A Tale of Two

DISCLAIMER: Please, please, please note, I'm NOT a pervert. It was just that I was dared into writing a fairytale of lewd proportions. Kindly take this with a grain of salt, and your opinion of yours truly, if there is any, I hope shan't sink, if it can any further, as the case may be. By the way, if you're planning to publish this somewhere else as your own, you're free to do so, I'm not exactly proud of this piece of work, but I must caution you, the world is filled with Victorian wheezy gasbags who pretend sex doesn't exist, and judging from my past experiences(a quaint term to refer to mishaps) it won't go down very well.



Far, far away, in a land of fairies and leprechauns, two lands actually, lived two princesses. One was deemed to be pretty up there on mercury levels, or so many children thought so, owing to shaggy ill-fitted scrounges referring to her as the hot one while the other was down to earth, more so like downer that earth; she was not someone you'd throw a second glance after you spend nearly a year in the vaults of Satan, ish, more-like, thinking about the birds and bees with none in sight. The first one, let's call her Princess Leia, for obvious reasons, and the other, well, she was not named owing to crusty exteriors, as was the custom in mediaeval times, as moulds were below christening. Princess Leia, had a more been there, done that outlook on life because she used to always say, "Been there, done that" whenever anyone mentioned beds, pieces of furniture, prison cells, lifts, treadmills, cars, churches, confession boxes, the vicar's house, etc, etc. The other princess, as history would remember her, didn't get about much. Her hobbies included being cooped up in the highest chamber in the tallest tower of the highest castle guarded by a vicious fire-breathing dragon. The foolish knights, always up for a meaningless challenge, masking vanity in regard to virility with gallantry and chivalry, set about trying to rescue this princess. The poor sods didn't realise that all the security in the highest castle in all of fairyland was for their protection and not hers. After they'd crossed the seven seas battling numerous sea monsters and base beasts of such sorts, they would arrive in triumph on the shores of the unknown island, in search of true love. Confronting the hardships of heat and cold, they would climb mountains on their poor, yet somehow noble steeds. Arriving at the castle and setting their sight upon the princess, they would deliver an eloquent and romantic proposition to the fire-breathing dragon. This placed an enormous strain on the kingdom's treasury, as dragons were rare and expensive, and replacing one every time a foolish knight got horny did not bode well for the land. Meanwhile, princess Leia, was living life to the fullest, a fact we know after her erotic journals, many titled to the likes of Snow-White and the Seven Dwarves, Beauty and the Beast and Princess and the Pea. Her juvenile episode with the three bears were also chronicled along with Little Red Riding Hood, an adventure firmly entwined around the big bad wolf, all snippets of her questionable past. Such an eventful life starkly contrasted with the mundane existence of the other princess who sat up there all alone, watching dragons come and go, listening to emo songs on full volume. Her father was not the happiest of men, and wanted to find a suitor willing to take his daughter's hand in marriage. As the church, then, at least in principle, frowned upon bestiality, many upright men declined. Many years passed and the king was getting old, and desperate. The reasons were two-fold, one his daughter was still as hideous as ever, and his mistress and his wife lost interest in him and he wasn't getting any. So he figured, something had to be done, when by a stroke of luck, a prince turned up. He was not what you'd call the best of men, short, squat and warty. Even his voice sounded like a croak. A result of generations on inbreeding and a porous condom, he was also not a loved man, and was perfect for our little princess. The tied the knot as the dragon guarding the tower at that time was off to it's honeymoon, giving free passage to the prince. This event was later idealised to the tale of the "Princess and the Frog" where she was made beautiful, the prince's amphibian form made a curse by an evil witch and all facts of life censored. This was a move to take advantage of children not yet exposed to questionable cinematography in their formative years, where they would believe anything. Be it something like the princess that looked like an overcooked Christmas turkey managed to find true love and the fact that a frog can turn into a prince. Anyway, find, she did, they lived happily ever after. Princess Leia, on the other hand, lived a gay, fun-filled life full of frolic. Her escapades will be penned later as I have not the stomach, not the patience to enumerate lewd acts of deviance. She was included in this tale only to spice things up, I'm sure other men shall cast more light upon her in the years to come.

A Planet's Plea

I don't know why I'm thinking so much these days, I think it's got to do with all the free time, you know, with this being holidays and all. Anyway, what has been plaguing my mind is the incessant talk about climate change. I know there are many heated emotions involved when it comes to being eco-friendly and all that, but I wanted to say this anyway. What do we know about global-warming? What do we know about weather patterns? How can we decide the cause of climate change when there are close to a million variables involved? We have no way of making sure why our planet is getting warmer. All we do know is that the earth is never stable. It is always changing. The whole universe is a giant cosmic symphony in dynamic equilibrium. There is no reason for the earth to be otherwise. We've had ice ages, four of therm huge, in the past, we've also had intensely warm periods in between. Antarctica was a lush temperate haven once, it was still close to the poles then. Why is it a frozen desert today? We've had mass extinctions, nearly ninety five percent of all species disappeared at the end of the Permian era. It was the worst mass extinction till date, and there is no reason why another one shouldn't happen. Whatever happens, unless the sun dies, or perhaps even then, life will go on. It is resilient. It can adapt, it can evolve. It never stays the same. We've been in this grand scheme of things for a mere wink of a few thousand years. How can we know the sheer magnitude of this ever-mutating planet of ours? We might be in the middle of a mass extinction ourselves, we might survive, we might not. Most probably we will survive, advancing sea levels are the least of our problems. The maximum we lose is a chunk of land creating space shortages throughout. We perhaps might not have vast open spaces, but we'll still survive in a dense closely packed society that's busy and crowded to the point of choking. We already live in such an environment, and we call it the triumph of civilisation, a metropolis. Large cities symbolise everything that will remain under such an event. We already are fascinated by busy roads and glittering skylines, we'd hardly know the difference. It would just seem like a leap in the rate of urbanisation. One might ask, what about agriculture, we'd need vast open spaces for agriculture, I'll tell you, you underestimate human ingenuity. The Japanese are already farming on their roofs, we could do the same. The Japanese economic miracle will be repeated in every country. If you look at it from that angle, it is not all that apocalyptic after all. But then, we have no idea how the earth reacts to the smallest of changes that appear seemingly insignificant. The outcomes have not always been good though. Let me go back to the most favourite example of paleontologists worldwide to show how bad things can go. First, a large meteorite crashed onto Siberian flat lands. This would no doubt kill most life in that region and some around a large radius through pyroplastic fumes and some more in the nuclear winter that follows. This would be one of the day to day mass extinctions like the infamous K-T extinction that killed terrestrial and aquatic dinosaurs. Things would have normalised in a few years or so, with a lacuna of life left behind filled almost immediately with new forms of life. But things didn't end there, Siberia happened to be a weakness in the earth's crust and the meteorite made it a lava trap. One would have seen vast curtains of fire shooting out for nearly as far as the eye can see. Something like Mordor in the LOTR films. Things would have heated up unimaginably at ground zero, obviously, and it would have been a hell in full swing for life in and around Siberia. Besides being instantaneously fried, evaporated, cooked and burnt at the same time, the plumes of dust would have cooled the earth drastically killing off cold-blooded creatures everywhere except near the equator and a radius of tolerant temperatures around Siberia itself. This nuclear winter lasted a tad longer than a normal meteorite crash and because of the volcanic traps, tonnes of carbon-di-oxide were pumped into the atmosphere. By the end of the nuclear winter that followed, which was after a few decades from the impact itself, nearly three percent of the earth's atmosphere was carbon-di-oxide. This would raise global temperatures by five to six degrees celsius. This is almost fatal for every living thing, but not nearly enough to kill almost every form of life. But it was enough to warm up the seas. The oceans then were a minefield of frozen methane, anaerobic life-forms rules the deep seas. The methane was almost instantaneously frozen due to the depth and vast quantities of this toxic gas lay frozen underneath. As the waters warmed up, these glaciers began to thaw, releasing tonnes of methane into the atmosphere. Methane as we know is twice as effective at green housing radiation as carbon-di-oxide is, and this raised temperatures even further, the last nail in life's coffin, temperatures shot up to nearly seventy degrees celsius in some parts of the planet. One now understands the domino effect that brought a huge cataclysm that almost wiped out life from the planet. But there's nothing we can do about it. If the whole planet burns, we can we go? It is indeed an unsettling thought, but we need to accept the fact that things like these happen all the time. There have been dozens of mass extinctions in the past and the one that might be happening now is no exception. It need never be a result of human activity. We know that only 0.035% of the atmosphere is CO2, and of late. it has risen to about 0.04%. This change is hardly enough to change global temperatures gathering from what we know. But there are plenty of other factors involved. The tilt in the axis is proposed to be the reason for the ice ages and the warmer periods. We can never really find out. The Suns orbit also plays a part, but we don't know what part. It is all really hazy as to why our temperatures are rising, if at all they are, and they need to rise uniformly. Many countries like Iceland have actually cooled. Greenland's melting, So is Western Antarctica, but Eastern Antarctican ice shelves are actually thickening. So global warming is not global in it's literal sense. Even the rate at which it rises shows no discernible pattern, some regions heating up faster than others. This is not characteristic of the greenhouse effect. Winds distribute CO2 concentrations more or less equally on a macroscopic scale and yet changes are visible even over broad vast regions. What we take are small scale readings and average them out but what we really need is a temperature gradient. Even if we establish that the earth is, on a broad scale, warming up, we don't know how much of it is human activity. We have previously tried to rectify changes in the environment, things have only ended in disaster. For example, take the Masai Mara in Southern Africa. Elephant and rhino preservation centres were established. Elephants thrived, rhinos did not. Why? Because both the species were kept in such close proximity that they started competing with each other for resources, elephants were successful, rhinos were not. Moreover, indigenous elephant populations were nearly wiped out due to hunting and local clashes before the park was established, and elephants from other parts of Africa were let loose, most of them young ones of more or less the same age. Elephant society is complex, very comparable to ours, and we did not understand this fact. This made these young elephants grow without a firm check from the other big elephants, which were all killed for ivory, and these adolescents grew into aggressive, bullying males that harassed females and other animals. One of these other animals was the rhino. These animals systematically hunted down the rhinos, reducing their populations even further. This problem was resolved later by importing gigantic tuskers, the old experienced ones, that would act as a stopper to these boisterous out of control adolescents. This problem, however, was resolved so late that rhino conservation is an optimist's dream today. What would have been a normal extiction was just accelerated by human intervention. Who knows, the rhinos might have bounced back if we hadn't intervened. We think preservation is maintaining status quo. We feel that cordoning off lands will stop them from dying out. What we fail to realise is that species disappear all the time, only to be replaced by new ones. We need to understand something before we declare it's broken and try to fix it. I'm saying all this because we shouldn't jump to conclusions about our planet. It is complex, dynamic and chaotic. What we do today will have huge consequences tomorrow. I read something about covering glaciers with a mirror-like material to reflect the sun's rays. I'm very earnest when I say, please don't do anything like it, it'll most probably end in disaster. We have no way of knowing what might happen to a planet that reflects most of the heat back into space. The stakes are very high this time, our survival is questioned, and the best thing to do is let the earth do it's job. Only nature can do it's job the best. Let the world run like it always has, let us bother, like every other life form, about changing ourselves to fit into our surroundings. The other way round only brings about catastrophe. If left to itself, we at least have a chance of survival. It's the only planet we've got, please don't mess with it. It'll spell doom if we don't know what we're doing and nine times out of ten, we don't. Leave the planet alone.

Art

I was pondering the other day, what exactly is art? Is it the depiction, in any chosen medium, of any moment? An idea? Perhaps it is the act of palpating whatever the artist was inspired from? We will never have a concrete idea of what exactly art is. It is a hydra, whose nine heads grow into nine more heads every time one head is cut off. It is constant, it is ever changing, it evolves with the human mind, it is tangible because it is abstract. It is the most incomprehensible achievement of mankind, where a world of energy is put into something completely unnecessary, at least from an evolutionary point of view. It is not needed for survival, yet how did it become what it is today? It has grown with mankind, it has personalities of it's own; personalities shaped and chiselled by minds, millions of them, into what pleases something so mundane and physical as the senses we possess. Be it the subtle notes of Lacrimosa that melts a stone to tears or the magnetic attraction of the Mona Lisa, virtually nothing, in it's basest form, and somehow fascinates the human imagination into seeing a woman smile; just a very normal day-to-day affair, a mere smile, and it has captured millions of eyes, hearts and most importantly, the enigmatic fascination and attraction of brilliant minds. We try to make sense of the world around us. We can't live without this marvellous trait, so necessary for survival, that we have it hard-wired into our brains. This is simply the only way in which we can see our surroundings; we need the world to make sense, we want order, a pattern we can relate to, a pattern that we need to find, or invent, the case is purely subjective, and applaud ourselves for looking at things that never possibly are. We crave the satisfaction of understanding or recognising something as familiar; we bask in the happiness of the known, one of the prime reasons for this particular habit of the human race. So, a mere sheet of canvas with organic pigment dabbed on it strategically finds itself ogled at by thousands who never seem to get enough of it because it resembles something we know, something like a woman smile, a scenery of lush wilderness, a sight that invokes feelings of tranquility in us. This is art. It can never be explained in a sentence. The more we try to define this, the more abstract it gets. It is an institution that relies solely on how one can look at things. It is the only aspect if the human mind where everyone is right, everyone is wrong. It encompasses everyting our mind can conjure, a fully formed kinesthetic in one's own head to the most intangible swirl of colours that show nothing and yet make you feel the subject inside you rather than show. We have made art grow with us, from the simple cave drawings to today's impressionist abstractism, art matured under the nurturing care of the human mind. It blossomed, grew into a butterfly but never cocooned, it was always on the upper trend, purely because we call it upper trend. Art has no direction, no depictions of the woolly mammoth in the caves of Europe are bested by the Last Supper, considered the pinnacle of refined, "civilised" renaissance art. We call ourselves as most evolved, we call an oddly shaped rock aesthetic; we are, because the world is, which in turn is because we are. Similarly art is, because we are, we are because world is, art is because world is and we are because art is. Art can never exist on it's own, it needs us, we need art, as it is the only medium of interaction with our environment. But then, it is only in our head that we communicate with our universe. Objectively, the universe is nothing but fragments of a one-time explosion, we, nothing but a mere accident. But through the lenses of art, we see a different world, a world that nurtures us, cherishes our existence, where we matter, where we are not just insignificant clots of space junk stuck in a moderate planet. This is because we see ourselves that way. This is the way we create art, that is the way we are created. We adore ourselves, we need art to adore ourselves, we adore art. We are art.

Mein Kampf in reading Mein Kampf

No matter how much people reel and gag when you say you haven't read any of the classics, just keep in mind, classics are books everyone appreciates, but no one reads. I realised that when I tried reading what the most celebrated mass murderer of all time called his autobiography. Let me be frank, it was a tad more interesting than trying to see wallpaper dry. He goes on and on about things he hates like the communists, Jews, the Austrians, Jews, the Poles, Jews, the French, Jews, etc. Much as I admire his strong will of character in hating entire communities to the point of saying we'd be better off with millions dead, there must be a rational reason behind such animosity. His chapters about the commies, as they're affectionately called in the West, are slightly short of shockingly abusive. Not that I'm particularly fond of communism, in fact, I'm as hard lined against that system as any next door chap, I have my reasons for hating communism, them being, to the best of my knowledge, pretty rational. But what Hitler does here is that he completely demonises communism, calls it a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, and glorifies them as manipulative megalomaniacs when they're just deluded simpletons who believe what they're doing is good for the society. He provides no concrete reason as to why communism wouldn't work, he never tackled the problem scientifically, pointing out the flaws in that form of society, but merely used the strongest words in the German vocabulary to mention how base communism is, and so elaborately does he punch in negative adjectives, that it pans out at least a dozen chapters in his, well, let's call it a book. His fractiously dogmatic views over anything even remotely non-German is quite tiresome, his irrationality over idealising things into pure good and quintessentially evil is even more trying. He's even more prejudiced when it comes to the Jews. Much as they, as I would understand, would provoke jealousy in the poorer masses owing to their success in finance and banking, it is no reason to kill them off. It sounds ridiculous when he says, kill the Jews, and create employment. By that logic, anyone could shoot all poor people to eliminate poverty. Slum clearances in the third world would be a breeze. All one has to do is set fire to one. It clearly is not a practical solution to handle the great depression. Not that the other countries handled it well either, Russia was immune to everything external due to its closed doors policy, USA was the worst affected, Britain and France, together, had half the world under their direct control to offload their debts onto. The colonies were the worst affected, but who'd know the difference if there's a drought in the Sahara? All I'm saying is that electing a hard-right mentally disturbed radical with an out-rightly professed controversial racial policy was the stupidest thing the Germans ever did, after signing the treaty of Versailles. His policy of employment for men alone is even more laughable. His reason for the Great Depression was that women are given lower salaries than men for equal work, which made large companies prefer women over men for employment thereby reducing the average income of the economy. This, he says, can be avoided by denying the woman's right to work. The concept of equal wages for equal work didn't enter the darkest corners of his scary mind. One couldn't blame his time for his views; the concept of gender equality was very much in vogue in the other western nations in the twenties. His foreign policy was the only acceptable idea of his, something that Germany should have done in 1900. Challenging the then superpower was something that Hitler believed as foolish and he sounds most earnest and sensible when he says one shouldn't overtly oppose the hegemony of a country that rules the world, but ally oneself with it. It was a good idea, Germany would have played the role Japan and near the thirties USA played. Such a Germany would never have irked the British and the French Empire, it would never have united the two most powerful countries in the world in an alliance against a country that is barely a century old. If only Bismarck thought the same way, we'd never have the world wars and well, who knows, we'd be living in a completely different world. His policy of British appeasement, we do know it was mutual, in the early thirties and at the same time driving a wedge between Britain and France was a masterstroke when it comes to stragteic diplomacy. He managed to stall a war, though with a lot of effort and foolish patience from other world leaders, that was unavoidable for nearly ten years. As much as these achievements may be, he was not and will never be regarded in the future as an able and diplomatic ruler and statesman. However efficient he may be at the art of war, peacetime government is played by different rules, and he would be clearly inept at handling a peaceful Germany that is split asunder and defenceless against heavyweights like Britain and France and at the same time battling the biggest economic crisis known to man that originated from the other side of the pond without a single colony to push deficits onto. I firmly believe, to this day, he'd be better off in the German army as a mere General or a Lieutenant than in a podium spreading dangerous ideas onto the impressionable. That way, Germany would have gained a valuable soldier and the world would have done without the horrors of holocaust. People with such extreme views are very dangerous and should never be given power. Throughout history, extremism and chauvinism of any kind has lead to nothing but bloodshed, one could quote numerous examples right from the christian crusades to the modern jihad. The funnier part is, I read the English translation, written by an Englishman, and therefore, you can expect France to take the flak for Germany's errant militaristic expansionism. According to that gentleman, France was the reason Germany felt so insulted and threatened after the First World War; France sought the independence of Catholic Rhineland and Bavaria to form a Catholic block from France to Austria dismembering Germany to counter British influence in Europe, as if European politics of the twentieth century was dictated by religion. As absurd as that notion sounds, it also reflects on the British view of events before the war.
I know I don't have to prove that his methods were flawed, it's just that it really astounds me as to just around half a century ago, people didn't know it was wrong to kill six million Jews just because they were all over the place. Trust me, as an Indian, I know how it is when people are all over the place. Anyway,the book was rather long and the narrative anaesthetic, but it is the most illuminating book from that period. It is one of the most informative books I've read. He provides a glimpse of the inter-war period like no one else; the first person view of a man-made international calamity is the best window one can look into for unadulterated information. It is not a book you read to while away time. Bottom-line, it's as descriptive as a history textbook but quite sadly, only just as interesting.

Ars Archerica

September is the month in which Festember is held. Ignoring the oh-not-so-clever portmanteau and all the snide comments that surface, I'd prefer concentrating on Festember's gallant efforts at equipping our students with state of the art technology and pseudosciences and holding mundane workshops for said purpose. The two workshops that stand out this year are the archery and hypnotism workshops, but not the alchemy workshop which was planned initially, as the world-renown alchemist Nicholas Flamel was not available on that date due to the fact that he went kaput five hundred years ago when he foolishly drank copper sulphate solution mixed with rat poison thinking it was the elixir of life. Apparently he was spotted hanging upside down from a streetlamp, stark naked, singing " Found a Peanut" at the top of his voice, a few minutes before he snuffed it. Bereft of the alchemy workshop they had planned, they resorted to the next weird sounding word in the dictionary, Archery; the word Astrology was consciously ignored as it was mistaken to be Astronomy, a real science which apparently is frowned upon. Unlike hypnotism, people have actually witnessed the effects of an arrow jutting out of a loon's spleen and hence I have a soft corner for this tried and tested, albeit completely pointless art. The poor lambs failed to realise Archery wasn't fictitious. Therefore, on behalf of the clowns from the archery workshop that is to be conducted in lieu of better things to do this Festember, I would like to brush you up with some tips on how to shoot people in the most inappropriate of places in hours of dire need for said target's scarcity. The first step in shooting projectiles into mid-air is the acquisition of a target. A target can be anything from a dartboard to the dire rear of the sore-headed loser with a sense of smug superiority, strutting about you getting under your skin. It can also be the poor unfortunate chap at a distance doing nothing to annoy you but you want to shoot him anyway. So, with the target set, our next move is to equip ourselves with a shooting instrument. It can range from snipers and crossbows to blunt pencils and maliciously shaped stones. We cover all these tools and the techniques and how to use them and inflict the maximum damage with special emphasis on day to day objects like the crossbow.

• Choose your target with utmost wisdom. Remember, your ammunition is limited but the number of people you'd like to shoot is not. Therefore, discrimination is required to prioritise your targets from the most annoying to the least.
• With target sighted, your next task is to position yourself in the most prudent of poses. One would not like to lose the element of surprise. An arrow coming out of nowhere is our desired result, while propping yourself up on a bow larger than you and jumping around making an ass out of yourself is not. Remember not to look too obviously stupid with any weapon mentioned previously.
• If your weapon of choice is the notorious cross-bow, do not forget that you're wielding one of the coolest objects ever invented and using one without the characteristic evil grin will yield undesirable results. For best efficiency, smiling like the devil will help, on grounds of intimidating your enemy and rendering him helpless in the face of such evil and maniacal laughter.
• Get yourself an arrow, preferably not very sharp, to make sure the target experiences hilarious disfigurement. Why do a clean job while you can bludgeon his bones spilling pools of blood all over? So, with such an arrow acquired, position it on the cross bow and pull back until you hear the wood creaking uncomfortably under the stress. Do not pull too much as that would render the weapon useless even though, it is extremely satisfying to break something with your own bare hands.
• Now release the tension, and no, we do not mean going to the loo, stop sniggering at smutty toilet humour, and observe as the arrow darts forward lodging itself onto the target's posterior. Watch how the target writhes in agony trying to relieve his colon of the arrow. The aforementioned maniacal laughter would be prudent at this point.
• To improve upon the outlined technique, dress up in green tights, wear a funny nancy looking hat with a feather on top and speak with a comic sounding Shakespearean accent. Not only will this make you look cool, it'll also give you an excuse to steal your target's wallet and enjoy yourself at the food stall, calling it stealing from the rich and feeding the poor (yourself).
• Try the usual apple on the target's head routine. This will improve concentration as you will be faced by heavy distractions in the form of brightly coloured apples trying to catch your eye as you try to shoot the target's desired organ. Moreover, an apple next to a bleeding person is sure to keep doctors away ensuring said target's slow painful death in the absence of medical assistance.
• Remember, improvisation is the key, so try using poisoned arrows for enhanced malice, or one could even use longbows if one so much feels inclined to do so. They have brilliant range and ideal for shooting that poor unfortunate chap at a distance who did nothing to annoy you but you want to shoot him anyway.

P.S: Do not try this at home. Doing so will seriously hamper your prospects of mastering long distance shooting. Try it where you have free access to vast open spaces and plenty of morons to practise with.

P.P.S: The title Ars Archerica was inspired from Ars Poetica, a moderately, nay, extremely hypocritical treatise in verse by a certain Archibald MacLeish, written when he got sloshed after his girlfriend left him saying he was not manly enough for her. I just thought I'd mention his name and credit to keep those damn copyright harpies at bay.

Tune in, Drop out, Get Gay and kick him in the Crotch

Ah... It's September again, the one month in the year, the one month, God knows for what sin it committed, whose pristine name has been convoluted and turned into such malice by twisted maggots, that the devil and all his followers, goths, gangstas and emo losers gather in moderate numbers to celebrate what is known as Festember. After coming up with slogans that vaguely remind you of the good old days of the seventies where we all ran nude on beaches, never cut our hair, let alone wash it, and indulged in spiritually uplifting experiences where we tuned in, dropped out and got high, we decided to turn it down a notch and got rid of the last part, lest our motives become too explicit, in a bid to stay relevant in an era where the hippies were frowned upon, a bleak move to not just fade into oblivion. As a student of this cult, I should say, my views on Festember have been tainted due to past experiences involving overwork, chronic sleep deprivation and drug abuse ( just aspirin, for now.. will give out another post when I do Heroin), tonnes of certificates and badgering participants furious over why their prize money cheques bounced in the bank. So with these residual nightmares being consciously ignored to the best of my capability, and not to point fingers, but I simply had to say this, even if it appears out of context, but damn you gay* for saddling me with your workload last year, I plan to start afresh this year. Past memories have been forgiven and forgotten, except for gay*, of course, who shall be subjected to utmost painful and severe punishments once I usurp Satan and take over hell. Anyway, this year's a clean slate, a new page and tonnes of other inane metaphors that mean a new start. I will not be a part of any organisation this year, a resolution I plan to adhere to at all costs with utmost sincerity, I'm just a spectator this time, just like any other dunderhead out there who's jobless enough view the spectacle. Apparently there's an archery workshop I'd like to try if they use live targets. Seriously, I need some lessons about aiming projectiles onto crazy people, and it'll be fun to shoot gay* in unpleasant places. It is weirdly satisfying to know that I'll be pissing gay* off so seriously with this post of mine that he'd, well, what can he do? I mean, it's a free country, after all. Anyway, more about my exploits this year will be put up in the following posts. By the way, I heard we have some sort of a traditional tiff with our peers at SASTRA, I know we've had pretty tough times getting along but please do act like you're getting beaten up badly this year, I know it's an unusual favour to ask, but the monkeys in our college like to look tough in front of the ladies, so please do humour them.


* Gay - n, derog. A person who is attracted solely or primarily to other members of the same sex. Also known as H.Karthic or HK or simply Gay.

Three Little Pigs and many, many more

Actually, I've hardly been in Trichy since this term's started. I arrived a few days late, skived of a few more days two weeks later, and the same week, relief was brought about by a rather unexpected source of retribution on humanity. Yes, the pig has struck again, this time, with a vengeance. After starting rumours about suspected cases in college, my friend and I, I wouldn't divulge his name for security reasons, but you can read what he's got to say here, successfully started a wildfire, which successively took a more tangible form after every tree it consumed in its wake. Initially, we gave an anonymous Joe the dreaded swine flu, hoping the details would whip itself into shape, and funnily enough, we received the same rumour back again, only that our little anonymous friend now had a name, a year and his hostel mentioned. This had, sort of, exceeded our expectations, with wicked smiles of glee and lines from Shakespeare (the one about mischief being afoot and taking the course it wilts blah blah) being quoted every time someone mentioned the disease. So, panic spread, and one by one, everyone cleared the asylum, leaving the place to gather dust for the weekend. Classes got cancelled in waves of mass paranoia, with professors advising us to stay put in our rooms, words were hardly heeded to and we started sashaying about the campus celebrating the new found freedom, with frequent toasts to the lovable pig, our little sheep in wolf's clothing. However we later took a more serious stance and took off that evening, welcoming an extended weekend, a gift from the Swine God. Chennai greeted us with more paranoid losers, many wearing green underwear across their faces to protect themselves from God knows what (it'll get you anyway if it wants to, underpants or no underpants, by the way, get a life...); a meagre source of comic relief in these hard times. Anyway, I headed home with high hopes on my weekend, only to be crushed by the sensationalist harpies fluttering about in the halls of mass media, with over the top coverage and expressions of pretend seriousness on the anchors' botox stuffed faces. I know have been exiled indoors, but on the bright side, I'm at least home, away from the Sahara of college life, where clean rooms, cleaner bathrooms and a steaming cup of tea await me.

Drink and the Devil

Well, I really shouldn't exactly tell you this, but hell, I really don't give a damn any more. Another summer, gone, like a cow farting through the sky, plunging me into deep, deep despair. My whole life, lived in these two and a half months, drew to a dreary close last night, and I overstayed a day, not that I decided to, but events of the past week did leave me there, high and dry, stuck in the tangled web I wove so masterfully. It all began with a brightly lit Friday evening when a dear friend of mine, the devil himself, ("Dude, let's get sloshed like shit tonight") opened his trap. The seven words of doom were spelt upon me like honey on shrivelled up bread. I was pretty alcohol starved when he said those words and like a classic dimwit, yelled "Yessss!!!" even before Lucifer spake unto me, or, for the sake of those of my readers who are linguistically challenged to the point of acting like a blithering baboon, told me. This meant that we would run into the nearest pub and perform like a heard of hungry pigs in a cabbage farm. Things got worse from this point on, me losing balance with every pint I downed in; every next step wasn't exactly a breeze to take. It was evident that I had to get home, somehow. So with a great show of sobriety, I walked up the staircase clinging to dear life on the railings lest I fall four feet, feet first onto solid ground. Fall I did, the icing on the cake being a splendid performance of gravity at work in front of my ever understanding yet exasperatingly preachy priestess who cared to call herself my mother. My mother was a conservative woman of sorts, a woman who believed alcohol was the stuff the bad guys, in poorly produced Tamil cinemas, drank to enhance their disproportionate villainy. As I was not a part of poorly produced Tamil cinema, I was not exempt from touching such wicked things like alcohol, let alone ingest the iniquity. My lightning fast brain drew these stunning conclusions in a span of mere two minutes, which was a few seconds after an embarrassingly uncomfortable silence. So, to gloss over what was a flawless mother-son relationship, I uttered a lie, feigning giddiness. The poor lamb believed me, and relieved, sloshed and completely at peace with the world at large, I dozed off on my chair sitting on what I hope, to this day, was not my vomit. I got up with a whale of a hangover, the bombshell hanging precariously over my splitting head waiting to be dropped. And it fell, like the thud of a guillotine over a man’s ahem ahem; my parents had decided to consult a doctor on my vertigo problem, a mild inconvenience now stretched to a full blown medical condition. I was first sceptical, thought they’d seen through my not so water-tight alibi for such a marvellous display of a jolly old fatso thundering down the stairs, but no, they genuinely believed my tall tale, took the moron seriously and made me stay at home a few days longer than I was supposed to. Now, I wouldn’t say I did not welcome two more days of indolence, but I wanted my tiny little white lie to die off as soon as possible, a situation known as catch-22 arose, a paradoxical conflict of interests slapping me unpleasantly on my face. Should I say I feel fine and leave sacrificing the two wonderful days of joy fate had given me, or should I put my lie to the test and risk it all, for two days, that was the eternal dilemma that plagued my simple mind, gnawing at it ever so annoyingly. The foolhardy adventurer in me took the better of me and made me choose the latter, a mistake I’d come to not regret. We had a doctor’s appointment for the following Monday, for an illness I did not have. I entered his room with trembling limbs, a state for which the air-conditioner later took the blame, a violently beating heart that popped in and out of me many times every minute. He happened to be a bigger fool than I expected, swallowed my stories without a word and to my surprise, it turned out I did have vertigo after all, apparently it’s got something to do with my fluid imbalance or whatever. Anyway, I had pulled it off, got some advice as to what to eat, and what not to, something that would lose its relevance when I step into my very own Auschwitz. Anyway, my grace period draws to a close as I type, I have tonnes of packing to do, and with a teary eye, the result of staring at the computer for far too long without blinking, I bid you all adieu, or I would be meeting most of you there anyway, so enough of this melodramatic crap, and hope this term isn’t as killing as its predecessor. If you’ll excuse me, my mom’s screaming at me right now, a result of the fact that one of my t-shirts is missing, and I need to go a-hunting for the gin soaked t-shirt I threw out of my window before I changed into something else that eventful Friday...

On Car-jacking, among other things...

There have been sightings of a huge bighead and a peaky stick figure with a weird thingy protruding from behind his right ear bumbling along on the roads of IIT Madras today after a long time. We were finally back to work again on our sorry excuse for a project for the week. After averaging barely two or three days a week schedule, it seemed to us all that the project was well in its way down the drain, especially after being lauded for the enthusiasm we showed (or not) by our either nice and naive or sensible and sarcastic professor. His comments did spark a new fervour in our otherwise sludgy and stagnated efforts. We entered into prolonged debates and discussions telling each other why it could not be done that way and why it was a roundabout waste of time. Moreover, we also did delve into the depths of our minds to tell whether our professor meant his compliments or not, a topic still on the table on grounds of a lack of conclusive evidence towards either possibility. Well, after weeks of ardent procrastination and a firm lack of interest, we had come to the conclusion that we had to do something about our project and that the moment was ripe to take the next step. It was at this juncture that we actually got around to doing something. After futile flounces in the steaming bowels of Richie Street, we finally bought a programmer that simply refused to work. Ever since, my project at IIT has been inching forwards showing vague signs of bleak progress. It was time my ever so close acquaintance and I put our heads together and came up with a list of things to do before we leave for our shantytown in Trichy. We did come up with a most elegant to-do list ranging from very novel and ingenious ideas like sniping from atop the elephant at Gajendra Circle to downright suicidal schemes like beleaguering our professor for a treat at Le Royal Meridian. More ludicrous ideas like finishing the project also came to mind, but was promptly rejected after deep hindsight. We did come up with a heavily orchestrated plan of novel car-jacking. Being more compact physically, my diminutive partner would distract the unsuspecting driver with neat tricks involving the common thumb detachment illusion, whilst I, more physically endowed, would wrest the car from the victim’s control. My partner, then, would feign protest and accidentally on purpose hit the accelerator and we zoom effortlessly to our desired location. Another attempt at tomfoolery involved poking our unpleasant noses into a documentary shot within the campus for a hitherto unknown reason. We would casually walk past the camera doing the cleverest of things like ballet dancing, acting drunk or slightly more subtle acts involving a foolish smile and a pretend maturity level of a two year old. Even digestive distress was on the agenda. Anyway, a thorough thesis on the subject will be put up after more meetings with my colleague and co-non-worker Pramod Emjay (kindly ask him what Emjay means if you’d love to see the imp go ballistic)

Flab, Food and NITT

As most of you who know me are aware, I’m chubby……. Okay really chubby… Fine, I can power New York City for a day if I start working out. So people around me thought something had to be done. After much nagging, wailing and gnashing of teeth, it was decided that our refrigerator is to be emptied of all things edible and replaced with stuff they feed sick antelopes in poorly maintained zoos. So, even I’ve been wondering, trying to rationalise the fact, breaking my head over how I ended up here in the first place. I’ve arrived at two main conclusions, the reasons for such a predicament. First of all, one must understand the laws of thermodynamics. Energy is conserved. And I’ve been conserving mine for the past nineteen years. As my high school teacher so prudently put it, “I think twice before lifting a finger”. Second of all, one must appreciate the importance of quality over quantity. Eat less, eat rich, that’s what I do. Even if it is a diminutive dessert, nothing short of extra sweet, extra creamy chocolate mousse (drool, drool...). Lunch would be just a single butter grilled sandwich but with mayonnaise dip seasoned with oregano and finely chopped mushrooms, for a dash of taste, coupled with some chips. So volume wise, it might not be much, but honestly, quality sits on the summit on this one. We buy so much cheese at home, on my recommendations, of course, that if we stopped right now, parts of Europe would enter a steeper recession. It’s a nice feeling you get when you know you’re propping an entire trade bloc’s economy up. Anyway, a monumental, apocalyptic, calamity has befallen yours truly; an ugly head in the shape of an empty fridge has shown up, infesting my household like a treacherous parasite. This catastrophic monstrosity of extreme proportions, popularly known as a diet, a will imposed upon me, was quite unflattering, frankly. Anyway, life must go on and therefore I still actively pursue my interests, for the most part, masterly indolence, chocolate mousse or not. As a result, I’ve managed to put on a few more pounds, partly because I deposit myself on a chair in front of my computer and more so because I’m at home. It’s kind of a jinx, really. Stay at home, I inflate ever so gradually, but surely, steadily. In fact, I’d genuinely like to find the reason behind such an irrational location dependent metabolism. As I went scouring for answers, the answer dawned upon me. While at home, I eat food, well, at least I’ve been brought up to believe as such, I eat nothing of that kind at college. We’re fed with the cheap quality fodder while the alfalfa goes to the numerous bovine friends that occupy our lands ever so smugly. Seriously, they have more freedom than we do. The onerous cows have become so much a part of our lives that you’ll get used to seeing the wretched beasts ambling along our corridors with trails of proof that they took the road not taken. Anyway, north would be north again, when I step into college for at least another week or two of living off my fat reserves, which ought to whip me back to some degree of respectable shape.


P.S. For effective slimming solutions, visit NITT, Tanjore Main Road,
National Highway 67,Tiruchirappalli - 620015,Tamil Nadu, India.
Lose 15lbs in a week or get your money back. **

**Conditions Applied.

Me, Myself and My Holiday

I got out to visit a sunny afternoon, with the sun setting the place ablaze and with the sweltering heat oppressing the inhabitants, the people walking about were not amused. The humidity didn't help either. With tempers and temperatures running high, the not so cheerful crowd went about their business with the usual enthusiasm of a malnourished cow, a pretty common sight on the country's roads considering the excellent belief that cattle can run amok, with no masters, a jewel in the spirit of India's crown. Apart from the fact that the state we stay in has two governments alternating every four years, with each progressively worse than the other and their valuable contributions when it comes to general deterioration of imaginary infrastructure are for sure not worth mentioning, we also have issues to occupy our minds like general disregard for traffic rules and further indifference for all property public. So, digressing from there with much difficulty, I wanted to say that I finally came home(For those not in the know, I'm from Chennai, previously Madras, which is an urban misfortune in South India), transported from one blast furnace to another, greeting the gush of white hot wind on my face. Every year, academic institutions, at least for now, have the last shred of humanity left that makes them feel that it is too inhuman to torture the students in the peak of summer. So I have two months of pure inactivity ahead of me, something to celebrate, the only oasis in the desert of college life. My itinerary (Thank you, Arun Ram) includes eat, sleep, eat, sleep and a few creature comforts like eating and sleeping all day long. Apart from my packed schedule for the day, I also have tonnes of stuff to catch up on. Parental pressure made yours truly apply for a project, hoping I wouldn't get any, and God's way of answering my prayers was doing the exact opposite of what I wanted him to do. Sure enough, I got a project, something I wouldn't have done even if I approached myself for a project, because my academic records are sure as hell not worth mentioning in the hall of fame. As unlikely as that event was, I now need to potter around at IIT madras, which I'm told is a real college unlike mine, as NITT was actually started off as a parody of government-run schools. Funnily enough, no one got the joke, the place actually got pretty famous and here I am, ranting about the inside story to anyone who cares to listen. Anyway, my schedule of much deserved lolling around has been cut short by a month and I wouldn't say I'm exactly happy about it. Apart from that, these few months will turn out to be as uneventful as possible, much to my taste, or at least I'll make sure it is. You would understand if you were as big a sloth as I am. So, as I was saying, the project might have been a blip in the flawless landscape of my dream holiday, but I'd like to see the glass half full and say I have one and a half months to kill. My tropical adventure at home would generally begin with my finger casually flicking my air-conditioner on, doing the same to my PC, and typing inane claptrap flitting around across my head, playing some games, not the racy action type, but the laid back strategy games that take hours or even days to finish, and general indolence on my couch in front the TV flicking through channels pointlessly. Now that you have the general picture, Do the same thing for the next ninety or so days, slow down time till it inches away letting you savour and revel in every moment that makes you do nothing and you have Me, Myself and My Holiday.

Induced Insomnia

It was around eleven at night and the bus was getting uncomfortably jumpy as the driver wound his way through the quagmire we called a road. Things seemed pretty usual when the queer chap in front of me pushed his seat back so low he could see right into my nostrils. Being cooped up in what passed of as a seat with hardly any leg space was the least of my problems, and all hope failed when the idiot box, (courtesy GB Shaw) turned itself on for a nighmarishly long session of offensive, pungent performances of action and drama with extreme tomfoolery for comic relief that was a commercial flick a.k.a masala movie. Life has one of the most curious ways of shoving dirt on your face, and obeying this rule, it happened to be a Vijay film. Now, I have no idea what the name of the film was(it doesn't matter anyway, I mean they're all the same in the first place), but I do know that it was one of the worst three hours of my life. Let me put it this way, I would prefer being hit on the nose by a speeding truck than watch this catastrophe of a film any day. Since the luxurious extravagance of choice wasn't on the table for me to take, I had to endure, and I have this nice habit of mine. When I'm in a pickle, I start to go along for the ride. That was mistake number two, mistake number one being born into a world with commercial flicks in it. So, I could have just dozed off in an uncomfortable stupor, but no, I had to see the film, such were the vagaries of the human mind, it can be betrayingly suicidal. It was the protagonist's introduction, a really agonising entrance of a remotely humanoid primate into the scene with a schizophrenic mob crying his disappointingly common name out loud. He then got around to beat bunch of no good thugs, who though armed to the teeth, saw fit to just prance around the hero in a menacing yet comical fashion. The hero, on the other hand, just armed with his bare fists, flies around defying all laws of physics our scientists painstakingly discovered and pieced together. He punches thin air surrounding our menacing thugs and yet they magically get hurt and fly backwards with an expression that reminds you of something unpleasant stuck beneath your nose. Once he was done beating them up, it was time for some song and dance, with over the top visuals of the hero doing nothing but shake his leg to intolerably painful noise dubbed music. He now has another bunch of schizophrenic morons surrounding him, this time, they don't jump around threateningly, but adopt a more monkey see monkey do approach, doing exactly what the hero does, only twice as hilariously. By now, the hero finished his dance sequence and a hideously unattractive woman, ugly as sin, her clothing or lack of thereof showing extreme penury, walks in with all eyes upon her. She happens, contradictory to our first impressions, to be an extremely rich man's spoilt daughter whose profession is conveniently and sufficiently arbitrary. All we know is that he also has political connections, which would come in handy in hiring more goondas to beat the hero up later in the film. She's then offended by a passerby for looking at her for longer than usual in a funny way. The hero comes to her rescue and beats the poor bloke up for the crime of seeing that repulsive woman. Seeing this act of chivalry, she inexplicably falls in love with him and they get transported to exotic locations where they dance and make a fool of themselves. This moroseness, while standalone would be a shining beacon for mediaeval torture, wasn't quite enough apparently and the director feels the audience haven't got the taste of real pain yet, and another character, completely unrelated to the non-existent plot pops up unleashing horror in the name of humour. The music didn't help either and then, suddenly, as proof that goodness still exists in the world, everything stops, including the bus, in a derelict location with cheap restaurants and shabby stalls playing worse music. The bus waited there for a good fifteen minutes, the passengers all got recharged to see the next half of the film. By then, the road got even worse, at any point of time, only one of the wheels on our bus touched the ground, the rest were precariously swaying in mid-air, groping for something solid to grip on to. Joe-Onlooker would have been pretty amused seeing a bus gallop, if only he sat inside the damn thing, he would know the agony of rattling bones and bad cinema. With not so smooth drops and sky high G-forces acting on the body, I began to feel nauseated, not wholly independent of the hero's dressing sense for the song sequences. I mean, who wouldn't feel queasy after seeing the hero in green trousers and purple shades? By then, the wonders of sleep overwhelmed me and I gradually closed my sore eyes for a much needed snooze. But thing's never are so simple in life and we don't always have a happily ever after. We then hit a traffic jam, a fact that I knew because of the buss' uncomfortable stillness and the putrid smell of half burnt diesel. We waited for another hour in this hellhole, apparently the stretch of road was being mended, something that's been going on for quite sometime now (God knows when it'll be done) and slowly we start inching forwards. The passengers started losing patience by then, and I started losing faith in all that was good in the world. Finally we came out of the jam and I started feeling drowsy again. Even before I could close my eyes, the bus came to a screeching halt. We all had to get down, we had arrived in Chennai, and I did that without an ounce of sleep. With eyes all puffy and red, a sleep deprived version of me got down, furious and irritable, to face an all new day.

The Foxed Crow

Bent double, wrinkled and frail,
Sat a dear old woman.
Humming old tunes to herself,
She lighted up the oven.

She then started frying wadas
As the oil began to pop.
Nearby stood a gnarled up tree
With a hungry crow on top.

Down swooped the hungry crow,
Picked up the crispy food,
Up and up he flew away
With wada both fresh and good.

He found himself a kingly spot
A place both warm and cool,
He picked his ill-earned trophy up,
His beak all reeked with drool.

Yellow, crispy and golden brown,
Like a glorious tropical sunset,
The wada, so juicy and so round,
Tasted ever so perfect.

He then saw a bushy tail,
A fox was he weary of,
Greedy things or so he thought
They deserved to be told off.

The crow gave him a defiant glance,
But then fox all starving,
Saw, instead, the golden feast
Succulent and inviting.

"Oh how I wish I find such food,
Oh how my tummy growls",
So thought the fox with a hungry eye
And then began to prowl.

"My Dear Crow, my bosom friend,
Don't you see me so?
So thin and weak and frail and pained
Please help me my lovely crow"

"Off with you, you lousy fool,
Can't you see it's mine?
I stole it all so fair and square,
Thou shalt eat that's thine"

"You mistook me my dearest crow,
I crave not for your food,
Please just tell me where to find
Wadas so tasty and good"

"No, never, you servile fox
I shall not enlighten
For it is of an old lady's craft
Not meant for creatures rotten"

"Rotten am I?" the fox thought,
"A lesson shall I teach,
For all your sharp and forked up tongue,
Humility is what I preach"

"All I need now is a plan,
A crow I'll have to tame,
And bring his ever proud beak down,
And smear his face with shame"

He sought up to the haughty bird,
With his mind all sly,
He said it in his most glib voice,
Through his teeth he lied.

"I'm not angry, nor offended,
Even though you speak,
For so lovely is thy voice
Like water flowing bleak"

"Bah! Humbug!" said the heartless crow,
"I shall never cave,
For flattery so naked and glib,
It sickens me you knave!"

"There again, you tell me off,
But then, I do not mind,
For, to hear a voice so clear and deep,
Your harsh words just seem too kind"

"You're gifted with the way of words,
You speak like poets of yore,
But for flattery so naked and glib,
I shalt bow no more"

"Oh, but, how winsome you sound,
heavenly and surreal,
Like the Spirits of Gods unbound,
Misty and ethereal.

Your fame shall spread so far and wide,
Odes shall they compose,
That tells the tale of a stout young bird,
With the voice of the reddest rose"

This was too much for the bird,
He could no longer weather,
He caved in, fell into his trap,
Hook, line and sinker.

"Do you really think so my friend?
Is your good claim true?"
"Of course it is, my comely mate,
Voices like yours are few"

"I'm flatterred, my dear bosom pal,
I ever so truly am,
I'd love to pay for your kind words,
with whatever I can"

"Oh no, Oh no, My generous friend,
I do yearn for nothing,
But to hear this divine voice,
Just a song to sing"

He then delivered in his best tone,
Mozart and Beethoven wept,
So did the fox, but had no choice,
And so off he appeared swept.

An off-pitched crow shattered the calm,
Hairs did stand on end,
He cooed and cawed and carried on,
Till the sins in hell all cringed.

As he reached the highest note,
Down fell his meal,
Gravity, the mother of cruelty,
pulled it down with zeal.

"Alas, Alas my two faced friend,
A lesson did I teach,
How can any of a sane mind,
Appreciate that screech?"

"Thou foul, sly, conniving knave
How could you lie so?
You've wounded me, four-legged devil,
Have you no heart, no soul?"

"I do, I do, my dearest fool,
I have all that you don't,
Can't you help a fellow being?
Or is it that you won't?"

And so he took the bird's prized food,
He did feast upon it all right,
The crow, a hurt and sorrowed pride,
cursed the fox with spite.

A Tryst with Incompetence

My college’s a bizarre place, no really. Well, we’re supposed to be one of the best engineering colleges in the country, only with a small snag-we’re not. Honestly, we suck better than a fully functional Hoover. I mean, we have labs that don’t have resistors that haven’t fused themselves out; our toilets are so wonderfully maintained we think twice before thinking about them and our drinking water supply is the biggest joke in plumbing history. Somehow, Trichyites have been deluded into believing water is a yellowish brown murky liquid, with a pungent odour and a taste like diluted refuse. On a more optimistic note, our buildings, especially hostels, boast of German Nazi architecture, with most of them modelled with Buchenwald* kept in mind, for we have only 800 acres of space and using more than 50 acres is legally prohibited. So students end up leading peaceful lives in pigeon-holes that pass off as a room from a distance. Another important thing to bear in mind is that college is not a place where teachers teach, at least this one isn’t. They have a slab on the aptitude of staff recruited. The criteria vary from department to department. For example, the ICE department requires that the teachers must vaguely resemble a bad-tempered bull and must also harbour a vehement and passionate hatred for the student community in general. You earn extra points for being an overall sadist. I do not wish to divulge names here, but speaking like one’s head is on fire helps if you have a moustache like a bottle-brush and if you teach Digital Techniques, please make sure you are completely clueless as to what the subject you teach is all about. When talking about teaching, another point comes to mind. If you are an English teacher, kindly make sure you are as grumpy as possible, with the fluency and grammar of a dysenteric duck, especially if you behave like a Greek monster. Also make sure you learn a new word everyday and use them in class in the wrong context without fail. It is the only form of entertainment we students have, really. So if you feel you’ve got what it takes to be a teacher at NITT, don’t apply, we’ve had enough of intelligence, or lack of thereof.




* For those gifted with the knack of ignorance, Buchenwald is a concentration camp** in Nazi Germany
**If you didn’t know what a concentration camp was, you might as well quit reading the rest of this article and figure out ways to walk on two legs and lose your tail.

The Room

Rudely woken up, I found myself in a dingy room filled with about sixty people. Fellow beings being tormented by the same people for the same reasons I was. Trapped in this kind of an environment, humans are adapted to switch to survival mode, in this case, trying to go through it with least of a lasting impact. The mind shuts itself down; it desperately tries not to store memories of pain. The strain kills us, as we try to make sense of what is being tossed around in an effort to make us grasp intangible abstractions, which in the end, we realise, has nothing to do with helping us go through with it and that is the point when it finally dawns upon us that it is in vain that we try to fight it. But then, fight we do, for the mind is trained that way. There stood a gentleman who was, apparently, the reason we were in this situation. If words could kill, we were dying, every moment we spent in that room was agony. The man, in some twisted frame of mind, seemed to enjoy it, savouring the moments, preserving them, cherishing them, a sadist. He did it for a living. He tried to drive home a point, establish his superiority in the field. The battle was fought on for some more time, a few minutes seemed like eons to us and our perseverance and endurance finally payed off. Some of us were better warriors in this war against tyranny, and they lead us on to collide with the very man answerable to our predicament. This exposes his vulnerability, so much so that he almost caves in, giving in to us, bleeding his weaknesses out. The wheel of time turns round, the slaves become the masters of the battle, victory is near. But then, that doesn’t continue for long, there is a schedule to keep, it becomes someone else’s turn to eat us alive, from the inside, our enemy changed by the greatest nemesis of all, time. By how much ever the wheel turned, it goes back to square one. We, once again, become the underdogs, when someone else does what he did, for you see, one class was over, it is something else now and we’re yet to figure it out.