Adieu

Life, they say, is a learning experience. Learning itself though is a life-changing experience. After having been through 21 years of it, this would seem about the right time to write a denoument for that chapter of my life. A point to stop reading and start doing. With a brief summary of how it's all been of course, the journey from a bumbling, salivating toddler to an assured, still-salivating (but at totally different things) man.

Of all the years of the 21, it's probably the 4 in college that have the steepest learning curve. For one, in college, you're pretty much on your own. You're past the totally arbitrarily-defined age where the society deems you an adult and are hence supposed to know what to do when a 'situation' arises. With this comes a freedom, one that you never had before and one that urges you to question, explore, understand and master things at a pace which you never could have before. For before now, the potter's hand that is the society and the family and the relatives was still closely around the clay that was you, restricting you from flying in all arbitrary directions so that you have one basic shape defined. That job done, the hands move away, and now the pot is ready to take any shape it wishes to.

The adult world brings with it,its share of emotions that weren't present before either. And thus form the feelings of 'me' and 'I' and other such things which are bracketed conveniently under the single category called ego. Ego is not such a bad thing, as long as it stays at self-respect. But it almost always does not. An inherent desire to assert one's views in a hall of equals is where it all begins, and there is no way that all opinions are going to be concurrent on any issue. On a minor scale, it is funny, and mostly people end up laughing. Sometimes it snowballs, and people become, well... others. And when such things happen, it's a scary, but timely reminder of how this is just the tip of the iceberg in the world that lies ahead. And at such times, you wish you never did grow up.

It's not all bad though. Experience, I believe, is truly the greatest teacher ever. You can read and listen and observe and note down a variety of things from any of the innumerable sources available to the techno-savvy person today, and yet, none of them would do anything to you as experiencing it first-hand would. Because if you don't try, you don't really know. And that is why the curve of four years of college has the slope that it has. It is a world which leads to innumerable other worlds, most of which you didn't even know existed. And you find that people of these worlds are not aliens either, they're just you, a couple of years ago, a couple of years hence, those you wish you can become, and of course, those you wish you'll never be.

The most important thing is what you take away from your experience and it is now that you take away only the good. You're still fearless, the world has still no scarred you so much that you are afraid to commit the smallest error in life, and you've just got into thinking big. Thinking big, that amazing feeling you get when your fundamental stance towards life changes from 'Why' to 'Why not'. Enlightenment is epiphanic. Experience just prepares you for it. And that moment on, you know you're ready to take on the world, and whatever it may throw at you.

There's so much more that affects you during the journey that is college life. New friends and acquaintances, trying out things you thought you could never do, going places, playing games, eating and sleeping together (in a strictly gay sense)... things you can be sure can never be experienced again. But then, that's what they say about the only thing constant being change and all that. Thus it is, that while the blood is young, the body is eager and the mind is willing to go out there and take over the world, one part of the heart knows, deep within itself, that these will be 4 years you'll never get back.

And that's why there's that lump in your throat when you realize that this is where it ends.

The Chronicles of Saarangia: The lines, the (sand)wich and the Wardrobe malfunction

Same time two years ago, this came out.Clearly a case of juvenile excitement and childish yearnings (not that I'm all Zen now.) But two years down the line, cynicism has entrenched itself firmly in every part of the system, the rose-tinted glasses have become grey and Saarang is no longer a free-for-all Swayamvara. Well actually, you still hope the fairy-tale sequence of 'bumping into hot girl-spilling your coffee-apologizing-getting talking-doing things with her-doing her' within the 5 days of Saarang happens. But mostly, you're just concerned about getting through the day without collapsing right in front of the stalls just from the force of the sound waves of their speakers. And of course, if you do collapse, a concerned, helpful damsel, again necessarily good-looking, will immediately come to you aid, and then... You know. Hope lives.

This account encompasses a time period of 120 hours in which I got exactly 19 hours of sleep. Hence, there may be a fair bit of extrapolation in parts, to make up for parts of my memory which have got Eternally Sunshined. A few incidents, such as the above mentioned ideal cases actually happening, may even be hallucinatory. You are therefore advised to proceed with a pinch of salt. Or cocaine, whatever works for you.

The allusion in the title is of course to the famous series by C.S.Lewis. Ironically, this was the book that dealt with Gluttony, of the seven sins - something that I can hardly be accused of during Saarang. My staple diet was a cycle between 3 types of Veg. Sandwiches at a stall imaginatively named 'Sandwiched' Apart from being the least messy and quickest to eat, it was also the most compatible with my digestive system, which, for some vague reason, would work at only 1/5th its usual capacity. This is an interesting piece of study for all those medics out there - Effectiveness of the digestive system (or lack of it) as a function of sleep lost. So anyway, none of the Biryanis or Noodles or burgers or even good old Venpongal would go down (the oesophagus) without a fight. And since I'm a peace-loving person, I mostly brought them out the same way I put them in, at the slightest hint of a fight. And then surrendered to the Sandwich-Effect diet.

So, I participated in 8 events, missed the finals of one as it was clashing with another, went to the finals of another as a replacement for another person who had a clash (what goes around, comes. And all that) and placed in the other 6. In the course of which, I would've probably made up enough lines with innuendos and double and treble and quadruple meanings that Shakespeare would be turning in his grave thinking 'I should've done Stand-Up'. The thing about lines is you have to time then so they come just at the climax. As with any other line, this one is left to the imagination of all you pervy people to interpret in any which way you want, but you get the point. Take your daily Orkut Fortune, add 'in bed' at the end, and it's pretty much your daily dose of One-liners right there. Like this one- 'A well-directed imagination is the source of great deeds'. Some are even prophetic, like after-the-fact accomplices- 'Happy events will take place in your home shortly'. What I'm basically trying to say is, funny lines and Dada's cover drives are the same. It's all in the timing.

Now that we're done with the lines and the sandwich, you would naturally expect me to expand on the wardrobe malfunction part of the title. But this is where, like all those ads that claim to be offering 50% off and then put a line in fine print 'on select products only', I claim that it's mostly only about the wardrobe. Mine, to be more specific. And the mess that it was in over the 5 days of Saarang. So, wardrobe malfunction, see? The only thing that could be conclusively determined from looking into my wardrobe after all of Saarang was done was that sweat can also drain the dye off clothing, and spread it nicely on the rest of the stuff in the pile. So now there are 5 uniformly pink vests and one very dull-coloured shirt which used to be red. Apart from that, I only remember thinking that the wardrobes of all the members of the fairer sex during Saarang were functioning very nicely indeed, and nodding appreciatively.

So, now you know, what really goes on behind all those stories, pictures and numbers about the largest student-organized cultural festival in South India. Blood, tears, sweat and toil. And sandwiches, one-liners, dark circles under the eyes, stained shirts. AND, one great big feeling of satisfaction.

Quotable Quacks

I know it's been a while and all that. So, by popular demand (even the title is not original!), a small look into my verbal diarrhoea @ Saarang '08. Just so some of you don't feel lucky that you were spared this...

JAM
- Camels are humped. Horses are ridden.
- Too many wives spoil the froth.
- If at first you don't succeed, try second base.
- My mother likes eighteen year-old girls... as daughter-in-law (this is the one that got misquoted all over the papers, I know what I said!)

Extempore
- Perhaps the grass is greener on your side ('Kurt Cobain' to 'Fred Flintstone'. Discussing grass, of course)
- When you say Moods, most women are thinking- PMS
- Silicon is NOT 20th century's greatest invention. This is because it was invented in the 19th century.

Not to forget, Ranjiv's now-immortal quip at Extempore 'There has to be cummation for summation'

And just to prove there is humour in everyday life as well, couple of days ago, this was overheard from a chap who'd just got a lift from another chap till his hostel-
'Macha, thanks for riding me da.'

Thank You ladies and Gentlemen, that will be all for now, I promise I'll be back with a booker-winning post soon.

Adios!

Building Character

It's been well over a month since I posted anything, and I lay the blame squarely upon my own shoulders. I believe in taking responsibility for one's actions (and inaction) and this is the time for me to stand up and be counted. Or read, as is the case with a blog.

A major reason for my not posting anything in a while is because, well, I haven't got anything going on in my life worth posting about. And so it shouldn't come as a surprise that even for this post, I go back more than 2 months for my inspiration. It has been on my mind for a while to write something about this, and yet, I've not felt like it all this time. So here goes.

As all tales begin, this one too begins in a far far land where the sky was blue, the rivers were clear and the grass was green and available in plenty within walking distance for the subjects of the kingdom. And I realize that that's about how far I can carry the whole analogy thing, so suffice to say that I'm referring to NIT-Trichy where we (G3W) had gone down for their annual cultural fest, Festember. We managed to make quite a wad between us totally, but then, it isn't always about the money is it? No, sometimes it's about what the title says.

The event in question was Scrabble, and along with my illustrious cricketer-first, scrabbler-next partner Naresh, I daresay we gave ourself quite a chance of placing in the event. The prelims were written, and as is usual it was the standard mixture of Scrabble boards, a bit of anagrams and the like. Around this point of time, we were doing 9-5 working hours, so most prelims were a blur, with the next event already coming up to think about. But again, prelims qualifying was never supposed to be a problem. Character-challenge Moment One.

As the papers were being totaled to find out who the 6 finalists would be, the score we had put up seemed to be sliding steadily and easily backwards. 5 teams ahead already and quite a bunch of papers left. We watched as each one fell way short, or just short of our total and kept remembering to breathe in the interim. It came down to one last paper, and as their total kept getting bigger, our chances of qualifying got slimmer. But you know, I wouldn't put this post up if we didn't have something to do with the finals as well. And so, it gives me great pleasure to reveal that this last paper fell short of ours by 1 point. 149 to our 150. Game On.

You would think that that was the inspiration-moment that you see in most movies - like in Gilli (Athadu for my Telugu friends) when Trisha misses her flight to America to come and watch Vijay's Kabadi match. Sadly, that wasn't to be, as our prelims paper didn't quite generate the same feelings in us as Trisha, nor is Scrabble Kabadi. The first round in the finals was Clabbers, which, if you are clever you might notice, is an anagram of Scrabble. And hence, all anagrams of any word were allowed in this round. To put it simply, you could play gtocziy on the board, since it is a perfectly valid anagram of Zygotic. This whole messing up concept was looking pretty fine till the last two moves. Actually, they became the last two moves plainly because they were 'Bingos' which is where you use up all the tiles in your rack, and get a 50-point bonus for doing so. Ergo, the opposition finishes off 14 tiles in two moves, gets a 100 points outta nowhere, and it's a 120-odd points defeat in the first game. This is bad in any circumstance, but it is definitely not good in a three-match round-robin. Character-challenge Moment Two.

And so, we go into the second match, to play the other team at the bottom. This is normal Scrabble, and all is fine until, 'Bingo' again. For them, of course. I even remember the word, bloody Chromite, I didn't know Chromite was even a compound, let alone a word! After making a mental note to brush up on my Chemistry, we calculated our total deficit, including the first match, and saw ourselves staring at -148 points. This is where the straight faces and the hammering hearts come out. Also, Character-challenge Moment Three.

Now, there are two ways to get yourself out of a hole. One is to keep digging, and find yourself going deeper inside, or you can stop digging, take a deep breath, and then try to pull the other person also into the hole. Which is precisely what we did. First, some prudent use of the Js and the Xs got us ahead in the match, and then playing the vaguest two-letter words that both of us knew definitely existed, in the hope of getting challenged. We made quite a bit of free 5-pointers in them challenges, not to mention keeping track of their time down to the precise micro-second, so that they ran out of it quite a while before the tiles were done. Excess time carried a penalty too, and all things considered, we won the game, and got ourselves a good 4o-odd points positives in the bargain. Here's where the three-match round robin concept got useful. Only 2 teams were on two wins, and they were going to play each other. So, only one person ends up on 3 wins. That left the winner of our next match, ironically with the same opposition we had played Clabbers with, guaranteed a third place, with the possibility of a second if one of the top 2 got mauled by the other. Thankfully, one of the top 2, was Nush and Sandeep, the other IIT team. It isn't Rocket Science, but if they beat their opponents handsomely, and we beat ours as handsomely, that second place was ours.

It's not like BPL's Soccer Sunday, where, when the Big Four are playing each other, everyone knows what's going on in the other match. Here, you concentrate on your game, and don't even hope that things are going fine in the other match. The game proceeded quite satisfactorily, not a huge margin, but we kept our noses ahead. It didn't look like we were heading for a big win, whereas we definitely needed one, to wipe out our overall deficit of -90. Slowly though, the previous game's strategy of deep breath-think clear-pull other person in began to work. There's nothing quite as beautiful as closing the board out with 'ug' and 'ch' and 'li' and leaving the opposition nothing to work with. Which worked quite effectively.We did not have a Bingo at any point in the game, or for that matter, the tournament. Yet, the closed-board game was bringing in the 20s and 30s quite well, and that was fine by us. As the tiles ran out, our lead kept getting ever so bigger. Eventually, it was done. Bingo-less, without any fancy words on triples or double, we finished with a 120 point positive from the game, a total of +30 overall. But was it enough?

We needn't have bothered. Nush and Sandeep had decimated the other team by around 150 points. All we needed to do was win, and we would've got second. As it turned out, we did much more than that, thank you very much.

It may not be the Natwest Finals Yuvraj-Kaif chase. It may not be United's 5-3 second-half demolition of Spurs from 0-3 down. But it was a comeback nevertheless, and comebacks are always sweet. For what it does is, it builds character. Tenacity, hope, self-belief and such. As I said before, it's not always about the money.

However, 700 bucks a head does go quite a long way in ensuring that the Character is Built.