. so when can we start seeing flurys battling it out with ccd and barista for favourite hang-out status across indian cities?

the curse of follywood is upon me. after scoring a hat-trick with krrish, vah! life ho toh aisi and ta ra rum pum, i should have known better than to watch a masala bollywood flick in a multiplex. is my fate cursed only to see the crappiest movies or is bollywood genuinely incapable of making sensible entertainment? either ways, watching "race" taught just how far bollywood has regressed since i last wrote about it.

the dumb-but-beautiful routine played by actresses has now metamorphosized into an evolved role, where sameera reddy acted brain dead, morally corrupt and skimpily clad all at the same time. dance sequences are now means to get the actors laid by the end of the song: in fact katrina hides little while shaking her thingy to "bare" her feelings for saif. the number of kahani mein twists would give a jalebi an inferiority complex and senseless non-veg jokes come supplemented with fornication and infidelity. the verdict: race is popcorny bullshit.

a large component of any holiday is the food. so it was with great expectation that i landed up, for the first time, at the heavenly abode of kfc this saturday on park street. frankly speaking, the options for vegetarians were limited and i found the tariffs uncompetitive vis-a-vis mc-d. the veggie choices, at best, only supplement the chicken offerings and the taste wasn't anything to write home about. i'll be sticking to veggie lovers pizza and mc-aloo tikki burger next time around.

POLYCHROMATISM

2008-03-23T09:27:00.008+05:30

if diwali celebrates light, holi is all about colours. this riot of a celebration drenches the entire country in an intoxicating fervour. every person, willingly or unwillingly, partakes in the festivities which deserve to be experienced not read. men turn into animals (women into the ferociuos variety) with the war cry: holi hai!

SIGNBOARD TO THE SOUL

2008-03-18T16:56:00.008+05:30

the first thing that catches your eye in any hostel room is often not the inmate, but its posters.

posters are the most interesting denominator common to almost every teenager's room . not only are billboards great eye candies, but they also reveal a running trait or passion of the enthusiast: a mirror of character of sorts. so i set out test this hypothesis of mine by a sample survey among my friends. and the results say....
jm has a solitary framed photograph, displaying his single-minded passion in life. hm's first love is rock music so no surprises there; ditto for bsns. gp and sm have bare walls, which either means that they are plain lazy or use very bad quality tape. rn has no less than 7 britney fanposters along with an equal number of, ahem, beauties in his harem. ss' 4 message flyers parallel his penchant for wisecracks. so far, so good.
at has a wallpaper made entirely of sports(3), dogs(2), bollywood(2), hollywood(5), music(3), bikes(3) and message(2) posters. i'm at a loss to explain this attention seeker, but i do know that he loves the feeling of having a hundred faces (including the dogs' and cats' of course) stare at him. i could go on, but the link between psyche and posters remains unchanged.
each banner is a reflection of our likes and tastes and a rallying point for the rebellious youth in all of us. maybe that’s why the habit dies out with adulthood. i, by the way, have 10 cars, 7 message and 2 sport posters on display currently.
go figure!

pauline kael says....the words "kiss kiss bang bang" which i saw on an italian movie poster are perhaps the briefest statement imaginable of the basic appeal of movies.

VIRTUALLY HOOKED

2008-03-17T00:15:00.012+05:30

it’s a sign of changing times when the most popular game in college isn't physical but virtual.

a peek into any hostel room and chances are that you'll either face terrorists spamming counter terrorists, heroes battling for supremacy or modified supercars drag racing the night away. computer games are all the rage currently but it wasn't always like this. a few years ago, personal computers were a rarity and lan gaming was unheard of. clan matches were limited to gaming competitions during tech fests or during trips to reliance web world.
the campus wifi in summer of 06 influenced a lot of laptop purchases but the tipping point came on new year 07 with campus wide networking. the phenomena of file sharing, net surfing and server gaming suddenly exploded to maddening proportions. there and then, a new addiction was born.
there’s a fine line dividing passion and obsession and we now veer perilously close to the latter. no one doubts the games' element of fun and that they even improve hand eye coordination. problems arise when gaming supersedes studies, socializing and sports most of the time. question is, do we want to reduce ourselves to lonely game junkies stuck staring at our computer screens all day, all night long?
i don't think i want to know the answer to that.

gareth owen says....if pac man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music.

THE ROMANCE OF RECRUITMENT

2008-03-15T14:00:00.005+05:30

to me, the whole recruitment racket closely resembles a courting contest where we, the engineers, take form of spoilt suitors

over the years, this liaison worked out just fine because of the skewed demand-supply ratio with the numbered engineers calling the shots. just like a heartthrob, you were spoilt for choice of company. just like dating, you could flirt with your courter for better understanding thru internships. just like courtship, you were wooed by lots of money and pizzazz. even after all this showering of affection, one just wasn't enough so you two-timed by getting multiple job offers!
but clearly, the honeymoon is receding today faster than the american economy. the companions are getting picky and choosy with commitment and loyalty being the new mantras. like employers explaining themselves at pep talks, prospectives are now sounding themselves with the recruiters. loyalty is being demanded up-front thru multi-year bonds to put an end to flings and affairs. the internship game now works only if you demonstrate your suitability practically on the shopfloor. and as for the moolah, the payscale has been rejigged to reward performance now.
the message is clear. beware: the prey have just turned predators.

andy warhol says....employees make the best dates. you don't have to pick them up and they're always tax-deductible