A lot closer to heaven

A year ago, I had watched Shane Warne and his men: the Rajasthan Royals lift the IPL trophy after having battled their way from the underdog status into stardom. I had cheered and booed along with Vijit, my good old pal and a bunch of unknown mates at the dormitory of our temporary residence at Barrackpore, Kolkata. This time the season 2 of IPL brought new surprises and who would have thought that it would be the Deccan Chargers who would steal the show and likewise, I had never imagined that I would watch it from an AC guest –house room on a personal television at the Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune.

So, it has been a week since I landed here in Pune, this time without a known face by my side and life has been full of surprises, new companions and unforgettable experiences. While, it is always nice to be served food free of cost, I am still getting used to jokes such as: “Oh! Those fireworks must have produced gravitational waves” and “Instead of putting so much money into the IPL, why couldn’t they just make an 8m telescope.” Also, my distinguished guide has been good and supportive by moving to France for the next two weeks, putting me in the care of a bunch of software engineers with the command of ‘putting tight reins around me.’

There is a lot to describe and words are not sufficient to put them forth. For, how am I supposed to describe the feeling when waking up late caused us to miss the official bus trip to the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT) and the IUCAA Girawali Observatory (IGO). Needless to mention that missing the bus wouldn’t have stopped us from going, as we decided to face the twisted 100km route to GMRT. Or, how am supposed to put my mental state into words at a stage when I find myself capable of sitting through a dinner with more than just food on my plate. Thanks to my colleagues, we are also served haughty discussions on turbulence, accretion disks, gravitational lenses and super massive black-holes. Also, I am trying my best to make the environment homely here which means that I am working efficiently to bring the state of my room close to the state of my old room at Sapphire. Did, I mention that I am facing the additional challenge of having my room cleaned every alternative day by the guest house authorities.

All said and done, and with my knowledge of Marathi increasing to a word count of two, I need to watch out before this centre dealing with the study of the heavens enchants me through its eternal charisma.

A bit closer to heaven

I think I have lost all my writing skills or at least the will to write. But the inner war for keeping a dying hobby alive has been won and so, here I am, penning thoughts which I could easily have avoided telling the world. More so, since I am enjoying the blissful comfort of home. How many of you have complained getting bored at home after two days of stay? My dear friends let me tell you that this is the only place where you can savour the delight of accomplishing the goal of absolutely doing nothing and at the same time enjoying heavenly food.

However heaven has its rules and restrictions, which explains the state of my hair. It has been reduced to a bare minimum even though I had taken guard and had already reduced it to half of its actual size. Also, when the prodigal son returns, he is expected to announce his arrival to all the near and dear relatives who had seen him off initially. Relatives too have a strange way of outpouring all their sentiments and piling you up with questions which have one similarity to the questions asked in the examinations: ‘you are clueless about the answer.’ At one of these places, I was sympathetically asked whether I had managed to have a girlfriend. I have now sadly and hopelessly resorted to the answer: ‘yes, many.’ At another place, I was recounted the story of a sixteen year old lad who fled to Agra when he heard that his girlfriend had shifted to some random city.

In the world of people close to my age, it is good to see old friends doing well in their lives. They have risen up and have made and unmade many commitments. I as a well wisher, wish them several more commitments and broken-hearted women. Also friends have pointed out qualities in me that I was unsure of previously and have suggested a few remedies. I list them below:

• I try to chicken out of tight situations and need to have courage for making a commitment
• I should look into the mirror and remind myself: “you just don’t deserve to have a commitment dude.”

Also, some of my friends have decided to setup their own start-ups. I plead to them to be quick in achieving their target so that I can at least start formulating a list of my possible placements.

Among other things, my career in three dimensional modelling has ended even before it started. The disaster took place when rendering a plane surface looked so less interesting than watching King Julien (Madagascar) dance on the big screen.

I will be off to Pune in few days time. See you later folks.