Waiting for Chennai Mail at Bangalore Cantonment

There's a nip in the air and the breeze brings with it the chill. Having a lousy cold is a big dampener but that does not take away from the romance of the moment. The familiar Nandini kiosk helps rekindle my relationship with hot badam milk and I quickly settle down on a bench to get a ring side view of a nail biting chase between two dogs and a wily rat.

The race between fear and hunger is ultimately won by fear and I am distracted by the mystical movements of a polythene bag being twirled around by the gentle breeze reminiscent of a scene from the movie American Beauty. The breeze draws an elderly couple closer as the wife rests her head on her husband's lap to watch a toddler being blissful in its ignorance and trying to scare a resting dog. I get up and stretch my legs and walk to the end of the platform to get a glimpse of the big mosque's Minars that used to welcome me back over the last year or so but sadly its not lit up.

The creaky loudspeaker, rather noisily for the time of the night, informs me that my train is about to arrive shortly on Platform No. 2 and soon enough the train creaks in and I board it with the thoughts of the nice warm cup of filter coffee I shall be having the next morning at home.

Wonder lost?

"I am going to Greenland for my summer holidays."

"Did you know MRF stands for Madras Road F@#@ers."

"The Singapore Babboon has the stinkiest urine... one drop requires 3000 buckets of water to clean."

"When you get a bad hand of cards, you have to scream F#@K and throw it down."

"Greenland is so called because it is completely covered with Korean Grass."

"We can find out who farted by touching that person's head, it will be hot."

"Boost is the secret of Sachin's energy."

Those were among the many things that I was fooled into believing when I was a kid. I realised some of them were lies after trying it out with my mother (the bad hand of cards one for example) and was quickly brought to my senses... nothing like a spanking to get all your senses to work, not just the sense of touch!

I was a little kid who looked at the world in wonder and did not know much. As one grows older, the naivete gets replaced by cynicism and disbelief. My natural inclination is to question the source... give a sarcastic wisecrack and snub the person... verify... and if it turns out to be true, act as if I knew it all along!

I wish I was a kid again and looked at things like I am seeing them and hearing them the first time. Maybe that's why I love travelling to new places and taking part in new experiences. Its the wonder associated with doing something or seeing something for the first time... Really need to visit Greenland sometime!

As Term 1 rushes to a close!

A good friend of mine from Star Vijay dropped into college campus and got shocked at the kind of books I had to read as coursework... he just cracked up when he found out that I had to study Financial Accounting, Business Statistics etc. considering the only Finance we ever did in our office was trying to ensure we had the correct change in paying off Shekar, the friendly neighbourhood tea 'master'.

Its been quite a shocking ride from where I was 2 years back to where I am now. Been constantly trying to cower behind the fact that I did not do anything remotely close to Mathematics - probability, differentiation, integration, algebra etc. - for 8 years and using that as an excuse for some of the shoddy performance. Truth is I should have worked harder or rather I should work harder but there is no motivation for me to get the top rank or the top grade or to have 3 extra alphabets assigned to the start of my name. I am not a part of the rat race, because I am much more the mouse! The only worry is about going to the slow track which would only result in me spending an extra year in college. Not really something which is on top of my priority list to say the least ;) (another soul like me)

What's even more bemusing to me is the way the people over here fight and struggle for marks. Some of them learn and study, most of them just study and I am still trying to figure out how many learn. I am not the only one who is in the campus with work experience. In fact, majority have work ex here but I wonder if they ever contemplate things the way I do. I guess they are too busy putting fight (college lingo for working hard) to get the best marks they can to even pause and think for awhile.

I look around at people and wonder how many would I want as my manager. Some of them cheat over time limits. Most of them get jealous or have petty arguments or raise questions just to put off the presenting student/group (when students make presentations). Maybe the behaviour is just a representation of the business world and the society we live in... or is it?

I have been living in the society for 25 years now and it is competitive no doubt about that but at the same time it is fair. Those who succeed either deserve it or want it more and that is all it should be. One man's freedom ends where the other man's begins. Maybe I am a type 2 error at college (one of those concepts that I learned or think I learned from Statistics) and have way too much time to have such thoughts and blog about them.

Life is going to be somewhat hectic over the next week with the first term drawing to a close. I have heard the second term gets crazier than the first. Hoping I would like the craziness more as I think the craziness is related to summer placements which is not really something I am too worried about (or so I say now)

Second term will start with me moving to a new room and more importantly a single room so it has started off in the right note and I am sure by the time I begin to loathe it, it too shall end the same way Term 1 would be ending in a week... me being battered and bruised but still standing tall!

Reacquaintance

I am sorry for not visiting you more often... its just that I am faced by this scarcity of subjects to write about. Actually there are tons of things I could post about... just mundane straight forward things... I sleep for lesser time than I used to which would then imply that I stay awake and see more of what life has to offer which would then directly imply that there would be more things that I could blog about... right? WRONG!

Have been awake all right... but not been seeing much of life. Life restricted to IIMB campus. Great buildings and architecture. Joined a couple of clubs - Cultural Committee and Merchandise and Retailing Society (CulCom & MARS respectively) - and tried to do some useful work. Been awake to study but not been learning much. Finally getting the hang of Quants and the reason why it is being taught in a B-school. Wish I didn't suck at it so much though.

Been Tweeting more though and have tried to indulge in a bit of creativity here and there in campus life but still not been able to get around to logging on here and making a post. Shall be more purposeful and try hard to get back in touch with you over the next couple of weeks. Will not be able to break off from my affair with twitter though. Affairs of the shorter and sweeter kinds are a lot of fun... I guess blogs are like marriages, once the honeymoon period is over you just do not know what to say!

Monologues on God, Religion, Identity etc. - 3

How was it decided that God is above us? Why cant God be beside us? I guess he or she can not be below us as having to look up all the time would obviously cause him or her a major pain in the neck. How far above us is God anyways? Stratospheric levels or a mere 3 feet above head height like Lord Krishna was in Doordarshan's Mahabharata when Draupadi was being stripped.

And since God is watching us all, does he/she ever get biased? Which IPL team would God support? Are Jesus Christ and Allah neighbours? Would the Hindu Gods invite Zeus for dinner?

I have lost the plot of this thread... truth is, I do not really mind if God existed. To be honest, it would be quite nice if God existed but just one God. Not different manifestations or different religions and different identities.

Speaking of identity, over the last one year or so the circumstances have been such that I sometimes wonder what my identity is and what the relevance of an individual's identity is in the grander scheme of things. In Bangalore, I am a Chennai guy who has to be mocked when the Super Kings lose. When I go to Chennai I am a Bengalooru guy. In Kerala, I am a Tamilian as my Malayalam sucks. In Chennai, I am a Malayali as my Tamil sucks. In any state above the Vindhyas, I am a Madrasi as my Hindi sucks and also that for some reason the North tend to be poor in Geography and think Madras is the name of all the South Indian states.

I also cant quite fathom astrology and horoscopes. How can one's time and day of birth be an indicator of what will happen in his life or what kind of job he should be in, what name he should have, whom he should marry etc. A learned man once told me that if you are ignorant about Astrology and you do not know what goes into it you should not comment on it. He proceeded to tell me that there are numerous mathematical calculations that are done to come to a result in astrology and hence its not just mumbo-jumbo being told by men wearing 3 rings on each finger. My take on this is that no matter how many calculations are made the answer would still be wrong if the base of it is the time and date of birth as this is decided by when an individual was conceived and these days in most cases the doctor decides when the baby should come out into this world. Even the whole conception of the child could be induced by excess liquor and a faulty condom. There are too many stupid reasons that cause conception and a person's entire life can not be based on the time of birth. Right?

I am not quite the eloquent one and I fear that I have not put my point across quite clearly and convincingly but I just like to wonder why one needs to complicate life further with all the permutations and combinations. Live for your needs and wants and be happy... wishful thinking for a life more ordinary!