Brahmins amd society-part 1

Rains, rains and more rains. I wonder about those living in mumbai for the past 30 odd years are tired of the rains or not? the weather is pleasant and a walk in the rain can do wonders but that's the limit. Just like the rains,there is no end to the talk surrounding my joining dates. they pissed me off so badly that i have decided to take a vow of silence.
    I hate the society more than anything else, the rules and everything else. I can't understand why everyone has to do engineering or become a doctor.  If you end up being anything else, you are not human then. The situation is worser among the brahmin families especially the southern ones. You study what they want you to, you work where they want you to, you marry whom they want you to and you bear whom they want you to. the only thing they can't control when we die. or perhaps one is dead somewhere and he hasn't realized it. their interests are your interests. you want to play the guitar. no you can't. you should play a flute. you want to attend a football camp. no, attend a badminton one instead. everything they decide. wth are we for then? you might be able to coax them out to do what you want , but then the society leeches enter into the frame. if you are doing anything that is not considered honorable by the society, then you shall be looked down upon.

    If that is one thing, the other thing is being brought up in a middle-class traditional family(read orthodox south-indian brahmin family). let me tell you some rules if you are to survive.

1: your mother is not allowed to bear daughters. even now there are some who think like this.

2: before you learn to say amma, you shall be reciting hymns and the vedas.

3: there are a plethora of rules regarding how and when a task is to be done.
example: if you want to take a haircut, you are not allowed to have it on the day like wednesday (not date) you were born, neither on friday or tuesday. you and your brother or your father are not allowed to have on the same day.you are not allowed to cut our hair in the evening. i will leave you guys to figure out if there are any days left to cut the hair.

4: boys and girls alike are only allowed to learn the carnatic music let alone knowing there exists other genres. you need to get out of the house to know there is english music.

5: you(read boys) shall have your thread ceremony at a very early age and then perform sandhyavandanam daily without fail in the morning, afternoon and the evening.

6: you are expected to excel in your studies and even a 2nd rank in your class is deemed unacceptable.

7: you are allowed to play for only an hour and watch only cartoons for half an hour. If you are in 10th or 12th, you get a discount. only half an hour. try watching or playing.

8: If you score 90% in your board exams and not 95% as they (read parents, society) , you shall be subjected to taunts for the rest of your life as you have brought a great dishonour to the family.

P.S : the post shall be continued next time if there is interest to learn more.
        if you hear about a serial killer who goes on murdering his relatives, i assure you it's not me.

When frusutration takes over

the time has come to rant. this is the perfect place for that. the past 3 months has been frustrating and what not.

1: Everything seems rosy when you get placed and have a job in hand. Parents go crazy and start boasting. but there comes a time when you graduate and you still don't have your joining dates. 1 month goes by. people start asking you . you give some replies saying next month they are going to call and so on. 2 months pass by. you are getting slightly frustrated inside but more frustrating is the part where parents ask you to call the hr and pesky relatives ask every day if the joining dates have come or not. 3 months pass by. you are going through hell not because you still haven't received your joining dates but because you have everyone breathing down upon you asking when are you going to join, pester you to apply for other companies, keep advising you all the time even though they are the 1st ones to not follow that.
i hate the relatives especially those who feel they might die if they don't interfere with your life.

2: it rains all the time here in bombay which adds to my frustrations since i can't go outside, i can't play football and so on. bloody rain. i hate them so much. the weather may be pleasant but the situation isn't.

3: all your friends have received their joining dates and you haven't. you are longing to get outside and you can't. you wish to have a new camera and you can't. you want to watch a movie at night and you can't.

by this time you must be wondering what i must be doing at home daily? well i wake up, i take bath, i eat food, i sleep. again get up , again eat food , get milk , stare at nothing and go back to sleep. this state of nothingness can drive you crazy. everyday is a holiday and you don't even know which day it is ? the only bright point was the trip to hampi.

Jobless

Well I am blogging after a pretty long time. I will put that to laziness. It's been nearly 3 months of frustration of being stuck at home, unable to move out due to rains and other reasons. But i finally put an end to it when i agreed to tour hampi with soin. We ended up touring kanchipuram, mysore and tirupati. We actually climbed our way to tirumala. I quite enjoyed it. But my chances of sighting the leopard went down the drain. The tour was pretty good. I loved Hampi. Pretty cheap going by indian stds. for a tourist place. took loads of photos too. Mysore was good too. been there before but i was a kid back then. went to the mysore zoo. I was a kid all over again. Still waiting for the company to call me. Stuck at home. have slight hopes of dslr though I doubt it.

some photos for you guys. will write more later. Good to have the football season back.

P.S : I haven't edited the mysore album yet. You can view more photos here

Weekly musings

The past week has seen an increase in productivity and less of sleep.

By productivity, I mean football manager 2010, project report and movies. I slept and woke up at various timings which saw me adhere to various time zones daily. One day saw me sleep at 11 and wake up at 5 while another had me sleeping at 2 and waking up at 5. I still don’t have any standard timings for my sleep but one thing is for sure I am not a morning person and when I sleep, I sleep like a log and even 5 alarms plus a dozen phone calls coupled with mosquitoes are ineffective.

Had tests and vivas which were dealt with in my usual manner. Turned up late for a test along with a friend and were ordered to go back and were happily on our way back when the professor unable to bear the ounce of happiness on our face decided to let us in and ruin the day. Vivas saw me answer none and saw the ***** reject my lab file record because I didn’t answer one question. I am pretty sure that these professors have orgasms as soon as they see us in front of us. The amount of effort that goes into writing those files which are conveniently thrown away and the amount of harassment and the kind of treatment meted out by those guys makes my blood boil.

CRPF and the naxals were spotted fighting not only on the field but also for the headlines. They still are. During holi, I was in the very same region on a tour of that region with my friends. I have a major doubt. In Raipur during the summer when we struggle to keep ourselves alive difficult due to the fucking heat which reaches 48-49 degrees, how come these guys sweat it out in the forests???

Chelsea won against manu and also progressed to the finals of the fa cup while Madrid lost to Barcelona. So on pure football terms, it was bliss.

My professor for once decided to be considerate and signed on the copies of our project reports without as much a raised eyebrow. I think the person who coined the term “considerate’ has his life validated. RIP.

I have to sort out my police verification things so that I can receive my passport. The police guy is dumb and asks me lame questions about why can’t I apply for my passport in Bombay and various others? 

Yes, I am from Bombay for those who didn’t know and I hail from A.P.

I will be done with my engg in a month from now and look forward to tour some places before I join CTS. Yes I got placed. I have honestly hated the place and look forward to getting out of here. More on my engg , friends and the hate in another post. But one thing, I won’t miss anyone or the place.

P.S: I have my exams from the 16^th and I am yet to start.

P.P.S : I have a fucking cold in the middle of this fucking summer. what the fuck! and it wont let me sleep. Whoever said the world was ending on 2012 can go fuck himself because the world is ending for me right now. damn you mosquito bitches! I shall wipe out your entire race one day.

Exam-times

Disclaimer : An old post that I am publishing again with a few changes. This post doesn’t teach you how to study. To make out what it teaches you, do read it.

(three months back)

The last 3 days were spent reading a subject called parallel processing for the end sems and I was wondering all the time why was I reading it ???? How would it help me ???? I wrote the exam today and had an epiphany of sorts while writing the exam. Reading into the night till 3 and waking up at 6 for the exam at 8.30 leads to a hangover, even though you are sober.

The exam scenario (parallel processing exam)

I left one whole unit and spared myself and the teacher some work. I reached the college on time, seated myself. Now there! The seating is important. It is not just another seating. Seat yourself in a way that your eyes can make out what’s being written in the papers placed at some distance diagonally on both sides.

Sab upar waale aur teacher ke haath me hota hai(everything rests in the hand of god and teacher).

For those who didn’t know, Ghajini and Memento were inspired by me. In the exam hall, as soon as I have the question paper in my hands, everything freezes and I try to gauge the reactions of others before reading the question paper myself. It is then I have my Ghajini moments and everything goes downhill.

I started from the last question, a habit I have had since my 10^th std and slowly made my way up. In 1.5 hrs, I finished 2 units and was really happy. It was then when God decided to have some fun with me.  I couldn’t remember how to draw the reservation table from state diagram. The usually ice-cool me was sent packing to state of frenzies. As I looked around hopelessly seeking help with everyone was busy with their own papers, I decided to employ my strengths and tried using legilimency on everyone around me only to realise everyone else had mastered the art of occlumency. Damn you Harry Potter!!!!

With no other option, I decided to use my last option available to me. Till now I was running on uniprocessor. So I decided to turn on my other processors which are connected in parallel, but damn Amdahl was right. No matter how many processors were turned on, they weren’t helping my case. I decided to delve into my caches but due to cache coherence problem I was left helpless. It was then my pea brain was struck by a lightening.

 Before I tell u what I did, let me teach u some basic things,

Read-miss  : As Murphy would have it, what you decided to leave out comes in the paper. In such a case u can go for a write hit or a write miss

Read-hit : Whatever u read came in the paper.

Write hit : Whatever u write is bang on target. Two cases

In case of a read hit, u have a write hit.

In case of a read miss, u can go for a write but the chances of being write hit are very slim unless you are Bejan Daruwalla.

Write –miss : Whatever u write is shite.

Snoopy protocol : U try snooping on other’s papers hoping to catch some answers something that comes in handy every time. This is why the seating is important.

Gossip protocol: U try speaking to others in hushed tones for some answers. Yet another thing that makes the seating important.

With the help of the snoopy protocol and the gossip protocol, I managed to draw the reservation table and ended up scoring high in this paper.

 P.S:  None of the above methods work if you are seated in the first bench. 

Tollywood nonsense part-2

Here is part-2 of the Tollywood nonsense. If you have missed part-1 read here. Rest assured, after reading this post you are on course to make a super-hit Tollywood film.

So, what is the mantra to make a successful Tollywood film?

Good script?

Good casting?

Good music?

Good direction?

Good actors?

Well unsurprisingly, none of these.

Here is the mantra:

1: Script: Watch the Hollywood hits which the public are ignorant of. Get the script and action scenes translated to the Telugu styles.

 2: Write a script that contains a superstar, a min of 3 heroines and a thousand hit men. For the rest of the script, give it to a child and ask him to fill in the blanks. Don’t laugh as you are insulting the intelligence of the kid here. He would zero in on the script perfectly. Come to your conclusions now

3: Make sure you cast either of Balakrishna, Jr. Ntr , Nagarjuna , Venkatesh .

4: Cast heroines imported from Bollywood or Kollywood or models from Bombay, who must be half the actor’s age. Cast at least 2-3 heroines.

5: Next in line are the standard villains who have made their niche in the industry and are well-versed with their roles and their dialogues. Cast alongside them some 200-300 hit men who should look pitch-dark and resemble a mini-sumo at least.

6: Budget not more than 10 crores because other than the fees charged by the artistes, all you need are Tata sumos and Boleros. Locations and sets are in plenty.

7: Make sure the actresses have a role which doesn’t extend beyond dancing for the songs and is strikingly similar to the role offered to the one doing the item number.

8: Make sure the actresses wear skimpy outfits and are more than happy to reveal themselves.

9: The songs are to be shot abroad.

10: The film must have an apt title which should basically sound like dick, prick and other adjectives which describe the hero perfectly.

11: All fight scenes reveal the hero to be alone and fighting with bare hands.  Remember he has no limits.

12: The sumos must rise to a minimum of 20-30 feet in the air and demolished upon fall. They might even defy gravity for a while but then it is acceptable.

13: The sumos never run out of petrol. They are always ready for battle.

14: The hero should have a 2-3 sisters and there must emotional melodrama between them.

15: The music can be lifted from any movie without giving them the credits. It needn’t make sense either. It should have 4 love songs, 1 item number and a disco song.

16: The hero shouldn’t be subjected to difficult steps as one such act led to Michael Jackson’s death. It was suicide.

17: The hero should have punch dialogues.

Make sure your film starts in the following way:

1: Introduce the side-kick villain first who is showcasing his brutalities.

2: Let the music roll in. Make sure it is fast and trendy.

3: Show the hero running but don’t show his face. Let the camera start with his legs first and then slowly 

towards the upper body parts. No! We aren’t making a porn film here.

4: Show the side-kick’s associates flying all around.  Glass must shatter, blood must spatter.

5: The hero marks his entrance with titles rolling in showcasing his name and sparks flying all around. ex:  Yuva Samrat Nagarjuna as KING. The scene should evoke whistles and claps from the audience.

6: Introduce the heroine next in a rain scene and the hero falling for her.

7: Show the regular nach-gana and the drama involving the hero, his sidekick and the heroine.

8: Reveal that the actual villain is the heroine’s father.

9: Fights ensue between them involving the hero, the villain, a hundred hit men and sumos.

10: Hero comes out winning in the end without even a scratch on his body. The heroine may or may not be stabbed depending upon whether she is first choice or not.

 See it is this simple. All you need is the script which may undergo numerous changes with time as we have many Aamir Khans in the industry who make sure to drop in their valuable inputs from time to time. Remember the image of the hero is the priority. Irrespective of how idiotic the movie might look to the outsiders, I assure you the movie would be a super-hit and would run for 100 days in 200 centres.  

                 

Tollywood nonsense part-1

THE YOUTUBE LINK IS A MUST-CHECK. (provides more entertainment than this post)

This post will take you on a journey of Tollywood or to be precise movies made by the Telugu film industry. This is the 1^st part of the series which would present my take on Tollywood. The 1^st part focuses on the Tollywood actors and their gravity defying stunts .

Now most of you must have heard of Rajnikanth and I feel insulted when he is singled out for criticism especially his stunt scenes. One word: Ignorance. By singling out Rajnikanth , you are inviting the wrath of the Telugu film industry, whose actors make even Rajnikanth look meek.  There are many actors who vie for the very same awards many of you bestow on Rajnikanth. After all, Rajnikanth is one but here you have at least a dozen and counting. Since you all are familiar with Rajnikanth and his stunts, let me give you a fair idea of the actors from the Telugu film industry. Mind you but at no point of time am I exaggerating and will support my statements with proof and names so that you guys can check for yourself.

All the Tollywood actors are blessed with super-human strength but that is oblivious when their bodies are looked at. NO, their mothers didn’t dip them in the Godavari using their heels. Their source of strength is still being deciphered and shows no likely signs of being discovered.

1: Balakrishna :  Fondly known as Ballaiya, he is likely to be the winner as he is always one notch above others. He is a man of herculean strength. Every time he bedazzles me with his stunts and he can put anyone to shame.

The only one who has chased a train on a bike by jumping from one compartment to another of the same train.

He fires 2 bullets with such accuracy that they hit exactly the bolts which join the wheels of a plane.

The only one who is honoured to have reversed a train with his finger. No, he didn’t even fart. Even Popeye needed spinach , Spiderman and Superman needed super-human powers.  He is also credited with burying 2 full grown men into the earth with nothing but his hands. No, he is no HULK.

He also climbs a mountain easily, no mean feat for him but then you can see the effort on his face. He manages to stretch his arms while climbing, with a hint of Lakhsya’s music in the background and ends up saving a rabbit from an eagle.

There are countless others which I can recollect but I want your brains to be in the right state so that you can finish reading the post .

2: Nagarjuna :  Best known for his comic relief but I never really paid any attention to his stunts.

Known for diversionary tactics by raising dust in the air to fend off his attackers and then clear the dust from the air and inscribe some drawings on the dust which is still in the air.

His best stunt so far : he hits two men and they are lying on the ground wincing in pain. A third one enters and he is kicked into the air with such force that when he falls on the ground the ones lying on the ground rise into the air as if they are playing with an invisible see-saw .

3: Chiranjeevi :  like Rajnikanth is to Tamil cinema , he is to Telugu cinema. In his movies , anything can happen and he can do stunts which will leave you gasping in disbelief though not enough to beat Balakrishna.

I won’t know give a description because he has retired from cinema and he is not coming back unless he realises he is a political failure and decided to entertain us.

4: Ram Charan Teja : the lastest sensation and kid on the block. Son of Chiranjeevi, this guy fought off 100 guys on his own on a small bridge and even managed to walk a few steps and squeeze in a few romantic dialogues with his heroine before he died. But before I could celebrate his death on-screen , he was reborn and yes in the same movie .

I have left a few who will be covered in the coming parts.

These guys provide my dose of humour whenever I am low. I know I haven’t done justice to their acts . But you guys can do so by at least checking on the links below unless you decide to watch one of their movies.

I hope I have given you a fair idea and next time before you decide to tag Rajnikanth, you better watch out for yourselves.  I am providing you a with a few links so that you can entertain yourselves  as I am pretty sure the post would have out you to sleep.

All the scenes feature in this except for one which I am unable to find but will post the link as and when I find it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmEms4o_LWY&feature=related

P.S: planning to start a film blog where I would post my reviews of the movies I watch and my take on the Indian cinema. What do you guys say???

Raipur musings

It has been a long time since I blogged. I have been brushing aside the idea to write on the topic but let me bring forth the city of Raipur. Within this city lies the great institute of NIT Raipur where I study and together they have witnessed my struggle for survival in the past 4 years. Many haven't heard of Raipur. So, let me give a brief introduction of Raipur.

Raipur is the capital of Chhattisgarh and is a good 18 hours from Bombay by train and 5 hours from Nagpur. It does have a national airport which is sometimes frequented by human habitation.

The ruling party is BJP.

Talk about the weather, Raipur has no defined season as such. It may be bloody hot in the morning and might rain in the evening. In the summer, it is as hot as 45 degrees and above and renders human life impossible without a cooler.

Raipur is a just a couple of hours away from Naxal hideouts and yet remains largely uneventful.

The city houses a mere 2 multiplexes and 1 Domino s coupled with 2 CCD’s. It holds the distinction of playing English movies in the traditional language i.e. Hindi. Citizens of Raipur are largely aware of names like Amavasya, New Moon dubbed in Hindi, which people of other cities might be ignorant of.

Raipur plays host to all forms of transport ranging from buffalo’s, bullock carts and camels to city buses.The roads are wide enough to allow a city bus to park its ass on the entire road thus enabling smooth flow of traffic.

Raipur does have a cricket stadium though which has been lucky enough to host a 20-20 exhibition match.

A common word used by the people of Raipur is “how”. U may mistake that for the English word “how” but please do not.

Raipur was conveniently ignored by swine flu. Zero cases, a figure which manages to bewilder me often. I might sue swine flu though, as it ruined my chances of a vacation.

This is Raipur (TIR) as it known among us.Now that you have been through a tour of Raipur, an assumption I need to make in order to write the rest of the post. Let me take you through my experiences in this city, the people and my time here. I hail from Bombay and lived in the hostel for 3 years before making a switch to a rented room in my final year which would be 2010.  

 To lead a good life in a hostel(if u can call the life good), there are 2 important factors .

1: Peaceful co-existence with the mosquitoes. A hostelite always needs to be friends with the mosquitoes, otherwise you are in for a hard time. The mosquitoes are different to that of normal ones, the dreaded Raipur mosquito. Point to be noted, mosquitoes are like the Pakistani bitches. They agree on peaceful co-existence but then they send jihadis to wage bloody wars. Various methods are employed to battle them but none of them have been successful. People live with the hope that someday, the entire race of mosquitoes would be wiped out.

 2: Food in the hostel mess is nowhere near to be called edible. They feed rotis unfit even for dogs, watery dal which is devoid of salt and milk devoid of milk itself. Don’t suspect any vengeance there. This is in the best interests of our health and our future as fit, healthy individuals. We aren’t susceptible to diabetes, blood pressure etc. We have mastered the art of hunger and can steer clear of food willingly or unwillingly for a day. Maggi is the biggest profiteer of this, yet they manage to dupe us into believing that it can be cooked in 2 minutes.

Some of my experiences:

1: Ask for a pepper in a restaurant and you are likely to be handed a (tissue) paper.

2: An artificially intelligent guy teaches you phonetics. You might want to change the way you pronounce words. So,

Add becomes Aid, Red becomes Raid, Gap becomes Gape and Short becomes Sort.

3: MNIK was delayed by a day in Bombay thanks to Shivsena but here by 3 days thanks to Shivsena, RSS and the VHP.

4: Shops are closed here on Sunday.

5: Half of the things in a restaurant’s menu do not exist.

6: They serve you diluted tomato sauce in the name of sambhar.
7: I can claim to have participated in 2 strikes against my college management which included sleeping on the college main road.
8: Girls here cover themselves from head to foot literally.

They are so many to say but nothing can justify the experience. You need to see for yourself.

Leading a life in the hostel is akin to Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest. You fight for food, u fight for taking a dump, taking a bath etc. These are just the basic factors. A lot many factors may contribute towards a pleasant stay.

But you know what; however much I may crib about this place and the people, the stay here has taught me many a things. You are never exposed to the harsh realities of life unless you decide to shun away the warmth of your house. I strongly feel one should stay away from their parents for a period of time just for the experience. You make not like it but trust me it will stand you in good stead in your life.

P.S: More of Raipur bashing in the next post.