Feline Fits

An estimated 2.41 lakh candidates are said to have registered for CAT this year, and yours truly had hoped to be the only one in that vast expanse of humanity with a naught in the 'effort put in' column. You know, beginner’s luck and all that tosh. Sadly, The Incredible Bulk’s stout defiance has meant that we will be sharing the honours. While four years in R-Land have made the otherwise daunting task of turning up for an examination blank appear fairly routine, to repeat the feat in the second biggest event in the life of an Indian kid is, even by the high standards I’ve set for myself, quite daring. It isn’t without regret that I narrate my tale, though. The stubborn refusal to hit the books that took flight on the lofty perches of ‘I won’t join the IIMs even if I make the cut’ has now fallen into the more familiar depths of ‘if only I’d started studying earlier.’ Not for the first time, the Department of Electrical Engineering has done all it possibly coiuld to make a nuisance of itself, by lining up tests right till the end of the month.

There is a Tamil proverb that compares marriage to a poisoned confection of some sort dangling just beyond the reach of a thousand hungry apes. The ones that manage to get their hands on the sweetmeat die of poisoning, while the ones that don’t die of starvation. Oh wait, I think it was a Kannada proverb. Either way, for some reason, the analogy always reminded me of the frenzy that surrounds entrance examinations in our billion-strong nation.

I was catching up with Smelly Cat the other day. There was a time when we were as close as two straight males could possibly be, oft drawing comparisons to two peas in the metaphorical pod. In recent years, though, the distance between R-Land and Pilani has erected a wall too high for GTalk or Facebook to scale. My chaapos are his treats, and my fokiaap his studgiri. Five minutes into the conversation, I knew that things could never be the same between us ever again. What started off as a friendly chit-chat on life, the universe and everything gradually turned into a drab monologue on Artificial Intelligence- my rare contributions coming in the form of grunts and monosyllables. I was willing to forgive the guy this one indulgence though. His internship, after all, was at MIT where he has a Ph.D lined up under the same professor. Yes, the MIT, where the M stands for Massachusetts and not Madras.

Ironically enough, our last conversation was in June 2006- a good portion of which was spent consoling him for not making the cut in the JEE. Those were the days, indeed. Throughout high school, I saw JEE as a magical doorway of some sort-all you had to do was clear three tests and the rest of your life would open up in ways you could scarcely imagine. Four years hence, here I am- without a job and with as much a chance of making it to the IIMs as Ibu Hatela.

I can only hope that the IIMs are just as overrated.

P.S: Any comments containing the words ‘sour grapes’ shall be promptly deleted.

P.P.S: It was only after I typed out the entire post that I came across this. Stole the words from my mouth, in more ways than one. That said, I still can’t picture Madhavan and that Sukhi guy as college students. I can always make an exception for Aamir Khan, though.

B for Baster

Even by the high standards I’ve set for myself, 3-2 will go down as the most miserable sem yet. It’s the worst of both the worlds, I tell you- the initial vigour has long evaporated; while senile nostalgia is still a year away. Bakar sessions at Alpahar are few and far between. Every half-decent girl in the insti either calls you ‘sir’ or is an M Sc student. Even foosball isn’t fun anymore. If I had to pick one word to sum up pre-final year, it would have to be ‘regretful’. Trust me, that’s all you ever do. The six-pointers regret their CG; 8 pointers regret the fact that they haven’t got an intern yet; those with an intern in Germany yearn for one in Spain; those with one in Spain long for a trip to Britain; others reconcile themselves to sixty more days in the insti, courtesy BHEL Haridwar. The 'grass on the other side' proverb never was truer. It’s all strangely reminiscent of that HDFC advert (the long-haired guy envies the guy with a funti, while the funti looks longingly at a bald guy with a necklace, who in turn jealously eyes the aforementioned long-haired guy. Remember?)

I was short-listed for an interview by Regal Beloit. The last statement has drawn two kinds of responses. Most people instantly come up with wisecracks that range from the reasonable (“Does Deloitte have a thing for ‘happy’ males?”) to the downright lame (“Deloitte will be well-lit”), mistaking it for the consultancy firm that has recruited the Three Wise Men. Inevitably, I respond, “No, it’s Beloit- with a ‘b’, as in debt; and not with a ‘b’, as in Venezuela.” My batch-mates, though, are more conversant with the happenings in and around the Old Library. A tad too conversant, in fact. Most seem perturbed by the fact that I made the cut in the first place. New theories on why I was selected while 8.5’s and 9.1’s were shown the door are propounded every other day. At any rate, the interview was taken by two males: A and B. A was the quintessential haddu bloke- heavy voice, lousy accent, a tongue-twister for a surname- the whole nine yards. He was the tech-guy. B was the HR guy, and was A’s opposite in every possible way, as you’ll see.

A: Tell us something about yourself.

Me: Rehearsed speech laced with lots of jargon- dynamic, proactive and whatnot.

A: Why haven’t you done any projects?

Me: My area of interest is electric machinery and their design. That’s primarily an industrial field- apart from the basics, there is little that can be done in labs. This is the first opportunity that came my way and I jumped at it.

A: Fine, what about the summer breaks?

Me: I spent them lazing at home. Do you have a problem with that, mister?

Industrial internships aren’t encouraged in our insti after second year. Plus, I’d had a really strenuous year and was eagerly looking forward to spending some time with my family. That I got bored to death within a fortnight is a different matter altogether.

A didn’t seem amused. B chuckled, though.

B: So, Abhishek. I see you are an avid quizzer and also the editor-in-chief of a magazine. Shouldn’t you be looking for a non-technical intern?

Me: Those are my interests, sir. But I really can’t picture myself writing or quizzing for a living.

B chuckles again. A grunts.

A: Doesn’t your college have courses with compulsory projects?

Me: We have had case studies and assignments, sir, but no compulsory projects, I’m afraid.

B: Anyway, the elections are approaching. What do you think about them? Do you see any change in the general trend this time around?

Me: (Had no idea what he had in mind. Beat about the bush for a while) There is the third front, for one thing. That apart, there are campaigns like Lead India and Jaago Re, which shows that people are looking for ways to change the present system. And it’s about time too.

B: I see you’ve also spoken to Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam (referring to some dumb interview I did for my school mag a million years ago) What did you think of him as a President?

Me: (Clueless. Fatte to the rescue again) In India, I think the President is more of a representative than a head of state. As the constitutional head of state, Presidency is more about the stature of the person and the image he portrays of the country, and I believe no one did that better than Kalam.

A cleared his throat. I half-expected another ‘where are the projects?’ It didn’t come, thankfully.

A: Do you have any questions?

Me: I do, sir. As much as I want to join Regal Beloit, there is a fair chance that I might return empty handed. What, then, do I get from the intern, apart from experience?

A: Some irrelevant bull on the history of Beloit and why it was the greatest company ever.

B: Frankly, the money apart, this is the best intern you could hope to get for the simple reason that at the end of the internship, depending on your performance, you could even be assured of a job in our HQ at Beloit, Wisconsin. As an electrical engineer, I can’t see what more you could ask for. Does that answer your question?

Me: It does sir. Thank you very much. Good afternoon.

B: Good afternoon.

A: Grunt.

Of Free Kicks, Auschwitz and EE-305

Life has its own ways of putting the mediocre in their place. The odd Devarshi Patel apart, we are all shown our respective places on the social ladder so often that we accept them without a whimper. The kiwi doesn’t fritter away its good karma praying for flight. The crow doesn’t spend all its life cursing its Creator for the voice He had bestowed it with. The Scousers don’t weep all day over the fact that they’ve won just about nothing in the last two decades. One way or another, we reconcile ourselves to the fact that we suck. To varying degrees, of course.

Then again, there are a good many who live a life denial, merely to feel better about themselves. The image of John O’ Shea hopefully eyeing every single free kick comes to mind. Defiance is one thing; delusion of glory quite another.

It’s been an awfully chilly month and the weather’s put paid to all my hopes of making a good first impression on the men in front of the blackboard. It isn’t my fault, you see- the soporific effects of winters are well-documented. Never one to throw in the towel, I have been working that extra bit harder for the spotlight, however big a nuisance Lady Slumber made of herself.

It was a deceptively banal Friday afternoon and I was one tutorial away from a long-awaited weekend. The Journeyman, whose reputation as a tyrant preceded his pot-bellied self, arrived sooner than we’d expected and turned Room 311A into what seemed like Modern India’s answer to Auschwitz. Sparing myself the drudgery of solving the worksheet didn’t help a great deal either. The situation was growing grimmer by the moment. I had to separate myself from the DANPARC-clad masses and time was fast running out.

I didn’t have to wait too long though. “Why is an asynchronous machine known so?” bellowed the Journeyman. The discovery of fire, the invention of the wheel, Buddha's enlightenment, the fall of the WTC, the manufacture of the first Snickers bar - there are some moments in history that the world will never forget- moments when the destiny of the world would literally change courses. This was one of those moments. Twenty pairs of eyes stared in collective disbelief. The waves in the faraway sea ebbed for a fleeting moment. The frigid January breeze paused. A hand had been raised. A voice long-suppressed was asking to be heard. It was mine.

I strung together a reply laced with every single bit of technical jargon I was aware of. The impossible had just happened. The Journeyman had been silenced. Staggering, he exclaimed, “Dela, you’re the man.” That, at least, was how I’d pictured it in my mind. Truth, as always, wasn’t only stranger but harsher too.

“Utter rubbish”, he exclaimed with an expression that wasn’t unbeknownst to me. He seemed to want to add to that, when, thankfully, She Who Must Not Be Named interrupted. “Sir, the actual reason is that *random electrical funda goes here*.”

Cristiano Ronaldo lines up a long free kick. Two yards away, John O’Shea watches on in mute envy.

The Other Side

“You know the day destroys the night
Night divides the day
Tried to run
Tried to hide
Break on through to the other side.”

In the words of a great soul, “The oddest thing about life is that when you finally get something you hoped and prayed for, you realize that it wasn’t worth the effort in the first place.” These 27 words practically sum up everything that I’ve been through over the last fortnight. Oh, and just for the record, the aforementioned ‘great soul’ is none other than *wait for it* yours truly.

Unending syllabi, lousy vivas and lousier examinations notwithstanding, there is no fortnight more eventful than the one preceding the end-sems. It always begins with detailed study-schedules to make up for the mistakes and ‘C+’s of the past and spend days on end with those lovely red-bound manuscripts that lay forgotten under the bed ever since the start of the sem. Plans make way for hopes and dreams of an unusually simple paper or of getting a physics-defying view of the answer script of the 9 pointer two seats beside you. As D-day approaches, the too fade away, to be replaced by prayers and eventually by just an urge to get the whole thing over and done with.

My fifteen days of ‘preparation’ have all gone the same way. I woke up cursing my annoyingly loud alarm and reached the mess in a record-breaking three minutes and forty seconds, well in time for the first meal of the day- lunch. This was followed by a five minute long walk to the library, a twenty minute long search for some book that sounded at least remotely familiar, and a forty minute search for a seat with a perfect view of the hot fourth year girl two floors below. Once seated, I laboriously placed the two-pound book in front of me and studied. And studied. And studied. And studied. And studied. And studied. Or so it would have seemed to a naïve onlooker. I’ve scaled the Everest, scored goals at the Old Trafford, dated Cobie Smulders and won a Nobel Prize- all while staring blankly at those two thousand yellow-tinted sheets of paper.

Eventually, the shortcomings of my preparation came to light, shattering all my hopes of improving on the slew of C+s and Bs that stood beside my name last semester. All that remained was an eagerness to end up on the other side of the end sems- three months in a world without alarm clocks and lecture notes. Three months of unlimited sleep, food, movies and TV. Three months with Robin Scherbatsky, Frederic Barbarossa and Shannon Rutherford.

Nothing, though, is as beautiful as it is in your dreams. Now that I am on the other side, life seems just as boring. Only more so. HIMYM has nothing going for it apart from the fact that Cobie Smulders is the most beautiful woman alive. Lost is as interesting as a game of chess and the only movies on our LAN that I haven’t seen half a dozen times are the uber-lame romantic comedies that I wouldn’t watch unless my life depended on it.

And talking of being on the ‘other side’, now that I have completed my second year here (or so I hope), I am now on the wrong side of ‘the wall between the young and the young-at-heart, as Lefty fondly refers to it. Five hundred more morons will call me ‘sir’ and idolize me when I return to R-Land after the summer break. Oh crap, I’m dreaming again.

Comfortably Numb

The clocks in my room unanimously read 1 AM, save the one on my ‘study’-table that had acquired a stubborn liking for the 5 o’ clock mark ever since it’s batteries went dry a couple of months ago. Gripping my crutches, I set off on the excruciating journey to the canteen. On another day, I would have made it in under 15 seconds. Today, it took all of two minutes, thanks to the fact that I couldn’t take more than 5 steps at a stretch without stumbling. Nothing had hurt even half as much as this- not the huge bruise on my knee that has left me with a permanent scar, not the fractured bones in my forearm, not even the pin that I stapled into my finger as part of a game of ‘Dare or Confession’. With a torn ligament (and a two-foot long coating of Plaster of Paris) on my right ankle and a humongous blister on my left, if you were one of my hind-limbs, life just couldn’t get any worse.

I ordered myself a coffee and took the seat beside the lawns. The coffee was served and was halfway down my throat in the space of a few seconds. The warmth of the beverage spread to my entire body- for a few beautiful minutes, even my feet didn’t hurt much. A wonderful numbness engulfed me. This is probably what they call nirvana, I thought to myself. Though the pain was far from gone, intoxicated by the caffeine, my brain chose to ignore them, leaving me in a state of benumbed bliss.

Twelve hours later I was in an examination hall filled with an eerie silence uncharacteristic of the crowd of eighty hooligans that occupied it. The sheet I held in my hand made as much sense as a medieval Incan manuscript. As I looked at the questions on Laplace, Fourier, Poisson and a dozen other transforms with fancy names, I couldn’t agree more with Sushi and his views on the same. Exasperated, more out of habit than nervousness, I began chewing whatever little keratin was left on my finger-tips. Bored of that as well, I began counting the number of birds I could spot in the trees below, hoping to improve on my ten-minute-old tally of fourteen.

Two hours later, I turned up at another venue for another paper, though, sadly, the events that followed were the same as the ones before. The three tests today had a total of twenty two questions in all, and I managed to answer just one of them correctly. Yes, you read right. One. One in twenty two. Wes Brown probably has a better goals-to-games ratio than that. On the rickshaw ride back home, I couldn’t help but reflect on all that R-Land had done to me during my two year stay here. Two years ago, I would have died of shame had I performed half as badly as this in any examination. All of a sudden, I am this low-scoring backbencher who revels in being one. It’s hard to believe that until recently I was on par with the Ayush Goyals and Ashish Agarwals of the world, maybe even a shade ahead, if JEE rank is anything to go by. What is it that has gone wrong in the two years hence? Is it just another classic case of my indulging myself a tad too much, thanks to my new-found freedom? My fast-increasing age notwithstanding, am I still incapable of drawing a line between academics and indulgences? I entered my room determined to resurrect the Dela of old- the focused teenager who had inexplicably vanished in the twists and turns of time and fate. Ten minutes later though, another game of Warcraft commenced on our LAN, and I was the first to join in. For better or for worse, I have become impervious to the dispiriting effects of lousy grades and single-digit test scores. A CGPA like mine would have made an average person writhe, but I’m above all that. However dismal the score, I can face it bravely. Even without coffee.

‘I have become….. comfortably numb.’

Testing Times

Fate has this annoying habit of laying out situations upholding Murphy’s Law just when you least want it to. Case in point: the last ten days of my life. Every time I thought things just couldn’t get worse, they actually did. There have been so many lows, I just can’t seem to pick one situation that I could call the lowest of the lows. That being the case, it was quite tough picking a topic for my new post (which, I hope, explains the hiatus.). But for sheer hilarity, one of them stands out.

‘Unforgettable’ is a funny word. For some reason, we have this tendency of presuming that it has positive connotations, though, quite often, it doesn't. Take my 10th grade Social Science text book, for example. If there is one thing from my school days that I’ll never forget, it is the amount I slogged to memorize the names (and spellings) of Bihu, Tamasa, Kalaripayattu and the three dozen other obscure tribal dances that CBSE thought we, as the future citizens of our country, must know. (Ironically, the names themselves were highly forgettable, but that’s a different matter altogether.) Thank God it was only the names that we had to learn, and not the dances themselves! (I wonder what my grades would have looked like then. Hmmm....) I always considered Social Science the single most ‘unforgettable’ thing that ever happened to me. I was proven wrong though, and the antithesis came in the form of EMAMI.

They say that life’s greatest gifts arrive incognito. I’m not sure about that, but I’m confident life’s miseries do. Take EMAMI, for instance. Quite a fancy sounding name for what was the most frustrating subject ever. I always hated EMAMI, but never with a greater fervour and vengeance than I did on the 23rd of November. The occasion was our final practical assessment, and as you would expect, nothing went my way.

Well, almost nothing. Though the coil of my energy meter got burnt and my circuit looked more like a board of Snakes and Ladders, I had managed to get a seat right next to the invigilator, which meant I got to hear every single question he asked during the viva-voce. (The fact that my roll number was the last in our batch helped too.) Thanks to some dextrous eavesdropping, I managed to overhear every single question he asked, and also the fact that he asked only one question- ‘Expand THD.’

My pulse started racing. I somehow managed to call up a friend of mine and, frantically, asked him the million dollar question. ‘It’s total harmonic distortion. You don’t even know that?’ came the reply. ‘Of course I do.’ I said. ‘I was just checking if you knew it too.’ I doubt if he fell for that, but anyway, my job was done. When my turn came, I walked up to the invigilator in a confident stride that might have seemed unbecoming of a guy who did not know the name of the text book, never mind the chapters in it. Ah, who cares? I knew the question, and I knew it’s answer too. These were ten marks that were well in my pocket already. Here's what followed:

Invigilator: “Good morning young man. You seem very confident.”
Me: “I sure am, sir.”
Invigilator: “Then I assume you’ve thoroughly studied your entire syllabus?”
Me: “By all means, sir.”
Invigilator: “Then, young man, would you please explain the concept of total harmonic distortion?”

Amen.

Picture-Imperfect

There are times when you start wondering how you qualified as Homo sapiens in the first place. We all confront such situations day in and day out- during exams, when two IMG geeks get started on LINUX, and of course, at least for the elite gang that cannot ‘visualize’ stuff for nuts (which happens to be headed by me), during MD practical sessions. Like almost every other class, MD (short for machine drawing) classes are predictable, the only difference being that you can’t even take a nap. It starts with a session of blank stares at the labyrinthian diagrams in the sheet, hoping against hope that Einstein hadn’t died decades ago and would come to your rescue that very moment. This session seldom lasts over ten minutes, except during the week immediately after the Mid Sems, when we make (and subsequently break) resolutions to ghiss for an hour a day, never taapo (IITian for copying blindly) tutorials and so on and so forth. I finally come to terms with the fact that MD was never meant to be understood by subhuman minds like mine, and find solace in Snake, the once-ubiquitous mobile game, delighted that there are things in the world that make sense even to me. After an hour of furious gaming, I copy the nearby ghissu’s (IITian for nerd) sheet without the slightest clue about sections, projections or……sorry, I don’t know any more MD jargons. Does ‘snake’ count as one?

PS: Just for the record, this crap was also written during an MD session, when I’d got bored of snake.