The exams draw to a close for engineering colleges across the country. The sighs and whimpers of a significant portion of this populace is as apparent as it is expected. Once again, a month is spent dreading the arrival of the next semester. And once again, a month is spent awaiting the arrival of those numbers and letters that define a student in the eyes of the parents. This is not a log calling upon the system to change. It merely derides it.
Why is it that these grades are seen as better markers of performance than a student's ability to excel in a field of his or her choice? It can be said that at least a third of engineering students would rather be pursuing some other avenue. Pushed into these streams by peer or parental pressure, some of them trudge through, even if the goal is merely getting to the other side with the hope of a better, and perhaps more interesting, life after. Others grind through these years with no plans beyond these four and join the herds flocking to an IT company. Yet others choose easier ways out and drop out and attempt to rebuild their lives around a course of their interest. And then there are the few that lose hope and resort to escapism to deal with the mounting pressures brought upon them by an army of sheep pushing and pulling to secure the grades of distinction that a failing system bestows upon them. These few are not the only ones falling to the viles but they definitely are the ones worthy of that bit of pity. Whether it is alcohol, dope, smoke or being locked up in a room with a cup of noodles and a TV show for the whole day (A disclaimer that these are just examples might seem ironic), the fact remains that these methods are nothing but base, escapist tendencies. It must be easy for those without these indulgences to pass judgement upon the seeming lesser mortals. What should be considered is not their unsavoury act of leaving the path but the causes for the very straying. As mentioned, it is easy - a bit too easy at that - to mark them as losers, and move on without a second's thought.
Why does this start, anyway? Maybe, all the hours spent in a room full of marijuana smoke have a meaning that the "smarter" ones refuse to see. Be it a drop in GPA or a disillusionment with the educational system as a whole, each is a reason as good as the other for someone on the verges of depression to sink lower and give up on studies - or on life, for that matter. The onus is on the ones that still hold on to their sanity and sensibility to drag the others out, even if it means getting a little muck on oneself. It takes a pat on the back and a meal shared at a fancy restaurant to profess friendship but these hours of seeming attachment mean little if the need for a friend is not satisfied in those hours when someone is spiralling down into despair. Of course, the fault isn't entirely with the ones that are better off. There is some hesitation owing to the fear of seeming overbearing. This leaves a small gap between the two groups that must be bridged by some indication that help is needed. It isn't humiliating to go to a friend for help or to share problems with someone. Understably, this step is the hardest to cross and is where most of the connections break. Even so, a minute spent thinking about what is right might prevent a decision to end it all.
Most of what is written would appear somewhat directed and hence, a bit without meaning, but sit on it a while. If you're got friends that need help, don't hesitate. And more importantly, if you need help, don't keep it in. It doesn't have to be a beer buddy or even someone of the same sex. If you consider someone a friend, talk to them. Anything is better than wasting your life away. That's what friends do anyway - they look out for each other.
Back without a bang
I'm back. Even though I didn't say so with a heavy austrian accent, it was somewhat expected. And here is a three piece discourse; each, a discourse on the near present.
The week that was:
Rain is beautiful. As each drop falls and lowers the temperature and every bit of moisture seeps into the earth, you let it soak you up with the smell and joy that comes with it. You think of hot chocolate, snuggling under a warm blanket and girls - or some combination of the above. You think of how wonderful the weather is. You bask in the wet radiance. The weather is perfect for just about any activity you enjoy. What it isn't, is the right time to study. When you need to study, everything fades and what is left is the ghostly, gray shell of life. You notice the bugs that come with the rain, the mold that grows on your food and the way the cloudy sky lowers the luminous flux density in your room. The colour leaves your life and your dreams/nightmares revolve around the timing cycles of microprocessors (or other equally retarded topics). Your mood drops well before your GPA. Suffice to say, my hopes of scoring high this semester were washed away.
Add to this, the disappointment of not getting to visit NLS for their culturals.
Today:
Logging in to my blag, I find some people actually like my serious article. And before I get the chance to complete a "Wait...What?", I notice that the number of people reading my blag has gone up (Yay!).
Tomorrow and beyond:
Two projects and a semi-internship loom large in the horizon. On the brighter side of life, there are visits to the beach and to ICHC. If things go well, I will also get back to being active on the interweb ^_^
The week that was:
Rain is beautiful. As each drop falls and lowers the temperature and every bit of moisture seeps into the earth, you let it soak you up with the smell and joy that comes with it. You think of hot chocolate, snuggling under a warm blanket and girls - or some combination of the above. You think of how wonderful the weather is. You bask in the wet radiance. The weather is perfect for just about any activity you enjoy. What it isn't, is the right time to study. When you need to study, everything fades and what is left is the ghostly, gray shell of life. You notice the bugs that come with the rain, the mold that grows on your food and the way the cloudy sky lowers the luminous flux density in your room. The colour leaves your life and your dreams/nightmares revolve around the timing cycles of microprocessors (or other equally retarded topics). Your mood drops well before your GPA. Suffice to say, my hopes of scoring high this semester were washed away.
Add to this, the disappointment of not getting to visit NLS for their culturals.
Today:
Logging in to my blag, I find some people actually like my serious article. And before I get the chance to complete a "Wait...What?", I notice that the number of people reading my blag has gone up (Yay!).
Tomorrow and beyond:
Two projects and a semi-internship loom large in the horizon. On the brighter side of life, there are visits to the beach and to ICHC. If things go well, I will also get back to being active on the interweb ^_^
In a name
Teh. Blag. Half a dozen other idiosyncracies that would leave you thinking I needed grammar/spelling training. Those that lurk around webcomic sites would probably smile at the references. An occasional post that made perfect sense would have seemed more like a chance meeting with sanity that dropped the facade by the next post. To those that I left baffled with my spellungs, this should open an eye.
I can sum up most of this with one word(phrase?) - xkcd. The site that I found while searching for answers to a certain shady quiz somewhere has influenced my writing (at least the not-so-serious parts of it) almost as much as Adams. Toting itself as "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language", it caught my attention with a particular strip. From then on, we've been hitting it off pretty well (well enough for me to give serious thought to geohashing at Chennai).
That (rather short) piece sums up the reasons for my blag. The Teh part is just the regular internet culture of swapping nearby letters (to imply rushed/lazy typing). So, there. That's about all there is in a name.
On the topic of xkcd, my article about is due. I'll try to stick that in by the end of the month. And if anyone reading this has a car and is in the mood for a geohash, let's meet up ^__^.
I can sum up most of this with one word(phrase?) - xkcd. The site that I found while searching for answers to a certain shady quiz somewhere has influenced my writing (at least the not-so-serious parts of it) almost as much as Adams. Toting itself as "A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language", it caught my attention with a particular strip. From then on, we've been hitting it off pretty well (well enough for me to give serious thought to geohashing at Chennai).
That (rather short) piece sums up the reasons for my blag. The Teh part is just the regular internet culture of swapping nearby letters (to imply rushed/lazy typing). So, there. That's about all there is in a name.
On the topic of xkcd, my article about is due. I'll try to stick that in by the end of the month. And if anyone reading this has a car and is in the mood for a geohash, let's meet up ^__^.
Lights of a Festival
He rolled the last one. That would be it for the day. He hated working late before a holiday. He would miss the early hours of the morning when the air was fresh. He looked at his hands. Black. As always. He lifted his fists to his face. The thick smell crawled into his nostrils. Months back, when he still held on to the hope his anna had promised him, he would have found it repulsive. Now, it was just another affront to his senses. Like the black all around him. Like the coarse powder that lined everything about him. Like the laughter of the younger children outside that hadn't entered his world yet. They would eventually. They, too, would be conditioned to ignore all of this. That's how it always went. Anna had spoken of a way out. But he wasn't around. Not after the fire at the other godown last year. Anna had spoken of going to Madras. There was always a job in a big city. And you didn't even have to get your hands covered in the powder. You could make tea. Or sell something on the streets. A decent living. Anything seemed possible when anna said so. All those dreams went with anna and the fire last year.
He got up and walked towards the exit. The coolies were lazing outside. One of them held a beedi in his hand. Anna used to smoke too. Nobody could tell anna what to do; He was older than all of them. He knew much more about the world. If anna smoked a beedi, it was because that was what all men did. He kept begging him to stop. Not that his words were heard. Anna did as he liked. It was the privilege of being born a year earlier. A year earlier. He was as old now as anna was on the day of the fire. Time seemed to mean so little now. Day after, the work would resume. There was always an order, especially for the large thousand-walas. Even after the festival, it would be no different. He thought of what could have been if that fire hadn't started. If only anna had listened to him and stopped smoking.
Thank you for reading. That was my first attempt at writing some serious material. I hope I didn't disappoint. I don't really know why I wrote it. Some conversations I had been having recently laid the seeds for it. I just hope you like it.
Happy Deepavali.
He got up and walked towards the exit. The coolies were lazing outside. One of them held a beedi in his hand. Anna used to smoke too. Nobody could tell anna what to do; He was older than all of them. He knew much more about the world. If anna smoked a beedi, it was because that was what all men did. He kept begging him to stop. Not that his words were heard. Anna did as he liked. It was the privilege of being born a year earlier. A year earlier. He was as old now as anna was on the day of the fire. Time seemed to mean so little now. Day after, the work would resume. There was always an order, especially for the large thousand-walas. Even after the festival, it would be no different. He thought of what could have been if that fire hadn't started. If only anna had listened to him and stopped smoking.
Thank you for reading. That was my first attempt at writing some serious material. I hope I didn't disappoint. I don't really know why I wrote it. Some conversations I had been having recently laid the seeds for it. I just hope you like it.
Happy Deepavali.
Crushes - Part 2
I suppose you were waiting. Well, you better have been.
It is time that my treatise on girls, crushes and the whole love scene is dwelled upon in further detail with the narration lending a bit more light on my most recent fling. For those of you that complained of a silly, puppy-love tinge to my previous post, I hope you were expecting a change. It makes it all the more fun to get under your skin.
First, and foremost, I would like to declare that I am over my little fancy. Yes, quite sudden, I agree. Given that I only admitted to a crush, this change can, perhaps, be overlooked. Of course, if you didn't find it sudden when I started it a week back, this would barely ruffle a feather. Providing, as it did, little comic caper, the past week made me think. Consider my case: I'm in a college with girls that run straight into two categories - uninteresting or taken. Seeing as neither is likely to provide engaging company for the evening, my thirst slips into a little status quo that seeks little and sleeps long. This equilibrium, much like that of a mexican standoff, takes little to be thrown off balance. As little as the sight of a cute girl. Picture a see-saw. With a fat guy. And me. When you throw a swan in a pool of ducks (pardon my reference to ugliness), being temporarily stupefied by the brilliance and beauty is a fairly common reaction. It did take me by surprise though.
In the end, it probably comes down to the aspects of character that draw you in. I would find it rather weird to spend a day conversing with someone that hasn't heard of Jedi. Or Star Wars, for that matter. Even so, weird could be interesting. As the situation has not been juiced to its limit, I just might continue. The idea of making contact and pretending to be a stalker should prove funny. Or I could let her read my chatlog (Refer: Crushes - Part 1). Whichever path this takes, a bit of fun seems to be drawing closer.
Oh, and if you're a girl, you have my gratitude for being one.
It is time that my treatise on girls, crushes and the whole love scene is dwelled upon in further detail with the narration lending a bit more light on my most recent fling. For those of you that complained of a silly, puppy-love tinge to my previous post, I hope you were expecting a change. It makes it all the more fun to get under your skin.
First, and foremost, I would like to declare that I am over my little fancy. Yes, quite sudden, I agree. Given that I only admitted to a crush, this change can, perhaps, be overlooked. Of course, if you didn't find it sudden when I started it a week back, this would barely ruffle a feather. Providing, as it did, little comic caper, the past week made me think. Consider my case: I'm in a college with girls that run straight into two categories - uninteresting or taken. Seeing as neither is likely to provide engaging company for the evening, my thirst slips into a little status quo that seeks little and sleeps long. This equilibrium, much like that of a mexican standoff, takes little to be thrown off balance. As little as the sight of a cute girl. Picture a see-saw. With a fat guy. And me. When you throw a swan in a pool of ducks (pardon my reference to ugliness), being temporarily stupefied by the brilliance and beauty is a fairly common reaction. It did take me by surprise though.
In the end, it probably comes down to the aspects of character that draw you in. I would find it rather weird to spend a day conversing with someone that hasn't heard of Jedi. Or Star Wars, for that matter. Even so, weird could be interesting. As the situation has not been juiced to its limit, I just might continue. The idea of making contact and pretending to be a stalker should prove funny. Or I could let her read my chatlog (Refer: Crushes - Part 1). Whichever path this takes, a bit of fun seems to be drawing closer.
Oh, and if you're a girl, you have my gratitude for being one.
Facebook Stalking
Cheesy, I know. But hey, who doesn't love lolcats?Before I complete my post on crushes and the internet, I decided to run a primer on stalking. Online. Apart from sounding cursably cool and absurdly interesting, my recently acquired hobby runs along the fringes of the law, making it even more enjoyable.
Although Facebook Stalking (fBS) has been going on for a while thanks to its relative ease (Orkut keeps tabs on where you go. And tells them. Bad, bad server), I never really gave much thought to the habit of running on clicking sprees that lead you on the never ending quest for great profile pictures. Before FB, I could not understand the logic behind following someone for miles at a stretch, only to watch them enter their house and be locked away for the rest of the day. This line of thought was derailed with my discovery of the exhiliration that is fBS.
My search began in a friend's profile and lead me through a long and daunting search (that lasted the whole of 5 seconds) before I reached the page (and understandably, the picture) I was searching for. I found the picture, all right. Apart from granting a poor view of the subject in question, there were also elements in the picture that detracted one's attention. Not in the positive sense, mind you. Suffice to say, I was disappointed. All that effort, and all I got was this lousy weblog.
Disappointment and anticipation aside, fBS is fun if you're interested in browsing through a ton of profile pics to remind of the exact aspects of life you're missing in yours. Its something like bharatmatrimony.com, only with cuter girls who will never end up on those websites. And if you're single with the right connections and numbers of mutual friends, you might even hit it off.
Next post: Crushes - Part 2
Crushes - Part 1
I've recently been having a lot of conversations regarding girls and crushes. Some of these have, without the slightest shimmer of doubt, run into extended debates on their characteristics and mannerisms. Well, at least the ones I like, anyway. Of late, the chats have been taking a few bizarre turns and making me wonder how much a person changes when under the influence of a crush. This post, the first in a series is a clutch of chatlogs from my mailbox that I thought would be fun to share. More on this when I get time again :)
(Excerpts from a chat between a friend of mine and me. She asked me to edit her name out but I didn't really bother. Whenever you go over hotandsweetbabe, please block it out mentally.)
(Excerpts from a chat between a friend of mine and me. She asked me to edit her name out but I didn't really bother. Whenever you go over hotandsweetbabe, please block it out mentally.)
me: boo11:22 PM my browser is fine for now :)hotnsweetbabe: >:D<u camed :)me: yes, yes i didnow, we can talk about her ^_______^hotnsweetbabe: rolls eyesme:hehe
me: GIRLS ALL OVER THE WORLD LOVE HARUHI SAMAhotnsweetbabe: not natural :)me: you're a disgracehotnsweetbabe: i think shes very cute but thats itme: haruhi or her? o__othat description fits both...11:29 PM hotnsweetbabe: $*#&)$*@#Y+me: why?
me: and ---- sounds too manly, im gonna call her bi insteadbi as in beeelike how a pokemon with bi in its name wud say itall kawaii and everythingim so good at this ^___^so that she wud kill me? o__otell u watonce she adds you in fbgo post all this :Di certainly wont get to go out with herbut it'll b fun as hell :Dhotnsweetbabe: don make me do ANKIL velame: no, think about itshe almost certainly wont like me after thatbut it'll b so much fun!!!me: im willing to risk my future with her for fun :Dhotnsweetbabe: ur toooo obsessed with TMOHS
me: lolbtwi just ran a google search for her:Dhotnsweetbabe: OHHHHH
MYYGODD11:35 PM me: looooooooooooooooooooooooolim feeling so crazy rite now :di cant think of anything else crazy to do^__________^IVE GOT IThotnsweetbabe: y dont u google MY name next? :|
me: im gonna get her number and call her up ^___________^
ookina yume, yume, suki desho?
