Torn Genes

Among the myriad subcultures of global teenage-and-just-after population would be the indecent number of torn jeans worn. Also, the number of indecent worn jeans torn.
Admittedly, torn jeans would be something I shall miss most as part of college life. That list for another day though.

So I wore a really old, weathered and mother'd pair of jeans to college on one of those days when I felt like being all anti-imperialist (we have a dress code), rebellious and generally non-conformist. Sure enough, I was confronted by one of 'em knuckle-draggers.

"Do you realise your pants are torn?"

"Yes, I'm the definitive voice of the impoverished. Do you realise this is India en masse right here."

I realise, at this point that I'm pointing at the fork area where the slight tear is at.

"Use rubber. We can't help it if men are used to think with their dicks now, can we?"

I bought a new pair of jeans yesterday.

Eat this, Ekkta Kkapish.

Man Utd go goal-less on the same day that my brand new white Levi's shirt gets 'dyed' green on the same day that my results come out on the same day that started with the Toilet Catastrophe.
Lets just say Computer Networks is the latest entity on my list of "life's bastards".

The randomest thing on my mind right now is that if you can help it, try and not have prehistoric parents.

Its one thing to have a tune in mind and have Winamp shuffle over to the exact same song once in a while.
But its pleasantly a whole other thing when this happens a whopping 10 times.
The untold thrill of such an event is accentuated when you are poring over some sad assignment and the study table is way over on the other side of the room.
Being on a bad-luck groove and with the playlist filled with all the fuckin songs on the computer, you don't really anticipate ze Providence to grace you thus.
But over twenty pages of Java, I'd listened to:
Mysterious ways- U2
Interstate Love Song- Stone Temple Pilots
Peace Frog- The Doors
Shine- Collective Soul
Revolution Calling- Queensryche
Mindstreet- Motherjane
Ram It Down- Judas Priest
Blood Of Another- Paradise Lost
Whiplash- Metallica
Cat Scratch Fever- Motorhead

Maybe Murphy hasn't sold his soul to the devil after all!

More random stuff:
Carol: Don't you guys have to go kill somebody?
John: No, We've always got time for a song!
-Sleepers

A 'class' act

I was weighing the deliberations on whether or not I turn this blog into a virtual travelogue thing and start making some dough out of it. And then at a coffee-break in Sapaeti on the way back, I had some more ridiculously sweet instant coffee and have since snapped out of the travelogue idea. I mean I don't often find myself getting this tired of travelling. And not wanting to 'get away'. But I'd much like to stay put for a bit right now, really!

But make no mistake, this is one trip I'd have regretted missing.And if someone said Kodaikanal is 'couples only', I'd much like to ask him to kindly shove it. The magic of the place never ceases to amaze, irrespective of the fact that it was my third time there over the past few years.
The misty haze of the hills, the flowers waking up and shaking the early morning dew off themselves, the view from the boat of the tall conifers adorning the horizon and generally other suchlike postcard-perfect spectacles summed up the sights of the place.The sounds and smells on the other hand were rudely adulterated by repititive Anthakshari sessions and that stench of boiled rice respectively.
'Sum up' is a handy phrase, especially when you don't feel like delving into the subtleties of things. Yes, I wouldn't really like to take travel-criticism for a career.

One way to make the already exciting exercise of trekking even more fun is wearing a white trouser to a trek and challenge yourself not to make it dirty. Its a lot more fun that way, believe you me!
That and ofcourse, being around girls and grabbing them by the waist when they slip. After all, you are just trying to help, innit. It isn't too filmi to think about the good prospects that an 'unintended hug' can bring!

I also now have a clear perception of what 'deafening silence' means. I stumbled on it deep in the heart of a pine forest. It was as cut off from the world as you can possibly get. I mean I'm sure i could have heard a pin drop, much less a twig.At the risk of sounding corny, I much felt like I was the outer manifestation of my inner peace for the subsequent five minutes. Oh holy hallelujah!
Ofcourse the process of orgasming from such an elevated state of spiritual consciousness is catalysed by glorified food substances like Red Riband, Old Monk, Emcee and assorted Haldirams!
Warning: When in Kodai, examine your vodka thoroughly before buying it. You get 'Brisnoff' as legally as you get 'Smirnoff'. And both have TNTC seals on them.
Continuing on my tryst with Ze Halcyon,
Ze class siren was the only other person who knew halfway-decent Tamil,
Ze class siren is seeing someone else,
Ze class siren believes in polygamy and finds infidelity fun.
haw haw!
So one last day of sightseeing and hectic shopping for homemade chocolates later, we return to the real world. The illusion of holiday was terrific fun while it lasted. [Yes, the Supremental Yoga]
I resent the fact, though, that Anthakshari is the integral part of a class trip. Ok so I can't sing a Hindi song for nuts, but how cruel is it to take my ass about it all the time. Anthakshari around the bonfire, on the park bench, in the cottage...aaaaargh.
No offence, but I'd rather take the huge risk and not get trained to be Sonu Nigam.

Hence due to all its lack of social deviance, the trip brought us terrifically close as a class. A calming ethos now exists and warmth exudes from most of our conversations. Like I said, I'd have regretted missing this. I'd really have.

Hope the rest of the week is just as rosy. My results, the Man U Liverpool game and a Java assigment to get through.

Superfuzz: My choir of tears-1

It was one of those times when I felt the excruciating urge to talk cricket.I wish I had Boycott around to speak to...and also some Carslberg to guzzle on. Life would have come a full circle!

Anyway, I came up some insights right after the last India-Kiwi round robin game. It looked so much like a nice little article that you would find in Sportstar that I actually mailed a copy to the magazine's moderator. I even made sure that the write-up ended with a rather pompous prediction of a comprehensive Indian win. They will bring this one home, I think I said!

I can be bitter about having to eat my words. I sincerely think its about the bitterest pills there is. The need for a pitcher of bitter transcended this tremendous multiplicity of bitterness quotients. Ergo, beer.

A dark room, a new notepad file, some Coldplay in the background and a coffee-byte in my mouth is enough to get my mental machinery to work up the 'big picture'.
Why is it so unimagniably hard for performance to be at par with potential?

"Once, an old farmer, tinkering with a rusty harrow on a country road, was approached by an earnest young man from the university Extension Service who was making farm-to-farm calls for the purpose of selling a new manual on soil conservation and new farming techinques. After a polite and polished speech the young man asked the farmer if he would like to buy this new book, to which the old man replied,
'Son, I don't farm half as good as I know how already.'
Evokes a hangover, doesn't it?"

On a completely personal level, the pursuit of solutions to such queries would have lent a lot more satisfaction than cracking some soreass C++ code in a placement test that would decide my fate as to whether or not I die a corporate whore. But then, its just me.
Self-pity aside, I sincerely think it is cruel on God's part to let me enjoy a Thomas Harris social psychiatry book rather than a proper Stanley Lippman C++ primer. I mean, really, its one of those several things that render me a serious persecution complex in a class of budding Information Science engineers.

...which brings me to 'my class'.
Apart from the ten odd people in the class whom I pretty much live my life with, I am not as much at sea as I'm shipwrecked when it comes to making a conversation with the rest of them. It is plain 'communication breakdown', as Led Zep would have you believe.
Suddenly, a wiseass idea is spawned. Seeing as we're all in our final year of the course and hence might not see each other for the rest of our lives after the same, there is a 'sudden' need to do something profound as a class. What better than a class-trip out of town?

Now, my extreme vulnerability to such sentiments notwithstanding, I don't have half a mind to go through with this.
In a nutshell, my reasons would be insufficient funds and a deeply ingrained sense of reclusiveness as far as the class is concerned.But in cases such as these, its usually a whole mass of easily impressionable sheep all against your carefully bred moral principles. You become quickly antagonized and rumours of your alleged 'attitude-problem' are strewn all over.
So, in order to stop the ridiculous overflow of such wrong notions, you eventually give in.

And therefore, I'd be out in Kodaikanal for the next few days, very likely chewing on a bunch of caramel or drinking coffee alone on a park-bench singin' "the aesthetic of the bumb".
The silver lining, I find out as I crane to see it is that I get to travel. Its about the most liberating thing there's been since Section Eight (but my respect for the Army stays).

So, yeah I should be back by the 14th. I'd much hope for the BSNL people to have my broadband connection set up by the time I'm home. I'd really want to trust the classy female BSNL employees at that office. They used fountain-pens and knew how to spell 'receive'. God bless!

At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I proclaim that I shall deeply miss my blog and that all my acts of conscious awareness would be recorded in detail once I'm back.

And, Sportstar was kind enough not to publish my article. Things can only get better.

Peace, love, empathy, safe-sex.

P.S: I have not-so-conveniently abandoned my social responsibility towards my readers with the length of this post.
P.P.S: I'm also pre-eminently indebted to Percy for that wonderful line!