Unleash the Ethics

What happens when a certain agent L and a certain agent S put two and two together? The result is four, no doubt, but with an incredible mission and a mischievous smile. The day was perfect for what they had in mind. Two A4 sheets and a pen were all the weapons they needed and the middle page of the day’s newspaper served as camouflage for the same.

Agent S thought it wise to write the column details before heading to war and agent L nodded. Sl. no., name, roll no. and sign were the chosen columns and with that, half the work was done. They made sure they kept their calm all along lest someone should doubt something was fishy. Since agent L is known to take the middle page of the paper along to every ProE class and PPT alike, nobody shot a second glance at the weapons they were smuggling in. They were nearing the war zone.

The roughly 20 students present in the hall made it seem impossible to carry out the task at hand without being caught for the same. This way and that, they analyzed the case. The decision was finally made to go ahead with the mission. The next question was how. How about entering the class along with the professor and sneaking the sheet to the ones on the last row? It was too late for that because the professor was already there! How about faking a re-entry into the hall and sitting on the last row? There were too few students to pull that off. How about just passing it along from where they were? It would be impossible to convince anyone that it wasn’t a fake sheet.

A few minutes later, the agents decided to go ahead with the most risky, yet most satisfying, option; the third one. There were two sets of students to choose from; the electricians and the mechanics. The mechanics won solely because the agents didn’t know who they were. The agents asked for a pen from the row of mechanics behind them saying that they had to sign the attendance sheet. Unbelievable though it may seem, it worked. The fake attendance sheets were being passed with more and more authenticity associated to them with every signature that was put and every sms that was sent to those who were absent. The mission was a success. The agents high-5ed, rather low-5ed, in appreciation.

One row, two rows, the sheets were moving fast and soon, it had reached the crowd on the other side of the class. A few minutes later, the professor, quite unexpectedly, decides that attendance would be taken! Was it a divine turn of events so that the agents wouldn’t get caught or had the professor noticed the A4 sheets making their rounds around class? That, we’ll never know.

Aimed Kills

It’s the end of the world. A giant brainwash is set to take place. Since the intelligent ones have killed each other over property rights feuds, the responsibility fell upon the mediocre ones to perfect this weapon of mass deletion. Presenting Aimed Kills*, the world’s first brainwasher!

Now, what shall we erase? It’s too much of a cliché to erase memory completely but erasing just the cerebral regions would create a whole bunch of morons. How about erasing all memory of food? A consensus was reached and it was hailed as a phenomenal idea given that food is what sustains life as we know it. The brainwasher was programmed accordingly but, given the mediocrity associated at different levels, the final product was, what can I say, not quite perfect. You see, it left some leftovers, if you will, of what it set out to delete. To add to the confusion, the one food item that remained unscathed after the process was the sober Idli.

It almost seemed as though Idli had been crowned hero of the day and it was on a double-sided mission to set things right once and for all, albeit in an oddly selfish way. What were those crunchy finger shaped snacks called? I don’t remember; let’s make them out of Idlis! And thus, Idli Finger Chips was formed. What was that saucy thing you had at a Chinese restaurant long back? Never mind; let’s make them out of Idlis. Voila! Idli Manchurian! Wasn’t Biriyani the most elaborate and spicy of them all? Who cares! Let’s make them out of Idlis. And there you have Idli Biriyani. If you don’t mind, kindly extrapolate the aforementioned line of thought to Rasam idli, Idli Gulab Jamun, Idli Ussili and Idli Curd Rice. Thank you.

Did you think that was a lame figment of a writer’s imagination? SK Mess Saturday dinner as on 24th October was exactly that.

*Aimed Kills is an anagram of SK Idli Mela.

I wish

I wish home was just a wink away.

That was my status message for the last couple of days. I guess it was bound to come up sometime but given that nothing even remotely close had surfaced for the three plus years that I have been away from home, I just assumed that it never would. Yet another first timer.

I had a nice happy Diwali with relatives and food and firecrackers. But, even so.

You know what's the bad part of festivals? When they get over and you are jolted back to reality, where you don't find sweets that you invariably overeat or firecrackers that you get saturated with. Like a bad hangover, it strikes you when you are least prepared for it.

My status message has changed now. To busy.

RIP

They called him a harmonium box but I did not let that affect me.
They played with his incurable handicap but I did not let that bother me.
They laughed at his deplorable condition but I did not let that weaken me.
They feigned concern towards him but I did not let that sway me.

But now he has lost his balls!

PS: My laptop, again! Its monitor does not stand on its own at any angle between 0 and 180 degrees because the ball bearings have given in.

RIP.

The Doctor's Patient

"He's going into shock!
Quick! Call the doctor!"

What followed can only be described as a miraculous intervention by a doctor who was rumoured to have never seen death in the eyes of any of her patients. She was not going to let this be an exception to her tagline. With enviable adroitness she started her procedure executing each step meticulously, flawlessly. She flipped him over and carefully administered coolants; all the while keeping an eye on his vitals as seen on the monitor. Then, there was a chilling silence. No one dared to speak anything.

A smile played on her lips as she saw the little yellow LED on the left-hand corner blink for she knew that she had saved yet another patient. There was a soothing breeze that proclaimed the life that flowed through him. The sound of the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. episode he was playing all along seemed audibly rejuvenated. The day stood testimony to how he was saved from a rare disorder resulting from excessive heat wave generation medically termed as Shutdown.

PS: Me and my laptop.

Of friends and family

Of friends...
...and family.


Freaky!
Did this happen to any of you?

Hallucinations

When a '1/T' written on the blackboard looks like a capacitor to you, you know that you are having hallucinations!
Hallucinations

The Road Trip

03/01/09 Saturday

400 hours:
The blaring horn of a Van is heard.
“Wake up! Wake up!”
“No! We shall assemble at 500 hours. Let me sleep.”

600 hours:
One more bike needed.
Lesson #1: Get hold of borrowed bikes from the owners on the previous day itself.

800 hours:
Breakfast at mess.
Guys’ bags in the girls’ hostel. There was no bag raiding. Honest. Only Screwbey Doo can get ideas like that!
One Bajaj Pulsar.
One Yamaha Fazer.
One TVS Victor.
One Scooty Pep.
4 girls.
4 guys.

815 hours:
One phone call to mom.
Kaboom! Kaboom!
*wink*

And, that’s how we set out on a road trip to Pondicherry. The fun was just about to begin. There was Saturday morning traffic and there was dust. There were confusions about directions and there were imaginary gunshots. A couple of pictures were taken at VGP to show off the mega pixel strength of the different cameras. Vani’s uncle’s ostriches tried to add to the entertainment element but sadly, they didn’t even dig their heads into the ground. One round of Lakme Sun Expert followed by a water break later, we were back on East Coast Road.
Lesson #2: Take a lot of Sunscreen along. Moreover, apply profuse amounts of the same.

The rented Victor was a unique experience in itself. It would drive on auto-pilot mode; one speed only and no human intervention was required to maintain that. The pressure was on Pressure to drive it during the forward half of the trip. It revealed its screwed up self even more when its tyre burst. Two bikes and four of us spent half an hour at a repair shop where we ended up deciding that we would have to make it a road trip to Mahabs and not Pondy, over Slice and Lays.
Lesson #3: Rented bikes are invariably, screwed up.

One attempt by an amateur MRI on a bike ended up being a vain attempt at a wheelie. And he was banned from driving a bike ever after. Peace.
Lesson #4: Check for driving license before handing over a bike to over-enthu looking person.

The tender coconut water by the roadside was salty. Welcome to Pondicherry.

Lunch overlooking Rocky beach followed! Well, we tried to overlook and see the Rocky beach but there was a wall separating us from the view. Imagine a 6-7 pages menu with only half a page of vegetarian dishes. And, imagine a bunch of vegetarians coming to terms with this harsh reality.
Lesson #5: Continental dishes can look real yucky.

From there we headed to Paradise beach where the much sought after ferry ride was closed just ten minutes before we reached. Even Tam fundaes did not work at this place.
Lesson #6: Tam fundaes might fail. Be prepared.

A couple of phone calls later, we embark on this unique route through a village to reach Sand beach. One of the best beaches I have been to, so far. The waves were shallow and soft. They seemed to say, “I will only touch your feet; I will not startle you.” Some crazy Coked people ended up collecting shells too.

Tip: If someone has a sleeping bag with them and happen to be peacefully resting on it in an almost mocking way, be unanimous in zipping the person up in the sleeping bag.

Warning: Shampooed people might end up laying a cowboy hat, after a while.

A castle was made. And sand was thrown at whoever thought about attacking it. All hail her Vainness! And shells were collected. And a bike key was lost.
Lesson #7: Use a keychain for a key. Try not to lose it. But if you lose it, try your luck with other bike keys.

The return drive was more like every bike for itself. The air was cold and the rare roadside Rs. 3 tea was heavenly. And the drive continued with loo stops and water breaks. It was fun to tie a red scarf for a Poisonous guy who ended up looking like Little Red Riding Hood.
Lesson #8: Take necessary warm apparel along.

Good ol’ insti CCD marked the end to the wonderful trip. Lol level laughs and bike bitching followed and culminated in a group photo with wide Colgate smiles, in spite of the tiredness, on everyone’s face.

Post-trip discussions continue even three days after the trip. Need I say more?

PS: I am going more bike crazy than ever!

The New Year Post

I had my first ever New Years' Eve outing this time. With a 15 km ride on a Pulsar, dinner at Food Village, an auto driver who desperately wanted to beat the Pulsar and later, listening to free trippy songs a DJ dished out and a countdown that I could barely hear followed by a dirty beach where we did absolutely nothing and a few circus stars on the roads, 2009 happened.

Happy New Year 2009!

Through Images

* For the 20 questions that have been asked, write down your honest answer (in a word or two).
* Type your answers, one by one, on an exactly-as-written-on-paper basis, in the search bar of any image search engine that you prefer (Flickr / Google Image Search etc.).
* You MUST MAY use the same search engine for all 20 answers.
* For every answer, only from the FIRST page of the search result, save exactly ONE image.
* Once you have a list of 20 images, each corresponding to one answer, compose a post in line with this post that you are reading right now.

I was tagged by: Twilight Fairy

I tag: Neethu, Abhishek, strawberrymargaritas, Shady, Shravan.

Image search engine used: Flickr, DeviantArt

To read the answers, hover over the image.

1. My age:


2. I am passionate about:


3. My favorite place:


4. I have a thing for:


5. My comfort zone:


6. My favorite animal:


7. My kind of art:


8. The town where I was brought up:


9. The town where I live:


10. A past pet:


11. A past love:


12. Current love:


13. Best friend's nickname:


14. I want:


15. Screen name:


16. A bad habit:


17. A dream:


18. First job:


19. I miss:


20. What am I doing right now: