There and Back Again: A Spider's Tale

DISCLAIMER: This piece was written by the author when his mind was under the influence of the inimical combination of jetlag and boredom. If you find it weird and meaningless, do not
be surprised. That's how it was intended to be.


'The spiders all in tune,
The evening of the moon,
Dreams are made winding through my head.'

Had it not been for the fact that they made no sense to me, I would have sued System of a Down for these lines ages ago. Why can't man leave us alone? There is no superhero named Locust Man. There is no Grasshopper Solitaire. Lamborghini doesn't call the convertible variant of Gallardo a wasp. Why does it always have to be us spiders? Not only are we used as and when needed, our cities are mercilessly destroyed every now and then, and the remains are treated like dirt. It is no surprise, hence, that we loathe men, particularly the ones finicky about cleanliness.

I am more broad-minded though, at least by arachnid standards. Men are not always nefarious beings. They have their soft spots, too. Mankind is extremely considerate at times, especially when it comes to issues such as plagiarism. I wrote a novel recently titled 'Uragon', which was an outright rip-off of 'Lord of the Rings' (a novel by a human named Tolkien). Even the name of my protagonist sounded similar to the one in the original, Aragorn. Though, being an Arachnid, I did not have anything to fear, I was still afraid that, someday, my stealth would be discovered. My fears were quelled a few years ago thpugh, when I learnt that another rip-off, this time by a fellow human, had been released, and this time around, the protagonist was named Eragon- another spin-off of Aragorn. Why, I even heard that, despite the obvious plagiarism, it turned out to be a huge success. What a bunch of dolts!

I happen to have an inexplicable liking for the human in whose room I am put up. Though it may sound outlandish, we have a lot in common. Neither of us can sing too well. I have two, sorry, eight left feet, and he can't dance to save his life either. His aversion to cleanliness is what I like about him the most, though. His room has now become one of the most sought after locations in the country, though there are myths regarding the existence of a canine in Jawahar whose room is even filthier.

Dela has been acting weird today though. It is probably the chillness. Holy crap! Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Some orange-clad weirdo has just handed Dela a broom. I must warn the others before it's too

P.S: Got hit. Won't live much longer. Can't complete the story. G89 no longer safe. Don't mourn my death, brothers. Avenge it. Dela has turned over to the dark side. He's started cleaning his room. Et tu brute!

Pee(,)TeeVee

The darkest hour is just before dawn, it is said. After the draconian head of academics was dealt with (at least temporarily) the winter holidays are here and things have finally brightened up, and how! Nothing, it seems, can go wrong. A phone call to any of my batch-mates enquiring my GPA for the semester that passed is all it will take to dampen my spirits, but why bother? College begins in about two weeks’ time, and at least until then, I want to remain in Lady Luck’s good books (or at least believe that I still am).

I went to Seef to watch ‘I am Legend’ the other day. For those of you who have never set foot on the ‘Island of Pearls’, Seef is the Middle East's answer to PVR, iMax and even Broadway. I was on my way to get my bag of pop-corn, when I couldn't help but notice one particular girl in the queue. She had a face you couldn't take your eyes off, (or, to quote The Reptile, a 10 pointer) like those on the cover of a Mills & Boon novel. Okay, bad example, but anyway, it makes my point. Just when I decided that she was out of my league and resolved to focus on my pop-corn instead, she walked right up to me. 'Hi Abhishek! How have you been?' she asked, leaving me cursing my memory, or rather the lack of it. How could I have forgotten someone so stunning? 'Now that Lady Luck has presented me with an opportunity, I shall not screw up. ' I decided. 'I shall come up with a reply so humorous and charming that she'll remember it for the rest of her life.' Humour has never been much of a problem. It's being charming that always has- more so for me than for anyone else.

'Very well, thank you' I replied, still unsure whether enamour was spelt with a 'u' or not. 'By the way, who are you?' Oh my God! I had done it again. Even by my standards, that was curt. She will now remember me as the rudest person alive, and rightly so too, I thought. 'I'm fine too,’ she replied. ‘Why didn't you call me up before you left for India?' She had misheard me! Talk about luck!

Everything seems to be going right. Despite putting up a mediocre performance United beat the Kops in their own den. Though I didn’t follow it too keenly, the Chennai Superstars, I heard, have won the inaugural ICL. What’s more, Liverpool have lost three games in a row, Chelski lost this weekend and John Terry is injured! I just hope the fairytale run continues.

As far as ‘I am Legend’ goes, it was quite good, though the CGI left a lot to be desired. The producers claim that they have spent a 100 mn $ on the movie. I seriously don't know where all that money has gone. In the opening scene, Will Smith is shown chasing a pack of 'deer'. I say 'deer', because those were the lousiest looking deer in the history of world, never mind Hollywood, cinema. Even stuffed toys would have looked more realistic! Otherwise, the movie was quite good thanks to a stellar performance from Will Smith (yeah, he can act too) and does full justice to the novel. Talking of screen adaptations of novels, 'The Kite Runner' is quite good too, though the pace is sluggish and I fell asleep twice. That has been the highlight of this winter-break. I have watched over half a dozen movies and, to varying degrees, they have all been brilliant.

While 'Stardust' is certainly one of the best fantasy movies ever, 'The Golden Compass' isn't too bad either. There haven't been too many good movies in Hollywood after the classic 'Return of the King', but Russell Crowe has set that record straight with two all-time great performances back to back in 'The American Gangster' and '3.10 to Yuma'. After the nightmare, ‘A Good Year’ and a couple of slack years, things are looking up for Crowe too. Hmmm... I don't seem to be the only one with whom Lady Luck is pleased.

P.S: To those of you haven't noticed, there is a new widget on the column to the right.
P.P.S: I have way too much free time too.
P.P.S: The title is intended as a reference to, and only to, my daily activities. Any allusions to a particular specimen of Cannis familiaris are purely coincidental.
P.P.P.S: I wonder if Gandalf would have a problem with my open plagiarism of his trademark ‘post-post scripts’.

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.

Of naps, yawns and Periplaneta americana

Another TS has just passed, bringing along with it half a dozen highly forgettable grades that shall soon be forgotten, and all that shall remain as 'mementos' of the exams shall be the innumerable bakar (the R-land equivalent of 'chitchat') sessions we had. One such session was particularly memorable. It was at the Reptile's place, and as in most bakar sessions, one thing led to another, and we finally found ourselves discussing our electives in high school. I wasn't surprised by the Reptile's disbelief when I revealed my elective to him. Most people have reacted the same way, more or less, when they came to know that my elective was, put on your seat belts, biology!

What it was that made me pick biology is a mystery worthy of the investigative genius of Mulder and Scully. One thing I never told anyone back then, or ever, for that matter, is that despite all my lousy grades in biology, deep inside, I aspired to become a doctor. I don't know why. I suppose that's what watching Scrubs and reading Robin Cook does to you. Whatever the reason, the fact remains that I longed to have a steth around my neck, and in some deep corner of my ER-addicted mind, I still do. So, despite all that, why did I bunk PMPD (Pre-Medical something. Some exam you have to clear to make it to any medical college in the country.) and spend the day watching a dozen Lis and Wangs walk away with every single medal at the Asian Games, you ask? That is a question that would be answered better by any of the fifteen other bio students in class, or better still by our teacher (who, from now on, shall be referred to as, 'the May Bee'), who tried everything possible to get me studying. Alas, all her efforts went down the drain, and so would yours if you tried to get any of the aforementioned talking, as they are all mugging away to glory in different corners of the world. That means I get to narrate my story all by myself!

Biology classes were very interesting.... at least for the n-4 students who bothered to pay attention. For the quartet on the last bench, they were a laboratory of sorts, where they kept discovering new postures in which Homo sapiens could sleep. The quartet, here, refers to The Geek, The Freek and the Tweak (I have no idea what 'tweak' means, or if it is a word at all, but come on, I couldn't think of another word that rhymed.), and of course, me. Oh, and by the way, 'freek' hasn't been misspelt.

The fact that the others showed an over-zealous interest in the subject did not help our cause either. Not only did it make our lack of interest even more conspicuous, it also got on our nerves. On one occasion, I committed the blunder of sitting beside the God-of-the-Geeks, better known as PSK. It was an amazing experience, albeit a bad one. PSK, as always, was jotting down every single discernible sound wave that left the May Bee's vocal chords. 'She sneezed five minutes ago,' I muttered in sheer frustration, 'why didn't you note that down?' 'Why, of course!' came the prompt reply. Give me strength!

It has been my observation that, by and large, a person's knowledge of biology is inversely proportional to his sense of humour. I don't know how this works or why it is so, but, trust me, it's true. This explains why even some really lame comments like, 'there is a Periplaneta americana on my table' had the entire class in splits. This also explains the fact that though bio classes were okay to start with, eventually, they got corny enough to make Heyy Babyyy seem really funny (or should I say 'reallyy funnyyy').

In retrospect, I probably could have worked slightly harder. A lot harder, actually. But it's all for the better, I suppose. Had I done all that, I wouldn't have ended in this hell-hole we fondly call R-land, would I? Had it not been for the CBSE's absurd notion that guys who can cram a few hundred weird names that would all be worthy contenders for 'The World's Toughest Tongue-Twister' (try pronouncing Ophrys oxhyrrhynyis), and draw a dozen abstruse diagrams make the best doctors, I might have ended up in med. Alas, medicine was not fortunate enough.

To IIChE, his own....

'Twas five minutes past twilight in R-land when the great disaster befell the quizzing community of the world at large and its R-land counter-part, LitSecTM in particular. Satan had turned up at quite a few LitSec events, and time and again, failed to make it to the finals. Intoxicated by a fierce desire for revenge, Satan disguised himself as a quiz, and using IIChE and Arihant Publishers as 'vectors' (yeah, I still remember some of the bio I learnt at school.) he unleashed himself upon the world. What followed was a quiz so lousy, that it is feared that traditional quizzes will lose their charm altogether. After all, when something gets lousy beyond a certain extent, people start finding it funny. (Watch a Bhojpuri film if you want proof of that.)

For more details on the quiz itself, visit http://thenameissushi.blogspot.com/2007/10/jeev-milkha-sing-meets-alfred-nobel.html

And just for the record, we won the quiz (where 'we' refers to The Politician, The First Bencher and me) and ended up spending nearly the entire prize money (which, by the way, was 1000 bucks. Not bad at all) on a treat at the Ravindra Canteen. Hmph!

P.S: Why did I post this, when all it practically is, is a detour to Sushi's blog, you might ask. Well, I wasn't happy with the detail Sushi laid on the fact that I won, and more importantly, self-glorification is something I've always enjoyed, and also something I haven't indulged in for quite some time now. Muahahahaha! I rock

One Night In The Capital

“Desperado... Why don't you come to your senses?”, I crooned for the nth time that night, much to the chagrin of the Bulk and The Hairy Hick who were seated beside me. “I'm trying to catch some sleep here, you ass,” the Bulk cursed, and gave another of his huge, Neanderthal yawns. My habit of singing while travelling has gone down badly with quite a few people, which I must say, is not too surprising. Not that I sing badly. Out of touch, I guess, would be the right phrase. Sixteen more yawns, five 'chole'-vendors and four hours later, we found ourselves in the capital, thanks to a bumpy ride on the rickety Uttarakhand Parivaahan that we have all come to recognize. A bumpier ride on an auto-rickshaw and we finally arrived at our destination- IIT Delhi, and the occasion was their cultural fest- Rendezvous, which, for some reason, is attended (and mispronounced) by most of R-land.

Picture this- you are exercising your bowels early in the morning and halfway through, the taps run dry. Nonplussed? You wouldn't be, if you were an IITD student. Four years in a place like that, and you'll never find any situation in life complicated, thanks to their water-for-an-hour-a-day system and the weird nomenclature of their blocks (A-long, A-short, A-perpendicular, A-parallel, A-tangential, to name a few.). “It's 10, right? Hurry! 'The Best Chick in Town' must have started,” advised the annoyingly huge first-year localite whom the Hick knew beforehand owing to the fact that they were both from the same village. I say annoyingly huge because his 6 foot something height was giving me an inferiority complex. I looked like a schoolboy next to him. I look like a schoolboy next to most people, but even so, a first year?

Anyway, getting back to the point, 'The Best Chick in Town' was picked and awarded. What do you do when some of the hottest girls in the country stand right in front of you? Well, nothing at all, if you are either Dela or the Bulk. True to the spirit of LitSec, all we did was gape at each other. (Oh my God, there is something wrong with me! I must see a doc about this.) “Now what?”, we asked the first year, to which he went on to name a dozen other voyeuristic events. “Isn't there a quiz or anything of that sort?” I asked. “What sort of a geek are you?” came the reply. Proving that I wasn't a geek meant I had to endure a 4 hour long ramp show. Halfway through it, the Bulk fell asleep. “Lets get out of here,” I suggested. “No way! We have bunked classes to come here. There are events for two more days. We can't go back now!” is what I thought would be the Bulk's response. But I was wrong, though. All he said was, “Yeah, sure. Let's go.” In order to ensure that our trip to the capital wasn't entirely fruitless, we had a couple of pav bhajis and half a dozen chuskis just before we left. (And after all this, the Bulk still claims he's on a diet.) An hour later, we were in the same rickety Uttarakhand bus again.
“Desperado....”

The Knights At Fort Knox

R-land has more than its share of absurd rules, none perhaps more ludicrous than the fortification of the sole domicile of the feminine half, oops, sorry, one-twentieth of the insti. What is perhaps even more depressing is that the same fate has befallen the Fachchas. RJB has become completely out of bounds for every single guy who, even remotely, looks like a sophomore. Despite all these huge hurdles that stood in their way, four valiant sophomores, viz. the Reptile Legend, iPot, The Bulk and Dela, took the task of sneaking into the fortress upon themselves. (Yeah, I often refer to myself in third person. It makes the narrative seem less boring.) 'One for all and all for one' was to be our motto, but we realized later that the P&I 2nd Year Batch had patented the tagline. (If you didn't get that, contact me, or better still, contact iPot.)

Like most dangerous expeditions, half our team chickened out at the eleventh hour. It was finally down to just the Reptile and me. At the stroke of nine, while the rest of the world prepared to go to bed, and the rest of IITR was busy planting bombs and detonating them, the two of us set out on our journey....

At the entrance of RJB stood our first hurdle, or rather MY first hurdle, as the Reptile had slipped away to Lipton with the pretext of getting himself a cup of coffee, leaving me all alone with the blood-thirsty security guard.

I found some strength in the fact that if I couldn't come up with a convincing story to get past this guy, noone else could. After all, I was Dela. 'Notice lagaana hai, bhaiya', I yelled to the guard, though my mind was still lost in self-admiration at the brilliant fib I had come up with at such short notice. The watchman, though, contorted his face and gaped at me as if I had just mumbled something in Swahili. 'Notice lagaana hai, bhaiya', I repeated, and this time, I even drew some sort of rectangle in mid air, in a desperate attempt to make the dolt understand. 'TV Room?', came the prompt reply. Disgusted, I was planning my next move. 'He doesn't understand me anyway. I might as well dish out a few of the many Hindi expletives I have picked up during my stay here', I thought. Just in the nick of time, the Reptile arrived, in true Bollywood-hero fashion and two minutes later we were in front of the mess that we all know and hate. Huge posters, in bright yellow, magenta and a dozen other gay colours, greeted us with the message, 'The-Act-That-Must-Not-Be-Named is Banned'. By the way, I'm avoiding the r-word as a security precaution. For all you know there might even be a clause in the SC Ruling that makes even the mention of the word a punishable offence.

The Reptile and I parted ways, as we set off for G33 and F46 respectively, in search of our progeny. I entered F46 and was distraught to find my former room with everything neatly stacked in its right place. What was worse, both my kids were busy studying! My legacy, it seems, has died away. My entry sent my 'betas' into a state of hysteria. They were suddenly were suddenly all, ‘Sir, bait jao, sir’, ‘pani lata hun, sir, ‘blah blah blah sir’ and so on and so forth. In an attempt to gauge my popularity among the fachchas, I asked them, 'Room Baap se mile kya?' I was not sure whether to be elated by the fact that someone had finally understood my Hindi or to be disappointed by the reply that followed. ‘Both our room baaps are useless wimps, sir. They both have pathetic GPAs.’ I was shattered. Damn these fachchas. Why do these guys reduce people to just a number? Son, indeed. I was beginning to hate both these creatures that had been thrusted upon my poor room. I decided to leave the room baaps topic aside, and went on to tell them a dozen tales from the days of yore- all starring, written, directed and narrated by Dela. Their naivete surprised me. I couldn’t believe my luck when they actually fell for the story in which I told them that I was responsible for the bandage that a certain Really Pathetic Man was sporting lately. I felt a sudden urge to reveal my true identity to them. ‘Luke, I am your father.’ I decided against it, though. After all, the moron had called me a useless wimp. Some day, I shall reveal myself to him, and while I’m at it, I might as well chop off his hand. May the Force be with me…