Reflections of a sleepy mind

It has been almost a month at IIMA. It feels like I have been here forever, so much has happened. My time sense has been really screwed up.  And studying PG is definitely not half as fun as UG was, at least so far. There is this invisible aura of responsibility that is hanging in the air. It is not spoken of, but it is like everyone here has just somehow managed to avoid its clutches and be free for a short time. It lies in wait, for the day we step out - really a buzz kill.

Once I came here, I heard a lot of background stories and the success which this place has produced. I don’t feel much radical attitude change so far. One incident though has been stuck in my mind. It was during a class, when I contemplated for a second putting a smiley near a problem, when the professor had given a cricket reference. It was a fleeting moment, and the next second was one of enlightenment. Let me walk you through the steps.

1.       I was awake in class.

2.       The professor was teaching something which interested me.

3.       I was paying attention to it, despite probably a few 18-hour days prior to this.

4.       I was actually writing that stuff down

5.       I had contemplated a smiley, an act which would have seemed a heinous sin the day before I joined.

If they can do this to me, then they can make successful managers out of anyone. But then again, the PGP office here is cunning, so I won’t put anything past them. They take in the supposedly brightest minds of the nation and still manage to surprise them with quizzes despite all of our predictions. Although I do believe that a month more would have inured me to feeling any surprise. The resignation has not begun to settle in.

I don’t feel like doing long posts. Of course, some of my friends were asking me what I was doing, chatting with them when I should be studying, so they must think of even short blog articles as some sort of sacrilege. The “overworked IIMA student” part is really too hyped up. I don’t want to sound pretentious or anything, it’s just my opinion. I know I am supposed to over the moon having joined here, that I should be thankful to everything etc. But once you are in here, it is like just another college really, with a bit more work. I believe the process over here is mainly for some psychological effect which I am mostly not grasping.

I am possibly beginning to ramble, so I am going to stop with this. It’s been too long a period without writing and I am not really sure what to write right now. I will post in the future on a more regular basis I guess.

 

First Impressions - Episode 7

The next room in the hostel, Room 37, was populated by Aditya Balaraman and yours truly. When I started writing this series, I was not planning to write about myself. It was mainly because I thought it would be retarded to write about my first impression of myself. I have known myself for a very long time, and I don’t think too many people would be interested in hearing what I thought about the freedom of eating whenever I wanted, pooping wherever I wanted and still be considered adorable. In retrospect, I have revised this view. I am now going to take some time to effectively vilify myself using a more relevant timeframe, at least to show that I am not partial. 

My late school life was what you would typically expect from an overly ambitious IIT-tuition going nerd who actually had no clue what any of that was about. My weekly time was chiefly occupied with just about managing to get through school and eighteen grueling hours of classes in extremely sweaty conditions, and hence I really did not have much time to introspect. But for once the adage that “If you work now, you can rest later,” worked, and all this work got me into NIT Trichy at least. I finally had the freedom to do nothing. And my impressions of hostel life had their effects on me.

A person keeps changing. My route on joining college was more akin to that of a novice programmer’s source code. If you don’t get it right at first, just label it version 1.0 and scrap most of the stuff later. I won’t be going into details, but suffice to say, I like it and that’s all that matters. And it was all so ‘cool’, Except for innate geekiness, an internet addiction and a hardcore-gaming habit. They are actually not very hard to get rid of, comprising a single step really – let go of the mouse.

Another interesting fact, which somehow complements the earlier impression (well maybe not, but I am going to say it anyway) - it was when I entered NITT that I actually tried my hand at writing. I wanted to write something that people would relate with, make them react, scream and cry. I should have gotten a job at Microsoft writing error messages. But I didn’t realize it at that point and that dream went down the drain.

I did finally manage to stop studying, at least until the night before the exam. And I learnt several valuable lessons by doing that - classes were the time to get my day’s quota of sleep, I could know nothing and pass and that much of my education would comprise of studying copies of other people’s notes and that as long as I had company to do all of this, staying idle is better than working. But everything you like is bad for you in some way, so I wouldn’t recommend trying any of these.

This regression was mostly because I was not good at just studying any more, and somehow acquired this habit, that if you do something, either you do it well or don’t do it at all. That’s probably one of the reasons I did not get into any team sports (apart from the ones on the computer). Or maybe it was because the closest I got to actually playing was as a stand-in goalie for the first year hockey team, where my entire role comprised of wearing a lot of padding and still managing to stand up.

I did start doing a lot of other good stuff though, and I finally cultivated an interest in physical activity. And the constant power-cuts, water-cuts, dust and insects, generally bad food and internet access or lack thereof didn’t faze me, or stop me from having fun. That part did lead to a lot of close shaves though - constantly getting by in all semesters, labs and projects. People would not believe it if I narrated how we got all of this stuff done, but it all worked out in the end. So all of this generally boosted my impression of myself, that I was much more capable than what I gave myself credit for. So I truly believe that hostel life has changed me in this aspect, maybe for the better.

Coming to the end of this post, I never really thought I could pull off something like this. My actual thought was that who would be interested in reading such drivel, the ramblings of a jobless guy about himself. But then again, what are friends for?

First Impressions - Episode 6

Room 38, part two. Karthik G. The great. The gallant. 98.3G. The gentle giant. Guardian of the virgins. The etymology of his nickname - G - is in a microcosm the story of his reputation. Anyone looking at it from the outside would see a stylish acronym of his initial. It wasn't that. There is a line “I was staring straight, into the shining sun,” by Floyd. A portmanteau of that gleaming quality of GK's head and dripping honey evolved into his nickname. But it's only natural for anyone who first hears of him to form such glorious fantasies about his persona. If my introduction to him had been along the lines of the masses who worship him, I would have mostly been overawed. But it was not.

The first time I met G was when I shifted to the common room of Agate hostel. I had no clue who he was, despite his background. That very day, the warden had spent the evening repeating his speech about hostel decorum in all the floors. But the two of us ended up in VK's room well past the curfew time (the rule lasted three days), playing loud music and someone told on us. During this interval, I had gotten sleepy. So I had gone back to my room and was about to drift off when GK woke me up saying the warden was calling us.
I don’t remember what the warden said or what my excuses were. Most of it was reflex, while my mind was holding a debate with itself about how bad the ventilation in our room was. The warden got tired of our passive responses in the end and went his way, and now I woke up properly. As this was a quite an exciting occurrence, it had to be discussed and so the two of us went to VK’s immediately. He seemed to know GK very well and he started telling us about how the two of them got caught entering the hostel after curfew the first day.

Thus, it was as partners in crime that I came to know more about him. After that, we got bolder and started to frequent the Agate terrace, especially since it was out of bounds. And there, it was GK who was the main storyteller and I got to know more about him. Several night shows later, we were very good friends. At this point, I began to wonder whether anyone could be this awesome. I was cynical by nature and GK did not fit that mould. Thankfully, I was eventually vindicated. And since I have trashed the rest of my friends so far, I will play up this angle with GK as well.

It began with him wanting to 'slide' from Metallurgy to a different department. Over the course of the first semester, he had expressed his desire towards various departments, and his efforts led us to believe that he wanted to slide up all the way to ECE. In the end, the sliding concept was abolished, most probably due to this guy's incessant inquiries. Then, he started disappearing. He would be in the room playing cards with us one minute and wandering near the trees in the darkness with his phone for company the next. There were rumours, but very little concrete evidence to go by (at least until our first semester holidays).

By second year, we were roommates. At this point, we got to know the greatest problem in GK's life. Any normal person is always part of a certain peer group, two at most, and goes to the events of this group. GK, being the male equivalent of a 'Miss Congeniality' (just the very social part), was a member of every group, attended every event and reached all of them by the time they were winding down. We originally used to think that he reserved this honour just for his roommates, but we found out that we were not exclusive.

Then came the activities. GK wanted to do everything, and most of them would end in very comical situations. It started with one night of playing Mafia (a party game), when he really shouldn't have. Then, it was him playing DotA (a computer game). He was atrociously bad, and his team lost to a junior clan. The last was the clincher - poker. Effectively, it was a loss for the rest of the poker community when he played, with his infinite buy-ins. This was one guy who would not count his chips. You could even throw in his first day of football, when he got hit in the crotch and came limping back to the hostel room. Even quite recently, when he arranged a bus for people to return to Bangalore from the convocation. Town buses from Trichy to Thuvakudi at least have headrests. This one didn't. There were so many such incidents.

To sum up the narrative, my first impression of GK was as the cool trouble-maker, which burgeoned to a form of mild respect then promptly faded with familiarity. But imperfections aside, there is enough and more for any mortal to look up to him in awe (as many people probably do. We've received reports about how he is considered to be the 'cool senior' budding minds aspire to become). In conclusion, all kidding aside, G is great.

First Impressions - Episode 6

Room 38, part two. Karthik G. The great. The gallant. 98.3G. The gentle giant. Guardian of the virgins. The etymology of his nickname - G - is in a microcosm the story of his reputation. Anyone looking at it from the outside would see a stylish acronym of his initial. It wasn't that. There is a line “I was staring straight, into the shining sun,” by Floyd. A portmanteau of that gleaming quality of GK's head and dripping honey evolved into his nickname. But it's only natural for anyone who first hears of him to form such glorious fantasies about his persona. If my introduction to him had been along the lines of the masses who worship him, I would have mostly been overawed. But it was not.

The first time I met G was when I shifted to the common room of Agate hostel. I had no clue who he was, despite his background. That very day, the warden had spent the evening repeating his speech about hostel decorum in all the floors. But the two of us ended up in VK's room well past the curfew time (the rule lasted three days), playing loud music and someone told on us. During this interval, I had gotten sleepy. So I had gone back to my room and was about to drift off when GK woke me up saying the warden was calling us.
I don’t remember what the warden said or what my excuses were. Most of it was reflex, while my mind was holding a debate with itself about how bad the ventilation in our room was. The warden got tired of our passive responses in the end and went his way, and now I woke up properly. As this was a quite an exciting occurrence, it had to be discussed and so the two of us went to VK’s immediately. He seemed to know GK very well and he started telling us about how the two of them got caught entering the hostel after curfew the first day.

Thus, it was as partners in crime that I came to know more about him. After that, we got bolder and started to frequent the Agate terrace, especially since it was out of bounds. And there, it was GK who was the main storyteller and I got to know more about him. Several night shows later, we were very good friends. At this point, I began to wonder whether anyone could be this awesome. I was cynical by nature and GK did not fit that mould. Thankfully, I was eventually vindicated. And since I have trashed the rest of my friends so far, I will play up this angle with GK as well.

It began with him wanting to 'slide' from Metallurgy to a different department. Over the course of the first semester, he had expressed his desire towards various departments, and his efforts led us to believe that he wanted to slide up all the way to ECE. In the end, the sliding concept was abolished, most probably due to this guy's incessant inquiries. Then, he started disappearing. He would be in the room playing cards with us one minute and wandering near the trees in the darkness with his phone for company the next. There were rumours, but very little concrete evidence to go by (at least until our first semester holidays).

By second year, we were roommates. At this point, we got to know the greatest problem in GK's life. Any normal person is always part of a certain peer group, two at most, and goes to the events of this group. GK, being the male equivalent of a 'Miss Congeniality' (just the very social part), was a member of every group, attended every event and reached all of them by the time they were winding down. We originally used to think that he reserved this honour just for his roommates, but we found out that we were not exclusive.

Then came the activities. GK wanted to do everything, and most of them would end in very comical situations. It started with one night of playing Mafia (a party game), when he really shouldn't have. Then, it was him playing DotA (a computer game). He was atrociously bad, and his team lost to a junior clan. The last was the clincher - poker. Effectively, it was a loss for the rest of the poker community when he played, with his infinite buy-ins. This was one guy who would not count his chips. You could even throw in his first day of football, when he got hit in the crotch and came limping back to the hostel room. Even quite recently, when he arranged a bus for people to return to Bangalore from the convocation. Town buses from Trichy to Thuvakudi at least have headrests. This one didn't. There were so many such incidents.

To sum up the narrative, my first impression of GK was as the cool trouble-maker, which burgeoned to a form of mild respect then promptly faded with familiarity. But imperfections aside, there is enough and more for any mortal to look up to him in awe (as many people probably do. We've received reports about how he is considered to be the 'cool senior' budding minds aspire to become). In conclusion, all kidding aside, G is great.

First Impressions - Episode 6

Room 38, part two. Karthik G. The great. The gallant. 98.3G. The gentle giant. Guardian of the virgins. The etymology of his nickname - G - is in a microcosm the story of his reputation. Anyone looking at it from the outside would see a stylish acronym of his initial. It wasn't that. There is a line “I was staring straight, into the shining sun,” by Floyd. A portmanteau of that gleaming quality of GK's head and dripping honey evolved into his nickname. But it's only natural for anyone who first hears of him to form such glorious fantasies about his persona. If my introduction to him had been along the lines of the masses who worship him, I would have mostly been overawed. But it was not.

The first time I met G was when I shifted to the common room of Agate hostel. I had no clue who he was, despite his background. That very day, the warden had spent the evening repeating his speech about hostel decorum in all the floors. But the two of us ended up in VK's room well past the curfew time (the rule lasted three days), playing loud music and someone told on us. During this interval, I had gotten sleepy. So I had gone back to my room and was about to drift off when GK woke me up saying the warden was calling us. I don’t remember what the warden said or what my excuses were. Most of it was reflex, while my mind was holding a debate with itself about how bad the ventilation in our room was. The warden got tired of our passive responses in the end and went his way, and now I woke up properly. As this was a quite an exciting occurrence, it had to be discussed and so the two of us went to VK’s immediately. He seemed to know GK very well and he started telling us about how the two of them got caught entering the hostel after curfew the first day.

Thus, it was as partners in crime that I came to know more about him. After that, we got bolder and started to frequent the Agate terrace, especially since it was out of bounds. And there, it was GK who was the main storyteller and I got to know more about him. Several night shows later, we were very good friends. At this point, I began to wonder whether anyone could be this awesome. I was cynical by nature and GK did not fit that mould. Thankfully, I was eventually vindicated. And since I have trashed the rest of my friends so far, I will play up this angle with GK as well.

It began with him wanting to 'slide' from Metallurgy to a different department. Over the course of the first semester, he had expressed his desire towards various departments, and his efforts led us to believe that he wanted to slide up all the way to ECE. In the end, the sliding concept was abolished, most probably due to this guy's incessant inquiries. Then, he started disappearing. He would be in the room playing cards with us one minute and wandering near the trees in the darkness with his phone for company the next. There were rumours, but very little concrete evidence to go by (at least until our first semester holidays).

By second year, we were roommates. At this point, we got to know the greatest problem in GK's life. Any normal person is always part of a certain peer group, two at most, and goes to the events of this group. GK, being the male equivalent of a 'Miss Congeniality' (just the very social part), was a member of every group, attended every event and reached all of them by the time they were winding down. We originally used to think that he reserved this honour just for his roommates, but we found out that we were not exclusive.

Then came the activities. GK wanted to do everything, and most of them would end in very comical situations. It started with one night of playing Mafia (a party game), when he really shouldn't have. Then, it was him playing DotA (a computer game). He was atrociously bad, and his team lost to a junior clan. The last was the clincher - poker. Effectively, it was a loss for the rest of the poker community when he played, with his infinite buy-ins. This was one guy who would not count his chips. You could even throw in his first day of football, when he got hit in the crotch and came limping back to the hostel room. Even quite recently, when he arranged a bus for people to return to Bangalore from the convocation. Town buses from Trichy to Thuvakudi at least have headrests. This one didn't. There were so many such incidents.

To sum up the narrative, my first impression of GK was as the cool trouble-maker, which burgeoned to a form of mild respect then promptly faded with familiarity. But imperfections aside, there is enough and more for any mortal to look up to him in awe (as many people probably do. We've received reports about how he is considered to be the 'cool senior' budding minds aspire to become). In conclusion, all kidding aside, G is great.

 

First Impressions - Episode 6

Room 38, part two. Karthik G. The great. The gallant. 98.3G. The gentle giant. Guardian of the virgins. The etymology of his nickname - G - is in a microcosm the story of his reputation. Anyone looking at it from the outside would see a stylish acronym of his initial. It wasn't that. There is a line “I was staring straight, into the shining sun,” by Floyd. A portmanteau of that gleaming quality of GK's head and dripping honey evolved into his nickname. But it's only natural for anyone who first hears of him to form such glorious fantasies about his persona. If my introduction to him had been along the lines of the masses who worship him, I would have mostly been overawed. But it was not.

The first time I met G was when I shifted to the common room of Agate hostel. I had no clue who he was, despite his background. That very day, the warden had spent the evening repeating his speech about hostel decorum in all the floors. But the two of us ended up in VK's room well past the curfew time (the rule lasted three days), playing loud music and someone told on us. During this interval, I had gotten sleepy. So I had gone back to my room and was about to drift off when GK woke me up saying the warden was calling us. I don’t remember what the warden said or what my excuses were. Most of it was reflex, while my mind was holding a debate with itself about how bad the ventilation in our room was. The warden got tired of our passive responses in the end and went his way, and now I woke up properly. As this was a quite an exciting occurrence, it had to be discussed and so the two of us went to VK’s immediately. He seemed to know GK very well and he started telling me about how the two of them got caught entering the hostel after curfew the first day.

Thus, it was as partners in crime that I came to know more about him. After that, we got bolder and started to frequent the Agate terrace, especially since it was out of bounds. And there, it was GK who was the main storyteller and I got to know more about him. Several night shows later, we were very good friends. At this point, I began to wonder whether anyone could be this awesome. I was cynical by nature and GK did not fit that mould. Thankfully, I was eventually vindicated. And since I have trashed the rest of my friends so far, I will play up this angle with GK as well.

It began with him wanting to 'slide' from Metallurgy to a different department. Over the course of the first semester, he had expressed his desire towards various departments, and his efforts led us to believe that he wanted to slide up all the way to ECE. In the end, the sliding concept was abolished, most probably due to this guy's incessant inquiries. Then, he started disappearing. He would be in the room playing cards with us one minute and wandering near the trees in the darkness with his phone for company the next. There were rumours, but very little concrete evidence to go by (at least until our first semester holidays).

By second year, we were roommates. At this point, we got to know the greatest problem in GK's life. Any normal person is always part of a certain peer group, two at most, and goes to the events of this group. GK, being the male equivalent of a 'Miss Congeniality' (just the very social part), was a member of every group, attended every event and reached all of them by the time they were winding down. We originally used to think that he reserved this honour just for his roommates, but we found out that we were not exclusive.

Then came the activities. GK wanted to do everything, and most of them would end in very comical situations. It started with one night of playing Mafia (a party game), when he really shouldn't have. Then, it was him playing DotA (a computer game). He was atrociously bad, and his team lost to a junior clan. The last was the clincher - poker. Effectively, it was a loss for the rest of the poker community when he played, with his infinite buy-ins. This  guy just would not count his chips. You could even throw in his first day of football, when he got hit in the crotch and came limping back to the hostel room. Even quite recently, when he arranged a bus for people to return to Bangalore from the convocation. Town buses from Trichy to Thuvakudi at least have headrests. This one didn't. There were so many such incidents.

To sum up the narrative, my first impression of GK was as the cool trouble-maker, which burgeoned to a form of mild respect then promptly faded with familiarity. But imperfections aside, there is enough and more for any mortal to look up to him in awe (as many people probably do. We've received reports about how he is considered to be the 'cool senior' budding minds aspire to become). In conclusion, all kidding aside, G is great.

First Impressions - Episode 5

Room 38. This room actually had three inmates in our final year, but for certain reasons, I am going to tell you now about only two of them, and leave the third one for later. First comes Siddharth Kulasekaran (Pooch). This was another guy whom I had already seen in IIT classes, but I came to meet and interact with him only in college. This was basically because he was from DAV (a school), and from attending IIT classes, the general impression I got of those people was that they were a bunch of snobbish geeks whose primary job was to brown-nose the professors (I was proved wrong later).

So in college, I got to know him through my friend S Chidanand, with whom he was classmates. It was during the short interval we had during the morning, and we spoke politely. But it was not like we spoke to each other much really. This being the initial days of college, we had had time to properly check out the females in our batch, and conversation had naturally narrowed down to that category. VK was doing most of the talking, and the rest of us were just listening. Bala (another friend) had tried to intervene with something about a wacky professor, but it didn't really work out. (Girls always triumphs as a topic. Bala had other reasons for trying to change the subject. But I will not reveal them here).

From getting to know more about Pooch later on, I can only say that his reactions at that point were quite restrained, so nothing much jumped out right then. It wasn't the sort of exciting (relatively) introduction that I had had to several others in the group. It was after we moved to Agate 22, which was much closer to his room that I actually met him a lot more. At that point, my initial impression of DAV students hadn't been dispelled and K Si (as we called him at that time. Way too cool for him. His rechristening happened quite soon after the move) almost fit perfectly into that mould, except for the fact that he also seemed to enjoy a bit of law-breaking. It was at that point that my perception began to change.

The first thing I noticed was that he had quite an excitable temperament, especially during our long Agate terrace night-time talks Incidentally, I think that's the closest most of us got to something resembling intentional bonding activities in a mass, half-gay self-help group atmosphere (Thank god no one except us heard the stuff we talked about there. Now don't get ideas. That will only make it worse). Anyway, for every story or incident, this guy would be quivering with anticipation, jumping and squealing like a little girl, especially when it got to the good parts. So excitable is actually a bit of an understatement. 

However, Pooch was also clean and methodical. His side of the room had an air of hospital-cleanliness about it, almost as if the guy had licked away the last pieces of dirt and insects from the corners. His bed was always made up, and his books arranged on a table, with a god-damn table lamp to study with! This DAV training proved handy when it came to the cycle tests and we actually wanted to study. Our room was a very 'happening' room, making it nearly impossible to study in, so we would go to his, although we ended up disturbing his poor roommate who went and studied in the watchman's chair. His other roommates were barely there half the time, and well, let's just say that their presence necessitated someone in the room anyway.

It was because of his general excitable nature (we had a very racist term for that) that I enjoyed doing the stupid, childish things with Pooch back then. There is one incident I just have to narrate. It was during a first year Rotaract Valentine bash. The organisers were making couples play 'Pin the tail on the donkey', and Pooch had somehow become one of the organisers (Pooch, Valentine's and girls, ladies, women and anything related to such threads is too long to talk about here. Yearning seems to be a very good word). So the two of us had been noticing something about Chidanand, and basically got the idea to announce him and another girl, whose name I will not mention here, as contestants. I was flabbergasted when they actually ended up going on a date later on. Pooch 's reaction was priceless. He was disappointed, I think, that he had ended up playing matchmaker when he was single.

Looking back, it really amazes me now that we got along really well in the initial period when we barely knew each other. We had very little in common, but somehow ended up being friends, and I am glad for that. The general EEE madness aside (I mean it in the most polite way possible), we grew into the friendship and various common activities. But Pooch will always be the impish (well not literally. He is too sturdy now to be an imp anyway) and studious boy with the slightly increased hormone levels that I got to know.

First Impressions - Episode 4

You people have all heard about or seen Ghajini. Now imagine the protagonist. First remove all the scars and the sculpted physique. Especially around the midsection. Add wild straggly hair on the head which looks like it is supposed to be elsewhere. And glasses. Remove all the stud personality traits and machismo he is supposed to have. And the heroine is not Asin (obviously, if this guy got a girl like that, many of us should be jumping off a bridge right now). So you get a guy who is nothing like the original, except for the short term memory loss. Except no one really knows why he got it. Now just shorten the period when memory is retained even further and you get SK Vijay Adhitya a.k.a Legends, the second member of Room 39.

His achievements always preceded him. The first time I heard about him was in 11^th Standard IIT Tuition. People were telling me about this guy from PS school who went to IIT classes all day, studied from a dozen different guides for every chapter, burned the midnight oil, you name it. We were naturally awed, when in the same breath, the guy who was telling us this went off to make fun of him as soon as he showed up. (Boys can be really mean, especially when young and pissed from hours of studying. I blame the education system).

So one day, a chemistry test had just gotten over and I was loitering around with two school friends (Vinay and Ashwin. They will star only in the intro scene). Then this guy came along and started discussing stuff with us. We had had our fill of chemistry for the day, so Vinay, who knew a bit more about his reputation, tied his shoelaces together (Why the hell was he wearing shoes? I have to ask him later), while we watched him ramble on and on, mesmerised. It's not everyday you see a complete stranger come and discuss 3.a.4.i subdivision of the 5^th Part of the paper.

When our interest began to wane, he stopped talking , and somehow miraculously noticed his laces tied together. He was very proud that he had found out about our prank, so untying them, he sat us all down on the stairs and continued talking. Now comes the first instance of the short term memory. Vinay tied his laces together again. And this time, blissfully unaware, he got up, tried to take a step forward and tripped, although I think we caught him. Did we? I don't remember.

I met this guy later on in college, and once again, as all Chennai people gravitate together over there, we got to interact with him more. One night, after most of us had gone to sleep, Legends showed up at our room and convinced VK, and Ashwin (a different one) that it would be a good idea to take all our buckets and play some sort of music, and they ended up banging till early morning ( Hey! Word play!). I was sleeping five feet away and heard nothing. On learning of this in the morning, I went and met the genius who had thought of doing this and we got to know each other better.

Later, we started trying out this silly investment scheme called Orange. A few people were interested and when Legends heard about it, he was hooked. He made me speak to a endless line of people, half of whom I hadn't even met, extolling its merits and trying to convince them to invest. It came to nothing, but to Legends that didn't matter. And finally, in the second year, he was in our adjacent room, and from the first day, when he went around bonking everybody on the head with a water bottle proclaiming his blessings, we became fast friends.

From our initial encounters, his boundless enthusiasm and energy to go out and do things and meet people was obvious. I think for every guy I knew, he must have known a hundred. Hence, he was always out. The thing that struck me very strongly at that time was how his lifestyle could be so aptly described by the word pottering (PG Wodehouse), which means to busy oneself in a desultory though agreeable manner. Legends could potter away his entire lifetime, talk about all of it to everyone with equal enthusiasm, and with no idea that he had just done all of that, go out and do something else. I can't even begin to tell you people of all the crazy things he has done, it would require too much writing.

What amazes me the most about him is that he is still the same. He is still the same clueless scatterbrain who can talk about ten things in the same breath. But he never forgets a friend, and makes tons of them everywhere he goes. You don't have to do much - just listen to him, and you will be guaranteed a lifetime of stories and entertainment. So I'll end my summary of this guy with this to say, a phrase he often quotes himself, “Weightu weightu.” Really, I could not think of anything else to end with. No one else probably can with him.

First Impressions - Episode 3

Next, we move on to Room 39. This room belonged to SK Vijay Aditya and R Ravi Srinivas. It was also locked most of the time, as the inmates were often busy with other, presumably more important things to do (read, girlfriends). Or maybe they just liked roaming around by themselves. I am going to talk now about R Ravi Srinivas. I would like to state that I have decided not to be serious when writing such posts, and if you find any of the below comments offensive, please just take them as a joke.

Born ages after his two siblings, I can only imagine the amount of parental guidance and protection showered upon him. I am not a big fan of such mushiness. I believe that beyond a point, dependence leaves you mentally scarred, like some sort of man-child. But Ravi was all grown up. He came in with a plan, got his marks and admits, and got out of college ASAP. If there was an award for a guy in our wing who was the biggest achiever during those four years, Ravi would probably win it. Of course, if you win a rat race you are still a rat. (Some of us even used to call him that, although for different reasons).

I met Ravi in the first year of college. It was in the first floor staircase landing of Agate Hostel. As I was climbing up the stairs, I met Kartick V (referred to as VK), whom I knew from IIT Tuition classes, followed by this guy, coming down. So VK greeted me and introduced us. Like any normally awkward first meeting, where no one knows what to say after the initial proceedings, there was that bit of solemn silence, where people appraise each other.

Ravi broke the sanctity of the moment, saying, "Ramaseshan? Right?" with the kind of tone a church minister would use to denounce premarital relations, as if I had gotten my own name wrong. I turned to VK and gave him the look, you know, the one which says, "Really? That kind of guy? Someone more at home at an Englishman old farts pipe-smoking, newspaper-reading club?" VK's reply was almost apologetic, "Vidu vidu. Ivan eppovum ipdi romba pesuvan." (Translated, "Yeah". This is the point of mother tongues. You can say stuff in such a roundabout way, and make people understand exactly what you mean using nuances).

Of course, our first meeting didn't really last long enough to give me an impression of any sorts. So later, our first rooms being quite close, we began to mingle. Now, there are people who stride tall through the pages of history. People, who having lived and died, now live again and forever through their undying thoughts and deeds. And then they have hangers-on. That was the initial view of VK and Ravi that I had, respectively. A symbiotic life form. Like Batman and Robin, except that these two were not gay.

Sometime later, after frantic debates and tactful negotiations, we shifted to Agate 22. For the rest of the first year, Ravi was the butt of most pranks, and not just the ones by his roommates. We hid his stuff, switched his contacts to get confessions (About girls what else? We were teenagers), gave him bums for fun and teased him mercilessly as a rule (Me not so much though. I am not trying to portray myself as a saint or anything). He even got chased around the hostel with people wanting to give him bums. It was not his fault really, it just became a fad. Although I must say, I really admire his character for getting through that witch-hunt, which would have probably sent someone running home, crying for their parents. Not only did he get through it, he even continued to hang out with us, despite having to work his way back from being a social pariah. No "momma's boy" would have done that.

Those initial events made me believe that all this persecution was because Ravi was far too serious for those around him, and it turned out to be true to an extent in the end. Ravi did all the things a person his age is ideally expected to do when joining a prestigious engineering college. He didn't get into any antics, was in clubs, loved his studies and pathetic excuse for a department, and bagged a great admit and left for the US. So it all ended well I guess. But an ideal life is just so boring, at least for me.

 

First Impressions - Episode 2

Next on the list is M Vasish Narayan (hereafter referred to as Laddu), the second inmate of Room 40. You know how there are some guys who can have people in splits with minimal effort? Well he is one of them. It wouldn't be fair to him, for what he has done for all of us, if I wrote this article with seriousness or sentimentality. Hence everything that follows below is a hyperbole of sorts, intended to make it less serious, and in no way intended to detract from that person, or the awesome guy he is. So here goes.

This guy joined college late, after turning up his nose at other lesser institutes, not knowing what he was getting into when he signed up here. One fine day, he ran out of something, let's say toothpaste. So, feeling too lazy to go out of the campus to buy more, he went around looking for toothpaste and bumped into his friend Siva (same school, PS-shites). To cut a long story short, Siva in turn brought him to our room, Agate 22 (clever way to name hostels, after precious stones, very meaningful indeed), thinking it would be, as the English say, 'good sport'.

So I'd gone out somewhere and when I entered the room, I found myself getting introduced to this guy. Now, let me describe him as I first beheld him. Stereotypes exist for a reason – people like him. He was a shockingly fair, pudgy (or he was two feet too short) Tamil, with a religious joint family, no less, and consequently a name capable of more strongly repelling girls than if he were a homeless bum (some people would say they sound exotic. Well those are the guys with such names). Fit the bill so far? But stereotypes again do not always hold true – case in point? The very same Vasish Narayan.

Apparently, he had been in the midst of his inquiries when I barged in. A cursory 'hi' later, he was back to business. It struck me as intriguing. People with families like his and mine are trained from birth to be polite, not dismissive. It was like he wanted his business done and to get out. Well, we would be having none of that. Amidst raucous peals of laughter, as Kartick V named him a 'thairsaadam', someone thought it would be a good idea to give him bums. And as we set about implementing it, but his cavalier attitude never changed, and after the deed, he questioned, “Idan unga agate adiya?” (Translated, it means “Is that it?”) with no small amount of derision.

We were insulted. The pride of the hostel was at stake. Here was an outsider, making fun of the glorious bond of brotherhood and associated bravado we had cultivated (Amazing how reflecting on the past can give one so much perspective). Well, we did prove him wrong, thanks to the ministrations of NJ Udaya Bharati. And after cracking down on the lot of us, he went away, miffed that he didn't get what he was looking for, and because of a pain in the ass, literally.

It was later he came to know more about him. His exploits in his first hostel, Coral, are quite frankly not for public consumption, if they even happened. But of course we thought it was all true and hilarious. There are kids who get friends easily because they have stuff others want to use but don't own. Such a qualification enabled him to move in with the Nungambaks (students of PSBB Nungambakkam, try to keep up) and I would meet him from time to time.

What struck me most later on was how contrasting he was. Combine a Type B personality, with sarcasm, 'know-it-all-ism', and 'US return' effect, along with a mentality that an aristocrat socialising with a commoner has, load it up into a typical south Indian body and remove the filter which controls what the mouth says and you have Laddu's outer personality in a nutshell. But, as an adopted roommate of Diamond 42 in our second year, despite occasional relapses into that mode, I found him to be just as 'normal' as the rest of our group (he'd seen reruns on KTV of awful Tamil movies I didn't even know of) , and a gamer to boot. Well, that was enough to convince me, especially when brought a new laptop, along with 'scenic' games, and we spent many hours on such geeky stuff and discussions and we became good friends over the course of time.

So this story just goes to show how bad first impressions can be. At the same time, you can never really be completely off, unless you're drunk or something. Eventually, Laddu as I met at that time and the guy he is now are a lot different, at least as far as I am concerned. He actually is in the US right now, so I am waiting to see how far gone from the Thuvakudi resident he will be when he comes back. Whatever changes, I hope he doesn't call a Coke a 'Soda'. Indians doing that pisses me off to no end for some reason.

TO BE CONTINUED...

 

The curious case of Indian democracy - Part 2

I had earlier outlined the problems currently faced by our democracy. To find a solution, I set about researching this topic, and about alternate methods of governance and markets. I came across several great articles, and a book - Democracy : The God that Failed. They really broadened my view, giving me ideas as to why the problem was not just with the Indian democracy, but the system of democratic Government as a whole, although you can see later on that it could perfectly apply to India.

The ideas I present to you now are an amalgamation of various concepts taken from this book, other articles and wikipedia, along with some embellishments of my own. This may sound far-fetched, so read at your own risk. Even I am not entirely sure about them, but suffice to say, it is of great interest to me at least from an academic point of view. I was intending to finish off with this part, but I think that would take too long, and hence this part is sort of a prelude - a definition of various concepts - to the final one, where I propose the method of governance that I cobbled together.

Democracy has become the prevalent method of governance only in recent times, especially after World War I. For a long time, monarchical governance was followed. Thus, governments are basically privately owned or publicly owned. Let's first examine the shortfalls present in the frameworks of both of these.

First, every economy or civilization is brought together by a mutual trading of goods in the local region. Now, suppose there are two methods to produce goods, say A which is less-efficient and gives the goods now, and B which is more-efficient but requires setup time. If there were no current need for the good, naturally B is better to use. But, most goods have a present requirement, hence we always follow a balance, with so much of A and then setting up B to plan for the future. This is time preference. The higher the time preference, the more method A is preferred. This constant can be applied throughout time, with people always inventing more efficient ways of producing goods.

Now for the factors of production. The two main factors are land and labour, everything else is a composite of these, over a period of time if necessary. Taking land, it has a capital value, and the profit we derive from that. If our time preference increases, we look towards profits more, and neglect the land, which leads to its deterioration (overkill of agriculture, industries, etc) and hence capital value decreases.

First, let us see how a monarchy develops. There are a group of people performing a spectrum of goods-producing activities in a small region. Over a period of time, those among them who are more innovative, determined, etc, invent a method B and strike a balance with respect to methods A and B, leading to an increase in their future value. Thus, over a period of time, they increase in influence, and by investing, one of their factors of production - land - increases (remember, we are only considering land and labor here). This is basically survival of the fittest.

Now, the influential people gain respect in the society around them, and we have the formation of local bodies headed by these people to take care of internal matters of dispute, ie, justice. These people do not take payment for these services, instead, their income is derived from the land they own and they perform these as a matter of service. Systems of law that they follow are the immutable private rights of men, which they did not create, but have always existed, being passed down through generations (It is called natural law. Go read about it if you like). Thus, even these arbitrators themselves are protected and bound by them. This system is called natural order, or anarcho-capitalism (I like the first one more, so I am going to use that).

Following this model, societies formed into villages, which formed towns, cities and so on. We have a group of elite presiding over these. In this case, the time preference of the ruling body was not skewed. The elite owned their lands through accumulation by their own efforts, and certainly would not wish its capital value to decrease due to being more present oriented. Now came the problem - when one of the members of the elite stepped up to take on the mantle of governance on himself and became the king.

As the king could not do everything alone, he appointed a group of people, drawn from the elite to assist him in the running of government, and he began paying them to do it. Now, he had no intention of using his own money for this, as he was providing a service to others and wanted to charge for it. Hence, the concept of taxes, or a levy was introduced. Now, the government had income, expenditure and so on, and everyone shifted to a public system of justice, from what had been earlier provided by private bodies. As time wore on, the time preference of these people increased, since their income was derived from lands which they did not own. Hence, the nobles and the king began to exploit the common people to suit their own ends, thus leading to the fall of monarchies and private ownership of government.

Now coming to democracy, we can all clearly see the problems. Once again, the rulers of the country do not own the assets providing their incomes, hence their time preference increases. In this case, it is even more disturbing, since the time period for their ability to exploit is limited to their time in office, and hence they seek to get reelected. This leads to a competition for positions, which in turn ensures that only those who more resemble rabble-rousing demagogues become successful.

Another factor is legislation coming into the jurisdiction of a public government. Earlier, while it used to be a private system of laws common to everyone, now the government exerts control over a huge number of issues, governing every aspect of life of the people under it, and obviously you are not exempt from it even if you don't want it. Voluntary secession to avoid these is unlawful, and this leads to insurgency, and conflicts between the majority and minority.

Then comes the concept of monetary policy. When the government controls money, to fund its own expenditure, it may borrow money. While a king could borrow money as well, he provided his own lands, with intrinsic capital value as security. The government borrows on the country's GDP, which
is the product of not just the public sector, and the officials in charge certainly don't have to pledge their own properties to borrow. To compensate, we have the government printing money, which in turn increases the money supply and consequently inflation. It can be statistically proven that inflation has come so much into play only in recent times (I am not including the statistics here).

I know I am ending abruptly, but there's really not much point in continuing as you can see where I am going with this. If you are interested in clarifying queries, leave them in the comments section and I will answer them to the best of my ability. In the final part of this essay, I will explain how the concept of natural order, adapted to present day, along with the concept of free-market economy, would be ideally suited as an alternative to democracy.

First Impressions - Episode 1

Third post in two days - I am on fire !! I asked my friends' opinions about my last article and quite frankly, the opinion I got was - 'Why so serious?' So, while I will continue to write posts like that, I want to do something lighter myself. Now, satirical writing is all well and good, but truth be told, that seems to require a lot more work than I thought it did (at least when I want it to be good). So I have decided to fall back on some sort of narrative, so that I have easy content to work with.

At this point of time, and in the preceding four years, my college friends have constituted a large part of my life, so why not write about them? So then I thought, writing about how I met them, or at least my earliest memories with them, and my impressions of them then, would be fun. Plus I really want to remember this stuff, because basically it's important to me. So I am starting something of a series, writing about my friends going clockwise in the extended L in our final year (people who don't understand this, it doesn't matter, we always used to count ourselves this way in our hostel). So here goes.

I begin with Room 40, and I really could not think of a more perfect way to start this thread. The two illustrious members of this room got together quite by accident, because one of them had unwittingly promised the other and hence was forced into doing it. Years after the event, I cannot think of two people who are more rib-ticklingly (I don't care if that's not a word) and intellectually suited for each other.

First, Harshavardan Kasturirangan (nickname Poi, although he got that much later) - quite a mouthful. The first time I saw him was in our 11th Standard IIT Chemistry Tuition. Me and my friend Bala were sitting outside the Sathyamurthy School Classroom waiting, along with other school mates. The Shankara boys whom we had befriended in TRS (IIT Maths) class showed up, with one diminutive figure, with a 'cool' funk haircut and an incredibly serious, piercing look in their midst, like he could read your soul. They came met us and we got to talking.

Now I don't want it to sound like I am trying to create an impression or something, but I distinctly remember being shocked the first time I heard him speak. It was a deep baritone that fat opera singers possess, and it was strange hearing it from this guy. And the first thing he said was something highly technical about their BioTech Lab stuff or something, correcting a friend of his (I am not lying, I have a good memory) and I thought to myself - 'Wow, he's good - nalla padikkara paiyyan' (Yeah I know, but please, I was a 11th grade nerd in IIT class). And then he started talking about Harry Potter and stuff - I felt like we were kindred souls. (We even read Harry Potter 5 in a later class simultaneously).

Another early memory I'll never forget is him sitting on a desk next to me when we were writing a test due to lack of chairs and suddenly Kasthuri (a drunkard attendant kind of guy at the school) showed up, rushed towards him and started shouting, "Dai! Korangu Mandaya! Time over nu sollikittu irukken nee ezhuditte irukka??" (I am not going to translate) We could barely control our laughter, and he must have imitated that a 1000 times later on. It was a Poi characteristic, repetition. To be fair to him though, I never really saw many Poi characteristics at that time in him.

Yes he was confident (real understatement) then too, but he was inevitably right. If there was one guy's knowledge of organic chemistry I respected more than mine (Yeah I had an ego about this that time, but moving on), it was his. He was a pampered boy genius even then, but the former part never really showed much, and I always felt he was very self-sufficient at least when it came to these classes. Keeping it short, that was Poi, ladies (Who am I kidding?) and gentlemen.

TO BE CONTINUED...

The curious case of Indian democracy - Part 1

When I was little, I believed. I believed in my parents always being there for me, in the goodness of people, in society, in our great country and in an overall grand scheme of things presided by a wise and loving God. But hell, I believed that the events of "Centurions" could soon come true. In any case, I will talk now about one of my shattered beliefs - that of the Indian democracy. At first glance, it seems to be the only way to run a country. I will come to that later. First, let me explain what I believe to be the deficiencies of the system, as a common man above all else.

India is a diverse country, requiring a regional context to solving problems. Hence, the Government structure was made federal, which means the state Governments have a greater degree of autonomy. But some problems - the inter-state conflicts of interest, like the Mullaperiyar Dam, national issues like the Naxalite problems and security, development issues in the Northeast require Central direction. But with clear conflicts of interest between the centre and the local people and governments, we would need a strong Central Government policy, along with timely judicial intervention. These are not present, leaving these problems festering.

Multi party democracy does not seem to be working. Recent events, like Manmohan blaming coalition politics, the Congress taking a hard stance against the DMK while bowing to Trinamool, the disruption of the Parliament's winter session, throw into sharp relief the differences in interest. Ultimately, without unity in their stance, and with a priority on personal political power, how will they provide effective leadership?

Also, our parties are fundamentally flawed. To maintain their grip over various vote banks, the political parties have constantly played on our 'unity in diversity'. At the same time, ruling parties evoke falsely evoke the name of patriotism whenever they want the entire country to support them, projecting the party to represent India. No pathetic party is bigger than the concept of our powerful nation. But many go along with this propaganda, sometimes even when it goes against regional interests - witness the death of the Dravidian movement, promoting unity of the southern states, which could have solved many issues like Cauvery, Godavari and Eelam Tamils.

We often tout our GDP growth as the indicator of our economic development. Since 1991, by following a top-down approach, enabling FDI, FII, public disinvestment to private players, deregulation, the Government has opened our economy. But this limits democracy to the top echelons of the society. With crony capitalism, and subverting of national resources by unfair means, the spread of wealth has been all too slow, and our 'democratic' Government now plays by the rules of these powerful industrialists, being too weak to bring them to task, with its 'democratic' rulings.

With these arguments, I present to you a series of facts, which I believe highlight the effects of these various problems.

1. An amalgamated group of right-wing politicians and organised fundamentalists actively collaborate in an illegal activity, shield the perpetrators and then walk away.
2. Suppression of local democratic protests, with draconian acts like the AFSPA.
3. Around one hundred thousand farmer suicides. We are globalising our industry, putting our underdeveloped agricultural sector in the same market as the heavily subsidised ones of US and UK.
4. Expansion in contract and corporate farming. Loan provision from non-village banks towards agricultural activities by corporates stood for about 40% of private sector lending towards agriculture. Farmers are receiving less and less.
5. SEZs for the rich to setup their factories, on the pretext of providing employment and export opportunities, exempt from taxes, costing the Government Rs 90,000 crore in revenue from 2006 onwards (Thankfully, this has been somewhat rectified in the last budget).
6. Corruption - I don't even want to go into details, they would be too many.

I could go on and on but I don't want this post to go on any longer. In the next part, I will present what I believe would be a good way to govern our country. Obviously sitting and commenting is easy, but I like doing it and will continue to do so.

My first post

I first begin this blog by saying that all that I write below is entirely my own opinion, and an opinion is not black or white. If you don't like it, express your differences in a constructive manner or if you can't do that, don't read it. I don't care whether you read it or not, as I generally find writing entertains me and hence, I will continue writing.

It has been 9 months since the most idyllic period of my life ended. I have a job and other stuff to do basically. So why write now? Because - I AM BORED. Why am I bored now? Why not when I spent entire weeks cooped up in a hostel room sitting in front of my computer? Why not when I spent four years in one of the most boring locations in the world, close to what I believe to be a waste bin of a city, where we didn't even have a constant power supply? It was because, speaking for myself at least I was so jobless, along with a group of friends who were just as jobless, I was not bored. It was my way of life. Now, with restrictions encroaching upon it, it has become just another part of the day, and I don't know what to do with it. And hence, I miss that way of life.

Adults (I am discounting my generation from this description, although technically, that's what we actually are) that I have interacted with always sagely seem to point out whenever me or anyone 'younger' screws something up that we had all the time in the world to do it right. Except, if you were working at that time, all that glorious time you spent jobless would have been lost.
People generally just don't get how awesome the period of having nothing serious to do is - when you can basically horse around all you want without a damn care in the world.

A majority of the previous generation seems to have been bitten by some sort of 'achievement bug', where they want to go and... Do stuff. This I firmly believe, is why we have so many people complaining all the time, jostling for a restricted number of spots and generally making life unpleasant for those around them whenever things don't seem to work out for them. Take these people and put them in a place where the only thing they have to do - for work or entertainment - is friendly social interaction, and I think half of their problems will disappear. It could be a sort of stress relief camp. I digress.

So is it wrong for me to not want to achieve something with my spare time? To reach great heights or fulfill my potential or whatever crap? I don't know. I am not old enough to know, and I am too detached, even cynical to believe all that crap when others say it to me. And except for being bored, I find that the rest of the time, I am actually happy being this way - to not care, to not map out my future, to not work hard to advance my career. To just be happy, go about doing what I like to do except when I earn the money to do that stuff with. Or better, go back to some sort of study life, where I don't have to earn, or advance my career, and be with the 'youth people'.

Thank you everyone, who taught this incredible moral to me - to know how important it is to be idle and happy.