Retrospections & Prospections

Well well well, look who’s talking now? Yup it’s me, with a brand new tag sticked onto my forehead by the Evil Queen of Blogosphere alias Silverine a.k.a. Anjali. 

When I started this blog, the only readers were my classmates from college. And I would’ve wrapped up this blog once college was over; but somewhere down the line, on a bright sunny day, bang came the comments from Anjali, Deepti and Mathew, the first bloggers I met in blogosphere (apart from school-mates and college-mates). The first people you meet in any place, are special, and they’ll always remain special to you. Now college is over, the classmates are all long gone, but these bloggers are still there, then and now, to read all the moronic stuff I write. Thanks a heap! And when I decided to take a break from blogging and keep a low profile, BAM!, Anjali gives me a stimulus in the form of a spanking new tag. I can’t think of any wisecrack replies for this tag, so I better be serious about it. 

The Tag: Questions from the past, present and future. Answer them and then tag your friends from the blogosphere. Leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been tagged and you are done.

YESTERDAY:- 

Your oldest memories:

• Screaming out “Plane inte dyeroodu para plane thirichu vidaan!! Enikke Ammachiye kaananam!!” at the top of my voice. (My Ammachi looked after me when I was really young as my parents were not here. And I wouldn’t go with them when they finally came to take me with them.)

• Sitting on dad’s lap while he was driving and honking horns for him.

• Sprinkling salt on the report card as teacher told “Veettil ninnum uppu ittoondu varanam”.
  

• Standing on the swings and flying to and fro, sliding on the slides, playing football during lunch breaks simultaneously carrying the lunch box and eating, playing WWF on the white sands of UKG park, and the entire school shouting out “Happy Holidays” rhythmically on the last day of exams.

• Fr. Pulickal’s cane and his ladoos.

• Slowly approaching mom when she’s about to leave for office and handing her my not-so-impressive report card, face down. 

• Thrashings with the chooral vadi from mom. 
  

What were you doing 10 years ago?

Well, 10 years ago I was in the 7th grade. Those were the times when I would get all the female roles in dramas and tableaus. For the youth festival that year, I was this French maid in an English play. And there was a scene in which the cop grabs hold of me, at which point, Abe got up from the crowd and screamed, “Avanee rape cheyyaatheda”, much to the dismay of the judges. Beat the pulp out of Abe after the play. 

The Lady, the Maid and the Cop. 
Photo Courtesy: Loyola Magazine 1998-‘99

TODAY:-

No job, no girl, no money!! But on hindsight, not joining the job was perhaps a good thing. I’ve got all the time in this world to do what I want to do. I’m reading all the books I always wanted to, learning cooking, planning to study a new language, and a million trillion pending things to do. 

If you build a time capsule what would it contain?

Nothing. Zilch. All my memories would remain in my inward eye. 

TOMORROW:-

Honestly, I have no clue where I’ll be tomorrow. But I know where I don’t want to be tomorrow. Life’s what happens when you make other plans. 

What do you see yourself doing 14 years from now?

Sitting in a yacht with my trophy wife and sipping icy cold bohemia style beer. Jokes apart, I’m not a very ambitious person. All I want is to lead a peaceful life without any enmity towards anyone, eat three meals a day, watch a good movie at weekends, and marry a simple girl who knows how to cook (Am I asking too much??)

There, the tageth is doneth. Now I need to stick it to someone else’s forehead. I tag Deepti, Hari and Praveen

Sophisticated Sophistry??

It’s interesting, you know. How advertisements can influence you. It’s even more interesting how ads can change your perceptions. Like, for instance, ‘Fair & Lovely’ implicitly tells you how “Black is not beautiful” and how being fair boosts your confidence and makes you likable among people. 

The class after the noon-break was pretty boring. In fact, every class became boring then. I was trying hard to control the tug-of-war between my nose and eyebrow, each trying to pull the eyes towards itself. Considering that the 10th standard Board exams were nearing I should’ve been concentrating on the trigonometric ratios of complimentary and supplementary angles, that was written on the blackboard. 

The general public, that includes me, tend to believe everything in print and video. The internet connection that I’m using says it gives me a speed ‘up to’ 2 Mbps. I wish I get at least a tenth of that speed. The use of ‘up to’ in their ads might protect them legally while giving me false hopes. Another ad in the paper today – “Speak English fluently in 15 days”. Really??

Maths was always an insipid subject for me. Nothing to imagine; nothing to visualize. You just scribble numbers on your note (Being an engineer now, that’s the most blasphemous thing I could say). It was unusual, but Rohit was keenly taking notes in the Maths class. I peeked over his notebook only to find FLAMES being played. For the uninitiated, FLAMES is a stupid method by which you check your compatibility with a girl by doing some calculations with your names. You get one of the 6 letters as a result of the method, which describes your possible relationship with her -- (F)riend, (L)ove, (A)ffection, (M)arriage, (E)nemy, (S)ex. Rohit blurted out a ‘yay’ with his fist raised as he got ‘S’ with the name Tina. 

The housing loan dad took from a particular bank, which offered an interest rate of 7.5%, shot up 2% within just one year and has been ‘shooting up’ ever since. Now it’s a 14% but fortunately he could pay up and finish it off without further damage before the rate hit the stratosphere. 

Maths class is perhaps the best class for the nerds in the first bench to show that they’re really big fat nerds. For Rohit, my perennial bench mate, and I, marks come our way with the frequency of miracles when it comes to Maths exams. 

Who’re the biggest gullible toads here? No brainer. It’s the group with a little knowledge (which is a dangerous thing, as the clichéd saying goes) and a truckload of ignorance. The group is christened by the name ‘teenagers’. It was heart-rending for me to realize that Complan couldn’t make me a six footer, Maltova couldn’t get me a 1st rank in class, Jockey underwear couldn’t get me girls in my bedroom or neither could Axe deo get a dozen girls sniffing me, for that matter. 

It seems that Rohit almost finished his ink writing all the names of girls in the city. He has been shaking his fountain pen for quite some time and as I expected, the bugger spilt ink all over the desk. He gave me a dirty grin and took out his handkerchief to wipe the ink when all of a sudden, Tim, the dude in our front bench, turned back and gave an unsolicited advice to Rohit,

“Hey, why are you ruining your kerchief? Why don’t you use something like ‘Whisper’?”

At first we thought he was joking, but he wasn’t!!!

The most misleading thing for young boys, especially the young boys in a boys-only Jesuit school, is perhaps the sanitary napkin ads in which blue ink is poured on two pads as a metaphor for, you know what. Perhaps, they could’ve used the term ‘menstrual pad’ instead of the more euphemistic ‘sanitary napkin’.

We clutched our laughter hearing the ‘whisper’ing fallacies of Tim, and asked, 

“So, you use ‘Whisper’ regularly for wiping ink?”

“Not always, but mom has got a pack of ‘em at home for that purpose!”

We couldn’t control anymore and burst out guffawing insanely. We never thought Tim, who was our Biology teacher’s pet, could say such a wonderful thing. Man, it was priceless to see his face when we were laughing our hearts out.

“Thomas!! Rohit!! Both of you stand up. Now get out of my class!!!”

Drats! We should’ve realized it was Philipose Sir’s class. Contrary to the old adage, laughter is not the best medicine; at least not in Maths class.

As I browsed through my inbox, I saw this email ad titled “Low cost pheromones to attract females”. I smiled as I remembered that Maths class 7 years back. 

All in a Day's Imagination

It’s been 2 days since I’ve been noticing thick blood in my mucous. At first I thought it must be some abrasions in my throat, as told by that young doc, when I visited her 8 months back; but I sensed something really wrong this time. So off I went to the hospital today. The doctor after an initial check up, looked at me, paused for a second, and slowly said, 

“Thomas, capillary is broken”

What!! Hmm, I always had a hunch that there was something wrong with my brain. Too much intelligence cloyed it. And now, all that abounding intelligence caused the capillary to break! 

Doc asked me to take all those blood and urine tests and return in an hour. I didn’t have a dook of an idea that the tests costs over 1000 bucks, and there I stayed perplexed. I didn’t call dad as I didn’t want to break the news to him, so I phoned Chottu, my neighbor, to bring the money to the hospital. As I waited for him, flashes of scenarios started conjuring up in my mind.

Now the problem with me is that I tend to imagine a lot of weird situations and scenarios in life all the time. Sometimes the best case scenarios and sometimes the worst case; but for most of the part they are highly improbable. For instance, when I meet certain girls, I chart out my entire life with her in a matter of seconds. And when I find that they are all committed, I imagine wringing their necks and kicking their asses. Or when I see a Benz or BMW on road, I imagine driving and accelerating it at full throttle. Or when I see an exciting cricket match, I imagine myself in the place of Tendulkar, hitting consecutive sixes and fours and smashing all the previous records, then waving my bat to the spectators in full glory. Or when I write a blog post, I imagine people commenting that I’m the greatest writer on earth. You get my drift, right?? Yeah so where was I. Flashes of scenarios, yes.

I visualized myself dying and the funeral being attended by all the people I know. I imagined all the casket sprays and flowers I’ll be getting. I imagined people eulogizing me:- 

Friends: “He was a great guy and a true friend.”
Acquaintances: “Thomas, he was a man of honour, a man with integrity and a man with an impeccable personality.” 
Teachers: “He was a brilliant student, albeit he got zeros in my subjects.”
All my crushes: “Oh Thomas, he was so cute. I always wanted to marry him, but……but……waaaaaa *sniff* sniff*” 

All right, let's cut the crap out. Chottu came in a while and I took all the tests and returned to the doctor. 

Me: So doc, how bad is the brain damage. Do I need any operation to fix the brain capillaries??
Doc: What brain?? The capillary in your throat is broken. Take this medicine and it will heal in about 5 days. Zimple! 

What the bloody F?? There are capillaries in throat too? I thought they existed only in the brain and heart!! Drats! I should’ve studied biology well in high school. 

Me: Then why the umpteen tests?
Doc: They were just to verify the clotting time and stuff. (You bloody ignoramus, these are ways by which our hospital churns out moolahs from you duffers) 

I walked out of the hospital confused whether to be elated about having no brain damage or to be depressed about the fact that I now owe Chottu a 1000 bucks. I chose to be numb. Comfortably numb. 

Inane Questions

Saw this question posted in an internet community forum: 

Do Indians know anything about sex?

The best answer among the lot, I could see, was:

How do you suppose India has a population of 1.1 billion?? 

P.S. “Why the hell did you go to that forum in the first place?” --- Please refrain from asking such depressing questions, ok.

Strip Tease

Disclaimer: No habits, hobbies or characteristics of the primitive, innocent, young version of the protagonist is carried over to his advanced, sophisticated, grown up version. (Or so I think!) 

There’re certain things you don’t want to talk about your past. But sometimes the past claws its way out; for instance when old friends meet together and start picking up and mocking poor souls. It was during one of those sessions with mom’s old friends that I learned something about my horrible past. I don’t remember anything about it and is mostly as described by mom and hence the authenticity of this post is not verifiable. 

Nineteen years back, when I was 3 years old, dad was doing his post-doc in Aachen and mom was doing her PhD in Paris. I stayed with my dad, and mom used to visit us on weekends when we often used to go to our friends’ places for dinner. Now I had this habit of picking up small toys and articles whenever I visit any place. In Malayalam we call it ‘pokkufying’ or ‘isking’. Alright alright, I used to steal. Happy now? Mom and dad were amazed by the rate at which my toys, which they never bought, kept increasing at an exponential rate; but they thought it might be the presents from my friends or something. Until one day, they found out the truth, while visiting dad’s professor. When we were just about leaving, the professor asked me,

“Why are you walking in a clumsy way? Is there anything wrong with your leg?”

Mom removed my shoe and to their shock and dismay, found a small toy car inside my shoe. Dad’s entire future depended on the professor and there was me, his innocent guileless son, robbing his professor’s possessions. Mom and dad squirmed with embarrassment and shame, I’m told. From then on, mom was extremely cautious when we visit any friends, and to make sure I haven’t done any egregious acts of turpitude, she used to strip me naked before leaving their places, and search whether I’ve ‘isked’ anything off her friends. 

Once, before leaving this friend’s house after dinner, mom as usual stripped me, searched my whole body and made sure I haven’t ‘pokkufied’ anything from there. On reaching home, she stripped me again to change my clothes. I smiled at her, lifted my hand and opened my palm. There was a small wooden elephant inside my palm. 

*mom bangs her head on the wall*

Myth: Parents are too intelligent for their kids.
Fact: Parents ‘think’ they are too intelligent for their kids. 

My Law

There’ll be at least one good chick to board the train/plane/bus along with you, but chances are they won’t be seated next to you. 
-- My Law a.k.a Tom's Law (copyright protected) 

Man, she was hot! I had glanced at her a couple of times while loitering in the airport. To cut short the descriptions, she redefined the concept of 'dream girl' for me. But then, I remembered that dreams will always be dreams and that 'My Law' had always applied to myself in my entire life. But hey, at least I got the window seat. So with no more pipe dreams I boarded the plane and made myself comfortable when all of a sudden she came walking down the aisle. 

“No chance, she’s not going to be seated beside me”, I told myself.  

But no, I was wrong, 'My Law' was proved wrong. She came right in, brushed her hair and sat next to me. 

“Impossible! This must be a dream!”, I thought. 

But no it wasn’t. I was living my dream in fact. 

Come on, come on, think of something to start a conversation. 
Hi, how’re you? – Too clichéd 
Hello Madam – Too boring 
Hey baby! – Naa
Howdy girly – Naa
You look supercalifragilistic expialidocious – Okay stop.

Finally I made up the perfect plan. I would take the newspaper, would uninterestedly glance through the news, and then would say something like,

“Damn it! Global financial markets collapsed. How will I ever become an I-banker now?? How will I ever make it big in Wall Street? How? How? How?” 

I took the newspaper when all of a sudden,

She: Hi excuse me
Me (with a 1000 watt smile): Yes 
She: Would you mind doing me a favor.

Oh boy! Oh boy! Anything for you darling! Does your body ache that you would like me to give you a massage? Are you scared that you want to hug me when the plane takes off??

Me: No problem. 

She: Actually, my boyfriend is seated over there in the front. Would you mind exchanging your seat with him?

*Boom**Thud**Crack*

And she points to her boy friend. He waved at me.

Me (the 1000 watt bulb just blew up): No problem.
She: Thank you. Thank you very much.

Bloody ass. Get lost.

Me: My pleasure

If My Law doesn’t act on you initially, it’s going to come back in a much virulent form. 
-- Modified My Law

And I got up and moved over to that duffer’s seat. It wasn’t a window seat, darn! Now wait a second. That duffer is her boyfriend??!!! What the bloody F?? 

Now this is another of those universal mysteries. You rarely come across a beautiful couple. Either the girl looks good and the boy doesn’t (this constitutes majority of the cases) or the boy looks good and the girl doesn’t (minority). In the latter case, either the boy is a complete fraud who uses the girl to get some favor done or he’s very much mature who has transcended the concept of physical beauty and has overlooked something beyond it; they'll make a good couple. Anyway screw all that, it’s not applicable to the most eligible bachelors like me. 

I hoped that at least there’ll be some gorgeous air hostesses. Wrong again! Man, how unlucky can a person be?? Forget gorgeousness, there wasn’t even an air hostess. There were only air hosts!! Darn! Darn! Darn! God, why me?? Why of all people, me?? 

I sat there dismally beside a grumpy old man who was busy reading the newspaper when all of a sudden, 

“Damn it! Global financial markets collapsed"

Off to Delhi

On hearing I'm going to Delhi,

Sis: "Enikke patiala vaangichu kondu varanam"
Mom (irritated): "Thalkaalam oru patti valayum vaangikkenda! Athonnum ival idaan pookunnnilla!!"

A Killer of a Different Kind

Beware! Beware! He’s coming, he’s coming! His flashing eyes, his gaping mouth! Weave a circle around him thrice and close your eyes with holy dread, coz you know not when he’s in for the kill!

Men are said to have different kind of obsessions and weaknesses. Some are obsessed with money, some with women; and these constitute the majority. And there is a minority group (correct me if I’m wrong) that are heavily obsessed with something else. They might be your closest pals; will help you in whatever situation you are; shares books, notes, clothes, money, food, Whoa!! Whoa!! Wait a second. No, not food. Impossible! Yes, the third category of men are those obsessed with, you know what, food!! Such is one of my friends. Let’s call him Cereal Killer (CK). 

Economists say that the food crisis of the world is due to factors such as rising oil prices, falling world food stockpiles, unseasonable draughts, commodity market speculation, climate changes et al. Bush says it's due to the increasing food consumption in India. Bingo! And I know who makes India's food consumption graph rise into the stratosphere. Yeah, I know! I might be overstating the obvious but I can’t help it. Cereal Killer’s obsession for food is known far and wide in our city. The people who feared him the most were the hotel owners near our college. As soon as they see him striding towards the hotel, the owners start yelling out,

“Quick, pull down the shutters fellas, that road rodent is coming”

“But boss, he can be our biggest source of income”

“Listen up man, that glutton orders meals; extra servings of rice and curry don’t cost more and that scumbag utilizes that to the maximum”

“But boss, that should be no problem, we’ve enough stock to feed him 2 to 3 servings”

“Shut up you idiot, I’m not talking about his appetizers”

“!!!!”

I wouldn’t have written this post but I was so incensed by what happened today that I decided it’s high time to do something about it. I’m pretty sure CK will be reading this post and might probably arrange some goondas to annihilate me and some hackers to destroy my blog, but you know, I’m willing to take the risk. 

Today evening, CK took me to a nice hotel to give me that long pending treat. Ok, let me cut short everything and come to the point. There was a total of 4 chicken pieces. While I just finished my 1st piece of chicken, CK consumed his quota of 2. Naturally, the one left belongs to me (Oh come on, though he’s paying the bill, he’s the host; it’s his treat for Pete’s sake!!). Fatso has been eyeing that one piece for quite sometime. His intermittent glances towards me and that piece said it all. All of a sudden,

“So Thomas, you don’t want that chicken piece eh?”

“Ya, I want” 

And I lifted my hand to pick it up. I blinked my eyes for a split second. Gone!! The chicken is gone!! Is this what they call ‘sleight of hand’? I looked at CK. He burped. I fumed. 

I now understand why his mom and dad are so lean and he’s so stout. Man, I can almost visualize the scenario in his home.

Dad: Quick honey, that voracious animal of our son is coming, hide all the food! 
Mom: No use, he smells food like a Bloodhound. 
Pet cat: (Must hide cat food, or else I’ll starve today)

CK: Chicken!! I smell chicken!!
Dad: Errr, no son, there’s nothing of that sort in here. Maybe the neighbors are cooking chicken.
CK: Nonsense! My nose never lies to me. What’s it that you’re hiding, gimme that!!

*Chomp* *Chomp**Chomp*

Dad: At least, he didn’t take my roasted beef. I’ll whip his ass if he lay his hands on my beef.
Mom (as if a cue from behind): Correction. There’s no ‘if’.

To Sir, with Love

“You 2 over there, what are your names"

“Sir, Alex”

“Thomas”

“You’re always seated in the last bench. From now on, your permanent place will be here in the first bench, not because of any particular reason, but because I say so.”

“Yes sir” 

And he moved the nerds from the first bench and placed us there. It was 5 years back; it was Mr. Mathew Samuel’s tuition class. What’s so special about him, you may ask. Well, he was one of the best teachers who've ever taught me. ‘Best’ not just because he taught well, but also coz of the stories he told and the values he imparted. As they say, “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” Mr. Samuel was a great teacher. 

Once after a particular test, he called me and narrated a personal anecdote of his. He said,

“I’ve taught only 3 geniuses in my life, 2 Indians and an African. And all these 3 were quirky in some ways. When I was in Nigeria, there was this kid, extremely brilliant fellow. During one of the lab exams, I was the examiner of his class. His experiment was related to some resistance measurements and as soon as I gave him the resistance wire, he put it in his mouth and started to chew it. He designed the circuit, I approved it and he proceeded to connect the components, while still chewing on the wire. After a while he came to me and asked, 

“Mr. Samuel, where’s my resistance wire.” 

“Open your mouth”, I said.

“What?”

The fellow still didn’t get me.

“You’re chewing on it” 

It took a while for him to realize the mistake. Eventually, I gave him a new resistance wire. So, my point is that these super brilliant chaps are quirky – some are absent minded and some are not that sensible." 

Then he added on, 

“Thomas, you’re not super brilliant. So I assume you’re pretty sensible. You can’t just come off-handedly and write exams. You need to study hard. And Thomas, I like my hard working students more than the brilliant ones. You may think I’m preaching more than teaching, but the thing is that, I want good things happen to you. Study well son.”

I scored pretty good marks in Physics for board exams, thanks to his meticulous teaching and inspiring thoughts. But more than the marks, I was happy to see him happy. Yesterday, I called him to wish him a happy teachers’ day; he said,

“But Thomas, I don’t teach anymore. I’ve retired.”

“Sir, you needn’t teach to become a teacher. You inspire to become a teacher.”

He laughed and we went on to talk about all the things that have been happening around us. The zeal and vigor and charm is still there, and will always be there inside him. 

HAPPY TEACHERS’ DAY!!!

P.S. The guy who chewed the resistance wire later went on to study in the prestigious MIT (seriously!). 

The Story behind the Prize

You know what’s the most happening thing in Kerala these days. Well, it’s an interesting ‘event’ known as load shedding. For the uninitiated, load shedding is a benevolent initiative of the State Government (or more precisely, KSEB) for the promotion of family welfare activities. How do they do that? Pretty simple. They cut the electricity supply during those peak hours when housewives will be busy watching mega serials, teenagers will be listening to music systems, kids will be playing computer games, geeks will be studying their asses off, jobless people will be blogging about how the state government promotes family welfare activities, etc etc etc. When there’s no electricity, these ‘busy’ people lights a candle and gathers around it. Since no one has anything else to do, they start chatting and sharing stories, and it will be like a family get-together. Voila, objective accomplished. Seriously man, think about it, though the government intends to lower power consumption, it really brings about some family bonding. It was during one of those load sheddings that dad told us one of his personal anecdotes. Here it goes:

Nine years back, dad was a guest scientist in Clemson University for about a year. Now, Clemson is a small town in South Carolina and there was a local church where dad lived which organized a multitude of social activities like picnics, outdoor games, sports competitions, and stuff like that. The people were really friendly and always insisted that dad join these activities. He did, but there was this sport meet organized by them, and though dad initially hesitated to participate in it, was persistently insisted to join them. So off went dad to a 3 kms race, in which they had to run 1.5 km to a particular point and then come back to the starting line, to finish the race. The race started and the competitors sped ahead of dad leaving him behind. Dad was 47 at that time, so imagine the plight of running 3 kms with all these people. After about half a kilometer, dad stopped and rested for a while; then started running back. As soon as he approached the finishing line, the crowd started clapping and cheering. Dad kept saying that he didn’t run full length and there has been mistake, but amidst the chaos there, no one really listened. The other runners came after a while only to see dad being crowned as the winner, but they took it quite sportingly; and all these time, dad was trying to make them understand what happened. Well the result was announced and dad won the 1st prize, the first ever prize he had won in his life for any sport, and all these years he kept bragging about it to us. Well, finally he revealed what actually happened, thanks to those family bonding sessions initiated by the State Government. 

P.S. No, my family doesn’t know I’ve a blog. So I needn’t worry much about getting kicked out of the house. 

Rise 'n' Shine. Oops!

I opened my eyes languidly. The clock hands show it’s 6.15; the sun is rising. How come I opened my eyes at this odd time? (Now, the term ‘odd’ is completely subjective, for your information.) Anyway, it was a nice dream! Got up, went to the bathroom; took my toothbrush. And tried to recollect the interspersed pictures of that now-fading dream. Boy, that girl was hot! (Since college is over and I haven’t been out of house lately, it’s been a while since I’ve seen any ‘real’ hot girls. But as they say, hakuna matata; no worries, my dreams compensate for that.) But it’s this unusual jetlag I’m having. Did I sleep too much? Maybe, I woke too early. 

I trudged myself into the living room; folks are glued to the television. Hmm, these people started watching the idiot box in the early mornings too! 

Me: What’s for breakfast?
Dad: ??
Mom: ??

Ha! Folks thought I was a lazy bum who could never wake before the sun started blazing. Puzzled they are; they should be. Dear folks, I’m flexible, you know. Off I walked towards the kitchen. Nothing made! No food!! What the heck?? I walked back to mom. 

Me: WHAT’S FOR BREAKFAST??
Mom: What’s the problem with you? All you do is Eat, Sleep, Eat, Sleep. Let me get this straight. Food prices have soared, consumption is to be lowered. There’s no enough food for you in this house. You ate a truckload of food at noon and now you need breakfast at dusk? Shoo, go away, get lost. 

Dusk?? Oh! Alright, alright, I get it. I slept at noon I guess; for 5 hours straight; and when I woke up I mistook dusk for dawn. Darn! No wonder I had a jetlag. But looking at the bright side of things, I needn’t brush my teeth in the morning again, Yee Haa! But still, Drats!! The sun wasn’t rising; it was setting! 

Dear Gentlemen and Ladies

Prologue:

According to the Bible, God created Adam out of sand. Then he created Eve out of Adam’s backbone. 
Question: Why didn’t God create Eve out of sand? (Assuming there was still plenty of sand available)
Answer: Coz he knew that men shall be wiped off from earth had he done that. 

N.B. This is not a post regarding which gender is superior. It merely deals with the plight of one of the sexes caused by the other. And no, I don’t hate women; I’m a sympathizer of my fraternity. (Post to be taken in a lighter vein)

Scene 1: A hot afternoon in front of “New” theatre at Thambanoor

I looked at my watch; the time is 2.15 PM. I’ve been here for half an hour sweating in the middle of a long queue; the guard doesn’t allow ‘anyone’ to enter the gates until 2.45 PM. Anyone?? No, anyone except a particular kind of species; a species which are called by the funny name ‘women’, who coolly walked by the gates giving me a smug look. While I sweated out hours in the hot scorching sun to get to the ticket counter, it was just a matter of seconds for this species to get ‘em. And when I finally reached the counter, the balcony tickets were sold out. 

Scene 2: A crowded bus stop at Ulloor

As soon as the bus arrived, I jumped and hopped into it and barely managed to get a side seat. After a while comes the so called ‘species’ demanding me to get up. Darn! Ladies seat!! Not again! Nevertheless, being the chivalrous young man I’m, alright alright, a ‘wanna-be’ chivalrous young man I’m; I got up and graciously gave ‘my’ seat to them, only to get that 'cheap guy' stares. And O brothers, your faithful narrator, who earned his seat, stood in a corner bearing all the kicking and elbowing of the crowd. 

Brothers, wake up! They’re here, there, everywhere; from the President of India to the Chancellor of Germany, from the President of Congress to the CEO of Pepsico, from Poomanam to Mindspace (Yes, they’ve even dominated the blogosphere. I demand 33.33% visiters of these blogs be given to poor male bloggers like me). Still the echo that’s clamoring is “Reservation” and “Ladies First”. And this is not the case just in India, it’s a widespread epidemic across the world. Here are some statistics:

• The disparity in the spending on men and women in the healthcare system. As an example, in the United Kingdom significantly more money is spent on breast cancer research than prostate cancer research. 40,000 cases of breast cancer were detected in the UK in 2000 and claimed the lives of 13,000 women in 2002. In 2000, about 27,200 cases of prostate cancer were detected and claimed nearly 10,000 lives in 2002 in the UK.
• Increasing suicide rate amongst young men, four times higher than amongst young women in the United Kingdom; (73% of all suicide deaths in the United States are white males.)
• In recent years, girls in the United States have tended to perform better in most educational levels and subjects. In the United States, 57% of college students are women, and the number is growing. The trend is similar in other industrialized countries.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_rights

As you can see, whether it’s healthcare or education or any field for that matter, women are given priority. What about the born-unlucky boy of today?? 

Poor young man being (wo)man-handled
Photo Courtesy: www.funtoosh.com

Cases of husband battering are not unheard of in this era. But due to the social stigma associated with it, the voices of the victims are not heard in the society. And you think this happens in humans alone. Well think again.

Once the king of jungle. Now, a victim of harassment. 
Photo Courtesy: www.icanhascheezburger.com

Brothers, no longer should we ignore the plights of our fellow comrades. They are being victims to the legions of destruction a.k.a. women. Let’s fight for our rights.

“Eda, I need the computer”

Me: 1 minute mom
Mom: What’re you typing so hard, let me see.
Me: Nothing mom, just some, errr
Mom (glancing through the post): WHAT!! Women? Legions? Destruction??? 
Me: I can explain.
Mom: WHY YOU UNFILIAL BRAT!!!

*thwack* *thwack* *THUD* 
“No, let me explaaaiiiiiiiyeeeeeeeeks………..
*thwack* *thud* ZAP!!!

Chatters & Cheaters

This happened quite some time back. There was this sophomore girl in our college with whom I was pretty acquainted with and I used to lend my past semester’s books to her. We used to chat on the internet and during one of those chatting sessions I showed her some of the recently taken photos. Seeing one of my pics,

She: You look like a zombie in that pic.

(Zombie???)

Me: Actually, that’s not me. That’s my twin brother. 

(A fiendish smile appears on my face)

She: You’re kidding.
Me: No, absolutely not. That’s Sam, my bro; he’s 4 minutes younger to me.
She: Seriously???
Me: Why should I lie about my bro. Anyway, I don’t care whether you believe it or not.
She: Oh! I believe you. You’re so lucky to have a twin bro. What’s he doing?

I make up volumes of lies, and meanwhile created a fake profile in Orkut with the descriptions I told her. Then I messaged some of my friends who were online to quickly add that profile to their friends list, to avoid any suspicions. I sat back and patted my head thinking about my ingenious creativity and the inherent gullibility of the fairer sex. Seeing my profile, I mean my bro’s profile, 

She: Oh boy! He looks almost like you.

(Almost??? Man, I was clutching my stomach trying to control my laughter)

Me: Ya, I told ya.  

(The “girl” species is indeed a dumb lot) 

Me: By the way, who do you like more, me or Sam? 

(Now this is when I call myself a genius; as you can see, this is mostly a win-win situation for me)

She: Hmm, Sam! 
Me: Ok 

(I was literally rolling on the floor laughing by now)

Me: But, you know, he’s not your kind of person. Has all those bad habits.
She: Bad??
Me: Ya, he smokes and drinks.
She: I don’t think that’s too bad. I’m pretty ok with that.

(What the F??)

Me: You know, he has numerous girlfriends too.
She: You mean friend girls, right?
Me: No you dumbo, girlfriends!!
She: Hmmm, that’s bad. Maybe, I like you more

(Finally, *phew* )

She: Hey I need some text books. Class notes are of no use. 
Me: Ok
She: You don’t mind giving books to me right?
Me: Actually, I do. But since you’re shameless and blatantly asks for my precious books, and since I’m a noble gentleman with a kind heart, No, I don’t mind.
She: Ok fine, then don’t give.
Me: Just kidding. I’ll give the books to JuniorX. You collect it from him.
She: Thanks a lot. Gotta go now. 
Me: Ok, bye.
She: Bye, take care.

Man, I should say this, I never laughed and guffawed so much in front of the computer, and never thought I could make her believe all those lies (well-crafted lies they are though). Now, JuniorX is her classmate in college, who happened to be my junior at school. Next day, I saw JuniorX at college bus. Upon seeing me,

JuniorX: How’s your twin bro? 
Me: !!!
JuniorX: You know what, as soon as you told her about the twin bro, she messaged me asking whether it’s true. I told you’re a big fat liar. Anyway, she said she was going to play along with you and have some fun. And after chatting with you, she phoned me and said that you’re too gullible to ‘believe’ that others ‘believe’ you. However, she was impressed by the fact that you sweated out creating a fake profile and adding friends in a flash of a second.
Me: Blue Blistering Barnacles!! I want all my books back! 
JuniorX: She also said she had never laughed so much in front of the computer. 

“!!!!!”

Moral of the story, anyone??

Vipz's Story

Late night combined studies is a time for telling jokes, gossips, the merits and demerits of the latest film around, watching TV, eating junk food, more TV, and at last and the least, studying a.k.a. cramming. It was one of those late night sessions when Vipz and I hit the books for a daunting 12 minutes & 40 seconds straight, that we decided to take a much awaited rest to relax our minds after the long tiring study session. So off we went to watch some TV. As we surfed through the umpteen channels, FTV sprung up; and that’s when Vipz told me he gets reminded of a particular incident that happened 9 years back whenever this channel comes up. For the uninitiated, FTV is Fashion Television, an absolutely boring channel for everyone; everyone except boys who’ve just entered the adolescent phase. The channel shows fine female figures catwalking on the ramp which induces funny fantastic feelings in young boys. Now where was I? Ya, Vipz’s story. Here it goes:

After the final exams at school, young Vipz decides to spend the vacation in his native place, not just to see his beloved grandpa and grandma, but also to see Cable TV and the gazillion channels in it (those were the times when Cable TV wasn’t ubiquitous as it is now). Once there, he discovered this channel called FTV which showed beautiful figures of a particular kind of human species; but he knew he didn’t get a chance to see this channel when everyone was around. So, determined to watch it, he walks gingerly into the TV room one night (after making sure his grandparents has fallen asleep); switches on the TV in mute mode and puts his blanket over the TV case and also over himself (he sitting on the floor), so that the light from TV doesn’t spread across the room and he can watch TV in peace without anyone knowing. Smart chap I say! But there was some junk showcase articles kept on top of the TV case and as Vipz started enjoying the ramp show, the blanket slowly slipped from over the case along with all the articles on it. *THUD* *CRACK* *THUD* !! Vipz sprung up from the floor terrified, changed the channel (but unfortunately did not switch OFF the TV), pulled down the shutter of the TV case, ran back to his bedroom and jumped onto his bed. Grandpa and grandma wakes up hearing the cracking sounds; comes within a short while to the TV room and switches ON the lights. Seeing the messy floor,

Grandma: There’s something wrong with this house now-a-days. We should call the Poojari to perform the delayed rituals. 
Grandpa: It might be that stupid cat.

Then they go to Vipz’s room, he’s there sleeping cozily under the blanket, I mean pretending to sleep cozily; they awaken him.

Grandpa: Son, did you see or hear anyone around here.
Vipz (yawning): Wha, err, har! See?? Wha….Hear?? No, I was sleeping.
Grandpa (believing his “honest”, “innocent” grandson): Alright son, nothing to worry, you go back to sleep.
Vipz: Ya, ok grandpa.

And he falls asleep immediately, I mean he pretends to. Grandpa goes to the TV room, turn OFF the lights and when about to turn, sees light coming out of the TV case. He lifts up the shutter of the case and to his dismay sees snakes crawling and hissing, on TV. Guess what, Vipz had switched to 'Discovery Channel' before running off to his room.

Grandma: I told ya there was something wrong. The Snake Gods are displeased.
Grandpa: Hmm, I too guess it’s time to call the Poojari and perform the rituals.

And that week itself all the poojas and yajnas were done to please the Gods and ward off all the evil forces out of the house. I know which evil force that was!! The “evil” himself told me 9 years later! 

Understanding the Misunderstanding

This post by Silverine reminded me of something that happened 4 years back. I was chatting with this girl (no no, I wasn’t flirting you bozos, I was just chatting), who was a family friend of ours (kind of a conservative, sensitive girl) and that’s when the doorbell rang. I peeked through the window and saw my neighbor, who had come to collect the key to her house. I immediately typed,

“Neighbor came, will be back after a sec” 

And went to give the keys to my neighbor. As I returned back for chatting after some 2 minutes or so, she had logged out, without even saying a ‘bye’. Just then I noticed something on the chat window. It read,

“Neighbor came, will be back after sex” !!

N.B. Be careful while typing ‘sec’. ‘X’ lies adjacent to ‘C’ on the keyboard. My humble piece of advice. 

P.S. I wasn’t particularly embarrassed by the incident; maybe she was; so I apologized to her later and made her understand the ‘misunderstanding’. 
P.P.S. I don’t know whether I’ve done worse than Silverine, as she asks in her post. But, hmm, on a second thought, maybe not! ;) 

Brainy Blooper

In the final semester we had a paper on Biomedical Engineering which consisted partly of biology and we being electronics engineering students, had our own versions in understanding the human physiology. There was a topic called “EEG frequency bands” which discusses the different types of waves produced in the brain. For example, alpha waves are produced in the initial stages of waking when the eyes are closed; beta waves, when there are high states of wakefulness; theta and delta are indications of sleep. 

After the exam, we went to Vipin’s house to take some photostats for the next exam. An exhausted and sleepy Vipin closes his eyes and says to Priyadarshan,

“My brain must be producing alpha waves now”

Sanil overhears that,

“No no, you got it wrong; you should be running with your eyes closed to produce really good alpha waves”.

Vipin: What?? Get lost!

Sanil: Yes man; walking with your eyes closed can also produce alpha waves, but weakly. 

Priyadarshan: You mean only somnambulists produce alpha waves?

Sanil: Exactly.

We all disagree with Sanil but he relentlessly argues; says he had read that in his reference text and had written volumes about alpha waves in the exam. And he takes out the text from his bag and gives it to us. It says,

“Alpha waves arise from the posterior brain in the waking person with eyes closed”.

Guess what, “waking person” was misread by Sanil as “walking person”. We all began laughing hysterically while Sanil remains perplexed as to what was going on. We explained to him the mistake while still trying to suppress our laughter; wondering about the plight of the examiner who has to go through volumes of pure “gas” in his answer paper. The difference one letter can make!!!

Presentations, Tribulations, Trepidations

If anything can go wrong, it will.
                                   -- Murphy’s Law

If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
                                  -- Silverman's Law

The 7th semester in engineering was replete with project design, synopsis, intermediate reports and yes, presentations. Well well, presentations bring back a lot of memories; no, not fond memories, but nightmarish ones. 

The presentation titled “Dielectric Resonator Antennas” was meticulously prepared by the four of us, that is, Rohit, Chatti, Chottu and I. But fate giving heed to Murphy’s laws, made Chatti’s pen drive inoperable just before the H-hour and there were no backup CDs. So off we rushed to Chatti’s house to copy the files from his PC. 

Problem: Chatti had no blank CDs with him and so we looked for some unlocked CDs to copy our files. 
The Real Problem: The only unlocked CDs with him were "pr0n" CDs. 

Since we could do nothing about it in the eleventh hour, we searched for an appropriate pr0n CD; that’s when we were amazed at the variety of Chatti’s seksual fetishes. Title cover of some of the CDs:
The Bare Bitch Project
Good Will Humping 
Lord of the G-Strings
Shaving Ryan's Privates (gay pr0n??, naa, I don’t want to think so) 

And that was just a sample collection. Anyway, we decided to go with ‘Good Will Humping’. Copied everything and rushed back to college. The CD was put into our teacher’s laptop; meanwhile Chottu masked the projector, just in case, you know, if it autoplayed. All of us took our presentation, teacher seems impressed and everything went fine. After seminar Chottu jokes,

“Maybe we should have shown the class, the other “educational” files in the CD and got some extra marks for that”

Chatti: “Yeah right, and you can do a live demonstration too”

Chatti gets a thwack in his head. Everyone laughs. We part. And the 4 guys lived happily ever after. Happy ending?? Well, not really. Suddenly we realized that while basking in the afterglow of a successful presentation (albeit the audience were yawning and sleeping), we forgot to retrieve the CD back from teacher’s laptop. Rohit flutters, Chatti faints, I tremble, while Chottu asks,

“Wonder how she’ll put the marks for the presentation”

An infuriated Chatti: “I’m going to lose my entire reputation in front of her and you’re concerned about some effing worthless marks, you moron!”

Off we rushed to teacher’s room; she’s in there and the laptop is on her desk, turned OFF though, luckily. We stood at a distance from the room waiting, in fact craving, for her to leave the room ASAP, so that we could retrieve the CD. Meanwhile, I, being the brave, intrepid macho man, okay fine, ‘trying’ to be the brave, intrepid macho man, confides,

“Why should we be scared? We’re 21 years of age. There’s nothing illegal in it” 

Chatti: “Shut your piehole. 21 years, my foot! And for your information Mr. Smart-ass, pr0n is illegal in India, no matter what the age is”.  

Me: “Errr, ummm, Welly well, whose CD is it anyway, Mr. Dumb-ass??” 

Chatti: @#$%!@#$

At last, teacher goes out of her room, all of us jumped and hopped into her room; switched ON the laptop. Chatti waits at the door keeping a hawk eye. Darn, teacher is coming back; we need a few more seconds. Chatti runs to her, stalls her and asks,

“Teacher, we’ll be using double stub tuner to match our antenna to the load for flexible adjustment and greater range of impedance matching and by adjusting the positions of the shorting plugs attached to the stub lines the length of the stub will be changed thereby achieving tuning”.

Teacher: Ok, but why are you telling me this.

Chatti: You taught us only about single stub tuner. So I just wanted to tell you about the alternative method.

Tecaher: Ugh!

Chatti: Thank you ma'am.

Tecaher: !!!!!

Meanwhile we retrieved the CD and fled away from there; thanks to Chatti’s technical enlightenment. Well, now it’s a happy ending except for a battered and bruised Chottu, who later asks Chatti,

“Mind if I borrow that CD for a day??”

More Viva Woes

Excerpts from the Course Viva: 

Teacher: What is virtual height? 
Rohit: Virtual height with regards to what? 
Teacher: Virtual height of an antenna.
Rohit: Virtual height of an antenna with regards to what?
Teacher: !!!! Ok, what’s internet? 
Rohit: Internet is ….errr....a vast array of….errr
Teacher: What topology does it use?
Rohit: Topology with regards to what?
Teacher: !@#$%@$%#


Teacher: Who discovered electron? (Answer is J.J. Thomson)
Shinu: Ja….err….Ja....mmm….Jackson!
Teacher: Jacksonaa? Aare, Michael Jacksonaa? 


Einstein goes to the viva in his usual smelly clothes, messy hair and a wildly unshaven look. 
Teacher: First tell me what’s bothering you. 
Einstein strikes a chord in teachers emotions, says stuff like he’s a lone ranger and has got no friends (must’ve referred to girlfriends); teacher becomes sentimental and finishes his viva soon. The next day, a horde of messy, smelly, unshaven guys (including yours truly) appears before a perplexed teacher, but, counter-intuitively, gets extra tough viva questions. Sigh!

Excerpt from Microwave Lab Viva: 

Botsu made the day for Microwave lab viva. To the uninitiated, Botsu did his schooling till 10th grade in Botswana, a country in the southern part of Africa. 

Teacher: Give me an application of microwave.
Botsu: Raider!
Teacher: Raider? Athenthuva?
Bostu: Teacher, Raider. R-A-D-A-R.
Teacher: Oh! Radar. Iyaal ividengum ulla aalalle?
Botsu: Alla, njaan Africa ninnu vannatha.
Teacher: !!! Thaanentha enne kaliyaakkukayaano, njaan thanikku mottayittu tharum lab inu.
Botsu: Ayyo teacher, satyamaayittum njaan Africa aane!!

P.S. Actually, a lot of stuff happened during the viva, but due to the successive plethora of exams, I don’t remember much of ‘em.  
P.P.S. Botsu was almost correct in his pronunciation. It’s actually pronounced “reydahr” which we mallus tend to mispronounce as “radahr”. My bad, but we did have a very good laugh at Botsu’s expense. 

Alive & Amplified

Long time no see. How art thou? I'm fine, thanks. First things first. I’ve been tagged by the Phlip Side flipper a.k.a Philip. His blog is one I can identify with coz of the character assassinations of Kunz, Santa and Banta, and the like; after all we both are among the Twelve Apostles, we have the same mission to fulfill, right Philip? 

But I’m modifying his tag to form a new “Quote Tag” (Hope you don’t mind Philip). It’s a pretty simple one. Here’s the tag: 

Jot down 5 of your favorite quotes from the various books you’ve read. If you don’t have the books with you now, googling (Wikiquotes and the like) can be used to find them. Tag five people and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

So here goes my shot:

1. “Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three.” 
                                                              -- Catch-22

2. “He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.”
                                                              -- Catch-22

3. "I'll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning.”
                                                             -- Catch-22

4. Toohey: “Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us.” 
     Roark: “But I don't think of you.”
                                                             -- The Fountainhead  

5. “It's said that the worst thing one can do to a man is to kill his self-respect. But that's not true. Self-respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it.”

                                                             -- The Fountainhead


And I tag Anjali (the sterling Silverine), Deepti (the Mindspace mind boggler), Mathew (another “Spark”ling fellow Apostle), and Philip (yeah, that’s a reverse tag for the Phlip side). 

Viva-voce or Viva-woes

Last semester we had this Microprocessor Lab exam for which the viva questions asked by the external were a tad too tough to answer. We all had our unsuccessful viva sessions (to say the least) and that’s when Tubelight’s turn came (he’s worse than a kaput tubelight when it comes to understanding PJs and stuff, hence the name). He too had no shot at the viva and the external was now a bit too frustrated; throwing tubelight’s answer paper on to the table, in a sign of desperation.

External: Nee okke enthina padikkunne.
Tubelight: Sir, S7 Electronics and Communication (in utter seriousness, not understanding the sarcasm in the question).
External: !!! (slaps his forehead)

Reminds me of the conversation between Innocent and Jagadeesh in the Malayalam movie “Godfather” –
Innocent (to Jagadeesh): Nee enthina padikkene.
Jagadeesh: Final year LLB.
Innocent: Athalla, nee okke enthinaaaaa padikeneennu, nee onnum padichitte oru kaaryoom illa.
Jagadeesh: (shows his trademark lopsided smile)

We’re no ordinary worms, we’re glow worms!

P.S. This is perhaps my last post as a college student. Classes and internals are over and now it’s time for exams, labs and more vivas. So, I’m going into hibernation; will be back. Till then, ciao!!

Hazing - who's the hunter, who's the prey??

Jam babe used to get handpicked by the then seniors when she was a fresher in college. They ruthlessly made her sing, dance and answer all of the insane questions, not once, not twice, but many a time. Now, times and tides have changed and the young, tenderfoot, innocent Jam babe is long gone; she’s now at the helm, read final year, of college. But the haunting memories of the callous ragging still seem to frustrate her and these frustrations are mainly relieved by occasionally picking up the current freshmen and passing onto them all of what she endured.

Scene 1:

The classes were over a bit early for our batch that day and Jam babe hastily hurried towards the college bus to reserve her seat. Unfortunately, a freshman had already seized Jam babe’s usual seat.

Jam babe: Ithe ente sthiram seat aanennu arinjukoode?
Freshman: !!!!
Jam babe: Eyaal ezhunneette.
(He gets up and gives the seat to Jam babe)
Jam babe: Aatte, oru paattu paadikke.
Freshman: Ayyo chechi, enikke paadan ariyilla.
Jam babe: A to Z alphabets ariyaamallo, athu oru thaalathil angu paadiyaal mathi.
(Freshman does the task as instructed)
Jam babe: Ini oru break dance.
Freshman: Chechi, ente kaal ulukkiyirikkuva, athu konde dance kalikkaan pattilla.
Jam babe: Chumma number onnum irakkanda; njaan senior aane. Ninnoodu paadaan paranjaal paadanam, aadaan paranjaal aadanam.
Freshman: Illenkil?
Jam babe: Njaan aaraanennu ninakku ariyaamo.
Freshman: Chechikku njaan araanennu ariyaamo.
Jam babe: Nee 1st year ile oru thukkeda payyan.
Freshman: Njaan 1st year ile oru thukkeda payyan aayirunnu, naalu varsham mumbu. Ippum njaan final year Automobile Engg.
Jam babe: !!!!!! (Rats!)
(Freshman will be hereafter referred to as Auto chettan)
Auto chettan: Nee Electronics batch alle, vokey ellaam sheriyaakki tharaam.
(And he walks away)

Scene 2:

The next morning, Auto chettan along with a horde of his batch mates marched into our classroom and besieged Jam babe; then started shouting slogans, “Auto kaare thottu kalichaal akkali theekkali sookshicho”. Now here goes the killer punch - 
Jam babe (to Auto chettan): Athine njaan ninne thottillallo!
Auto studs: !!!
Electronic studs: !!!

P.S. When I told Jam babe that she’s going to be the next victim in my blog - 
Jam babe: Ninte thallipoli blog thudangiya samayathu njaan maatramaarunnu ninakke aakeyundaarunna “COMMENTERATOR”. Athu oorthal nanne.
Whatever the case maybe, you’re still my dearest “COMMENTERATOR”. Keep Jamming!!

The Demo Strike

Strikes are no novel things in our college. On April 1, the Mechanical Engg dudes of S8 decided to launch yet another strike for granting some very simple demands. Luckily, Chottu’s cam could get hold of a pic of the poster. Here it goes:



Clarifications:

Point no: 1 - College is situated in Pappanamcode and many of the hostelers go to their native places on weekends by train. Very genuine demand to cut down the commuting time.

Point no: 2 - Pappanamcode area becomes extremely congested during the morning rush hours and hence an underpass serves the students’ interests to reach college on time.

Point no: 3 – Five storeys and no escalator; how rude!!

Point no: 4 - FM lab is the Fluid Mechanics lab and it consists of a small reservoir to store water.

Point no: 5 - Principal drives a Mitsubishi Lancer.

Point no: 6 - There’s not even a single girl in the Mechanical Engg batch of S8 (Poor guys). So 50% reservation is a very altruistic consideration for girls.

Point no: 7 – The current canteen running on losses will be an instant hit when this demand is accepted.

Point no: 8 – After the grueling sessions (read sleeping)  in classrooms, a theme park will serve the recreation purpose.

P.S. The demo strike was the April Fool in our college and this year the M8 dudes made the most of it.
P.P.S. Happens only in SCT!!

Vipz's Clothing Lingo

Scenario: Lunch break in college

Vipz: Hey Mudiyan, someone came to the class to meet you; said it was very urgent.
Mudiyan: Who?
Vipz: Don’t know his name. He said he’ll wait; might be somewhere around here. By the way, he was wearing a pajama.
Mudiyan: Hmm, might be some hostel guy.

Mudiyan searches the whole college for the pajama clad guy but couldn’t find any. He returns back to class only to find the Kurta clad student of S6.

An irate Mudiyan (to Vipz): Ithaanoda pajama??
Vipz: Sorry, enikku thettu pattiyatha, I meant Kurta.
Mudiyan: Ninakku pajama ennu vechal enthaanennu ariyaamo?
Vipz: Ariyaam. Athu “Nightie” alle; kidakkaan neerathu upayogikkunne!!

AutoBalan's NASA (with a twist of Reverse Blooper)

AutoBalan is an Automobile engineering student in our college and is in the same class as AutoTom. AutoBalan has an answer for every question even if he’s ignorant of it. Listen to a conversation between AutoTom and AutoBalan (overheard by a well-wisher in their class):

AutoTom: ee NASA yude full-form enthonnede?
AutoBalan (after thinking for a while): National Auto Sport Association!!!
AutoTom: orappaana?
AutoBalan: thannede.

Now, wait a second before you smile or smirk; it seems that the well-wisher and I made a jackass of ourselves deciding to publish this post. Why?? Because there’s indeed a National Auto Sport Association in reality. I googled for it a little while ago before publishing this post, just to be sure, and found this in Wikipedia. And that's my first reverse blooper; bang, bang, boomeranged!!

P.S. What can I say about AutoBalan? Respect man, respect!!

Eight Random Facts: Yet Another Tag

I got tagged by Ganesh. The tag is pretty boring but since I’ve nothing else to blog now, I’ll do it anyway.

Rules:
1. Each player starts with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4. If you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach Third Series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

I don't care if I don't reach third series or attain my most precious goals because I don't have any. Anyway here goes my shot:  

Disclaimer: All the true things I’m about to tell are shameless lies.

1. I was a perfectionist till my 12th grade; had precise timings for doing all my chores and kept my room real clean with each object having specific positions. And after entering college, I became a lousy couch potato.

2. I’m a remote control abuser; I keep on changing channels on TV and people tend to get really irritated with that.

3. I love to take long walks at dusk.

4. I know this sounds weird but I’ve seen this same dream about 4 or 5 times when I was really young. There was a Rubik’s Cube on a table and it slowly moves to the edge and finally falls on to the floor; And before the cube hits the floor, I wake up.

5. I don’t think I’ve a rigid personality. It keeps changing from time to time; so different people have different perceptions about me.

6. I’m selfish.

7. I usually like the villains in movies than the heroes.

8. Do you have problems in life? If you do, I don’t give a rat’s ass, coz I’ve got my own.

And the tag is passed on to Karthik, Rakesh, Syam, Rohit, Kishore, Anjali, Deepti and Mathew. Some of these bloggers might have already taken up the tag, if so, ignore this one.

Botsu's Technical Glitches

Botsu seems to be making headlines these days; a good amount of my blog space has been taken by his tales of goof-ups including this, this and this. Here’s another small one to add to the repertoire. Botsu had borrowed a USB flash drive (pen drive) from KP consisting of some utility softwares, games and stuff. All excited about the new games and softwares, Botsu plugs the USB stick into his system. Zap!!! The computer turned OFF!! Realizing that the USB stick contained some highly malicious Virus, Botsu in a fit of rage phoned KP.

Botsu: You bloody crook!! Your stupid pen drive caused my system to be inoperative.
KP: What happened??
Botsu: Nothing happened; my computer just became defective, dumbo!!
KP: Hmm, maybe the pen drive contained some Virus or Trojans.
Botsu: Maybe???
KP: But at least you should be able to access Windows. Maybe there is a hardware problem. You take out the RAM and plug it into another slot.
Botsu: Ok, let me see.

No use. Still not working. Again, Botsu phoned KP.

KP: Clean the mother board.
No use.
KP: Take out the hard drive and plug it again.
No use.
KP: Take out the buses and clean it.
No use.
KP: Maybe you should give it for servicing.
Botsu: And you’re going to pay for it.

Another altercation springs up. As soon as Botsu hung up the phone, the computer starts working. Puzzled, Botsu gets out of his room and hears his dad mumbling something.

Botsu’s Dad: Power failures are becoming such a menace now-a-days.
Botsu: !!!!!!!

P.S. The bugger doesn’t use a UPS.
P.P.S. Next day, KP lashed out a series of verbal abuses and Botsu had to patiently listen to all of that. 

AutoTom's Take On Hindi

AutoTom is Botsu’s neighbor who’s doing Automobile engineering in our college. Once AutoTom went to VSSC with his project-mates for some purpose concerning his final year project. The security in VSSC is very stringent and they do not allow any paraphernalia to be taken with the students inside their campus. There was this North Indian guard by the gates who gave some instructions to AutoTom and his gang.

Guard: Bags "chair ke" ooper rakho.
AutoTom (turning towards his batch-mates): Paranjathu keettile, ellaarum bags "cheerthu" vekkede.
Batch-mates: !!!!
Guard: !!!!

Moral of the Story: Birds of the same region make similar bloopers (and that’s a blindingly obvious reference to Botsu).

Botsu's Infatuations

Botsu fell in love with this girl, the first time he saw her. But that’s not the first time he fell in love. He had been falling and falling since aeons ago. The current girl is a fresher in college and is in the same bus stop as Botsu’s. According to Botsu there is something mysterious about her; an aura of enigma surrounds her which seems to captivate the deepest recesses of his heart -- that’s what Botsu says, to be specific. So for name sake let’s call her “The Mystery girl” or “M-girl”. The problem with Botsu is that he blatantly ogles at girls and keeps on ogling even if they start noticing it. So I think it was pretty obvious for M-girl to realize that she was the cynosure of Botsu’s eyes. M-girl is in the same engineering branch as ours and Botsu has been waiting for a perfect opportunity to strike a conversation with her.

Scenario: M.G road at Statue junction on a busy Monday evening after college

The traffic signal was red and Botsu is crossing the road. He turns back and sees M-girl behind him. Botsu seems very much surprised and excited and suddenly strikes a conversation with her. The dialogues are as follows but I can almost imagine what’s going on in their minds which are given in italics.

Botsu: Hai, you know me right? I’m in your same bus stop. (Yo babe, haven’t you seen this 6 foot handsome macho man, you bet)
M-girl: Errr, haven’t noticed. (Of course I know you; you are the bloody loafer who keeps on staring at me)
Botsu: (Thud!! Slap on the face. Need to hang on) That’s ok. Well, I’m in S8 Electronics. Do you need any text books for the 1st semester??
M-girl: No, I have got them all. (I know what your intentions are, Mr. Senior)
Botsu: You might need S3 books. (Don’t give up, go on)
M-girl: I got that too. (I’m not falling for this you loafer)
Botsu: What about S4 books?? (Stay on, stay on; shouldn’t waste this golden opportunity)
M-girl: I have it. (Man, this guy is really persistent)
Botsu: S5 books?? (I can do this forever)
M-girl: Let me see, I’ll tell you. (He’s a psycho; Must get out of here as soon as possible)
Botsu: Okay, that’s perfect. (Finally!! Eureka!! Success!!)
M-girl: Ok, bye. (Phew!!)
Botsu: Bye, will see ya! (Tata, bye bye, sweet dreams, take care)

And the girl walks away. The signal turns green and Botsu is still in his dream world. The vehicles keep honking and drivers start shouting at Botsu while he hypnotically walks to the other side of the road.

P.S. Next day, Botsu was seen begging for S5 text books from his class mates. Let’s see what happens next.

Chottu's Checkup Ordeal

Chottu is a health conscious guy. He does regular exercises in his terrace (topless of course; to seksually attract the girls walking by the road), acrobatics (while climbing the wall of his neighbor’s compound who apparently has a beautiful daughter) and marathon races (when the neighbor dad catches him by the collar when he sneaks up into his compound). Now Chottu had the perfect opportunity to prove to all the girls in our college that he was really a healthy guy with a perfect body who should be the object of any girl’s wildest fantasies. Those who were recruited by XYZ Corp had to undergo a medical checkup at DDRC last week. The checkup included blood test (to test for HIV I guess, XYZ Corp doesn’t want the employees spreading AIDS in their offices), ECG (to know whether our hearts will be able to brave the long insane unearthly working hours), ultra sound scan (to check whether our internal organs can function properly without any intake of food while working continuously), urine test (to test whether our kidneys function properly so that they can later sell it in case of debts), dental checkup (for checking whether there’ll be any difficulty giving French kisses), eye examination (to check if we can see chicks at a distance while working; anyone who passes this test will be rejected). Now Chottu was all pumped up and geared for the medical checkup. The reporting time at DDRC was 7.AM. Chottu after his stint with dumb bells and push ups started drinking gallons of water for the urinalysis (which was the first test). We reached there on time and waited for the test. Meanwhile pressure has been building up on Chottu’s bladder. 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes and still his name hasn’t been called. Realizing that he couldn’t control anymore, Chottu ran to the nurse asking her to give the bottle for taking urine but the nurse unsympathetically refuses and tells him to wait in the queue. That made Chottu get on his nerves and he started an altercation with the nurse; but the obdurate nurse doesn’t accede to it. A frustrated Chottu finally ran to the toilet and got relieved. Problem is that now his bladder is empty and it might take another gallon of water and 30 minutes for his test. So Chottu is back to the queue. Frustrated, Chottu starts drinking water like he haven’t seen it before and gets all pumped up again. Again his bladder starts troubling him, but he just got on time with the test. This time Chottu is all excited and runs to the toilet. He returns back relieved but the bottle seems to be missing.

Chottu: Athe sisteree, njaan sambavam pettennu cheythoondirunnappam bottle toilet inte akathu pooyi. Veere bottle tharaamo.

An irate nurse refuses to Chottu’s pleas and tells him to go back to the queue. After another unsuccessful altercation with the nurse, Chottu exasperatedly goes back to the queue which was quite long by now. At last he got the perfect timing with the bladder pressure coinciding with his turn for the test. A gleeful Chottu returned back and then we went for the remaining checkups. After finishing all of that by noon, we came back to collect our results and also to undergo a physical checkup. Guess what? Chottu’s urine sample missing!! Chottu is literally pissed off by now and starts pulling his hair and banging his head on the wall. Well, then he appeared for the physical test which showed a very high BP (unsurprisingly, due to all the tribulations he had been in just before). Chottu’s hopes and dreams about being the very-healthy-with-perfect-body-and-high-libido-guy is all now crumbled into shambles. Girls, please don’t lose your interest in Chottu just because of a high BP.

The Maiden Tag

I have been tagged by Karthik. The tag comprises 30 trivial questions. Here’s my shot at it.

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATER:
“Race”. It was worth the money though the plot was unrealistic. The film was replete with crosses, double crosses, triple crosses, quadruple crosses and double quadruple crosses interspersed with untimely songs. Anyway I liked it because the film had a fast pace with no unnecessary dragging and it was a breath of fresh air from the contemporary Hindi movies that had corny dialogues and slapstick comedies.

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?
None.

3. FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
I haven’t played much as to brand anything as my favorite. Chess and scrabbles can be counted in.

4. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?
Readers Digest. Does Hustler count?? 

5. FAVORITE SMELLS?
I think this sounds absurd but I used to smell the pages of any newly bought book. No favorite smell in particular.

6. FAVORITE SOUND?
Voice of any girl who pronounces the syllables in my name, in a sexy way.

7. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?
When you spend the whole night studying for the next day’s exam and hearing that you have been studying the wrong subject, the next morning.

8. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE?
Darn, shouldn’t have drunk that much. Now, which of my girlfriend’s bedroom is this? Hmm, should be Teena’s. Wait, it’s Jen’s. No, it’s Nicole’s. Aargh!!

9. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE?
Does thattukadas count?? Anyway, I’m not a fast food junkie.

10. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME?
Depends on the nationality of the girl I’ll be marrying.
Russian: Lavrenty(m)/Lyubochka(f)
Italian: Antonello(m)/Annunziata(f)
Spanish: Eusebio(m)/Esmeralda(f)
But I doubt whether my Irish girlfriend will allow me to marry any other girl.

11. FINISH THIS STATEMENT. "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I’D...?
Gamble all my money on the Indian hockey team and bet that they would lose. I’ll be double rich after the game.

12. DO YOU DRIVE FAST?
I hate driving. The ruthless traffic and hopeless roads of Trivandrum has made driving a nightmarish experience for me.

13. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
No, I sleep with Salma Hayek.

14. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY?
Scary. Because I haven’t experienced any. Would like to feel how it would be.

15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
Haven’t had any; I’m still a student, boss. But the first car in our family was a Maruti 800 bought in 1991. We used it for 14 years.

16. FAVORITE DRINK?
Lime Soda.

17. FINISH THIS STATEMENT, "IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD"
This is an irrelevant question; I already have lots of time and that's why I'm doing this tag.

18. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?
Yes, I do.

19. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?
I find it despicable to dye hair. I’m pretty satisfied with my hair colour.

20. NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS YOU HAVE LIVED IN.
Trivandrum (1986-87), Thodupuzha (1987-89), Aachen (1989-90), Trivandrum (1990-present).

21. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Cricket, MotoGP and Female Wrestling!! The ideal sport to watch will be a violent cat fight between Monica Belluci and Salma Hayek to decide who shall "service" me.

 22. ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU
Very generous. He bought me a samosa and chocolate sharjah when he came to Trivandrum. Nice chetan, hehe.

23. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?
Cockroaches, lizards and spiders!! It’s been a while since I’ve ventured down there.

24. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN?
Yes and No. I don’t have a clear answer.

25. MORNING PERSON OR NIGHT OWL?
I used to be a morning lark. Now I’m mostly noctural. But I’m flexible enough to be either of them.

26. OVER EASY, OR SUNNY SIDE UP?
Over easy. I like it when eggs are mixed with onions and green chilis.

27. FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX?
Beach during sunset. Love to gaze at the sun going down the horizon.

28. FAVORITE PIE?
Haven’t eaten any so far.

29. FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?
Any flavor will do. But the most I’ve consumed might be chocolate.

30. OF ALL THE PEOPLE YOU TAGGED THIS TO, WHO'S MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST?
No idea.

And this tag is passed on to:
Ganesh, Rohit and Kishore.

KP’s Lexicon: Port = Word!!

         This is yet another post about quirky KP. KP has been, of lately, hiding his files and folders in his computer using folder locks and passwords and stuff. All he did throughout the last week was try different softwares for locking folders and generate new incomprehensible passwords for protecting them. Now, those who had job placements in college were required to fill up certain forms and submit it without delay, and KP temporarily got distracted from his new venture. Now filling up forms is a boring thing to do. For KP, it’s a grueling thing to do. Boring or grueling, those who were placed in XYZ Corp were required to fill up tons of forms last day. There was this background check certificate where we had to provide details of driving license, passport, ration card etc. Look closely at KP’s form below:


Photo courtesy: My Nokia 7610 mobile cam (hence the poor quality)

P.S. KP was about to submit the form when Rahul saw the blunder and snatched the paper from him and ran away. I believe KP is still clueless as to why Rahul did that. Well, Rahul then came to me and without wasting any time I took the photo. For original copies, readers are advised to contact Rahul as soon as possible (Rahul’s life will stay as long as KP sees this post).

The Sleepy Tale Of Two Naïve Lads And Their Exam Ordeal

Disclaimer: The protagonists in this post are the innocent, fledgling, primitive versions of the current characters. Some resemblance to the current versions of the characters may be exhibited by these young protagonists which I guess is not coincidental.

          The scenario shifts back 7 years from now rewinding to the year 2001 when I was this innocent little guileless boy studying in the 9th grade. Those were the carefree salad days in Loyola when life was less complicated and the only things revolving in our minds were Sachin Tendulkar, Pam Anderson, The Undertaker and the like.

Scenario:

Bells, candles and cribs. Angels, gifts and Santa Claus. Yes, it was almost Christmas time. But not there yet. We had to jump this herculean hurdle known as Christmas exams to reach there.

Scene 1:

It was the eve of Geography exam. Time 6.00PM. There were 2 whole days for studying and I haven’t yet opened my textbook. While wondering how all my precious time was gone and cursing myself for my slothful attitude, I decided to phone someone. Now phone calls are a big time relief on the exam eves if you call the right person. A sense of solace pervades inside you when you hear that the person at the other end is in the exact same situation as you are (hey, I’m not being sadistic. I hope at least some of you can empathize). I would never call Rohit as he would invariably say he’s doing his 3rd revision (the overconfident brat!!) and I would never call Hari who says he hasn’t studied anything yet (the modest nerd!!), but my experiences suggest that, the kind of marks he gets when the results are out is totally contradictory to what he says during the exams. So, there is no point in calling these 2 buggers. Now there’s one person I can rely upon – JK!! So I ringed up JK.

Me: Man, I’m totally screwed. Haven’t touched anything. I might get digit marks tomorrow.

JK: Me too daa, haven’t started.

Me: Oh!, man, what are we going to do??

JK: Dey, I’ll come to your house now. We’ll do a combined study. If we have a night out, we will get X hours before the exam. Now there are Y chapters and Z pages to go which gives X/Y hours for 1 chapter and (X*60)/Z minutes per page. It’s still possible that we can manage to pass tomorrow.

Me: Hmm, seems like a good idea, but I haven’t had a night out ever in my life.

JK: Me neither, but it seems there are no alternatives now.

Me: Ok, I’m ready, you come here ASAP.

JK: Ok man, I’m on my way.

JK reached my home by 7.30PM, we ate our supper, had a chit-chat, and the time now was 8.30PM. Realizing that we wasted much time, I got a bit tensed.

An optimistic JK: Don’t worry man, we have the whole night before us, there are P hours and Q minutes still left. (Bugger again brings up calculations)

Finally we opened our textbooks. I’m still able to vaguely remember studying about all those different types of clouds – altostratus, stratocumulus, cumulonimbus; the different types of soils – red soil, black soil, alluvial soil; that was one hell of a boring subject. Meanwhile the clock kept ticking and time just breezed away. 10PM, 11PM, 12AM, 2AM, 4AM, 5AM, and now we couldn’t take it any more and finally succumbed to sleep. I think that was the longest continuous period of time I’ve ever studied in my whole life. We had brushed through most of the portions but we never thought about revising it. It was 7AM in the morning when Amma woke us up; I was too dreary and dizzy then and I guess JK was also in the same predicament. In those days, daily life was rather systematic, fixed sleeping time and waking time, and so I guess the sudden night out shattered our biological clock and hence the 2 hour sleep destroyed our equilibrium. Nevertheless, we set out to school after having breakfast.

Scene 2:

There was pin drop silence in the examination hall and the noiselessness further augmented my drowsiness. For a moment, I felt like I was actually floating in the exam hall. I actually knew many of the answers (had studied them the previous night), but I was so drowsy that they just occurred in my head and didn’t come to my hand; I guess the nerve cells in my head didn’t want to transmit the signals to my fingers. I just looked around me; Rohit was there writing his heart out, taking papers, papers and more papers while I was struggling to finish just one page. Hari too was eagerly writing, taking out his ruler and drawing diagrams, diagrams and more diagrams. Then I looked at JK; he was there comfortably sleeping, head buried in his arms resting on the desk. Aha! At least there’s one soul who’s more screwed up than me. After a while, our principal came to the hall for his regular inspection (Fr.Anikuzhy was the principal then). Princi sees JK and goes to him trying to wake him up. JK slowly wakes and looks up.

Princi: Hallooo!! There is an examination going on. Not any sleeping competition!!

JK: Aaa Saar, Faather, errrr, har! har!

Then he takes his pen and starts scribbling in his answer paper.

Princi: If I see you sleeping ever again I’ll simply chuck you out of the hall.

Princi (now turning to the invigilator): Ippazhathe pilleerude oru dhairyame. Sleeping in the midst of a serious examination!!

And he walks away saying something like “The standard of this institution is getting worse day by day.” We managed to sit there awake for the rest of the time.


Epilogue:

Unsurprisingly, both of us flunked the exams big time. That day, I made a resolution never to procrastinate and never ever wait till the last moment to study. But it seems I’ve broken that resolution a gazillion times, thanks to my “indefatigable” will power. Looking back at those times, it seems silly that I actually worried about some petty Christmas exams; that little innocent Thomas must have had a heart attack if he had seen the lackadaisical attitude with which big Thomas comes to attend university exams in engineering. Exams may come and exams may go, but flunking then and flunking now, is all that remains the same.

P.S. I had long forgotten this incident and it was JK who called me up yesterday and as we started speaking about our good old times, this exam ordeal came to limelight. And it was he who suggested making a blog out of this so that we can relive those moments for eternity. I guess I didn’t mess it up. JK, what say??

Update: I couldn’t resist but add an update seeing JK’s comment on this post. It’s too good to read the comment. In fact, for the first time I got an idea about how he viewed the incident through his eyes, though after 7 years. I have copy pasted the comment below:

Eda Thommu, it’s JK here,

Got to tell, that was awesome stuff. Did a great job with that. In fact, that was the first time I saw this incident from your perspective Thommu. I would like to add to this post how I had seen it. Now it’s time for some contribution from my part (This comment is going to be painfully long):

Everything about this story started with 'coincidence'. It was mere coincidence that both of us had planned our studies in a way that we finish mugging up everything else at the risk of Geography. It was sheer coincidence that both of us found Geography equally boring and the one to leave out. It was again coincidence that whenever we struggle with a subject, an exam or anything, we tend to think of the other's pathetic face. It was this same coincidence that ended up the two of us in the same examination hall, with one sleeping serenely and the other almost into it.

I was almost in a state of saturation when Thommu called me. Red soil, black soil and all that. Haven’t wondered about so many colors even in my crayon application class at kindergarten. The phone rang while I was trying to spell 'cumulonimbus', reading it for the first time. C-U-M-U-L-O!!!
As soon as I heard his voice, I asked: Dey, What is this Cumulo....Damn!!
Thommu replied: Mmmm. It is…is...It's a cloud.
His condition was better, I thought. But it didn’t make much difference actually for his next statement was "I heard Rohit mentioning about such a cloud last day. The complexity of the word interested me." I did nothing but laugh.

The combined study lasted until 5 am. I was delighted. For the first time in my life, I was able to see the clock hands in such a position with the sun yet to rise. The stage of presentation followed - the Examination Hall. I still remember the expression on Rohit's face when we wished him luck. He was talking about 'Vegetation in the rural parts of Madhya Pradesh' with Hari. I turned to a confused looking Thommu and said "Don’t worry! It’s the second last chapter and we haven’t reached there." The first few minutes (the only time I was awake) forced out the fury in me. My eyes were paining & Rohit was laughing after seeing each question. Hari had a reason to stand every time I look at him - either for extra sheet or question confirmation. Thommu and I cut a sorry figure. We looked into the eye of each other and failed to blink. From that state, Thommu's eye lids gradually moved to the centre of the paper. My eye lids had just one way to go and that was vertically. I saw darkness and blankness take over. I didn’t get a chance to hold on. It was some time in the middle of my sleep that I felt some pointed object striking against my fairly sensitive skin. I had to open my eyes when the intensity of the instrument increased. I half opened my eyes when I saw someone dressed completely in milk-white outfits. I realized it was Princi with the kind of words that emanated from his mouth. I had to write the rest of the exam. Try to write, in fact.

Every year, from then on, I could never forget this day. Even if I forget the significance of Christmas Day, even if I forget to smile at Santa Claus, even if I forget to celebrate on New Year's Eve, I could never forget this day. It was these small incidents that made our 'Loyola days' special. Moments that made us laugh. Moments that would never come back!!

The Despoilment Of A Scheming Plot

       The most frequent posts in this blog so far are the ones labeled “character assassination”. In fact I have written 8 character assassination posts; all of them based on true incidents. These were real life gaffes made by real people that I know and were not figments of my imagination albeit I have added some spices and special effects accordingly. For the uninitiated, the characters that were victimized by my verbal crucifixion so far, in the reverse chronological order, are: royal Raja, confident Gutso (post no:2), confident Gutso (post no:1), macho Botsu, cool Muniyandi, brilliant Sasi, exaggerative Nambi and last but not least quirky KP. Except for Gutso (who’s in CET), the characters are from my very own batch of 2008 Electronics in SCT.

       But it’s of lately that I came to realize that these characters and other chaps around me are plotting gruesome machinations to cast doom on me and that my life is in real danger (for blindingly obvious reasons). Now the inspiration for this post is a scrapbook conversation between Botsu and Thavala that I happened to read a few hours ago; thanks to my brilliant spy work in Orkut (Botsu’s scrapbook has always been savored as an object of my spying). For the uninitiated, Botsu is a victim of my character assassination post and Thavala is another foxy brat in our friend circle. The conversation goes like this:

Thavala: hi botsuuu!!
Botsu: machoo!!
Thavala: dey, this Thomas is hunting newer and newer victims for popularizing his blog. And I think I would also be a victim one of these days. Avan ninte goa ile kathakal blogil publish cheythittum nee avane onnum cheythille?
Botsu: Da, we have to do something about him.
Thavala: Thatti kalanjaalo!!
Botsu: I’m ready. You know of any place we can dispose off the body??
Thavala: Allenkil vendeda, atra violent path veenda. We can break his hands, pinne type cheyyullallo.
Botsu: Che!! That’s boring.
Thavala: Eda, Thomachan is online, and most probably will be reading the propaganda against him. Namukku avane thatti kalayunnathinte details pinne parayam da. We shouldn’t spoil the surprise for him.
Botsu: You got a point there.

The surprise is spoiled, you bloody duffers. Anyway, I'm going to hire some body guards.

Regal Raja’s Royal Bloopers

        This is yet another post about a lad from my college. In fact he’s a prince belonging to the Nilambur Kovilakam, a royal family in Kozhikode. For namesake let’s call him Raja. Yeah, you guessed it right, the tall, fair and lean guy in S8 Electronics A-batch of SCT. Like any prince, Raja is obsessed with riding horses, but since horse-riding is not permitted in the congested streets of Trivandrum, he bought a blue Honda Unicorn 150cc bike as a proxy (unicorn literally means a horned horse and blue is the colour of royalty), and is now a tad too haughty when on his royal machine. Also, Raja is known as “world bank” in college, owing to the fact that his purse is filled with a minimum of 1000 bucks anytime, anywhere, anyhow. In short, he lives in a royal humungous palace, sleeps in a royal king-sized bed, eats a royal sumptuous meal, rides a royal blue bike, and writes with a royal blue fountain pen with royal blue ink. So let’s address the bloopers made by Raja as royal bloopers.

Royal Blooper no: 1

Once Gokul, Anif and Kishore went to Raja’s house. Raja was seemingly surprised.

Raja: How did you guys come?

Gokul: 2 bikes undaayirunneda.

Raja (using his full brain power): Oho, appol ningal triples adichu alle!!

Royal Blooper no: 2

It was the 1st class in IMS and SK sir paired the students into groups of 2. Students had to interact with their partners and then come to the front of the class and describe their partners. Raja enquired and learned about his partner in detail; interests, hobbies, family and stuff. Raja started explaining the profile of his partner to the class. After initially describing his character, Raja casually switched to the details about his partner’s family, and that’s when he made a twist of tongue:

Raja: As usual, he has a couple of parents!!

Raja had a black eye after the class.

Royal Blooper no: 3

Raja went to this shop in East Fort to buy a headset having a budget of Rs.500/-. Unfortunately the shop had only headsets in the range of Rs.150/-.

Raja: Cheta, enikke 400 inum 500 inum idayilulla nalla headset veenam.

Shopkeeper tried to convince him that the Rs.150/- priced headsets were really good, but Raja was quite obdurate in his stand. Shopkeeper then said he’ll check the vault for more headsets and went inside. Luckily for Raja, the shopkeeper found a Rs.450/- priced headset and Raja immediately bought it. Raja and shopkeeper parted happily. Raja reaches home and switches the headset into his computer. Raja is heartbroken; one ear-piece of the headset not working.
Flashback: Shopkeeper says he’ll check the vault and goes inside, takes out the same Rs.150/- priced headset, sticks a new sticker with a price tag of Rs.450/-, returns back and with a sly grin hands it over to Raja.

P.S. Please don’t misunderstand Raja for a filthy rich arrogant brat. He’s perhaps one of the nicest, down to earth guys I’ve ever met. By the way, Raja was infuriated by the shopkeeper’s duplicity and went to his palace to take his royal sword planning to chop down the shopkeeper, but the guileful shopkeeper shifted his shop to another corner of the city hearing rumors from unidentified sources. Rumors are there that Raja’s bodyguards have started a massive man-hunt to locate the shopkeeper.