Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

After Cloning...and a lack of posts.

The summer has thrown up a couple of really weird surprises. Never thought I'd actually ever do this at IIT. Work hard (oh alright just work...) and actually enjoy it (or rather not despise it...). Life is full of the unexpected.

The Menace or How I spent my last 24 or so hours...Part Two

contd. from Part One below.

The rest of my day was spent with Messers Aseem, Pranjal and Nitin. After having our first dinner at my place we went off to Pranjal's house, which is somewhere deep in West Delhi and usually takes a long long time to get there, though Mr Pranjal Dua sticks to his claim that it os only 5 minutes from Punjabi Bagh. The reason that all of us had decided to go to his place was that he had acquired, albeit temporarily, an X-Box from one of his friends. So we spent the next 8 hours playing NBA 2004, the only conclusion that could be drawn after this 8 hour long marathon was that the only way someone could win a game was by ensuring that Mr Nitin Govind was not supporting him. Though Mr. Govind has been mentioned in a few posts on my blog to most readers he, I think, remains a mystery. A part of reason for this enigma is that Mr. Govind is not a believer of the internet revolution. No one is quite sure when was the last time he came online, for that matter even he isn't sure of his last working email id.

Anyway Mr. Govind is supporting a look that made Surya's mother proclaim a resemblance to "Hero No. 1". Whether she was referring to Mr. Govinda (note the resemblance in names here...) is debatable. I would think he resembles the side kick of the local street gangster in movies such as 'Pandav' which my friend Mr. Karan Malik enjoys watching in his time off. His look or "style statement" as he prefers to call it basically involves weeks of unkept beard growth. Mr Govind was also unfortunately suffering from a condition that my friend Mr. Rustagi also falls prey to at times and requires statements like "Be Brave" to motivate him to do the needful. The effect of this condition was expressed very well by Mr Aseem Suri, who seems to have a knack for these things, who on finding himself standing too close to Mr Govind told him, "Dude, no offence, but u stink." To which Mr Govind, though initially lost for words, later defended himself by stating that "Stink is in."

During the course of the night as NBA raged on, Mr Govind came across a book by the title of 'Vedic Love Signs' ( a good question here would be what was Mr Pranjal Dua doing with a book called 'Vedic Love Signs', he claims that a friend of his left it by accident.) After which Mr. Govind seemed to find new meaning to his life and came up with all these absolutely ridiculous assertions and predictions. This nonsense soon ended when we found out that according to 'Vedic Love Signs' Mr. Govind should be called, I kid you not, "Purva Phalguni" and that his sexuality was defined by the "Female Rat".

I finally dropped off to sleep with NBA still going great guns at 5.30 am. We were woken up with our host Mr. Pranjal Dua coming into the room with a bucket of water and a mug, I assumed that he had had enough of Mr. Govind's...err....aura(?). But I was proved wrong, as he dragged behind him something that looked like a small air cooler, a cuboidal contraption 3 and a 1/2 feet in height, and told us to fill it up if we wanted some cool air. While this was happening Mr Suri had gotten up from his slumbers and after doing his standard morning ritual which consists of looking at Mr Govind, outstretching his arms as if to give a hug and saying "aaja aaja" moved on to the computer, where he started to play the most traumatic of music. The first song by a band called Rouge(I think...) reminded me of Mr Manu Saxena and his Bus Music, the second involved someone cooing "an ass like that" every 30 seconds or so.

Anyway coming back to the miniature air cooler, undoubtedly a novel invention was, I would have thought, not very fascinating. But again I was wrong. For Mr. Govind having woken up substantially and after ignoring Mr. Suri's outstretched arms and pleading voice, looked at it with a kind of benevolent love and said in a dreamy sort of voice "this is my new friend" and proceeded to pat it on its top. He then meticulously proceeded to fill 'his friend' up with water, interspacing the task with expressions such as "Yo brother whats up?". I have known Mr. Govind since quite some time now but have hardly ever see him do something with such intense concentration.

It has on the whole been an immensely enjoyable 24 or so hours.

The Return or How I spent my last 24 or so hours....Part One

I know this has turned into a long post, but couldn't help it, the words just kept flowing....so I have divided it into 2 parts this is part one.

My Friday began with my phone ringing, at what at that time seemed like the middle of the night, but on further examination was found to be 10.30 am or thereabouts. I groggily said the cursory greeting while trying to discern the owner of this far off voice, while simultaneously wishing death, destruction and mutilation on this gentleman who had disturbed my beauty sleep. The gentleman in question turned out to be none other than Mr. Manu Saxena, of the M.MS from DPS and the B**** fame.

His first words were enough to make all notions of sleep disappear (an anomaly I corrected as soon as I hung up the phone by going back to sleep and waking up 2 hours later). The words in question were, "Arre yaar, Star Wars ki story bata..." And I was left dumbfounded. The only parallel I can draw from my short but sweet existence uptill now is this one time during school when we'd been packed off to attend a creative writing workshop where this female NRI writer asked me to tell her the story of the Ramayana in one line. One line.
Anyway coming back to Mr. Manu Saxena and his quest for knowledge, he went on to inform me that he hadn't seen Episodes 4,5 and 6 but had watched 1 and 2. This I thought was going to take long. So I tried to explain to him who Darth Vader was, but I soon realized the futility of my task. And when I admonished him on his impulsive and idiotic desire to see Revenge of the Sith before watching the original trilogy he came up with a gem, "Arre woh chod, tu mujhe Episodes 1 and 2 ki hi story phir se bata de". Thankfully he soon concluded the conversation but not before telling me, "Agar mujhe kuch movie mein samajh nahin aaya to main tujhse aakar poochunga".

I have just received a call from him, informing me that he really enjoyed the movie. Mr Manu Saxena is a man of many talents.

Striking Back.

Well the first week of my vacations is over. Its been a slow kind of week, more the kind usually easily spent on a hammock in Goa rather than one braving(here I stick to the usual use of the word unlike my friend Mr. Rustagi, for whom braving would usually involve some soap, water and a towel....) storms out at sea. Its involved catching up with people, some thanks to Mr Graham Bell, the others to the chap(s) who came up with the internet and the msn messenger and some the good 'ol fashioned way, by actually meeting them.

There wasn't much going on the movie front, with Kya Kool Hain Hum and Jo Bole So Nihaal hogging all the theatres, I did not dare to venture close and from what I've heard that was a pretty smart move. So instead I chose to see movies at home. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade is an absolute delight, the best of the series. Harrison Ford and Sean Connery make it an awesome adventure. For here you have these two brilliant actors as a hilarious father son duo on the greatest quest of them all, a pre Dan Brown search for the Holy Grail. Add to this Spielberg's direction and a script/story(am not sure which) by George Lucas and you have the greatest adventure of them all, peppered with the usual Indiana Jones mirch masala. Indiana Jones is so much 'cooler' than James Bond, here is half the Nazi army after Indi and a diary he carries, so what does he do? He goes and gets it autographed by the Fuhrer himself, take that Mr Bond.

I also saw for the second time Star Wars Episode 2 Attack of the Clones, chiefly in preparation for The event- Star Wars Episode 3 Revenge of the Sith. Its out on the 20th and I can barely wait. A friend of mine, wrote on his blog why Star Wars makes us feel the way it does, and there is no way I can put it better than he did. Read This, even if you don't believe in the force. Read it not just for the brilliant prose but try to understand why otherwise rational people still dream about light sabers and a galaxy far far away....

I also read the review of a movie called Khooni Dracula after it was strongly recommended by my friend Manu Saxena. Needless to say I shall not be looking too hard to get a copy of it. If anyone of you is interested in watching it after reading the review I suggest you contact Manu and I'm sure he'll be able to arrange a CD for you

I also shamelessly lost a game of scrabble to Swati by 34 points, I have to take her on again, lost honour must be regained.

On a random note I did two things that I never thought I'd be doing,

1) Calling up someone and saying, "Hi Rohan, this is Rohan."

2) Reading a sign on a glass door at a restaurant saying, "Glass Door."

On an absolutely random note, the Reader's Digest I get at home is addressed to "Mr. Rohan Rohan Trivedi". And I kinda like the sound of that, so if ever I decide to get a middle name, I think I'll make it Rohan :-)

Until Next Time.

A new hope.

Its all over. It got over yesterday. And it was simply horrible. But its over now and that's what's important. I thought I'd right an eloquent post, but I can't seem to find the words, this is taking too much of an effort. I don't feel like being bogged down in front of a computer, I didn't feel upto it yesterday, and I don't feel like it today. There are many things I wanted to write about, two books that I wanted to review, elaborate on the saga of the floaters that I finally bought yesterday but not now not here.

I spent the day with Aseem and Nitin, and it was a typical 'the gang' day minus most of 'the gang'. We did the usual, Cafe 100, Barista, hours and hours of endless nonsense and laughter, a chat with Surya from home, a visit to meet Karan's mom, a heavenly cake and a feast meant for kings. We talked about old school times and present college days, about insane teachers and crazier students, of hilarious escapades and a fabled family tree. We ended up with a discussion on the merits/demerits of moving out, of living alone, of independence and responsibility, of parents and understanding, of decisions and dreams.

A collage of phrases, snippets of conversations, my days doings, I list below. Do not judge, do not interpret, its not meant for everyone, just for those who will need no explanation.

A severed hand, an IndiaTrip, a payment for an ass. Aseem's love and club for MJ, deans lists and lost loves, of FC's and NFC's and MC's. Mantriji, charlie's tango and alpha no coffee. Fat black men, 4.0's, night driving. Wannabe DU rockers, free phones and the issues of facial hair. Of a certain Mr Lele and his greeting on the phone.

I had almost forgotten how good life could be.

Major Madness...

Death where is thy sting?




Note: For the uninitiated Majors are what my end of semester exams are called.

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat....and MEP202

Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat...and MEP202

Ask not for whom the bell tolls...

My To-Do list for the remaining two weeks of the semester is as follows:

1) Term Paper on Art and Politics.

D-Day: May 3rd or thereabouts.

Comrade(s) in Arms: Swati

Guide/Mentor/Hell Raiser: Prof. Sanil, Immanuel Kant, Plato, Aristotle and the rest of the gang.

The Method in this Madness: Well I've already devoted quite some space to this term paper on this blog so no point going into it again. I had my presentation on Saturday and theoretically it could have been worse but I doubt it. Anyway for the completion of my term paper my entire hope rests on Swati pulling me through, I just hope hers doesn't rest on me.

2) Design, Innovate and Manufacture a Stretcher

D-Day: April 23rd, Proudly announced as 'Open House', where all of you are welcome to come and see the 'best and brightest' of IITD (though be fore warned that your sanity may come under a shroud of suspicion if you actually choose to do so.)

Comrade(s) in Arms: Anshuman-Great Leader and other fellow members of 'Avant Garde'.

Guide/Mentor/Hell Raiser:Prof. Kale,Prof. Kale,Prof. Kale,Prof. Kale,Prof. Kale,Prof. Kale,Prof. Kale,Prof. Kale, Prof. Kale...you get the idea.

The Method in this Madness: What does this course entail? It involves things like GANNT charts, Poka Yoke (pronounced as Po-Kah Yo- Key), FMEA, ECN, EMN and the rest of the English and Japanese alphabet in some combinatorial form or the other. It involves us being told to read the New York Times daily. It involves us walking into class to be confronted with the book cover of Cervantes' Don Quixote on the projector screen, whereupon the brain is forced to use all permutations and combinations to come up with a possible relation between Quixote and Design, Innovation & Manufacturing, a task in which atleast I failed miserably. Anyway in a nutshell it involves us innovating, designing and manufacturing a product under the able guidance of Prof. Kale.

My fellow sufferers in this course are designing everything from matchsticks to toilet flushes, while I have the task of designing and manufacturing a stretcher, needless to say besides deciding on a team name (Avant Garde) not much has been done towards this end. By the 23rd we not only have to provide a working model but also pages and pages of engineering drawings, conceptual designs, time/progress sheets, existing patents and more such paperwork in enormous quantities. Oh and we have also been asked to do a product liability analysis. The only problem is I don't see any possibility of a product, so the question of liability doesn't even come into the picture.

3) Innumerable Lab Reports and Other Left over submissions

Comrade(s) in Arms: I would like to hope most of my department but I doubt it. Amol is the only chap who I can say with certainty is in the same boat.

Guide/Mentor/chap-whose-reports-I-will-be-copying: Abhinav, friend, guide, life saver. They say never say never, but one thing is sure that I'll never take a course at IIT without Abhinav. There are risks one ought to take in life, but there's a very fine line between taking risks and sheer stupidity, I know which side I have to stay on. Period.

The Method in this Madness: No method just madness.

4) The Eternal Saga of quizzes, tests and Majors.

I don't think this needs much elucidation. The suffering and pain they cause are quite universal in nature and if you haven't experienced them so far then you're probably iliterate, uneducated or perhaps have no plans of calling IIT your alma mater.

As is evident the next two weeks are promising to be one hell of a ride. The only question is how am I going to get through it, if at all?

The answer, I suspect, is blowing in the wind.

P.S: Due to the above mentioned reasons and the fact that I realize that blogging about them is going to make no difference as far as my getting through with them is concerned, hence I doubt I shall be posting anything much. So until I return with the spoils of the battle (in the form of a dsgraceful grade card most likely..) keep reading and keep commenting. Auf Wiedersehen!