Bored.

Cant really pass my time nowadays. Its difficult. Waking up late doesnt help. With no one around, its hard for my mind to stay at ease. I'm not even watching movies, which is what I should be doing. I cleaned my room. Now its looking a lot cleaner. The cobwebs are still up there though. Their time will come. Soon enough. But the cleaning thing kept me occupied for just an hour. And after that, I was back to living a purposeless life. Which is why I decided to start a new sitcom. So I started Frasier. But soon I realized that I only had the first five episodes of season one and the last three of season four. So long Frasier. Supernatural it was then.

Supernatural is about two brothers. Something kills their mom when they are very young. The dad swears vengeance and gives his sons combat training, teaches them how to melt silver and make bullets (vampires, get it?), so that the three of them can find the thing that killed the lady. And one day suddenly the dad goes missing. So the two brothers set out to find their dad, solving “ghost” mysteries on their way. But the best thing about the series is the elder brother Dean. Reasons:

1.He owns a muscle. A '67 Chevy Impala. The sight's a killer. Shiny black. And the thump-thump of the engine is no less charming and mesmerizing than Karen Carpenter of the Carpenters.

2.He likes metal. He has a cassette player in his car. And a big box of cassettes of artists like Black Sabbath, Metallica, Motorhead.

3.He likes girls. So he's definitely not gay. He ogles at chics, especially when they are hot.

4.He has used aliases like Dr. James Hettfield and John Bonham while interrogating people.

The need for a car/bike accentuated itself after this. And couple to that, a really long walk to the market and back to the hostel. I'm fed up of having to watch people buzz past me in shining black Avengers. Sometimes, if I'm unlucky, I get to see a Bullet too. I'm fed up of all the bargaining I've to do with the rickshaw walas. They tell me it'll cost me 40 bucks to get to the main market and I reply with an air of knowingness that I always pay 30 and that I know. With smugness written all over me, I climb into the rickshaw. Anyway, a bike's like a distant dream. I've left hopes. Cant even own 10 bhps and I keep reading magazines featuring bikes having 100. Bummer.

Did a fifth-time of The Matrix yesterday. Cannot get bored of it. Ever.

Its boring here. Wont ramble much. I'm not making sense. I wasnt even sure what I was writing on. I could have seen an episode in the time i spent writing this. Damn. Supernatural's calling me it seems. Gotta go.

Opeth.

Opeth's coming to India. Its a yay-thing. I check the net and I come to know of it on facebook. It seems that the IIT-M people somehow managed to convince them to step in India. Awesome. Kudos to all. I'm all happy-happy and jumping from one spot to another with joy. So I'm asked. And I explain. Its then that my joy bubble bursts. I'm told then that we'll be having our exams from the 27th, two days after the concert. Argh!

It happens everytime. We were studying for our exams when a million other people were headbanging to Mustaine's riffs. And so was the case when Iron Maiden had come here. Still. We can still think of a way but that would imply jeopardizing our internal marks. And we're a bunch who dont perform well even without any potential interruptions. So the thought of working hard in the few hours that we'll have after returning has improbable written all over it.

Murphy ruined my life.

It was a quote I read somewhere. It read :

“The greatest spiritual leader a nation ever saw was a music concert.”

So true. I've never been to a big concert before but have attended one or two small launchpad-type events. But what I've felt there is incomparable. Hundreds of like-minded people around. With half of them having a goatee and half of the other half being chics and the rest being idiots without a goatee and long hair. A few on stage. And almost all of the people below swaying in synchro or headbanging if the number being played is metal. With the exception of a few who dont get the whole point but still decide to bring their girlfriends to a rock concert and stand at the back, at the food stalls, happily gorging away on popcorn. The atmosphere is simply electric. And I can only imagine the kind of ambiance at a big concert.

But my life's a misery. Some concert comes my way and the exams suddenly turn possessive and they're all you-are-mine-and-no-one-else's. I've heard Maiden too is coming here sometime in mid-feb. But I have little hopes. There are chances Thorat (our acad-dean) might come to know about it and keep something as stupid as a pre-registration on the day of the concert. Murphy still haunts.

“If anything can go wrong, it will.”
-Murphy.

Rise and Fall of The Goatee.

Home’s always a place of horrible realizations and contradictions (of a huge order) with the place you usually hang out at or stay in. Not once have my adventures and experiments with hair (it aint as gross as it sounds) been looked at with anything more than a long glance full of disgust. At home, of course.

I’m here in my hostel. I’ve a long goatee and high hopes of growing it longer. Till a point when I have to get it braided. Noble intentions. I prefer not to comb my hair. That’s the way I like it. And no one tells me anything. I wake up in the morning, brush my teeth and rush off to the college without actually thinking how I look. Once in two or three weeks do I get to hear a small compliment about my goatee from the ilk of guys who don’t even don a goatee. But I know it looks good. And even if it doesn’t, I like it. It’s all about personal satisfaction I keep telling people. Being a metalhead, i feel like growing my hair long. Till-shoulders long. So I start growing my hair. I never comb. But then, I’ve never done so after my ninth grade. Its college, I tell myself.

But.

The day then arrives when I have to board the train which will transport me to Gujarat. It gradually builds up, the thought. Of having to hear all the chidings. But I keep my cool. The moment of my welcome is accompanied by exclamations of disgust. Getting to hear nothing but criticism every minute, my determination drops from a very high “I’m so gonna grow this” to a mere “should I cut it off?”. Even the mirrors seem to pass acrid remarks at my goatee. On the contrary, I hear praises from the mirrors in my hostel. Honest. But the mirrors at my place suck. Depressed by all the criticism, I succumb to the evil force. Like those stupid white robots that appear out of nowhere when Darth Vader summons them, the scissors and the razor appear out of nowhere and stare at me with an evil smile. Where’s the force that was supposed to be with me? Yoda doesn’t come to the rescue. Clack-clack, and bam! My goatee’s gone. Sob-sob follows. Now all of a sudden I realize I look stupid with long hair without a goatee on my face. And the barber shop suddenly looks visually appealing. Clack-clack and I’m close to looking like an army school drop-out.

That’s about it. After all the misadventures, when I return to the college, the hostel mirrors look at me in disgust because they are fond of goatees and I don’t have one anymore. They join the club which the mirrors at my home are members of too. Sad. This continues for a week or so till I get inspired to grow a goatee again and the cycle continues.

May the force be with me. From now on.

I'm Back!

Well, I havent been seen on the blogosphere for a long time now, so there are a lot of things worth blogging on that have piled up over these days. Cant of course blog on all of these things. Can start blabbering about the goa trip, but that would take time and i'm in the train at the moment with only 60 % of battery charge remaining (with a Led Zeppelin concert running in the background). Well, this is what has been happening (in my life, more of it. Well, almost.) this semester.

1. Our first (followed by two more) gig made us happy. :) We finally have a band of our own. Yay! (but we dont have a name yet.)

2. I screwed up in the first sessionals. Royally. That was when I had studied almost everyday. Had made notes. Was (well, approximately. My standards are abysmally low.) a nerd. That's when I started the not-to-start-studying-till-two-days-before-the-exams routine. (sadly I still managed to screw up in the second sessionals but less severely)

3. Bought my first electric guitar. !! A beautiful black and white strat.

4. Have been sleeping a lot in a few of the lectures. And when I say a-lot, I kid not. One prof even thought I was a dopehead. :(

5. Made a trip to goa with friends. It was AAAHHHSOME (people. Nod.). Bought a groovy satchel. And a kick-ass Led Zeppelin tee. Couldnt find a black sabbath one. :(

6. Nesquik and frappe rock!

7. TELEPRT Ver 2.3 is still in the making. Deng might hopefully be done with the whole thing by the end of this Earth week.

8. DC++ rocks. Totally. Havent seen anything as useful as DC++. (addiction is an unwanted supplement. I cant spend a day without the blue screen.)

9. Listened to a lot of Black Sabbath, Dire Straits, COB, etc. All of them rock. Big time.

This is all I can think of for now. The train's not something you'ld want to be in when you're trying to blog. Honest.

The battery's almost gone. And the plug point's beyond my reach. Can get up. But dont want to. Sloth.. :(

Dhu-dhush Dhu-dhush Dhu-dhush...

“It is a family drama which highlights and unveils the various criticalities and facets of relationships within the family like that of co-sisters, relations with in-laws and most importantly husband and wife.”

This made me laugh. Hard.

I was trying to find something interesting on the TV to watch. It was a useless attempt and I was beginning to get bored. And lunch was ready. I grew anxious. I need some sort of good entertainment on the idiot-box when I’m having lunch or dinner. But it was obvious that I wasn’t about to get any today. Just when I was about to surrender to boredom and consequently a very suicidal depression, I decided to give it one more try at finding something good to watch. As I was surfing the channels, I came upon one which had a “saas-bahu” serial being telecast on it. I was doubtful but since I had nothing else in mind, I put my channel-surfing to a stop. The first thing I saw were the faces of two of the characters, apparently important ones, being zoomed in and out alternately as they tried to put on an expression of shock. It didn’t even remotely look like a shock. Instead, it seemed as if they were trying to say, “Hey look, I got a manicure today.” And then there was some stupid sound, like “dhu-dhush”, every time their faces were zoomed on. The same scene repeated a couple of times.

Then one of those two characters said, terrible fright in her voice, “What if she knows of our plan?”

And the “dhu-dhush” thing started again, zooming in and out on their shockingly laughable-at faces. It went on for some time.

And we say these serials are a waste of time. That half an hour overflowed with top-class entertainment. While watching the serial, I pressed the “I” button (Tata-Sky provides such a facility. It indeed made my life jingalala) on the remote to see what info about the serial did it have to offer. That’s when the line that I have written at the beginning of this blog appeared and the seriousness in the information for such a stupid serial made my day. I laughed. My laughter increased the pressure on my stomach so much that my intestines came out of my mouth. But I stuffed them back inside where they belonged. Anyway, let’s not deviate from the topic.

It’s a lot like when a group of friends get together and decide to watch a crappy movie, just for the sake of laughing at its stupidity (Rudraksh for instance) and having fun commenting. It’s a lot like it. And probably that’s the reason these soaps are not extinct yet. Because with the horrible storylines they follow, I don’t think anyone would be watching them for a reason other than that mentioned. The actors don’t know how to act. They prove themselves to be very good laughter material. Especially those killer stares they keep on giving each other throughout and the fear-provoking “dhu-dhush”s . They are worth dying for.

Anyway, all I’m saying is, if you’re not watching these serials, you’re missing something. They’re drop dead hilarious, totally engaging and worth it.

Hell Yeah! Its Exams!

Well, maybe its because I’m a sucker for music or probably because I’m a bit nuts, but I recently had this thought… er… actually my mom had it and she gifted me the thought as a joke and i… haven’t got the joke yet.

My parents and I were having our very quintessentially parents-son talk on how I’m screwing my grades up and why I need to study and stuff. They were telling me to concentrate less on the other stuff and more on studies. Then suddenly my mom popped out a remark that, I had no idea then, would be metamorphosing into a blog.

She said, “You would want music in the exams too, wouldn’t you?”

And I said, “Hey mom, that’s a great idea. They SHOULD ask stuff about music in our exams.”

And my mom wondered, “What a jerk! That was a JOKE. Genius!”

I was able to sense the presence of negative and sarcastic mind at play in my vicinity. I have a gift. But well, that’s a different story altogether. Some other time. Yeah, so I wondered what it would be like to have questions on music, movies, sports and stuff in the exams or at least a few marks of the total allotted to them. Its damn important it is. Music that is. In our lives. Isn’t it?

In our college, we have 60 marks for the end semester exams. Well, out of those 60 marks, say we give 30 marks to the real important stuff. For instance, there should be a question like:

Q (10 marks): Do you know how to play the guitar?

1. Yes. In that case, raise your hand. You’ll be given one. Play Tears in the Rain by Joe Satriani.
2. No. In that case, write the lyrics of All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix / one of your originals.

See what I mean? Still 20 marks remain. Those should have questions like:

Q (10 marks): Write a summary of the semifinal match played between Russia and Spain.

Q (10 marks): Write the story of any of your favorite movies with a detailed description of any one scene.

So here it goes. We have 30 marks for the stuff people should really know. And these things will make the exams pretty interesting to take. Imagine walking into rooms and finding people watching movies/matches and playing guitar or singing songs, all this on the exam’s eve. In that respect, I might even want to increase the number of such questions or even better, bring in some more variety. Like:

Q: Suppose you’re trying to solve the Rubik's Cube. And you are stuck with a pattern such as the one given below with the first two layers solved what algorithm would you suggest? Or if you solve by intuition, raise your hand. You’ll be given a cube with a similar pattern on the top layer. Solve it. The pattern is as given below:

Since the above question is a little time consuming and difficult, we might want to allot 15 marks to it.

Fair enough, isn’t it?

And what about books, some may ask. They have an equally important role in our lives. Consequently there should be a few marks for a question or two on books. Like:

Q (10 marks): Give a character gist of strider aka Aragorn of LoTR. Or give a short alternate ending of your choice for the novel Rule of Four (Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason).

That totals to about 55 marks. That leaves us with 5 marks. So what do we do with those 5 marks? Well, don’t you think there should be a question on how things work or the basic mechanisms of stuff we use daily? Here’s one for instance:

Q (5 marks): Explain the basic mechanism of a pendulum clock or explain in brief how to set up a small network connection at your workplace.

Ah! That’s it. We now have a model question paper style. A style which should be adopted in almost every college in India and elsewhere as well. Some may ask stuff. Like:

Q: What about the stuff from the subjects? The ones we study?

A: What subjects?

PS: Any suggestions at making the paper style better?

Damn! Can't get the tongue out of my cheek...