Life or something like shit

I came into IIT expecting a lot. And I got more than a lot, more like acres. This place is like HUGE. There is no parking lot, but there’s a lot. The amount of trees in this place is unimaginable. Apart from the Gymnosperm and Angiosperm kinds, there are the trees with numbers on them, such as Tree No. 38, tree no. 138 and tree no. x with 130 < x < 140. I came in expecting professors with brainwaves coming out of their ears, and other professors measuring these using brainwave-o-meters. I came in expecting students to find unbelievable solutions such as turn on the switch to indecipherable problems such as why the computer wouldn’t start. I came in expecting to find brainiacs in ill-fitting shirts and with messed up hair because they had stayed up all night. Not thinking up solutions to Schrödinger’s equations, but watching the latest sitcom from NBC. I came in expecting all this. And I found them.

One of the things that I most admired in my seniors was their ability to sleep in class without the professor being able to discern the same. This was a very important skill to have as it ensured that the body got its required amount of sleep, which had been lost at night on the above-mentioned sitcom. Oh, apart from that, they also had something or the other to do with this thing called the Lit-Soc. The Lit-Soc is this thing, which happens in my college, which doesn’t amount to the tiniest bit of hair on a rodent’s posterior, except for one big cup at the end of it all. Which you can get in any elec course without much effort anyway. Without any effort, actually.

And so, since I’m an Indian, and no Indian has ever had an original idea, I decided to do something else, to make my wonderfully incomplete life even more incomplete. I read classics which I couldn’t make head or tail of just because they were classics. I watched Black and White movies which even their directors would’ve forgotten having made. I played football as a two-footed winger whenever I had the opportunity, and finally got two and half minutes at right-back in the only match we played. I went to quizzes and stared blankly at the paper - the Mass Transfer/Equilibrium Operations kind of quizzes. I was desperate to be recognized as he-who-does-something-else by the band of we-all-do-something-else people. I ran from here to there and back here again. Sometimes, I just ran.

And then I found the Hat.

The Hat. It’s very difficult to describe completely what the hat is about, and I can never do justice to it. But I can try. I’ve seen cricketers kiss their helmets when they score a century, and I’ve always wondered what made them kiss that smelly, plastic object when their lips would’ve done much better in contact with another pair of lips, attached to a fragrant, organic being of the opposite sex. I’ve wondered what made them feel so strongly about something. The hat helped me understand.

The hat is the epitome of the simplicity of genius. Its power lies in its non-existence, its secret lies in its openness. It’s the ultimate paradox. To wear the hat is to experience a feeling like never before. With the hat on, you get the feeling of having done something to stir the innermost rumblings of any heart. You’ve made them feel insignificant, unwanted, ignored for that small period of time. You’ve made them stop talking, and so By Douglas Adams’ hypothesis, their brain starts to slowly grind into motion. You’ve done something that would make them remember you forever.

You’ve made them think. For once.

The hat can be worn to anyone. Professors, seniors, juniors, friends, irritating cell-phone company callers, annoying Xerox machine characters… anyone. The beauty of the hat is in the universality of its use. And it’s not that the usage of the hat is limited to people. The hat can be worn to things too, such as Computational Techniques quizzes, or assignments, or classes. Or End sems. Whatever. The point is, once you’ve worn the hat, you’re liberated. From the mundane, from the boring, from the routine, from the inconsequential.

It is difficult to totally describe what the Hat can do. And the hat says that this is enough about itself for now, and it shall be so. For the hat is never wrong. It doesn't matter what kind you have on. It could be a sombrero, a felt-hat, a bowler or a top-hat. All that matters is that it's there, or actually not there. For as said before, it's the non-existence of the hat which really makes its presence felt. Like sometimes when you feel that silence is very loud.

This could go on and on, but that would be disrespecting the hat, and all that it stands for. It’s got nothing do with memories being butterflies and you shouldn’t stick em to papers and all that. It’s just that you don’t talk about the hat. That’s all.

Amen.

P.S: I put this post up, and by some weird machination of Google's Edit function, it got deleted. But I wore the hat and reproduced it. From memory. Thus the hat also doubles as a thinking cap. See?

November Rain

The title has nothing at all do with the following story. It's merely the song playing on my computer right now.

Once upon a time, there was a rich but stingy old man who slept in his barn because he just really really liked his horses. He was very fond of them and he didn’t want any harm to come to them. He had a lot of enemies and he wanted to make sure all his horses had their heads on their sleek shoulders, and not on his bed, as he had seen in the movie The Godfather. Besides, if he was to sleep with some animal, he rather preferred that it was his horses than, say, his fish. If he was sleeping with the fishes, it would mean that he was no longer part of the realm of the living and had left his mortal body behind to ascend to heaven, or descend to hell, whichever. Basically, it would mean he was dead. This again from The Godfather. Besides, it was not that he was sleeping in the smelly barn with all this hay around without reason. A hitchhiker had come by a few hours ago, and had offered to give him 267.75 bucks for letting him sleep in his house tonight. This was an offer he couldn’t refuse, and he’s let him have the house. And if you haven’t figured by now, the old man was obsessed with The Godfather.

It wasn’t that the old man was in desperate need of money. He had half the GDP of Somalia locked up in numbered accounts in Switzerland. He had purchased land which, put together, amounted to just over 1/3^rd the total area of Tuvalu (YES, it is a country). But of course, all that was never enough. And even though these 267.75 bucks would not contribute even one-billionth towards furthering either of those two pieces of statistics, it would at least help him buy a calculator. With which, he could calculate those two pieces of statistics better. He patted himself for having cleverly let the hitchhiker have his bedroom for the night to sleep.

The hitchhiker was not at all asleep in the bedroom. In fact, he wasn’t in the bedroom at all. In fact, he wasn’t a hitchhiker at all. He was actually part of the special commando unit of his country, the Fraternal Army of the Republic of Tamenia, which couldn’t be abbreviated for obvious reasons. They had been sent over to the neighbouring republic of Crazykhistan, to disarm a nuclear bomb that the country had inexplicably created. The hitchhiker-soldier shook his head again in amazement at this fact. There was no way anyone in Crazykhistan would’ve been able to put together a nuclear weapon. The person with the highest IQ in the country was one who had identified a cat as a dog. Everyone else had identified as a cat. With such intellectual property, it was beyond anyone how they had managed to work out the working of nuclear fission. And yet, the intelligence department had positive information about the existence of the bomb, and they had deemed it necessary to disarm it as fast as possible. And that’s where the F.A.R.T came in.

Their unit had crossed over into Crazykhistan last night, and had arrived at the location sited by the intelligence as the most likely hiding place of the weapon. They had just decided to do a quick in-and-out, under the cover of darkness, when floodlights blazed all around them. They found themselves in an open field, where the most terrifying weapon for miles around was a sharp piece of blade which could tickle a man to death if used properly. Other than that of course, there were the hundred and fifty one rifles trained at the seven of them by the Crazykhistan army. It was an ambush! Before anyone could react, they had all simultaneously gone for the flashlights, and then it had been every man for himself. With bullets whizzing by within 0.0003 meters from his head, he had stumbled on blindly, keeping low and using up 8 of his 9 lives on the way. He still didn’t know how, but he had crossed the border at some point and after two more of hours of stumbling, had arrived at this house. He had convinced the owner to let him stay over for the night, telling him that he could have his 9.23418 mm Beretta for 267.75 bucks, when it was actually worth 272.25 bucks (Ha, he’d pulled a fast one there!) And now he wondered if any of the other six had survived…

The old man was finding it really uncomfortable in the barn. He knew there was a spot at the left rear end, where there was new, soft hay. He went over there and threw himself on the hay, and immediately regretted the action. His back hit something hard and he got up clutching his back. He cleared the hay to find a hard object underneath. What in the world… was not the first thought that crossed his mind. The first thought that crossed his mind was How much will this be worth? However, the What in the world… came soon after, followed by How? Where? Wha…? in varying degrees of incomprehensibility, all waiting at the signal, to cross his mind. Once all these thoughts were done crossing the increasingly congested road that his mind was becoming, he decided to call the hitchhiker to see if he could help him remove the object.

The hitchhiker-soldier-survivor came to the barn smirking inwardly. The old man’s probably seen a cockroach or something and wants me to drive it away. He entered the barn and saw something gleaming in the corner that the old man pointed to. For a moment a crazy thought entered his head, but he dismissed it immediately. He walked over to the corner and cleared away more of the hay. As the long, cylindrical object revealed itself, the crazy thought came back into his head, knocked loudly and said ‘I told you so’. There, lying in all its glory, with its timer reading 00:00:17, was the nuclear weapon. Immediately everything fell into place for the hitchhiker-soldier.

There had been a bomb, and the army of Crazykhistan had meant for it to be found. And then, once they were sure it had been exposed enough for the intelligence of Tamenia to become aware of its existence, they had it moved and set up an ambush in its place. They had wiped out nearly the entire commando unit of the Fraternal Army of the Republic of Tamenia in one blow. And, when the unit had thus been occupied, they had secretly slipped the bomb itself into Tamenia and armed it to explode. The complex plot convinced the hitchhiker-soldier-sailor that Crazykhistan had somehow developed a machine to put together the IQ of the entire population, to create a super-brain.

Or, someone hadn’t taken that IQ test.

This entire thought process cost the hitchhiker 16 seconds to think. When he looked down at the timer again, it read 00:00:01.

The old man was getting ready to shout ‘Happy New Year!’

The hitchhiker was thinking Oh Shit…

White Noise

Hari got up to the sunlight streaming right into his eyes. He hated it when that happened, and wished he could shift his bed away from the window where it currently was. But his single room apartment afforded only so much space and there was nowhere else he could put the bed. Besides, light wasn't really a problem, that was not what had woken him up. His mind dully registered the rhythmic thud thud of the concrete mixer which came in through the window. That was it, that was what had woken him up. Light of any kind he could sleep through, but expose him to a noise slightly above a whisper on the Decibel level, and his foray into dreamland would be unceremoniously cut off and he'd find himself with his feet firmly on the ground, which was what he was attempting to do now.

He swung his legs over the bed and plonked them down, but instead of meeting terra firma, he found his legs in a semi-solid state of matter with pieces of solid spread intermittently through the matrix. His brain tried to reconstruct the events of the past night, trying to search for clues which might explain the gunk under his legs. Let's see... friends come over, match too boring, go out for a quickie... quickie expands into rounds, rounds into bottles, stagger back between friends' shoulders, flop on bed... no wait, ah YES! Before the flop on bed part, his stomach had rebelled against the excessive alcohol treatment it had been subjected to and had decidedly rejected the contents of the bottles that he'd been interacting with a few hour before that, and so by the process of regurgitation, had splayed his floor with the same. In short, he had puked, and now his foot was in it.

He got up and immediately regretted the action. The world spun in one direction, and his head in the other, as he staggered around to find something to get a hold off, other than himself. Thankfully, the world realigned itself to his sense of balance and he went into the bathroom to clean... most of himself. That concrete-mixer was really getting to him. Who in the world wanted a new driveway for the neighbour's cars anyway? And then the thought struck him that the neighbours did, and he felt very depressed by the simple logic of it all.

He needed coffee. Sugar-less coffee. Just cafe con leche as his Spanish girlfriend would've put it. Which reminded him. They were supposed to meet today... or was it tomorrow. Yep, definitely today. Things hadn't been going that well between them lately. She was finding his perennial lack of time, or seeming lack of concern for her quite irritating. Even when they were together, she complained that he looked so lost all the time, dreamy, sleepy... she didn't know how to put it. And the last time, when he had yawned right in her face when she was in the middle of an animated exposition about her work day, she had been really put off. She had gotten up and walked off in a huff, and it had taken more than one conciliatory phone call to agree to the meeting today. He had wanted to be the perfect boyfriend today, listen to everything she said, nod in agreement with a smile, inject the odd funny comment... the works. But now he had gone and got drunk and his head was throbbing.

He still had an hour till he was scheduled to meet her. He decided to take the coffee and walk to her office, maybe the air will help clear up his head. He had a cold shower, nearly died of hypothermia as a result, towelled himself dry, put on the cleanest clothes he could find, stepped around the mess on the floor and stepped out of the apartment.

She worked in an NGO, which took care of the orphans abandoned on Mumbai's roads... or atleast as much of them as they could. Why she had to come all the way from Catalunya to actively involve herself in this, was beyond him. He wasn't complaining though, they had nicely hit it off when they had met at the party for the Spanish ambassador, when he had thankfully been sober, and it had been good ever since. That is, till that last time... or the last few weeks in fact. And now she was angry. And today was the make-up day. And he was hung over.

The hour long walk through the fresh, polluted Bombay air did his head no good at all. Now not only was his head throbbing, but his feet were complaining and he was hungry, since his stomach had efficiently emptied itself out last night, and he had fogotten this thing called breakfast. Still, he was in front of the NGO's office, and he took a deep breath and stepped inside. He knew her office was on the third floor, she had told him that during one of the stories that he had been listening to. He reached her office and without knocking, opened the door, shouting 'Surprise' as he did.

She was not there. The office was empty. Probably stepped out for a bit, he thought. He stepped into the office. It was brilliantly lit, and very clean too, giving the office a look of purity, like some minor angel's office in heaven. He shut the door behind him and something struck him as being very odd. He waited a few minutes, and then realization dawned upon him. The room was completely silent! Either by a quirk of architectural brilliance, or accoustic magic, the room had become completely sound-proof. Not a single noise permeated through the white walls or the now-closed door. He walked around the room and settled into a couch, which looked wide enough to fit two people into it. He decided to wait for her, and settled a bit more comfortably into the couch. He found that if he pulled his legs up into a foetal position, he could really get a very nice orientation of his body parts. He did so, and his eyes decided that the best orientation for them, was with the eyelids down, and so they screwed shut. The white walls, the bright lights, the near-heavenly cleanliness, nothing mattered for Hari. All that mattered was the complete aural isolation that the room provided, and his brain acknowledged the fact by immediately switching off. Hari was out like a light, all puns intended.

Maria stepped into her office and let out a short gasp of surprise. There was a form sitting, rather, curled up on her couch. Then she recognised the unruly brown hair and smiled to herself. That can only be one person. She tiptoed into the room, hoping to catch him by surprise. As she leant over to place her hands over his eyes, she saw that that would not be needed, they were closed anyway. She went around the couch and knelt beside him. He was sleeping peacefully, not a care in the world. She knelt closer, and found what she was looking for, or rather, smelling for. One coffee was nowhere near enough to supress the smell of the bottle, or more, of yesterday night's drinks. She looked at him for a long time, just kneeling there and staring. Then she lightly ruffled the unruly brown hair, got up and tiptoed away.

As she went out, she switched off the lights too.

Snapshot

Quiz week is one of those times when laws of relativity, gravity, sphericity, electricity and all become defunct. Time exists only in terms of pages of book left to read or number of problems left to solve. Performance optimization occurs by judicious use of time alloted to sleeping, eating, and other necessary human activities for poring through the book. Dead Man Walking would be the description closest to being correct at these times. And yet, in this primarily black and white state of existence, there was a brief splash of colour, yesterday.

This was while eating dinner. Across the table from me were two other gentlemen who clearly did not have to worry about Mass Transfer and other such trivialities of life. So they launched into this animated discussion about a lesson they had in 9th Standard in their English textbook.

You remember that story called The Deer in The Forest, or something?

You mean Bambi?

No no, this was just, a deer in the forest. There would be this deer, with it's baby deer, what do you call it...

Fawn.

Yes, fawn. So there is this deer and the fawn living in a forest. One day there is a huge forest fire and there is mayhem all round. The deer and its fawn, in panic, run straight into a tiger. As the tiger watched hungrily, the fawn starts trembling, its legs refusing to move. The deer knows that there is no way its baby can outrun the tiger, so it steps in between the tiger and its baby...

In real life that'll never happen, the deer will just run away.

What? Why?

What, obviously it can outrun the tiger, and besides the tiger will be satisfied with the fawn. This way the deer can atleast survive and maybe give birth to another fawn. If it stays there, the tiger will kill it first, and then go after the fawn and kill it too anyway.

The man had a point, I thought.

Eh no, what're you saying? You know when a Cobra lays eggs, and a mongoose comes to eat the eggs, the cobra will go out and fight the mongoose and die, rather than let the mongoose take the eggs. If that's the case for unhatched eggs, surely a deer would do the same for a living, breathing fawn.

Yes, but the cobra and mongoose are at least well-matched. Between the deer and the tiger, it's a no contest, and hence, no point.

The man was making point after point.

No da, the deer will defend the kid only first. Ok, that's what the story says, let's stick to it. So the way that scene is described, it's one of the few lines etched in my memory.
"With a trembling heart, she stood in front of her baby, as she watched the jaws of death of the tiger, ready to tear into her flesh at any moment."

I smiled. I had finished my dinner. I was full.