10 Reasons

And one for the marriage season. Here are 10 reasons why to.

10. The partying

9. Meet everyone you know in a single day

8. Get tons of likes on everything you put up on Facebook

7. Enough photos to last a lifetime

6. License to shop. A lot

5. Easiest two week holiday to get off from work

4. Sweets, sweets, sweets

3. The shiny new diamond ring

2. Easiest way to get an iPad for a present

1. You can play bad cricket afterwards and nobody will really bother

Elephant Obsession

Until a few days back, I thought it was an innocent fascination but now, I am afraid, there’s more to it.

For ages, Kerala, the land I was brought up in, has been associated with iconic characteristics like the Mallu accent, the coconuts, the fish fascination and the like, all of which have promoted nothing but friendly banter. I would not give any of them a second thought but now, something strong seems to be lurking behind all the usual clichés. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the Elephant Obsession.

What I intend to focus on is not the in-your-face type of usage but the less observed. One of the first times I have encountered this obsession is in one of Tharoor’s articles where he explains the power of India as a large democracy with quite a serious tone but finishes on a lighter note addressing it as an elephant. In fact, the elephant seems to find its way quite effortlessly into many of his articles, oftentimes in the title itself, like The Elephant’s Choices, Can the Elephant Dance with the Dragon?, or even a book title, The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cell Phone.

However, let me not delve too much on Tharoor for he has had more than his share of news space as it is. When Chairman-ISRO, Mr. Radhakrishnan, a Mallu of course, released an official press release regarding the launch of a GSLV rocket, he took this Elephant Obsession to a whole new level. According to him, the increase of the launch capacity to four tones holds the equivalent meaning of carrying an adult elephant to 25000 kilometers above the Earth.

Why elephant?

Going bananas

It all started as I thought of starting a banana chips shop at Trivandrum next year. Add half a day of coding with an unfinished statement of purpose and placement strategies running in the background and this is the level of insanity that results. Here's what followed.

Vani, possibly having reached equal levels of insanity, decides to join me.
Vani's a business partner.

Surbhi is not planning on staying far from the action and decides that she will be given two packets every month free of cost.
“Let’s take the product to North India! I will tell everyone I know that banana chips are amazing.”
“Well, we can always appoint a dedicated sales force to do that for us. Why would we give you two free packets to do this?”
She decides to change strategy. “I will tell everyone that your chips are useless. Nobody will eat them.” She wins.
Surbhi gets free chips. Launching in North India.

A certain Hippo yawns, “I booked the franchisee first for North India.”
“Done.”
“Are you sure about your business prospects?”
“We’re discussing it around an imaginary round table as we speak.”
Hippo appointed as franchisee in North India.

“Count me in!”, pings Aditya.
“As a what?”
“As a cook. I'm pretty good.”
“But I actually want to carry this out.”
“Honestly.”
“Okay, welcome aboard.”
“And if we do well in the first 2-3 years we'll open a branch in Dubai. And then we'll come to Insti for placements.”
“Of course. We’ll be taking MAs mostly as part of sales force.
“We'll make commercials with them perhaps or let them just cut the bananas.”
Sundar Aditya appointed as executive cook.

Er-what-arbitness expression fills Divya’s face. She is unanimously chosen to be the license provider.
Divya IAS shall provide licenses.

“When you start a food business, first rule is to appoint someone who won't eat up whatever you make. Hippo? Seriously? Rahul Venkatraj - chief taster (quality control). I have previous experience in a kwality walls ice-cream factory.
“Wonderful. Work ex is always welcome. Welcome aboard.”
Aruppu appointed chief taster with reco from Kwality Walls.

Pressure comes up with, “How can you forget Bangalore? I will market it in the whole of Karnataka!”
“Why should we choose you for Bangalore?” On spot interview begins.
“I have spanned Karnataka from Bidar to Chamrajnagar, from Bellary to Madikeri!”
“Sold! Welcome aboard. “
“So I have got clearance from all of the board of directors! WOW! Can we also market banana chips cut longitudinally? That will be new!”
“Right now, we are focusing on the basic model only. We will keep you updated.”
Kshitij appointed franchisee for the *whole of Karnataka* and not just Bangalore.

The honourable BC, Dickens, makes his contribution with, “I want to do the chip design :)”
“Ah, why should we hire you?”
“I'm an experienced chip designer. My BTP is in chip design. Ever since childhood I have had a fervid desire to be a chip designer.”
“I see. Have you faced any obstacles in any chip designing that you did and how did you deal with it?”
“Obviously the design of any good chip is never free from obstacles. You might know that the famous Banana Dual Core Chip is my brainchild.”
“That’s an interesting idea. Could you elaborate on that?”
“Not, really, I'm afraid it's trademarked.”
Quick! Hire him before we lose him. “Welcome aboard!”
Dickens appointed as chip designer with trademarked Banana Dual Core chip on the cards.

“Hey you missed out on me. I need some job too.”
“You have to apply! We won’t come looking for you, you know.”
”Do we need to upload CV? I’m applying for the AP zone.”
“Ok. why should we hire you?”

“Well firstly I am a huge fan of banana chips. Secondly I am also telling you (having been a resident of AP for like 18 years) that banana chips has a huge market there, but is marketed poorly. So you’ll get multitudes of contracts just from my region.”

“Welcome aboard.”
BG appointed for AP division.

“Volunteering for TN division!”
“Ah, why should we hire you?”
“I have experience in tasting a wide variety of banana chips from various parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. This way I can eat a banana chip and tell you if it was made in TN or Kerala in a jiffy. Besides, TN is a very big market.”
Impressed by the market fundaes. “Welcome aboard.”
Deepak appointed for TN division.

“You can get the bananas from my farm.”
“Do you have a farm?”
“I will in the near future and then you’ll get bananas from the rich Palakkad soil.”
“Wonderful!”
Ragesh to supply raw material.

“I shall be the graphic designer for all your design needs.”
“Welcome aboard.”
Multi for all design needs.

"Gimme middle east distribution marketing and sales Qatar UAE Bahrain Saudi.", pings Noufal
"But why should we hire you?"

"Because I have conties in middle east, so I have sufficient experience and networks on ground already up and running. I have prior experience in fmcg and sufficient cheap manpower from mallu land."

"I see. What prospects do you see by expanding to these zones? "

"Well any enterprise started by Ms. Leela Aarthy would definitely have the potential to be a global brand. Ms. Leela Aarthy likes this. Middle East has a number of mallus, I mean probably more than Kerala and if you see a potential in Trivandrum and Kerala as a whole it is bound to work in the Middle East."

Noufal appointed franchisee for the Middle East.

All that in the span of a few hours. :)

Updates:
Whitelighter to take over sponsorship and so on.
Shrav for internet advertising.

F*** You!

Step 1. Imagine the situation to be a fart session.
Step 2. Imagine the swearing as about to start.
Step 3. Realize that you are talking to a girl.
Step 4. Realize that the girl seems to be conservative.

What expletive would you use, then?

"Fart you!"

PS: Swearing is 'poison'ous to health.

Heights of Cogging - GTalk

But, who came first?

Then again, I get my share of the entertainment. So why bother?

Heights of Cogging - TCF

When the Teacher Course Feedback* form gets cogged in front of your eyes, you know new heights of cogging have been reached.

*Teacher Course Feedback form is an OMR sheet ritual that's done for every course at the end of the semester for feedback regarding the professor and the course.

BD101-Introduction to Bar Dancing

Objective: The year is 2050. There is going to be a nuclear holocaust soon and two representatives of the most necessary professions are going to be sent for five years to stay on board a spacecraft till all the radiation and all that has subsided so that they can come back and bring up a civilization. One member from each team is to represent that profession and prove to the audience why they must be one of the two to be chosen.

Whistle

"Who was that?

I represent the not-so-humble not-so-neighbourhood bar dancers. Let me transport you to a world five years from now. Those who have survived the nuclear holocaust will be at an all time low. They would have lost everything they ever had till then. Everything they ever lived for. Imagine that! We, the bar dancers, have been around for a long time now; from as early as the times of the Mahabharatha. We have survived through all the lows of life possible. Trust me when I say lows. We have been through hardships that you can never imagine. And hence, it is we who can help you through these troubled times.

We give hope to the hopeless and ensure they get what they need to survive through the tough times. We all remember the scene from Munnabhai MBBS where the guy with the cancer dies a happy death, don’t we?

We can understand emotions and connect with all kinds of people. We know pretty well what others need, if you know what I mean. And we give them what they need too.

We teach people to love and live happily. That is exactly what would be lacking five years from now. And that’s exactly why you need us at that time.

Besides, we don’t pose a threat to others. Corruption and other such big words mean nothing to us. Actually, we don’t even know their meaning properly.

Last, but definitely not the least, point is that, you see, two people will be chosen to stay on board the spacecraft and five years is going to be really, really boring. Wouldn’t it be better if we could, well, spice it up?”

PS: This was a part of the workshop organized by Shell to Fuel our Career. And, for the record, I won the most votes in a show of hands. Overwhelming win, it was. I did see some people with both their hands up. :P And a few compliments later that day.

Laat or Laathi?

Disclaimer: I am sorry if you don’t understand Hindi (Woah! The sheer thought of such a fellow human being makes me squirm. Sarcasm alert!) but this, unfortunately, will not make sense if translated.

I read this and laughed. I think it’s about time I shared my worst ever Hindi experience. So here goes.

The year: 2007.
The time: About 6.00 pm.
The place: Outside Gurunath.
The people: Coke, Van and me.

It was one of those particularly exciting days when we would go all the way to Gurunath just to have that cup of tea. We had the tea, relished it and walked back to the hostel. Just then, a dog decided that it was jobless enough to walk along with us. We decided our moves just in case it decided to attack us. Coke exclaims, “Ek laat maarenge!” Yours truly couldn’t just listen and keep quiet about it but on the contrary, decided to respond to that. Quite fair, you might say. But, the point is that I spoke in Hindi. I don’t know why. I don’t know how. I don’t know what made me do it. This is what I said, “Hum laat kaise maarenge? Hamare paas toh laat nahi hai na.” Laughs followed. Naturally.

Oh, by the way, I speak decent Hindi now and it feels good to be able to do so.

PS: In my defense, laat and laathi can be a bit confusing sometimes.
PS2: I have had 10 grueling years of Hindi as a second language at school. Thank you.

Keybored

After a long, long time, I decided to use my laptop, just to see if it was still in working condition. And what do you think I saw? Pressing j produced a ‘k’, k produced a ‘;’, and l did not show anything. The keys were all mixed up!

I wouldn’t stop until I knew exactly what was going on. So I opened Word and decided to try out each character on the keyboard. Suspense and excitement filled up as I pressed each key. Click! Click! Click!

‘8’ didn’t turn up anything; ‘=’ donned a shift to left function while ‘\’ donned the shift to right function. It was all a total mess. But how? I haven’t heard of anything remotely close to this before. The on-screen keyboard came to the rescue but it was not even close to charming. I, naturally, gave up on the laptop.

But what do you know? It was all right the very next day. Weird. Very weird. Maybe the keys wanted change. Maybe dust had messed everything up. Maybe a ghost was playing tricks. Maybe they just got bored of having to do the same old function every single time. No wonder they call it the “keybored”.

Made You Laugh

Out of the blue, he asks me to suggest possible additional features that the system could be incorporated with. Gulp! I hadn’t thought of that! I had just given him a basic report on the product to be designed and had included all the necessary features, the requirements and specifications. The system under discussion is a queue management system which is basically the type used at banks and reservation counters etc.

Was he not satisfied? Well, he has taken a printout of it. Think! Think, lady, think! I can’t recall exactly when I started blurting but here’s how it went.

"Why not make two prototypes? A low - budget alternative, perhaps?"

"Why waste on a printer when printed roll with a stepper mechanism would suffice?"

Boy, was I on a spree!

Some more technical talk (both ways now) later, he came up with the idea of adding an extra function to the keypad for the employee to be able to select a particular customer. “But, sir!”, I interrupted as he was explaining, “That would lead to bias and corruption!” Er, what did I just say? Blame it on the hangover of reading Tehelka.

And that’s when he laughed. I made him laugh.

R-Ant

We all know ants, right? Yes, those tiny creatures that cannot possibly do any harm to any fellow living being. Think again keeping in mind a situation where they become regular visitors to your laptop keyboard. If that doesn’t impress you too much, how about ants living in your keyboard? Note the use of the preposition ‘in’.

Welcome to my world.

It feels very awkward at first but then, you get used it with time. Of course I am no Buddhist towards these gypsy-ants. Clearly, I exhibit no qualms about squishing or flinging them away whenever I get the chance.

Tip: repetitive pressing of keys is known to flush them out and has to be followed by quick reflexes.

You can even hear them marching if you keep your ears close to the keyboard. Well, there was hearing the march-past, key pressing and hurling them into the air and this process went on. The era of the ant-infested-keyboard lasted a few days only to be followed by the ant-infested-cell phone era which lasted only a few hours probably due to the inaccessibility of enclosed spaces.

Now, after all these days, the ant-infested-insert appropriate word era is back and this time it’s my office desk. Meh!

PS: I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a much-needed vacation.

Gone with the Wind

Yeah, the movie 'Gone with the Wind' is an American classic and all that but I wanted to see how mean I could be to an 'epic film'. What can I say? I guess I derive satisfaction out of thinking differently. So, here goes.

The movie begins with a couple of supposedly handsome men taking shots at Scarlett O'Hara, the childish lead heroine in the movie. It has been made very mechanical and unbelievable. There is no way a sensible woman would have found it, in the least, flattering. The lady, little girl rather, has been made to witness the Civil War waged by the Yankees, three marriages and infinite amount of flirting during the course of the movie. It seems more like a deliberate attempt at squeezing war, romance and stupidity in one big package.

The girls in the movie have been portrayed as gullible and worth only to be flirted with. The change that comes in her, as shown later in the movie, is even more outrageous. There seems to be no trace of the old Scarlet in her at all, until when Ashley comes back and confuses her. Perhaps it’s his presence that brings out the unrealistic, impulsive part of her.

There is a line in the movie ‘She’s after your beau now’ which clearly removes any doubt about the intention of the ladies in the movie. It is hard to believe that she agrees to dance with Mr. Butler, who she had addressed as a dog in the first part of the movie, for no apparent reason. The impulsiveness of the character, Scarlett, is that of a child while the role she plays in the movie is that of a fine lady.

The men in the movie are not as refined as they are supposed to be with respect to the theme of the movie either. They address Mr. Wilkes as the ‘Captain of the Troop’ and they don’t even rebel against him when he says that there shall be no war. What could get more cowardly than that! The way Mrs. Hamilton says, “Oh dear, oh dear!” and faints is nothing less than melodramatic. It’s hard to miss that Scarlett seems turned on when Melanie cries on her shoulder when the list of those who died in the war comes. The scene gets, quite interestingly, abruptly terminated.

Even in the middle of the civil war, Mr. Butler keeps his cool. When she asks what he was laughing at, he answers back that he was laughing at her. He looks so calm that it seems that might actually have been organizing the entire uproar. After the war is over, she sees the gory remains that the war has left behind. Even at this point of time, all she has to say is, “Dirty Yankees!”

Overall, the movie seems way too far fetched to believe. There are a few characters who are suffocated with too much to deliver in the movie while there are others who have little or no relevance. It is an over-ambitious movie that has managed to convince people that it is good entertainment, of the laugh at the movie genre. As far as the ten Academy Awards that it won are concerned, I’d say, “Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.”(Quotes from the movie here)

PS: This post is the first of the three musketeers who felt bad because of Mr. Murphy.

Update: Check this out. Blogging just gets better. :D

Whose tikka is it anyway?

There is a considerable amount of defiance in the air when a nineteen year old girl goes all by herself to a real family restaurant. Tifanys is, clearly, not counted. I called up my parents to let them know I had reached home (others call it IITM) safely. I made sure they realized how grown up I was. It felt good. I ordered something and decided to set my eyes on my television till the time my phone stopped bulbing. That's when I noticed them; the family. Well, I noticed the guy in the family first. Typical goody goody boy - I don't behave indecently - I don't eat nonveg - I smoke not - I drink not and so on. And then I saw the rest of the family; all glued to the television. "Wow! A Samsung plasma TV. I have never seen one before. Beta, dekh lo. You might not get this chance again." I did not technically hear this, but this is pretty much what they would've said, if they did talk that is. I decided then and there that I was going to sit back and watch the show. ( And I did not mean the one on TV, in case you are a total moron.)

A plate of mouth-watering paneer tikka arrived on the table. They kept worshipping the television. What an insult! It was the son who ventured to set his eyes upon the impudent foreign object that had dared to intrude into his life. The look of disgust on his eyes went well with the scorn on his face. A classic example of the 'look before you leap' category of people. Note that the others had not so much as looked in the direction of the solitary plate on their table.

Somewhere between then and now my order arrived and it felt luxurious to have something to munch as I was getting entertained. As far as the paneer tikka goes, the dad, the 'leap and then look' category, was the next in line. His hand shot and grabbed a piece of onion. Onion! Raw onion! Was the paneer part invisible or was I hallucinating?

Daddy then asks daughter to have a look. She, the 'don't look, don't leap' category, carried on her disturbing admiration for the particularly irritating comedian on the flat screen. Of course, mummy was not to be left out of all this action. She consults daddy, "Do you think it is eatable? Is it a part of the table deco.." only to be intruded by daughter, "Mummy, talk softly. I'm watching TV." That served as the cue to bring all those who were distracted by that lowly dish (or was it a table decoration?) back to what they did best. "All hail the Samsung Flat Screen."

Let’s get Addicted!

It’s finally here. My first addiction! It’s the sole reason why I have breakfast, why I wait for tea-time every single day and why I don’t mind drinking milk. Ah! Just one spoonful of this heavenly powder and milk, the liquid I totally despise, turns into a divine drink. The colour, the smell, the taste… it’s a feast for the senses I tell you. It really is.

It was my good friend, Coke, who suggested this heavenly drink to me, being an addict herself. She is addicted to the vanilla flavour and gave me a sip of it one fine evening. I was on the verge of puking! Ah! An analogue to a smoker’s first puff. I would never have got addicted had I left it at that first sip. Fortunately, I ventured to try out another flavour, namely chocolate and the rest, as they say, is history.

She did warn that this drink might get the drinker addicted but who cares for silly little warnings when trying something out for the first time? It felt nice in the beginning. Protinex buddies! Or should I say Protinex addicts! I used to take one cup a day after breakfast or in the evening instead of my usual tea. Then, it became nicer; two cups a day. Later it became my breakfast. Just one big cup of Protinex chocolate. A happy meal! I’m luvin it! Thanks (?) to the fact that I was eating at a mess where milk was served only twice a day, the daily intake was restricted to two cups.

One fine evening, another good friend, CL, gave me a tempting offer-a perfectly made cup of Boost. I used to like Boost very much so I decided to give it a try. The dark brown colour and the aroma were too good to say no to. Besides, my Protinex was finishing fast and I wanted to save it for the desperate times a.k.a end-sems. I took one sip and it felt tasteless. Entirely tasteless. My reaction was surprising to me too. How can a chocolate-crazy person feel a cup of Boost as tasteless? Something was wrong somewhere. I felt that nothing could make a drink as tasty as Protinex did. That is when the seriousness of the addiction struck me. It convinces you that every other drink is insipid, tasteless, archaic, obsolete and only one drink exists that is worth drinking…Protinex Chocolate! and I stand by this fact.

Every addiction comes with the ultimate aim of taking over the world. Mine is no different. It makes full use of its victim; from preaching about its splendour to offering a free sip. A pity I haven’t been able to serve my master in a reasonable, leave alone remarkable, manner for every time I preach about this heavenly drink, I end up convincing nobody. Not a single soul. To make things worse, all I get back from my audience are disgusted expressions and appalling remarks. I quote a few instances.

“Protinex? Yuck!” – Mind your language! Insulting I say!

“Oh! that drink; it’s ok ok types” – Ok ok types? Oh! Come on…

“Ahem! ” – I wish she would’ve stopped with that Ahem.

“Tastes like sugarless Milo with a tinge of bitterness.” – Sigh! Maybe because it was her first puff!

“Eww! That was terrible. So bitter! I need some water to clean my mouth” - speechless

The comments are never-ending and it all leads to the same conclusion; Proinex == Yuck. What can be worse than that?

"Smells Boostish. Tastes real nice ya." - Finally! some ray of hope but you know what? I am not so convinced about the genuineness of this comment because this was from a guy and guys say many things.

Update:
"Nice" followed by a dorky smile. - Well, that was "nice" to hear until he said that he likes yeast on toast too.

Inexplicably grotesque expression. - What more shall I say?

Now that, my good friend, is a serious addiction but guess what… I have no plans of snapping out of it.

Bang! Not again!

24/06/07: 19 30 hrs.

The short version:
I banged again just like this and this. Ouch!

The long version:
I was at this sleepover at Plucky’s place. Hmpf! More publicity. I had to choose between this queen-size bed with an intricately carved wooden railing but a not-so-soft mattress and a study table chair for a seat. As is obvious from my description, I chose the bed and began digging the laptop for useful stuff to send to my pen-drive when I noticed the beautiful pattern on the wall in front of me. Glow-in-the-dark stickers. I am a total freak when it comes to them. I have dozens of them in my room too, mainly dolphins. However, this was different. Stars of different sizes! I was gaping with my mouth wide open.
Me: Wow! they look wonderful.
Plucky: Yeah! I know. Wait till you see the ceiling.
I looked up and saw the ceiling. Wow! Double Wow! There were so many of them and I realized I was gaping again.

Plucky: Wait I’ll turn off the lights. It will look much better then.
The arrogant voice in my head: Duh! Where did your brains go?
Me: Ok. Good idea. Should have thought about it earlier!
Switches off the lights.
A bunch of crystalline stars frozen in mid-air while falling down onto the Earth, yet, seem to fall infinitesimally slowly.
Plucky: Hey, why are you straining yourself so much? Lie down, na?
Me: Ok.
Felt like she had hypnotized me! I was obeying her.
Update: She pushes me down.
Bang!
Not again! That was when I stopped gaping. I no longer like that intricately carved wooden railing. After it had come in the way of your stargazing, who would?

I don’t know if she had planned the entire sequence of events ;) but well, I had banged again and that’s all there is to know.

Bang! again

The title won’t make any sense to you unless you have read Bang! Now that you have read that, gear up for this.

16/06/07 12:00 hrs
It seemed like just another usual day. I was busy living my boring and monotonous life while the Earth revolved around the sun, spinning happily. Everything was fine. I was checking scraps and other such crap…

I take a detour from the original topic to bore you with something I learnt in my Biology textbook but never believed. We possess quite a few reflex actions most of which are vital to our survival but there’s this one reflex action that is just plain weird - The Patellar Reflex. In simple words, if you give a light tap on a particular point on the knee, your leg involuntarily kicks. Is that weird or what? What the hell is the use? Some kind of self defense? I just think it is highly improbable. Do let me know if any of you have experienced this first hand.

As I was telling, it was just another day. I was listening to songs on Real Player. Just then, I clicked on Eject instead of Play and Bang! The CD platform pushed itself out of the CPU and smashed into my knee. Damn those computer-table manufacturers! Thanks to the countless racks they designed on the table, my leg had no room to kick and ended up colliding with the bottommost rack. Ouch!

The pain dominated the enlightenment. The swelling didn’t make things any better. Swellings always freak me out and this was no exception. I was in too much pain to realize what had happened. The reflex action I was just telling you about; it really does happen and it happened to me.

A Blast of a Birthday! - Act 1

Disclaimer:
The following post describes in vivid detail the convoluted ways in which the mind of a certain UTD ( Ulti Torture Devil ) works. So, proceed only if you think you can handle it. Oh, by the way, this is just a teeny tiny glimpse of what goes on in her mind.

Caution:
I don’t have the permission to disclose who Devil really is… and I advise you not to bother either.

A few words before I begin.( well I guess I already began but anyway…)
Thanks to Postman for the idea to write a b’day blog.
Thanks to Crazy gal for the crazy idea to blog about this particular incident.
This is a big one.. so here it goes.

This blog post is dedicated to a plucky ( henceforth addressed to as Plucky in this post), a hopeless person ( henceforth addressed to as Hopeless in this post ) and a ziddi (means stubborn in Hindi) person ( henceforth.. blah blah blah... Imp)

Narrated by Devil:-

Act 1 Scene 1

(x,,y,z,t) – (Orkut, 12/06/07 : 22:00 hrs)

I should admit that I get a lot of satisfaction from the innumerable sadistic things I do. I cannot explain why or how but it has been this way for quite some time now. This greed for sadistic happiness was heightened today for some reason; maybe because Imp didn’t come online today at all ( that’s the reason he gave… what a reason! Lol ) or because of the inspiring episode – the one which focuses on Megan and her evil self - of Drake n Josh I saw just a few minutes back, which is my reason. The point; I was on top gear. Time to attack somebody’s scrapbook. Hmm.. who shall be my victim today?? I went profile-hopping in my friends’ list and voila! Who better than Imp? Ego freak to the core and a self-proclaimed cool guy… Time for some ego-deflation. Here’s what I did to his about me column. evil laugh

Scrap 1: “well i havnt figured out much abt myself yet like what i really want. a couple of years back i had an obsessive desire to get to IIT but now that i am here and i find that it is just another college i guess i need to find a new goal.so as of now i am aimlessly killing time and that brings me to orkut.my frends say im very composd n never get angry,i njoy spending time wid frends,watching movies n generally chilling out. so add moi!!”
Scrap 2: thts more about mr 1001.. his about me column
Scrap 3: see wat I told.. give up person. Hasn’t figured out abt himself in th first place!
Scrap 4: “obsessive desire to get to IIT” couldn’t hav gt th next train kya??any moron with a ticket can do it!
Scrap 5: “just another college” duh! Wat du expect? Hogwarts?!
Scrap 6: “need to find a new goal” hopeless and goalless!
Scrap 7: “aimlessly killing time” wata murderer! No wonder ppl lik me don’t get nuf time to carry out our aimful activities. Sheesh!
Scrap 8: “that brings me to orkut” oh no! more murders abt to occur.
Scrap 9: “generally chilling out” wonder wat’s non-generally chilling out?!
Scrap 10: “so add moi" ya sure! After all this? nice try! PS: ta da ta ta taa! I'm luvin it.. ulti thing to do on my bday!

10 scraps.. as always.. 1 orkut page :D Mission Accomplished.


Act 1 Scene 2

(x,y,z,t) – (Gmail, 12/06/07 : 22:30 hrs)

Wow! That felt great! One of my masterpieces! That’s when I got my birthday compliments… the best so far…

“u evil wiked gal..
i dnt cum online 1day nd u act so smart..
litter my scraps ldat..
utd is an understatement
ur unbelivably mean
:x
:x”
LOL!

“wat abt u havnt even gt nething 2 write in ure abt u section..
except dat u cn pain infi..
d name says it all it seems..
:x
:x”
LOL!!

“… d grt whose name says it all...(wonder if it means devil personified)”
LOL!!!

And get this… I made a calm n composed guy slaisha pissed! clap Achievement! Hardwork pays and it pays handsomely. (Chap didn’t even reply once that night)

For the record: He’s just the most amazing guy I have ever met. :)

( So that was Act 1. The damage:-
Devil : “How dare he get pissed? How can he stay angry like that?? And wats with the not messaging??? Wait till I get my hands on him!”
Imp : “ So innocent, yet so evil! Nobody messes with my ego! Wait till I get my hands on her!”)

A Blast of a Birthday! - Act 2

Note : If u happen to work at a CCD, this is an imaginary act played by imaginary actors at an imaginary CCD in an imaginary city.. ah! you get the imaginary picture don’t ya?

(x,y,z,t) – (Corner sofa @ CCD,13/06/07 : 12:00 hrs)

Act 2 Scene 1

They call it Cool Blue Granita… we call it Surf Excel. It is basically half-melted blue coloured crushed ice that somehow even tastes like Surf. The drink was in my hands when my eyes fell on the cream coloured trousers Imp was wearing. Time for torture.
Devil : “ Is that a new pair of trousers?”
Imp : puzzled
Ah! Wat the hell! As if I care if they were new!
“Splash!”; a strawful of Surf Excel all over the right leg of the crisp cream pants!
Devil : “Score!”
Take that you chocolate chip snatcher!
Imp : puzzled (Chap has a huge reservoir of these puzzled looks!)

“Splash!”; another strawful of Surf Excel all over the previous stain!
Boing! The spring on which Imp was sitting springs up! Poor fella! Tries his best to wipe his pants clean.
Hopeless : “ Thank God I am on the other side, far away from you.”
Devil : realizes that he too is wearin a pair of cream trousers “My lucky day! You’re wearing cream too.”
Hopeless : takes the newspaper to save his pants from the potential danger it was in
Devil : evil smile
“Splash!”; Surf on the big-mouthed fella’s pants! “Man, this straw is good. What amazing range!”
Hopeless : speechless
Fella surrendered then and there. Smart boy!
It is so satisfying to put your physics fundaes to use!

Next stop.. Plucky! Well, what do you know… she was wearing cream coloured pants too. My lucky day indeed. :D
Plucky : “No, not me.”
Devil : “Hmm, okay. She does have a class to attend after this. Besides I have no grudge against her. My first partner in crime, after all!”

One fleeting look at Imp’s look of ego and defiance and I knew I had to act again.
Devil : “Oh! Look.. Your left leg is totally clean.. Let’s give a finishing touch to this painting, shall we?”
I took one strawful and Boing! The spring goes up again! LOL! Just imagine a 6 foot tall fella jumping out of his seat as though poked with a pin. Tom & Jerry style!
One more sip from the straw and Boing! Double LOL!!
I just reached for the straw and Boing! Triple LOL!!!
I could do this forever!
Sip! Boing! LOL! Lolz!

Before long, he got the idea that I was just taking sips and had no plans of splashing but boy, was he wrong!
“SPLASH!” the biggest one so far! I just keep getting better at this!
Ah! Sweet Sadistic Satisfaction! It was an exhilarating feeling. The pant was crying and I was laughing.

Imp tried his hand at my game! An attempt to pour the last drops of Cold Chocolate over me but I was not ready to give up without a fight. It was a weird version of a tug of war.
Imp : “You wont win at this. This is all about strength.”
Devil : “ But you are supposed to be a chivalric guy…”
Imp : “No chivalry today.”
On mutual consent, or so I think, we decided to spare the Cold Chocolate.. or maybe the waiter appeared out of nowhere.. ;)

I was ruling and no one dared to revolt. I loved being in power… the power to splash! I had no idea what was in store for me; no idea that I had aroused a naughty little imp. He struck and he struck quick. I had no time to react. Quick as lightning, his long hands reached for the glass I had just placed back on the table, and the next thing I know I was drenched in Cool Blue Granita! Soaked all over. Wonder how that half filled glass managed to make me wet from head to toe. Freakish! He must be an expert; one with no plans of slow torture. He had set his mind on it and he did it! No straw.. no nothing. Just the Surf Excel and me.

It was Payback time, for all the torture he has been through ever since he knew me, for yesterday’s scrap-book decoration, for being my imp, for all the times he has put up with me and my evil self, for everything.

Of course, two can play at this game but right now it’s time to clean up and stop the hooliganism for the time being. The waiter must have thought that we had started to eat tissue paper too. Sparing just one tissue for Imp, I began wiping all the Cool Blue Granita and man, was it cool! And sticky too. Argh!

Hopeless : “Did you get that on camera?”
Plucky : “Ya… kind of.”
Hopeless : “ You missed the best part, the Payback time.”
Plucky : “These people don’t warn us before they attack. Next time give me a signal, ok?”



Act 2 Scene 2

(x,y,z,t) – (Same sticky, Surf Excel spilt sofa with torn newspaper soaked in Surf Excel and cushions trying hard to mask the mess, 13/06/07 : 13:00 hrs)

There was tension in the air. Who shall strike next? Who shall be the victim? Are the CCD guys going to throw us out? Are we going to be banned forever? Who should be given the camera?
So many questions, yet so little time to ponder.

Hopeless and Plucky didn’t get much to eat since the two of us were kind of preoccupied with Payback time. So we decided to order a Veg Burger just for them.

Devil : “ Aww! The colour doesn’t stay!”
Imp : “That’s right.”
Devil : “ That’s bad. It doesn’t look colourful at all.” evil smile “ You know, the veg burger is served with tomato and mustard sauce.”
Imp : evil smile
Devil : evil smile
Hopeless : worried
Plucky : busy on phone

The veg burger had hardly landed on the table when I aimed for the sauce packets. Ha ha! Sucker! They were in my custody and I was not going to give them away. Hopeless and Plucky didn’t even ask me for the sauces. They just ate away mechanically fearing the worst!

Maybe I am acting paranoid. Why am I clutching on to these sauce packets anyway?
Imp wont be so evil. Let me place it back. Maybe those two might want to have sauce with their burger. What a host I have been! I am supposed to be giving the treat.

Thus, I made the foolish decision of placing back the weapon I had. The war wasn’t over and I placed my weapon down. How will I ever forgive myself? As if he was just waiting for me to act foolishly, he did his long hand act again, and the sauce packets were in his hands. Damn!
Imp : “Self-defense” evil smile
Devil : “Hmpf!” bemused

Oh! Look at him. Staring away at nothing. Those two sauce packets tossing from one hand to the other while he listens to the music. That smile on his lips; the smile of victory. The charming smile that is contagious most of the time but not right now. No time for smiling. Focus! Focus on the packets. Ah! His hands relax their grip periodically. Hmm. Now, if only I could figure out the time period. Focus! That’s a nice song. Hey that smile again! Does he have a girl in his life? One that I don’t know of? Interesting! Cut the crap! Focus!

Sick of not able to focus on the weapon of mass destruction, I made my move. A silly, hasty move. Call it insecurity or ego, I don’t care. Imp had a metallic grip and would not be letting go of his self defense that easily. The excessive pressure he applied on the flimsy packet coupled with my sharp nails spelt inevitable destruction. Mustard all over the place; our sofa, my brand new dress, his old crappy trousers, the adjacent sofa, the kid on that sofa, everywhere.
Imp : “ That was suicide!”
Devil : “ Duh! I know. Shut up.”
Imp : “ Mustard stains are hard to remove, right?”
Devil : :shutup
Devil : “ Even on my hair!”
Imp : LOL

That’s the story of how I got bright yellow mustard stains on my brand new birthday dress. If you, by chance get any mustard stains, take my advice and never google on how to remove them. It’s a scary world out there! A dye, it seems. Just what I wanted to hear!

You think that was it? Wait till you hear this. I smell like mustard! Yeah! That’s right. I smell like one huge mustard packet and the worst part is my hair smells like it too, even after a good wash with loads of conditioner. Argh! to say the least.

Bang!

There I was sleeping peacefully on my bed. Ten hours into slumber and no plans of waking up. No surprise there! When was the last time I had plans of waking up anyway? I generally sleep with my face down and today was no exception. I lifted my face up, albeit half awake, just to check up if the world around me was still the same as when I left it. It was. That means I can afford to continue my sleep. I would probably have continued anyway. Fair enough! So I brought my head down on the pillow or so I thought.

Sometime between the point when I woke up and now, something eerie occurred. The iron railing of the bed shifted by some finite distance towards me. I came to know of this the hard way though. My forehead met the railing instead of the pillow. Bang! That ought to have hurt and you bet it did. My roommate got jolted in spite of the fact that she was watching a movie on her computer with headphones. She must have got freaked out and more so when I gave a weird dorky smile in return for the confused look on her face. I mean, what else did you expect? The fact that you are going to continue with that well deserved sleep increases your approach velocity towards the pillow and it is far from bliss to end up on the hard iron railing instead of the soft pillow.

That, I would say, is the worst possible way to wake up.

Lived another quiz.

Yeah! lived another quiz. Wait a minute, technically speaking, there is one more subject left but since it is three days away most of the normal people will agree with me. How better to start the celebration than attend all classes with a broad smile?! (I am not being sarcastic) so here it begins-freaking out after quiz2, or so I thought.

There was nothing out of the ordinary with most classes today, except, of course, the one class I like to blog about - ED- a course about engineering drawing, graphics and CAD. It is supposed to be interesting and fun. Note that the emphasis is on "supposed". Anyways all that you need to know is that (x,y,z,t) is (classroom for ED theory, just after a heavy lunch).

It all started ( Herge style! ) when a friend of mine interrupted us when we were busy watching a movie to remind us about the class. Argh! the guts to disturb and remind about this class! It took a lot of determination to ditch the movie and make the long ( er.. not that long. This is just to add to the dramatic effect) journey to class.


I thought that the three of us can rock the class as usual but it turned out a big time flop. One of them starts behaving like a geek and began doing next week's assignment with my stationery. I tried to snap her out of it but ended up complaining to the girl next to me who ( another geek at times) takes her stationery out saying ," Hey, good idea"! Imagine my situation. In a desperate attempt to save them ( and myself in the process), I snatched all the pencils lying around and then needless to say there were some vain attempts to snatch them back. One of the guys behind us passed a lazy comment," Sir, girls are doing mischief in class". He said that it was good entertainment for him and far better than listening to the lecture. Entertainment it seems! The arrogance!

For a change I listened to the class and actually understood what he was trying to draw but after some time the board was overflowing with lines and planes and that's when I officially gave up. Having learnt the important lesson of not playing silly games in class ( refer previous post), I decided to put my pencil to work today. I felt my artistic skills needed rekindling and ended up filling the page with random sketches ranging in diversity from tortoises to ducks. The proffessor must have suspected my unusual interest in the assignment book I was drawing on and asked me for a pen (to explain planes? Fishy, don't you think?) I got some compliments for my sketches too, from my pals, of course.

When I am thoroughly bored, I start scanning the class. I thought I'll start with the fellow who passed the entertainment comment. His arena would be visible only through the corner of my eye. Wait a minute, he was not there! He had crashed on the desk, head down! From uncontrollable bombarding of doubts five minutes back to dozing off peacefully; he sure has a unique ability to change moods in a jiffy. There was this other guy on whose desk the professor placed a cardboard model of a pyramid. This lone wolf was actually staring at the pyramid as though it had just landed from Mars. My eyes then drifted to a trio who were discussing ( ED? ) all over the assignment book in front of them. I wonder why everyone was interested in ED, of all subjects.

I guess this habit of inspection of the class is contagious. My usually blind friend seems to have taken to my ways. I did not witness this though:
I turned back because some jobless fellow asked the equally jobless professor, who could have found something better to do than bore us with ED, a doubt. These guys were holding strips of paper, bent at different places and at different angles. It seemed like they were planning to build Eiffel tower out of those strips. I guess it is a part of some projection of solids funda. Who knows, who cares?