1.      So Hero and heroine elope from home, and have come to temple on top of a hill, that has roads leading to it. They’re about to get married, and the movie is about to get over, when heroine’s appa comes zooming in, abducts the daughter in a Gipsy, and whizzes off. There are 3 sumos in front and behind this jeep , all of which now begin to zoom down the hill. Hero is helpless, and begins running. He however, runs down the hill, instead of the highway. Bouncing off a tiny rock, the hero lands on the second sumo behind the jeep in which heroine is kept. Some dishoom-dishoom later, he lands one sumo closer. At this stage, the villains in the jeep open the rear door to fire rotten eggs or bullets at the hero (that, I guess, depends on the budget of the movie). The hero catches on to the half open door, uses the work done by the centrifugal force of the hinge-support, undergoes a rigid body rotation to the middle seat, where heroine is seated. The other gundas are vacuumed out of the jeep with a single kick. Hero and heroine are reunited.

2.      After exploring robotics, Director Shankar decides to explore the Quantum world. Rajnikanth, starring as a neutron, opposite hot actress for a proton. The two plan to annihilate into an electron and an anti-neutrino and escape out of the confines of the atom through some radioactive burst, but conditions outside the atom seem way too hostile. The quantum physics of Rajnikanth’s battle, is beyond the scope of human comprehension. Three hours later, Rajnikanth and hot actress lived happily ever after.

3.      The air is heavy with sentiyaap. Our location is at the quadrangle of a magnificent, traditional house in the village. The situation demands a hero whose awesomeness ratings tend to infinity and age to sixty, so you can guess who my choice would be. This fatso has some random 19 year old chick, dressed like a traditional fifty-year old paati, for his wife. Fatso, in the first two hours of the movie, made magnanimous sacrifices through the prime of his life to have gained all that restecpa among the villagers. However, in the meanwhile, their single child, who has been sent to A-may-rikka for studies, grows up to be a heavy-headed loser. He has done something that the whole village is shocked of. Fatso, the extremely respected Appa of the whole village by now, is resting on the easy chair at the centre of our location, with the wife, by his right, and the rest of the village surrounding him. There’s pin drop silence. Unable to bear the embarrassment, and grief, fatso sheds a tear for the second time in his life (the first, being when he was born). Awesomeness comes in now: the tear, obeying Stokes’ Law, and falls down, where the wife, has conveniently been positioned. Landing on the wife’s forehead, the drop of tear erases off her bindi. And that marks the end of the life of the great man.

4.      This one is possibly a Drams section special: Same situation as above. Only, the wife is now replaced by a tiny oil-fed lamp that has remained lit for as long as civilization can recall. The tear-drop now falls on the lamp now, and it is turned off. The village goes into darkness.

Happy Deepavali. Let there be light!

There’ve been these times when I’ve gone on this transient resolution to be detached from a hell lot of things. My phone, the net, people, the math. The geeta preaches it. The Bhagawat Geeta, just to clarify. Ten minutes, the F.R.I.E.N.D.S ringtone, the handsome DST fellowship letter, my fb profile pic, (and other more obvious pics of course!) and back I am in square one. There are these times when you really wonder if you deserve all that you have. And some others when you crave for way too much.

The days now are pretty overwhelming. What with the intern mail anxiety, the gre sensation, my decaying cg, the apparent transition from mech to math, and other obvious commitments. I know things will take a very beautiful shape eventually. Like some Beethoven’s masterpiece. Flawless and smoothly flowing. Amma tells me to do yoga every morning. It sure does help. And G’s philosophy of taking life as it comes, with all the kaam karte hi masti maarte rahena and all. Seems like a nice idealization actually, but I’ve sucked at such attempts. Right when I am at the key step in some Sobolev Space theorem (read fancy math), the time table on the other wall screams out reminding me of TMI-351.

Or perhaps I have gone much past that place where I can take things as they come. Or to stay detached from things. For the lack of the likes of Joey Tribbiani’s freezer that keeps itself open to The Shining and Little Women for a while when he is about to wet his pants.

I wish eventually gets over soon enough. And my music becomes mellifluous. And I can be the proud artist who made it. And get happy feet even.

PS. Originally published on 16 August, but was posted online laterfor the lack of net!

I cannot remember Bhai’s real name, but Bhai, Bhai Annan and Paani Puri Annan were among the different names he was called by. His Paani Puris were the best ones in town, and the deluded tambrahm folk of the Agraharam believed that Anna’s Paani Puri had to be perfect since he hailed from Bombay. Bhai would use sauces of different colours to give the paani puri a different flavour. Ranga liked it with a tinge of sour, Rajam and I preferred it spicy, while Bhai would add excess of the sweet sauce for M. A prolonged battle of our hands and mouth ensued as we hit by ecstasy.

It has been five years since I last visited Kumbakonam. I would scarcely be exaggerating if I said it was Kumbakonam that showed me what passion is. The magic that it has been to me is something I reserve for another post. Quite ironically, it was Kumbakonam that also made me realise that passion was overrated. It eventually does, burn out. As Ross would put it, what you’re left with is trust, and security and a lot of other good stuff. Albeit in an entirely different context, the times of fun with the Dude-waale Krows, the times of bakchodi, the senti talks, confessions over text messages are things that account for the passion thing. The first time I was introduced to Dela as the biggest “kid” of third year, to Goraab as 9.7-cum-Branch Change-cum-Austria Anna, to Padhye during the Why do you think our hands are constantly plucking grass? question during the Kshitij final interviews, the shaggy chants of Soonkumt, Sue and Kaka outside Machine Drawing classes, messaging the Tigah himself on his birthday as you-know-who, my first DP, are among the numerous things that make up the “lots of other good stuff”. These things bring to memory Bhai Annan’s colourful variety of sauces and their varied tastes. A tinge of sweet from the ever-smiling faces, goofy antics and set-piece strings of words; a dash of sour, from the moments that won’t return; a wee bit of salty, perhaps from the warm teardrops that trickle down your cheek; and of course, a lot of spice as ever.

It looks like now that I said Hello to these people for the first time. Four days, some “I wish we hung out more”’s, awkward hugs and lame cool guy handshakes later, we part. To meet again.

Sayonara.

I have always had this habit of picking up a lot more than I can carry. As if I am way too old already. Shelley inspires me.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

I heroically resume my research on Controllability of Partial Differential Equations in fluid flows. In the meanwhile, P comes in to tell me that S has managed to get a summer intern, something even every newbie seems to be craving about more than he ever did about the stale pastures in the IITs. I am extremely happy for S. Two days have passed since, and I haven’t heard from S. I tend to feel that, akin to most of the half a dozen others, S has forgotten my existence after his business with me over. I begin to feel unwanted and old. Everyone around me is way too opportunistic, I wonder.  I implore the West Wind,

Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

Today Appa sent me a new fresh one kg packet of Leo coffee powder. From home. Dairy commitments beckoned. I forgot myself as I sipped the fresh, divine elixir and listened to Hosanna. I shut my eyes.  I became transported to God’s Own Country. I lost myself in Trisha’s gorgeousness in that maroon saree. Bliss. Equanimity.

Abruptly, new dairy commitments summon once again. The ultrasonic transducers and the NI Elvis board are ready for fabrication, I am informed. Ironically, reactions are mixed now. On the one hand, yay! we can finally begin our fabrication, and on the other, hell, one seldom gets too much free time.

The power gets cut unexpectedly. The room has reached limits of being veritable sultry. I muster all audacity to beseech the West Wind,

Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

The West Wind snubs me off. It’s spring no more, summer is beginning. I continue sweating. And cribbing.

Ghulaam Ali’s melifluous melody- chupke raat din soothes me.

Alluring portraits of her, of the cab, of us together, vivid warm nostalgia, among other things makes me realize George Costanza certainly wasn’t the most slow-witted after all!
Happy Birthday, my Friend

PS Today also happens to be Appa’s birthday! .

PPS. Continuing with the awesomeness of our insti, here goes: A certain frustrated constantly rambling old Mech. Prof gets irritated with this certain overtly talkative girl and warns- “The next time you open your mouth, we’ll have to make out!”

DISCLAIMER: The following is a faithful rip off (verbatim) from our beloved teachers’ lectures. Any perverted connotation attached to any incident reported below is unintended.

1. Computer Aided Gandu-panti: Easily rated the most pharzi course one could come up with, the head kauwa of the department, has been the biggest wannabe cool dude profs. In yet another random lecture of the man, with yours truly dozing away to lalaland, the kayen kayen begins:

This is the fourth time I am catching you sleeping in the last half an hour. Daunt you know the caastums of the class. Sit properly men. Daunt do bastard activities in my class, okay? This is an IIT, not some other bastard college.

2. BC Sutta, Sutta fir mil gaya: This man was the most au-sum teacher on campus. Any course you name, and he can teach it. (For the record, he has taught the mech guys, thermodynamics, C++,  and basic machine drawing before this) Some classy excerpts from his classes, with what he seemingly meant within parenthesis:

• Rock-oh-Bhindro Beer (Yours truly’s forgotten full name)
• “Porn ki proxy kisne maara? Porn, Mere samne aake apne aap ko dikhao, tabhi mein attendance doonga.” (Pawan, ….) (Good Lord!)
• “You pible have come to the sheckond year, and ip you think two bings have graun for you, then you bill go in the wine” (You guys have finally passed all courses in first year, and are sophomorons now. If you act like you’ve gotten two wings all of a sudden, you shall go in vain! )

3. Mechanics of Solids, Indeed: On the very second day of his lecture, he goes on to explain stresses and strains. Both hands at the pelvis, fingers curled.

Maan lijiye, hum yahaan ek halka sa load lagaake latka den. To extension hoga, lekin zyada nahin. Yeh small axial strain kahlatha hai. Ab maan lijiye hum load ko badte rahen, aur bahut bhari load laga den” (Ouch!!) “Ab maan lijiye, hum load ko bar bar bar bar kheenchthe aur ghusathe rahen. Isi effect ko varying strain kehte hain.

4. Shakila Jain: This tall, fair, round-ish ma’am (in a transparent saree, if I may add) from the management department goes on to deliver a lecture on financial accounting. Mind you, I am quoting this teacher verbatim, no additions, no editions.  “There are two kinds of entries, assets and liabilities. Speaking of assets, let me tell you, we all have them. All of us. Some of these, called fixed assets, are accessible to only to us, or other private members. They point out on the top of the balance sheet, and need to be preserved very carefully.” Need I say anything more?

PS. Happy Childrens’ Day People!

The Gods of Rain decided to pour down on R at the dawn of this month. On one particular afternoon, a visit to the customary hangout proved to be particularly delightful. An unremitting downpour rendered the place flooded. Bartering a soiled note blessed with the Mahatma’s portrait for three Cadbury Eclairs and the seven rupee worth treat transported yours truly to a state of soothing bliss. ‘T was the Soup.

Soups have always been pleasing starters to a sumptuous banquet. What more could a meagre vegan demand than a bowl of soup with kebabs or schezwan ?!?! Though I do enjoy soups with cream, ones without it are just as fine. And then, there are add-ons like noodles, roasted bread crumps, and so-forth. Coriander leaves and butter glorify the simple, yet special tomato soup, while, spring onions, cream and chopsuey garnish Manchow soup. Corn Soup is fondly embellished with soya sauce, though chilli extract could be an equally adventurous decorative.

There is a particular knack of drinking this sizzling hot delight without cauterizing your tongue. Fundamentally, it requires a passionate, daring hogger. It turns out that the most fervent of soup drinkers, are the ones who have been most indiscriminate to their taste buds. The first tender sip, is generally the one that paves path for the rest of the elixir. The soup thereafter travels down the oesophagus, which feels like a stairway to heaven. One feels particularly calming when the throat feels like its melting. A musical threshold is set. A bite of soup sticks, kebabs or spring rolls adds rhythm. An elite bonanza that comes as prize for enduring the sizzling hot treat, is a groaning belly. This is particularly so, when one is in the mood for a gargantuan hog, more so if the meal is not self-sponsored.

My ode to the soup shall surely lose its charm if I don’t give you a taste of its more versatile Maddu version- the Rasam. Rasams come in a plethora of flavours, principal among them being tomato, garlic, jeera and lime. What more, Rasam could serve as soup, as well as an auxiliary to rice. At home, my meal generally begins with the Rasam manifesting as soup.

Rasam Saadam (Rasam Rice) is one of the finest innovations of the maddus to the hog world. Yet again, there is bound to be a profound paradigm of eating this God-given delicacy  . A lose “slurry” of sweltering rasam and rice, garnished with a spoon-full or more of ghee, when eaten with aloo curry roasted to red-golden yellow colour, is undisputedly the most Godly treat the maddus have invented. Papadams as always are forms a classy supplement.

PS.1. You guessed it right by now, I AM a hogging freak.

2. The soup at the thela on the banks of the Solani Aqui-duct is sheer awesome!

3. Home, Here I Come!

Suddenly, and rather unexpectedly, loud sounds of banging were heard. It seemed unnatural and out of place. Some gaalis followed. It was my neighbour. It was all a dream!   The guy next door was probably shaken out of  his blissful lalaland by one of Nokia’s varied alarm tones. Sigh. It was 1357 hours in the afty. I was at R. BS 13 Jawahar Bhavan. Yet another blighted Machine Drawing Class awaited me. Sigh again. I drowned myself in self-pity. 2-1 of mechanical engineering being insanely loaded with infinitely many practical classes, I spent most of the week at the new department. In the first few days, it was almost a condolence question- Hey, How many contact hours do you have?

The new department has been rather tiring. Profs are mostly old, though there’s one specimen of a young Prof. While the young ones are dull, and dumb; the old ones are make it seem like they are speaking from their graves. Each one has his own style of rendition of a deep baritone lullaby. And not to forget the seemingly sensuous business management aunty in her transparent saree. Radio Jockeys spoke lesser than her in an hour.

As with the litwit-turned-mathematical balding mighty maddu senior, new schemes of nomenclature have begun arising randomly. After all, R is the land that saw me being rechristened to Ragvinder Singh. Then there was Shag-avendra during summer at ISI D, that was shortened to Don Shag. However, things have gone far beyond imagination now. The specimen of a flu-mech prof (who incidentally has promised to show us a flu-mech movie when he couldn’t tolerate being ragged! ) now calls me Rock-oh Bhindro Beer. And then, my MA-563 colleagues- Bhaiyya ji,infinite abelian group me kisi element ka order finite ho saktha hai? Puleezzzzz, I am four friggin years younger than those MSc Final year guys!!! My name is surely not that hard to pronounce!

The sadistic pleasure of seeing my archi fellow batchmates suffer a brutal 42 hours, the mechanical drawing classes of new facchies as I wander about in the corridor of the department , and moor-ta’s assurance that mech 2-2 has just 23 contact hours a week seem very soothing.

And then there’s tennis. Having mentioned that I have dime a dozen names now, how could I forget that I am Roger Raghavendra indeed.

Toodles!

PS. 1.  When will we have courses like mechatronics and robotics  in mechanical engineering?!?!?!?

2. The Jawahar canteen is legendary, indeed.

3. Am gonna experiment making Upma in my abode tomorrow, Be there!

4. For the Sanskrit lovers around, check out this:

yathA shikhA mayoorANAm nAgAnAm maNayo yathA |

thathA vedAngashAstrANAm gaNitham moordhani sthitham ||

Contrary to popular (plausible?) speculation, the past month hasn’t in the least been one heck of a ‘slogging my ar$e off’ session, while others have seemingly been having a blast home or homeland.

The first few days, quite naturally weird, passed rather uneventful , and in getting acustomed to the new setting. IIT B has a serene campus, with the powai lake nearby. The mess food, i must confess is punk, the RJB mess seemed heaven. Anyway, my mentor, the ex-HOD of math here,  was an embodiment of passion, humility and brilliance. Having been exposed to a plethora of ideas on applied math,  my research was on evolution of shock waves, their decay pattern, path and so on. I have been specially invited here in December as well, and am looking forward to a publication in the near future  .My prowess in LaTeX (a mathematical typesetting software) got me typesetting a textbook he is authoring for him (at 50 bucks per page may I add) 

New kinds of people have been met, bulks and sulks, bozos and perspicacious smart alecks. People here flourished in ideas; projects ranged from the simple minded efficient redesigning of gas stoves to the fancy, labyrinthine voice to text converters and human-like robots. And of course, there were us theorists, who worked on the basic sciences.

Research has just been a little part of what I have been doing here. Movies were watched like never hitherto, thanks to Rapster’s  legendary collection. The IITB local LAN surely deserves a mention at this juncture. Never thus far have I seen such a profound collection. A colossal amalgamation of movies, ebooks, journals, and not to forget, exquisite pornography! Having not come to believe in the last category, I didn’t really benefit from its collection. So much so that, my 320GB hard disk (5 months old), has only 51GB remaining. Sigh. Am tempted to crack a geeky joke, they call this phenomenon conservation in math and science. The flux of movies coming off the LAN to my comp  is equal to the negative rate of decrease of the memory on my comp. Sigh.

IITB actually honed the sportsman in me. Before you actually start rolling on the floor laughing your ar$e off,  let me elaborate. I learnt swimming. Yes! Finally. It began with me practising to float (I managed to, I aint that fat!). I gradually started swimming, parabolically though. After much ado, I can finally swim an entire lap. Yay!

Gokarting was rapturous. Ecstatic. Too awesome. The target is to drive ten times around the circuit, set up on a hilly terrain.I drove on the circuit at some 35 kmph. The record being 43 kmph.Came third among ten.

Trekking on the Powai hill top was yet another exhilarating experience. We left early last Sunday morning before sunset. And man, the sight of the sunrise was divine. One could feel the freshness and energy in the air.

One particular evening deserves a mention. Dad’s friend had invited me home. It was a painful hour long bus journey. And the Hindi genius in me had on a bus that travelled in the opposite direction initially. Anyway, on my way, I managed to discover that Woodland was spelt as वुड- लंड in the national language! Wooden Dicks! $hit. Anyway, Finally there I was. Hi Raghav, greeted me an energetic sweet voice. And guess what, it was uncle’s daughter. She did look beautiful, I must confess. We are now good friends.

Towards the end of my month long Mumbai stay (notice the alliteration), I got to visit the quantum physicist’s house. Had home-food after a long time. I tell you, there’s something about home food that makes it special. And then of course, was an accidental rendezvous with the quantum physicist’s friend, a statistical thermodynamician(?). Its strange how people meet, I tell you.

Anyway, I head to ISI Delhi tomorrow, for two weeks. Hoping to have a brilliant time there as well. And then, this very special place called Home.

Hope you guys are having loads of fun.

Glossary: to the Non-IIT R junta

R = Roorkee, IIT Roorkee. Mathematically, our Real line

Quantum Physicist= A brilliant friend at R, an embodiment of quantum physics, table tennis, geekiness and     humour

Statistical Thermodynamician- Quantum Physicist’s friend.

Rapster = A brilliant senior, undescribable in a line.

RJB=  my abode in my sophomore year

PS. Its been feeling weird not hearing gaalis for a month now. Speaking of gaalis, apparently in a certain sister IIT, above the Vindhyas, the fairer sex uses them (among themselves) too. Apparently MC is replaced by PC and BC by BC.

PPS. Believe me, I think a month of such freedom with you doing just what you like is almost a boon.

PPPS. These PPPPPS.’s are rather annoying ,aren’t they?

I am now in Powai. The campus is quite serene. There are around fifteen of us here for a summer project. Just two who work in the Mathematics department. My mentor, a senior professor in the math department,is an epitome of kindness, in a nutshell. I am to report to him just a couple of times a week. Being a man of mathematics, I have no lab related menace in my project. Which means, I have to work from my room and the library. Loads of movies. Loads of sleep in the air-conditioned room. Interesting food. Dearness Allowance @ 150 bucks a day. Math is fun, you see.

I was on a local bus a couple of days back. Disappointingly enough, no nice looking gal around. On the contrary, there were a couple of ladies (A and B) in the seat in front of me. Forties seemingly. Murphy sure enjoys sadistic pleasure.

A: Hi… *giggle giggle* I haven’t seen C(obviously another lady I presume) in our bakar club for the last one week. Any idea what happened to her?

B: *giggle giggle* Oh Hi yaar, don’t you know the news? Her son has got a 4000-ish rank in the JEE. And hence she hasn’t been very happy about that, and hence hasn’t been showing up.

A: The amount she was bragging… I think 4000 may get her son some low branch in some lesser IIT. Roorkee perhaps? *WTF?!?!*

B: Accha, where is that? In Orissa? I didn’t know Rourkela was called Roorkee. *giggle giggle*. Anyway, D’s neighbour’s sister-in-law’s nephew has got a very good rank. Two hundred and seventy six it seems. I think he will get a very good branch. In IIT Bombay itself. With a stress on the first syllable in Bombay

Before long, (fortunately enough?) the bus reached the Powai bus stand, and I de-boarded. Master Lefty’s Boomerang Theory demonstrated. Clichéd yet again, they have to gossip about every other thing, don’t they? And they call us male chauvinist pigs.

And Roorkee is in North India, not the northern tip of the arctic zone. And it is an IIT. Having been in two different IITs now, I must like to place on record, the hostel messes in both places suck or rock equally. Bird-watching has as limited scope in both places. The two systems do tend to have their positives and negatives.

I don’t intend to sermon on what’s good about each place. But if by chance some to-be faccha happens to be reading this (quantum mechanics does ensure a non-zero finite probability ), I must like to assure you that IIT R is just as great as any other place to study, or have fun.

Anyway, its time I go for swimming now.

Hope you guys are having the time of your life.