wit WITHIN

Life Beyond Death

2011-01-06T20:08:00.002+05:30

In the Mahabharata, the most ancient epic of the world, we read a prize question that was asked to difference great men of ancient times. “What is the most wonderful thing in the world?” Various people came up with answers but only Yudhishthira’s answer was finally accepted. His answer was this: “Everyday and day after day, animals and human beings are passing out of life, but we do not think of death. What can be more wonderful than this?” The answer still holds true after thirty five centuries have passed since it was given. We do not think of death, although we see every day the dead bodies carried to the grave.

I have always been fascinated by the arcane and the unknown. Hence this winter when I had nothing significant to do, I tried to find a logical explanation to what lay beyond the grave through Swami Abhedananda’s book Life beyond Death: A critical study of Spiritualism. For the uninitiated, Swami Abhedananda was a colleague of Swami Vivekananda and the founder of the Vedanta Society and former president of the American Psychical Research Society.

The book begins its treatment after promptly presenting before us the following difficult question translated from the Katha Upanishad:

“There is this doubt; when a man dies some say that he is gone forever, that he does not exist, while others hold that he still lives; which of those is true?”

I could not stop. I had to read on. The author first analyses the belief of the materialists who firmly deny the existence of the soul after the death of the body. They believe that the body is the soul and the soul does not exist outside of the body, and when the body dies, the soul is also dead and gone. The author raises the question that if we assume that the soul or the mass of intelligence is caused by the body then what is the cause of that body? The materialists would probably answer this question by saying that the body was caused due to the body of its parents. However, this answer is rejected by the author as instead of explaining the cause of the matter, we are shown another combination of matter which is like explaining the cause by the effect as the body of the parents is the effect of their parents.

Furthermore, the author analyses the argument of the materialists that thought, intelligence, consciousness is nothing but a function of brain. He counters and I quote: “after dissecting a human brain when one does not find there any trace of the soul or mind, and denies its existence, or asserts that mind or soul is the function of the brain, he forgets that such knowledge necessarily implies the existence of his mind or soul. Hence, it will be absurd to deny the priority of that which is basis of consciousness and intelligence.” He also adds that if it be a scientific truth that motion produces motion, how can we maintain that the molecular motion of the brain-cells produces consciousness or intelligence, which is not the same as motion, but is a knower of motion? Hence the author concludes that the source of consciousness cannot be found in matter, but stands independent of it as the soul of the body.

Matter thus is the confiner of consciousness and not its generator. In the words of the author: “Matter is not that which produces consciousness, but that which limits it and confines its intensity within certain limits; material organisation does not construct consciousness out of arrangement of atoms, but contracts its manifestation within the sphere which it permits.”

I am yet to find counter of his argument. The above description is summarised from the first chapter of the book titled: Does the soul exist after death? The author goes on to say that each soul is eternal and after death it retains its individuality and takes with it all the experiences, impressions and ideas which it gained on earth. The arguments for these are covered in successive chapters of the book which deal with rebirth of the soul, reincarnation and immortality.

The beauty of the book lies in the fact that its pages do not narrate ghost or supernatural stories to prove its views which is usually expected from such books. Instead, the book agrees that 99% of such recounted incidents are fake and for the purpose of making money. The author logically tries to justify his views with brilliance.

For those interested, the book is published by Ramkrishna Vedanta Math, Kolkata and is priced at Rs. 80.

A beautiful story ends

2010-07-10T19:32:00.011+05:30

I like the way the show started. It all seems like yesterday when I landed in Penang and met Bhavik and Henry for the first time. Today after two months, we have shared more than just the lab and hopefully will remain the best of friends forever. This was the first time that I ventured outside India. I have known many people who went overseas during their academic life and have often asked them curiously: “How was it like?” Their usual replies range from the description of the sophisticated work that they had carried out to the display of some hundreds of pictures that they had captured. Well, for me, I do not what to say. I too can display the eighteen hundred odd pictures or describe to you interesting facts on medical imaging that I myself do not fully understand. Or maybe, I can just put in three words: “It felt different.”

When I took the flight from New Delhi to Kuala Lumpur, the announcement system in the plane harped about the Malaysian Hospitality. I did not understand it then as we Indians usually claim to be pretty hospitable but now after two months I can just put it as: “I came here as a visitor and am going back as a guest.”

The memories just blaze past: the regular 8 hours of fun in the lab and lunch-breaks with Tiyasa, Racheal, Nelson, Pekan, Darwaesh and Kkl, the constant mentoring received from Bhavik, the around Penang trip with him, the totally self planned visit to KL with Tiyasa, working and discussing seemingly impossible stuff with Henry, Lim and Anusha, the knowledge and support I gained from Adel, Ong, Saravanesh and Mogana and finally the beautiful farewells from the lab mates and Latifah, the assistant registrar (international affairs.)

But then, these were just the pictures described in words.

When I arrived here, I knew no one but I never felt short of friends.

There is so much more to tell past the pictures, past the faces, past the sceneries. I wish to write it all down but then, I believe all of it is best summarised in the following two quotes:

“I’ve seen so much in so many places, so many heartaches, so many faces.” -from the song Extreme ways from the movie The Bourne Ultimatum.

“Much that once was doesn’t remain the same; not even me.” –from Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

Goodbye Malaysia. As for the people I came to know here: Miss you all, love you all and more importantly, respect you all.

Explorers from a faraway land

2010-05-30T21:56:00.004+05:30

Most people believe that Time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction. But I have seen the faces of time and I can tell you, they are wrong. Time is like an ocean in a storm. (Prince of Persia –the game)

I so well believe the above lines. In two weeks time, I have lived ages and have experienced the seemingly unreal. To make things interesting for the readers of WW, I describe glimpses of some of the most interesting things I learned here. It encompasses the thoughts of the people I met, the sights I saw and, well just read on.

The city of Georgetown, the capital of Penang has a free public transport and most of the localites I met do not know about it.
The concept of arranged marriages is almost nonexistent among students. They just need to fall in love.
No one could tell me how many letters the Chinese alphabet has. The fact that some Chinese characters can be split into multiple ones is amazing.
I do not know about all, but some scorpions can glow in the dark.
The fact that many undergraduate students possess personal cars, still seems so unreal to me.
Zimbabwe has a currency note for 50 billion dollars.
A semi-Indian restaurant plays Hindi songs that are at least fifteen years old.

I guess, I am about to fall in love with Malaysian Hospitality.

The Lion and the Demon: Confrontation

2010-04-07T00:28:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: The characters and incidents depicted in the following post are fictitious. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental and unintended.

The trail that leads to this post: 'A Hero is born' ; 'For those who came in late'; 'The Lion and the Demon: Part 1'

Everything that had a beginning has an end. The map that had come in the possession of Dynamite had indicated some kind of underground location at this point of the DGMS campus. I need to look beneath the earth. His careful analysis of the map had allowed him to point out the subtle differences between the architecture of the DGMS and that of the School and all his intuition had lead him to this point. He removed the whip-blade from its case and began inspecting the ground for possible trap-doors. I need to see beyond vision. The blades slid along the imperceptible groove along the trapdoor and soon Dynamite heard a faint click. Ah! Success. The lid gave a roundabout flip to reveal the security access lock. Non lethal infiltration techniques are my specialty. Dynamite returned back to the courtyard entry where he had parked his bike. He unpacked his assortment of military equipments and held out one of the EMP grenades. An EMP attack would leave buildings standing and spare lives, but it could neutralize a sizable electronic security system through its short-duration burst of electromagnetic energy. He secured the grenade to the access lock and within moments a bright blue flash had done its trick. The blue torch of enlightenment.

Dynamite stepped through the trapdoor. I need to get to the bottom of this. This was the right place. He could feel it down to his bones. Fate, luck, karma whatever he wished to name it had lead him to this point and he wasn’t going to rest until he had solved the case. He descended down the stairs. As he faced the meeting room, he gave out a slight cry of exclamation for he had witnessed someone he had not expected at all. A man in the blue blazer. He faced Dynamite with a friendly smile. “Welcome to my inner sanctum. How may I help you? What a strange apparel you have!” Dynamite was perplexed. He wanted step outside. He couldn’t believe that this could be happening but wasn’t he facing the DG himself. He gasped: “Sir, I believe you are the DG. I have been exploring a case and I have been lead to this point. I think you can help me out.” The DG smiled: “I would prefer to be addressed as the General. Sit down. I will get back at you in a moment. As you can see this is a private space and the way you destroyed my privacy wasn’t really appreciable.” Dynamite was speechless. It just didn’t make sense. I liked the way the show started but this is not how it was supposed to end. He heard muffled voices through the door facing his right. “What’s behind the door?” The General exclaimed: “Oh! It is just my private study.” Dynamite got up from his chair and faced the metal door. Before the general could make a move, he heaved himself onto it. Inside, the vision was grotesque. Twelve elderly men in tatters. One of them shouted: “The General is evil. You need to stop him!”

The General pounced from behind. Then all hell broke loose. “You have seen enough! What are you? Some nosy superhero? Show me what you have got. Heat Vision? X-ray vision? Some magic ring of doom? Hah!” He had his firm clasp locked around Dynamite’s throat from behind and with the other hand he was twisting his arm. “I am no superhero and I have got this!” Dynamite loosened his body and let go to give a perfect back body drop on to the wooden table. The General quivered in pain. He lashed out the whip-blade and put it around the General’s throat. “Speak or I will rip it off.” The General gave out a mad grin and kicked at the dark crusader. “You have got me already? Have you?” The General got away and picked up a chair and targeted it to the hand of Dynamite holding the whip-blade. An accurate blind shot. The chair cracked and Dynamite yelled out with pain and the whip blade fell from his grasp. The General wasted no time in lunging himself and grabbing the blade. The room was too narrow and it was making Dynamite’s moves difficult. I must surprise my opponent. With a quick swing, the General lashed out the blade at Dynamite that gave him a gash in his cheek and ripped apart the red cape that had hid his face. The boyish face of Shaant stared wildly at the General. He laughed: “I am about to murder a child! You are just a boy and you came here thinking you are going to defeat me. You don’t know what you are dealing with here.”

There was no time for jokes now. Only my sorcery can win over this madman. He stared at the eyes of the General. I cannot dare to blink. He murmured the Ol Chiki spell of procrastination, the most deadly among all the spells that he had mastered, which could stop the activity of the muscles at the very least. The effect would be instantaneous and the General will be grovelling alongside the chairs within no time. It didn’t happen. The General stood there with a broad grin spread out on his face. He tried it again. I mustn’t be concentrating hard enough. Nothing happened. It was as if something had drained the art out of him. Why isn’t it working? The General exclaimed: “You are trying these indigenous incantations on me! You forget that I have lived here for more than twenty five years. I know this place far better than you can ever imagine. You might have memorized a few incantations but I have learned the art from the masters themselves. I explored the art to the level that I can defend myself from it. You on the other hand relied on memory like a typical student. “

Dynamite found himself frozen on the spot. This couldn’t be happening. He tried the spell again, twice, thrice and every time without effect. Should I escape? The General gloated at his misery. He continued: “These incantations feed on imbecility. They maximise weaknesses of mind. I don’t drink anymore, so the Alcoholic charm won’t work on me. I don’t keep my work undone so I am immune to the spell of procrastination. I have taken care to eradicate each and every mental weakness of mine and so I cannot be defeated! You memorized two or three spells and you thought you had the whole world under you. In fact, there are infinite spells possible and an Ol Chiki translation can maximise any of your weaknesses!”

Dynamite’s head was swimming. How can I fight this monster? And then the blow struck. Dynamite found his feet uprooted from the ground and his body crashed to the wall behind him. Then the pain started. He felt as if his lungs would burst for want of oxygen. What was happening? He was suffocating to death. It was as if his blood flow was failing to reach his body parts. His heart pounded in his chest. The General towered over him. The whip-blade glinted in his hands and his evil laughter reaching the ears of Dynamite seemed otherworldly. “I shall crown myself with the blood of fallen heroes!” The confounded group of spectators were slowly vanishing from his eyes. I am about to die. Then, the words of the General reached his ears: “You yourself are not immune to mental weaknesses. Your have been a smoker all your life. You smoked to erase frustration. Your lip’s curl gave away. This is the smoker’s spell! You are simply suffering from the long term effects of smoking magnified by a tenfold! You will die and not even you can save yourself now for it is not I but your weakness that is killing you!”

Dynamite wasn’t listening. He was too much overwhelmed with his pain. I can fight this. Infinite spells. Infinite possibilities. I need to stay alive to stop this madman. Can it be that the General is immune to every weakness? Dynamite thought hard. The pain was slowly fading the colour from his face. Innovation is the only solution. And then he had got it. Solutions are always simple. He chanted the spell without a second thought. It had to work. The General fell. His concentration broke and the spell casted over Dynamite lifted. A surge of fresh oxygen entered Dynamite’s arteries and the blood flow was restored. He struggled to get up. One of the elderly onlookers picked him up. He managed to throw a quick glance at the General. He was shivering as if his body was under some kind of fit. The General was covered from head to foot with sweat. He gasped and panted and his face was twitched with horror. He has seen a ghost. Dynamite called for the twelve spectators: “Quickly, reach to the toolbox in my bike and find the strongest nylon rope. We need to tie him up. I cannot hold the spell for long.”

Soon they managed to tie the General to a nearby pillar. He had his chance. He won’t get another. One of the aged gentlemen asked: “What did you do to him? He was immune to everything.” Dynamite managed a faint smile through the pain his body had suffered. “The General had mastered immunity to all kinds of imbecility except for one and I maximised it and the result is before you.” The gentleman shrugged and asked: “What was that?” Dynamite’s smile broadened: “Fear. Fear of failing. Fear that he won’t succeed in his mission. It is the greatest weakness in all humans. It is only when you lose this fear that you can truly call yourself enlightened. My spell just maximised this fear in him. Now, if you can just help me out of this place and onto my bike.”

Outside, the sky showed the first shimmer of breaking dawn. The twelve elderly men had gathered around Dynamite’s bike. They had the Sanctum locked from the outside by placing a large boulder over the entry. Thereafter they narrated the entire plan of the General to Dynamite. He said: “The work isn’t over. You are men of power. Reach out to the police and have this place and the General taken into custody immediately and do not mention me. Tell them that the twelve of you overpowered him. The other twelve sanctums need to be found.” The men nodded. One of them inquired: “Won’t you help us with it. You are the superhero who saved the day.”

Dynamite started his bike. “I am no superhero. I realise it now. Sir, in fact I am a junior to all of you. I am just another ISMite trying to bring about good.” The men weren’t satisfied: “But when evil looms large again, won’t you be back to stop it.” Dynamite grinned: “Lions will always rise when demons dream of taking over the world.” He slowly drove his bike away from the group of men and out of the courtyard. Light had finally emerged from the darkness.

The End.

My sincerest thanks to the regular readers of Wit Within who appreciated the work which was a small experiment on my part to write a short story. My heartfelt thanks to two special ISM alumni (presently staying in Australia and the United States respectively) for reading and appreciating the posts.

The Lion and the Demon: Part 1

2010-04-02T19:12:00.004+05:30

Disclaimer: The characters and incidents depicted in the following post are fictitious. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental and unintended. The locations described in the post are factual.

The trail that leads to this post: 'A Hero is born' ; 'For those who came in late'

The day of the chase. Six hours ago.

The illustrious singer stopped singing. His voice had already left the audience enchanted. The orchestra stopped playing with a final flourishing note. The singer took a bow and left the stage. Outside, Dhanbad slowly immersed itself into a calm and black night. The distinguished host made his way up to the podium to conclude the memorable evening. He was dressed in the blue blazer that he had preserved all these years. The blazer was his identity. It bore the insignia of that institution which defined what he was today. My alma mater embroidered in gold. “I thank one and all for joining me in this celebration. I will retire soon but these twenty five years at office culminating with this lovely evening will never be forgotten.” The host, now in his early sixties, still maintained a robust physique and a warm smile. He quickly made his way down the stage amongst the elite guests who had gratified him by being a part of the occasion. The guests included directors, CEOs and technical and managerial heads of most of the public sector oil, energy and power organisations that operated in the country. The controllers of the blood veins of the nation. The ceremony had concluded and they started to leave. Only the chosen ones shall remain. He moved in and out of the gathering, seeing his guests off and within the next hour, the courtyard was almost empty and his mind was at peace.

The night had settled in and the new moon shone clearly in the Dhanbad sky. The flood lights in the courtyard created ghostly shadows of the few people that remained. They all moved in a group towards the General, for that was the name he preferred to be used among his corporate compatriots. One of them, a short and balding man in a dinner jacket spoke: “we received your message and have been waiting to speak to you. What is it that you wanted from us?” The General replied after a moment of silence: “Follow me for I desire privacy in what I wish to impart.”

The General lead the group away from the courtyard and into the central arched corridor. The red stone walls of the central complex were very similar to the architecture of the School. The elite group formed a huddle and followed the General. They were visibly uncomfortable at this pretence of secrecy. However their respect for the man who was senior to most of them made them follow his request. The General lead them to the southeast corner of the central complex to a small open space. He bent down to the cemented piece of land and seemed to slide his fingers across a rectangular patch. There was a click and the entire rectangular patch gave a upside down spin to reveal an electronic access lock. Access to the crypt. The General punched in the access code and quite predictably, the cemented patch slid across revealing descending metallic stairs. Down the rabbit hole. One of the followers sniggered: “I never knew the General had a taste for theatrics.” The General laughed: “Presentation is something you can never underestimate.” They climbed down the stairway into the basement. It was more of a cellar partitioned into two large rooms. The cemented walls and open electric connections showed signs of recent renovation. The two rooms were connected by an electronically locked doorway. The General exclaimed: “Welcome to my little private space. I call it my Inner Sanctum. As you must have deduced by now, it has been constructed recently. Would everybody be kind enough to join me in my study and begin the conclave?” The General lead them to the room that faced them. The simple study had a large central table with thirteen chairs surrounding it. The Last Supper. The invited guests, twelve in number took their respective seats and waited with utmost curiosity for the General to speak.

The General remained standing.”Questions must be preserved till the end. My brethren, my fellow batch-mates and juniors, this is the utmost honour that I can address you with. The twelve of you are my peers who now control the driving forces of this nation through various public sector organizations. What is even more honourable is the fact that we share the same alma mater. We have toiled for years to make the nation self dependent but to what effect? I ask you, are we the real decision makers of the country. If we are the driving forces then are we the ones who guide the nation? You may accuse me of being over ambitious but know this: the past twenty five years that I have spent in my office, in reality, all my decisions and attempts have been scrutinized and criticized by false leaders of the nation and private western parties and so have yours. When we studied at the School, we had this insatiable zeal of changing the system. I ask you, now we have the power, why don’t we set ourselves to the task now. I propose the onset of a regime in which the public sector workers have the ultimate control and we shall be the forerunners of the movement with the help of our Chinese allies and finally when we take over the government, the power shall rest in the hands of the people who have been serving the nation selflessly since decades. ”

The General stopped. His palms were covered with sweat and they shivered with nervous excitement. He continued further: “This Inner Sanctum that you see is one of the thirteen such locations spread all over the country from where the movement shall be controlled. The other twelve lie at secret locations close to each of the headquarters that you control. Currently the locations are being used to store weapons supplied by our international allies. As you can see, it is a thirteen node failsafe strategy. If one sanctum is discovered, the remaining twelve expand their powers to fill its place. If you see what I see and dream what I dream, then I implore you to enter into a pact with me and you shall be given the control of your own Sanctum to lead the charge.”

The audience stared at horror at this devilish scheme while the General uttered these final words: “We have been dealing directly with the grassroots since decades. Join the charge and I shall give you the control of the greatest Militia ever formed. If the radiance of these thirteen suns were to burst at once into the Indian sky, that would be like the splendour of the mighty one.”

The world spun around the guests as if in slow motion. One of the guests, shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He confirmed: “So, this next room is the weapons storage for this location?” The General smiled and nodded in agreement. A third member, who hadn’t spoken so far stated: “Your master scheme is flawed. Even if we follow you, what is the guarantee that our successors won’t drive the country into total chaos? The present democratic system is designed to prevent this. We cannot risk a civil war. I am sorry but I do not see the sense in this madness. ISMites have been men of power but the only reason that we have been successful is the fact that we have worked in the shadows, in the background. What you propose may tend to a totalitarian regime. We may initiate a socialist propaganda but our successors might always want to assume total control. “

The other members of the conclave nodded vigorously in agreement. However, none of them dared to look at the General in his face. The Genera started to speak: “My dear fellows, you fail to understand my motives- oh wait, what is that noise? Something is going on at the surface. One of my convoys is about to arrive. Maybe when you behold the arsenal you shall appreciate the work that I have done. Come with me.” The General lead the huddled group of ashen faced men to the next room. They followed him meekly and with visible apathy on their faces. The next room was the weapon storage facility. It was slightly larger than the meeting room and was equipped with a modern surface surveillance system. The remaining room was storage to the weapon convoys, waiting to be shipped to Sanctums across the nation. However, none of these interested the present group of onlookers as their gaze was transfixed onto the screen of the surveillance system.

The screen showed a moving object. A grotesque vision. One of the onlookers whispered “It is a man but he is clothed from head to foot. What is it?” The man had just got down from his bike and was slowly walking around the courtyard looking for something. The General’s cold voice shattered the silence across the room: “He looks suspicious. He must have followed the convoy. Gentlemen, you will not leave this place until we have come to a decision. You owe me blood for all that I have shared tonight and blood if not consent is what you will repay me with.”

The guests were visibly shaken at this night’s misadventures did not seem to come to an end. The murmured among themselves while the man on the screen clearly showed signs that he knew where to go for he was slowly walking towards the southeast corner of the campus. He will never get past through my security access. The man now stood over the entry to the Sanctum. His composure was somehow eating into the mind of the General. Who is this man?

To be continued.

On the next installment: The finale.

For those who came in late

2010-02-16T17:58:00.009+05:30

Disclaimer: The characters and incidents depicted in the following post as well as the one titled ‘A Hero is born’ are fictitious. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental and unintended. The information on the Santal community in this post is factual.

To make any sense of this post, you need to first go back to the post titled ‘A Hero is born.’

Eleven years before the wild goose chase on the streets of Dhanbad.

It was a bleak and sunless day over the Diamond Hostel. Mid december is not the most cheerful time at Dhanbad. The reddish walls of the building that had witnessed the suns of pre-independence India were cold and dry. The Red Fort of the School. The lone figure on the courtyard stood motionless, his tired eyes fighting to remain open. His unshaven face and matted hair and his lips twitched into the familiar smoker’s curl did not need an eagle-eye to deduce his lifestyle. His body ached after facing the ordeals of the previous night and it made standing a painful experience. I am the birthday boy. To avoid using his real name, let he be known as Shaant for calm. Presently, his eyes were fixed on the object before him. From the sleek handlebars to the state of the art fenders and heat deflectors and down to the red framework, the bike before him was every young man’s dream. Shaant picked up the card neatly folded on the bike’s seat: ‘To our dear son on his 21^st birthday.’ The card had come in an envelope that bore the stamp of South Africa and the logo of a global oil and energy giant. He kept the card carefully in his jacket pocket and stared back at his present. Happiness served to me on a plate. Quietly, Shaant turned on the ignition and rode the Harley out of the hostel. He brought it to a stop at the dilapidated Former Army Camp near the hostel. The Army Camp had probably been built by the British and was long abandoned and was not frequented by the students of the School. ‘The bike must be hid here. I hate cynosures.’ He pushed against an old wooden door that creaked and gave way and took the bike to the room inside. ‘Stay here my birthday present. Maybe, when I leave this place, I shall find use of you. Till then it is goodbye.’ He secured the door by a weight which could act as a lock and returned.

“Hey, Shaant, we have another mining excursion tomorrow to Jharia. The booze is as usual on you!” This was a branch-mate termed as a close friend. “Yeah, sure man. But it is you who must hide it at the back of the bus,” replied Shaant. “Ha! Ha! Mining rocks. Look at those CSE guys. They think that being the second batch here through JEE, studying like dogs would make MNCs recruit them! This is ISM man. School of Mines! When would they realise?” This was a rhetorical question from a third companion. They may be birds of a feather but not I. “Why do you care about MNCs? My dad heads one and I can tell you what it is like. They just don’t care about development of an area. For them it is just the profit. ISM is for Indians. There is so much to change here. Even Dhanbad can be developed if we put our mind to it,” retorted Shaant.

Next day at the Jharia mining site, Shaant decided to take a walk while the instructor was busy explaining the intricacies of an equipment. Nothing intrigues me now. The wave of procrastination had taken its toll on Shaant and now he didn’t know what he wanted. He was dying to make the change but he couldn’t tell how or what. He wasn’t even sure about why he had come to the School in the first place. He wandered around the slums of Jharia desultorily. I am the last man alive on earth.

The aborigines of this part of the country are known as Santals. The belonged to the largest tribal community in India and are said to be the descendants of the humans who first came to India about fifty thousand years ago. The present state of Jharkhand is supposed to be an exclusive state for the Santal community. Shaant was always intrigued by the mysterious and rich culture of the Santals and would often spend hours looking for conclusive evidences in the articles published in local newspapers about how the Santals still believed in witchcraft and black magic.

“Please! Do you have some water? I am thirsty.” Shaant knocked on to a nearby hut. An old lady of about sixty came out with a pot of water. Shaant gulped it down faster than a pelican. “What is that building?” He asked pointing to a desolate and wrecked structure that once would have been a grand manor. “Oh! That is the old library. No one goes in there. Soon the municipality would have it razed. It is completely wrecked from within.” Shaant coaxed her to take him in to which she reluctantly agreed after a while. She replied: “Ok, for you may be the last one who sees it.”

Inside the building was a mess. The shelves and the books were badly infected with lice and all kinds of pests. The plaster had crumbled off long back and the stench of long accumulated water dripping from the ceilings filled the place. Shaant gave a quick glance across the central hall of the building. There were more than two hundred volumes with several in hardback and calligraphic cohevers. He brought down a couple of them from the lower shelves onto the floor. The script in which all these books were written was no way similar to anything he had seen before. The strange alphabets did not fall into the well known Devanagri or Dravidian categories. Baffled, he looked at the lady for assistance. “Ol Chiki,” she replied, “the ancient script of the Santals. Here give it to me. I shall help translate.”

The first volume in a thin red cover turned out to be a practical implementation of the Atharva-veda, the most ancient text on medicine. It was written by some medieval Santal priest. The other volume cased in black hardbound cover with ornate golden letters on the top bore the title “Looking beyond the moon.” It was a scientific text on the stars and planets and their effects known to the tribes. Shaant was thrilled. “These texts are priceless. Diamonds in the rough.” Seeing his curiosity, the lady laughed: “I have tried some of the techniques that were taught to us by our parents. Most do not work or one can’t figure out what they mean.” Shaant was not hearing. He opened another book. The heading translated into: “On the greatest gift to man from God.” Clearly it referred to the Brain. Agog, he flipped around the pages, momentarily stopping to ask for translations. The book talked about the seemingly infinite power of the human brain and how to harness it for good as well as evil. It introduced the definition Psycho-sorcery which the book claimed could control the weakness of another human’s brain and magnify it to enormous proportions. The Spell of Procrastination particularly caught his eye. Casting it by a straight eye contact would cause an opponent’s brain to procrastinate involuntarily activities that it is subjected to perform –from muscle contraction to even heartbeat. The effect would largely be dependent on the prowess of the sorcerer.

Shaant had seen enough to understand the power he held in his hands. ‘It may be cock and bull but why can’t I give it a try,’ he thought. He bagged the couple of texts under his arm and thanked the lady for her help. On his way out his gaze transfixed on a strange device next to the door, that he had missed earlier. “What is that?” He asked curiously. It resembled a huge chain with serrations all over it and a solid metal handle at one end. “It is the weapon of the warriors during the times of our forefathers.” Shaant instantly asked: “Can I take it as a memento that I visited this place.” “You are insane!” was the reply. “You bet I am!”

Shaant returned to Dhanbad. This wasn’t the first time he has bunked an excursion or training. However, his steps were firmer this time. He had formed a project. Learning Ol Chiki topped his list of priorities now. Back at the School, he sprinted to the Former Army Camp. I need to bury my treasure. Pushing aside the door, he took a long gaze at the Harley. Red is definitely not my colour.

To be continued.

On the next instalment: ‘Back to the streets.'

My heartfelt thanks to all those who read, loved and appreciated my modest creation. Your comments and criticism are most welcome.

A Hero is born

2010-01-26T15:30:00.002+05:30

The black Nissan X-Trail raced across the silent streets of Dhanbad. It was past midnight and as usual, there was not a single living soul in sight, except of course the occupants of the SUV. Four men on a secret campaign. The night was darker than usual today. New moon. The SUV crossed Big Bazaar with a loud screech that echoed into the night.

High atop the Big Bazaar complex, a silhouette gazed at the dark vehicle. It definitely had aroused his suspicion. This complex was his outpost, the one of the few hotspots of Dhanbad. It was his personalized watch-tower onto the Dhanbad crime world. For two years now, he had been tracing the source of arms smuggling into Dhanbad that made its way into Jharkhand to the hands of the Maoists. He had always had this suspicion that seemingly peaceful district of Dhanbad was a safe passage for the allies of the Maoist party in Bengal and that the seemingly dormant Coal Mafia of Dhanbad had a role to play in it. Now finally, today his informant, had come up with news that he hoped better be good. It was time.

He put on his black ballistic armour and the red cape that hid partly hid his face and thus his identity from the world. Black and red where his favourite for they together symbolized the spirit of Jharkhand-coal. The golden single stick of dynamite on emblazoned on his chest represented the name he had given himself: Dynamite. How Dynamite came into existence is a story of another time but let this be known that he was once a frustrated student of the School of Mines and he had dropped out midway to make Dhanbad a safer place for its citizens.

Dynamite had made up his mind to chase the vehicle for he suspected that this could be a lead onto the case he was looking into. He made his way across the rooftops and jumped onto the nearby eucalyptus tree and made his way down to the pavement where his faithful black Harley Davidson XL-1200 waited patiently for him. It was custom made with a 1200cc V-twin engine and a 6-speed gearbox, capable of reaching speeds up to 150mph. Also it had the best silencer to shun the engine noise thus making stealth chases a reality.

Dynamite rode the behemoth into the night, his every gearshift bringing him closer to the cruising X-Trail. They had already crossed the School and were on the road towards HIrapur. Dynamite overtook the SUV, past the windshield and brought the bike to a halt with a masterful ninety degree swing before the vehicle, blowing gravel and sand on the newly constructed road. The X-Trail stopped and the jittery voices from within that came through the partly opened window made it clear that he had taken them by surprise. “What is that? We will be late. Why have you stopped”, cried one from within. “The funny looking guy is stopping the car. Tell him we don’t have time for dramatics!” another impatient voice replied. The door opened and four men came out, their holsters clearly visible. It was an old age philosophy for Dynamite: let the opponent make the first move. With a height of just 5’7’’, he wasn’t the tallest of heroes and hence this was also the smartest of the things to do. “What do you want?” cried the tall and dark man, his fingers crawling towards the holster. “Step aside.” Dynamite’s voice was ice cold. Don’t mess with me. “You have no idea what you are dealing with here. We do not hesitate to shoot.” The third guy pointed his gun at Dynamite. It was a strange looking gun. I would love to examine them at leisure. There was a silent swish as Dynamite’s arms made a strange movement and the man holding the gun was on the floor. The foursome stared wildly at the weapon in the hands of the dark crusader before them. It was a long whip-blade with razor-sharp spikes all along it. It had been wrapped to his belt all this while. Dynamite hated guns and projectiles. Too noisy and too risky. This melee weapon went well with his mastery in martial arts and acrobatics. The three others leaped towards him and grabbed him by the neck. Too strong yet too weak. The surprise was yet to come.

Dynamite stared into the eye of the brawn holding him from the front and muttered something indiscernible. Mumbo-jumbo. His captor was soon on the floor with his hands on his head. Acute headache had seized him. There was no time to waste. He landed a back punch that cracked the jaw of one and staggered back onto his feet. A final swish of the whip-blade tore open the neck artery and brought the final man down.

Dynamite walked back to his bike. His Psycho-sorcery had once again saved him from tight corners. His ability to control the neuron impulses of the opponent always served him well. He had simply casted the spell which he called ‘The Alcoholic Charm’, had caused his opponent to go into an intense hangover after drinking too much of alcohol. Psycho-sorcery had its own disadvantages. For one, the more powerful the spell was, the greater would be the caster’s physical weakness on the aftermath. Also, it could be casted only on one person at a time and required eye contact.

The toolbox in the bike contained an assortment of military equipments. From lock-picks to silent EMP granades which could disrupt a security system, he had everything. For now, all he needed was a lock-pick and some rope to tie his captives to the divider. In the morning, Prabhat Khabar would report how the Dhanbad police had successfully captured armed robbers and foiled their plan to rob some bank. Anonymity was Dynamite’s identity and Stealth his greatest bet. Dynamite picked the back padlock of the vehicle and stared at surprise of what lay before him.

The back of the car contained boxes after boxes of ammunition and state of the art handguns. The goons that lay groaning had held similar handguns. He closely inspected them. Stealth handguns from China. There use by the Maoists would bring in guerrilla warfare on the streets. However, Dynamite’s glance was now transfixed onto another interesting object: a sheet of rolled paper. He brought it out and spread it out on the street. It was a blueprint that looked like the map of a building. There were two maps on the same sheet, one marked Main Building and the other: Basement. Dynamite glanced over the Main Building’s map and could predict from its architecture consisting of hallways and arches that there were only two such buildings in Dhanbad: the Main Building of the School and the DGMS (the Directorate General of Mine Safety.) The other map clearly indicated the whereabouts of some underground storage facility in one of these buildings.

This would be another of those sleepless nights. When he was a student of ISM, Dynamite had mastered the art of undertaking successive night-outs. This night had just begun.

To be continued.

Note: This was my attempt to create your own ISM’s superhero. This might well become a series if I get your encouragement and ideas. On the next instalment : ”Who is Dynamite?”

Non Trivial Observations on New Year

2010-01-02T12:30:00.005+05:30

Just two more years until the world comes to an end, if the said predictions are true. Therefore I must hurry with this post. My life so far has spanned slightly more than two decades according to the earthly calendars (I would be an old man if I lived on Venus, the most erotic planet.) During this time, I have accomplished several difficult and dangerous tasks like taking birth and completing 15 years of school life and so have most of you. Congratulations to our generation for these feats. Now, returning back to my life; after I completed school my parents thought that I need to accomplish more and felt that it was real important that I go to college and process myself into a postgraduate. This and some more irrelevant stuff is what essentially the previous decade of my life comprises of. So as the world gathers to celebrate the onset of another decade which will be followed by another one and yet another one, (if the initial assumption of this post is found incorrect) I try to ponder as to what characterized the previous decade and what expectations one could have for the next one.

• Landing of aliens on earth: No, this has not taken place in the previous decade. This is much the same as in the past 4.55 billion years of earth’s existence. I really hope that in the years to come, our earth becomes home to greener and wrigglier intelligent life-forms from the entire universe. I am tired of moving around the carbon and silicon based mundane bipeds that I come across daily.

• Damage to buildings: The past decade’s inception was celebrated by the blowing up of tall towers in New York. This was followed by returning the favour to Afghanistan and Iraq. We too celebrated the occasion by renovating our house in Gorakhpur. This time, I really hope to see World War 3. Let us give the next generation some more dates to remember.

• Rise of cryptic terms: Terms such as ‘Global Warming’ and ‘Energy Crisis’ became immensely popular in tea-stalls and public transports. Several serious steps such as inclusion of Environmental Science courses in school and college textbooks were taken to resolve these problems. Let us pledge to riddle the next decade with creepier terminologies.

• Mobile Technology: I remember gazing in awe at a man with a mobile phone with a flashy monochrome display. A wink comprising a decade later I was gazing at another cell-phone with GPS technology and a laptop with a quad-core processor. If the past decade was the age of mobile technology, I really cross my fingers for an age of nanotechnology. The future with wall size displays and microscopic computers is now.

• Nonlinearity in life: This is a personal observation. So far my days have been almost linear. I skip breakfast, bunk a few classes, attend some, weep about not having a girlfriend, watch movies, chat until 3 AM on GTalk and go to sleep. My new decade resolution is to develop more nonlinearity in my life.

Well, I must take leave of you now, my patient reader. Wit Within completes a year of existence after four days. So, you may call this one a sort of an anniversary post. Thank you one and all for being attentive to what The Other Devdeep has to say. Happy new year!

Three Stories

2009-11-11T01:35:00.007+05:30

It has been a while since I wrote down on this space and hence, I try to conclude an extremely dull and unsatisfactory day by penning down this piece which I must add, was promised to my brother to feature on my blog more than a month ago. It was he who narrated to me what appears next in this post.

Now, my dear reader, before you try come up with enthusiastic questions as to why my day was unsatisfactory, let me quickly summarise what this post is all about. What follows here, are three stories (very short ones!), each having a moral from the corporate world. Remember that you will enjoy the stories even more if you try o figure out the moral yourself before reading the same, described after each story.

· The First Story: A wild turkey was sitting on the top branch of a tree. A rabbit spots it from the ground and curiously asks: “Hey! How can you sit continuously for so long and do nothing.” Before the turkey could reply, a hunter spots the rabbit and shoots it dead while the turkey flies off.

Can you guess the moral of the first story? If you want to sit and do nothing, it is better to be on top.

· The Second Story: A rabbit asks a cow: “Mr. Cow, I want to climb up the tree. Can you tell me how to do it?” The cow cheerfully replies:”Sure! Just eat my dung and you will gain enough energy to climb the tree.” The rabbit eats the cow’s dung and is able to climb the tree. Moments later, a hunter spots the white rabbit in the tree and shoots it dead.

This time, can you guess the moral of the second story? If you reach the top after gaining favours from others and then do nothing, you are sure to fall.

· The Third Story: It is freezing cold. It is so cold that a cuckoo sitting on the top of the tree freezes and falls off the tree. A cow standing next to the tree feels pity and drops some dung on the frozen cuckoo. The dung is warm and it melts the snow on the cuckoo. The cuckoo becomes so happy that it starts singing. A cat, on hearing the cuckoo sing, pulls it out of the dung and eats it.

This story has three morals:

i. Not everybody who drops dung on you is your enemy.

ii. Not everybody who pulls you out of dung is your friend.

iii. If your life is in deep shit, do NOT sing about it.

Well that’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed the stories as much as I did.

Not a part of this post but as an aside: Folks interested in visiting the state of Jharkhand may like to visit www.traveljharkhand.com before making their plans.

Before the Arrival

2009-10-13T17:51:00.003+05:30

This is going to be a hurried post. The entire campus is going wild. There is excitement everywhere with the ever dozing administration turning into perfectionists overnight. There is just one topic of discussion everywhere: “Rahul Gandhi is coming to the School.” From state party leaders to a mess worker, it is the same utterance everywhere.

Here’s what different sections of the society had to say before His (‘the almighty?’) arrival.

· S State party G.Sec.: “Mr. Gandhi thinks that by coming over here and probably sleeping in some tribal homes and eating there bread, he can fix their problems.” (The state needs Godfathers like us!)

· I Institute’s Administration in a meeting with the students: “How can you even think of calling a politician to a technical institution? No wonder why we are always reluctant to support you.” (We are reluctant to construct a hostel in a year and now we have to construct a helipad overnight!)

· T Teachers to students: “Oh! Mr. Gandhi is coming. Will he talk to you? Please convince him to change the name of this institute.” (Yeah! A light in the darkness for you.)

· S Students to administration: “Postpone the examination scheduled on that day and leave the rest to us. We will find a way to get things done through him.” (The true master minds.)

· C Canteen worker: “Rahul Gandhi to congress ke liye aa rahe hain. Wo is hostel canteen ka kya, main canteen hi halat nahi sudhaar sakte.” (True words of wisdom.)

· M Mess Worker: ”Aamra o oke shunte jaabo. O kon bhaasha e kotha bolbe? Hindi na Bangla na Ingriji? (We too want to listen to him. What language will he speak in? Hindi or Bangla or English?) (The one truly interested!)

Feel free to add your reaction as comments.

Alternatives galore

2009-09-25T07:20:00.003+05:30

I observed him carefully again. Here was a boy sitting on the opposite birth to me. My age. Hair reaching up to the shoulder, shirt unbuttoned to the waist and jeans folded up to the knees. I assumed he too was going to Delhi like me albeit with a very different purpose. I was on a mission. I was the elite. I guessed, he must be returning to his college. I didn’t venture to bother him and continued day dreaming about what lay ahead of me. A while later, my eyes fell on him again. This time he was reading from his diary. I observed that it was some handwritten notes in Hindi. Examination then; last minute preparations. I couldn’t help smiling. Poor dude is suffering from nerves. However, the fact that the notes were in Hindi aroused my curiosity. “Where do you study?” I asked after some hesitation. He told me. I looked at him with utter disbelief and amazement. I was curious and asked him to tell me more.

He told me that he was one of the twenty successful candidates to be selected from a hundred thousand applicants. He told me that his institution was one of its kinds in the country. He told me that his institute’s alumni included great names like Nasseruddin Shah and Anupam Kher. He told me that he was a student of the National School of Drama.

He too had a viva-voce during his entrance test but he was asked ‘what lights would best suit the stage while staging a murder scene.’ He too has internships to worry about but those include ‘training schoolchildren to stage famous plays.’ Finally, he too is tensed about his placements but that depended upon choosing between the theatre and the screen.

I flipped through the pages of his diary. It countained notes on the types of the modern stage, stage lights, latest costume styles, a list of all oscar winning movies and dramatis personae of plays he had directed in the past.

I asked him: “How? How could you build up the courage to choose such a different track?” His reply was: “I knew I was born for the theatre. I have been acting since I was eleven and staging plays in the town since I was fifteen. I knew I had to do this or else I do not know what I could have done.” Such was his confidence, his zeal to do things differently.

I wondered how many of us had unique talents that suffered in the hands of compulsion and stereotyped professions. I have known great actors and lyricists masked as engineers, authors and painters left craving as unwilling technocrats. Will we ever realise that we do not know what we want to actually do in our life. Quoting the play ‘Love in December’: “Most people do not know that they do not know what they want to do in their lives.” How true. I still believe that there is still time to seek what our heart seeks. I still believe that we ought to keep looking. The alternatives galore.

The Rename Game

2009-09-02T01:41:00.003+05:30

I desperately wish to write something. Blogging is a great way to relieve tension and bring up the calm. As usual, I have nothing to write but the motivation is high and the night has just begun. So here I am; hunting for a topic to pen down my thoughts. My last presentation of one aspect of college life seems to have gone well with my scanty bunch of faithful readers. Therefore this time I try to explore another fun aspect of college life: the renaming. It can be easily said that you enter college with your pleasant and sweet name and you go out re-christened with a cryptic acronym drafted out of your name. I and my friends have been victims of this weird tradition and I am sure my dear reader, if you be from some other college, you have been too. That’s how, Siddhant becomes Sid, Nilesh becomes Nilu, Gyanendra becomes Gyani and Vijit becomes Biju (this one in paricular reflects the creativity of a professor.) As far as I am concerned, I have been DD since time immemorial. I think it must have been sometimes after my birth that much to my annoyance, I have been stamped by this acronym which has now become my identity and has replaced my name which could have reflected my parents’ creativity.

However, I consider myself luckier as there are worse victims. There are people, who are almost unidentifiable if you call out their true names. I often wonder who the hell Ashish Yadav is for he is Haria/Harry (for his friends decided to rename him to make his name sound like that of a manservant) or who is Satyendra Aggarwal for he is Boss (for his dominating style.) Nor can I decipher the name Shubham Shankadhar for he is better known as Kholu (for he holds the best JEE rank among all the ISMites of my batch.) Then there is the case of Telly who is called so because of his exceptionally poor eyesight. I am sorry but I do not know his real name.

The rename game runs high in college life and most names stay even after leaving the institute. There is hardly anyone left out whose name hasn’t been transformed into something creative. My message to all those who believe in the statement: “What’s in a name?” Well, at college your name may not just identify you. Beware! If you have a bunch of creative friends, it might just reflect your entire personality or even peculiarity.

The Peculiar Relationship

2009-07-31T23:33:00.001+05:30

It is once again that time of the year when people with a lucky JEE getaway are lured to spend their next four or five years at our outstanding institute. The reason I call it outstanding is that it stands out from the seemingly endless list of IITs that our patron: the MHRD has so humbly bestowed upon the better minds of the nation. This implies that people need to trouble themselves less about making it into the list of the better minds.

However, before I cease pretending that I care about these younglings who will be soon ushered into our huge family (we have insufficient rooms to keep them), I would like to give them sincere advice about something that is so important to them: relationships. Now, before you classify me among those preachers who are forced to preach something they have as much idea as a laboratory mouse might have about the Helium-Neon Laser, I must clarify that I am talking about the ever important relationship with your roomy.

Believe it or not, a hurried decision to bind yourself to an unfamiliar face at the beginning of the year can create the most hilarious and uncomfortable situations for an entire year. Your roomy may want to sleep early when your nocturnal escapades may involve playing music at the highest pitch. Or maybe your roomy may find clinging to the phone the most interesting part of his/her jeopardized life, thus causing you to delve into the deepest well of frustrations and inferiority complex, provided you are one of the paradoxical creatures who crave for commitment and at the same time happen to be commitment-phobic. Funnily enough, break-ups and divorces can emerge from the tiniest of issues such as locking your roomy outside the room while he/she is at bath. You can’t blame the offender for that. The tragedy of Othello rests merely on a perfumed handkerchief. Alternatively, partners who vouched fidelity in their first year have fallen apart before me and unforeseen divorces are no longer a rare event. You may always expect your roomy to have begun sleeping with the most unlikely character after your return from a nice vacation.

Therefore, it is my sincere advice to my fellow juniors to choose their partners wisely. The relationship with your roomy has greater value than that between you and any of your girl/boyfriends. The greatest of friendships emerge from this peculiar relationship.

The Curves of Time

2009-06-30T23:20:00.003+05:30

The good times at IUCAA, Pune will soon be over and I will be back at my old rooms at ISMU. Most people have the opinion that if you stay at a place for too long, you imbibe the general qualities of the place. Having stayed here for six weeks now, I can now invariably argue that they are wrong. Astrophysics flows in every block of concrete that IUCAA is made up of. However, nothing sticks unless you want it to and you take up only the part that you really enjoyed and that becomes a memory. Now I must really thank the reader for having made this far in this article and before you quit, I would like to state that I haven’t forgotten the sole objective of this blog: “to amuse and cheer up the reader.” Having said that, I would like to ask you, did you ever imagine that your entire life can be represented by a single curve in three dimensions? That’s where the concept of World Lines comes into the picture. It is the one topic that I found the most fascinating during my stay at IUCAA.

The following perquisites are necessary to understand the fundamentals of World Lines:

• You need to know the four dimensional coordinate axes in space-time. (Bet, they didn’t teach that to you in geometry!)
• You should be fascinated by curves. Only then you can strongly appreciate the concept.

Having mastered the above, let us move on to what we set out to understand. Imagine a space-time coordinate system which represents the position of the particle in space as well as the instance of time. Thus a curve in this space-time coordinate system will represent the sequence of space-time events corresponding to the history of the object.

Now let us take this concept one level further by considering humans as points in space-time. In that case, the world line will represent the history of the human being! Thus two world lines will intersect only if space-time coordinates of two people coincide or in other words, they meet at a certain time. Not only this, since a curve can take any particular shape in space-time we can invariably argue that future has infinite possibilities and thus predicting the future or worrying about it is similar to tracing an arbitrary curve’s future path in four dimensions, or in other words: futile. We meet so many people each day and often make the best of friends. It is fantastic to imagine that when and where two unknown people will have their world lines intersected which may result in the development of a beautiful friendship or a relationship.

I found the concept of world-lines fantastic as it provides a way to think about ordinary things differently. Meeting of two people, your future, and your past can all be explained scientifically through world-lines. I hope my meagre knowledge was able to fascinate you with this charming concept. Do read Stephen Hawking’s masterpiece A Brief History of Time to know more about these curves of time.

A lot closer to heaven

2009-05-26T21:54:00.004+05:30

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

2009-05-14T23:30:00.000+05:30

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.

An anatomy of the FPS genre

2009-04-07T00:32:00.002+05:30

When everyone thought that SRK alone had the capability of tormenting us with stereotyped soapy movies, would you believe that even FPS (first person shooter) action games suffered from clichés and predictable game-play? For those who came in late; FPS is the class of action games where the camera hides the central character and projects the world directly before you. Readers who are ardent fans of anything other than action games need not navigate away from the page as ‘the other Devdeep’ shows you, why you need to hate them even more:

1. The central character: The central character in most FPS games is male. It has the simple logic that if you design a game with a female lead then it better be in third person. The game would then attract lot more buyers if it were sold with the catch-line: “We know our game kind of sucks but look: she wears less as the game wears more!”
2. The environment: Even if the scenario of the game is set up in the distant future, it is sure to have many ladder climbing exercises. I remember playing a game called ‘Project IGI’ which came with the added realism of the inability to shoot while climbing a ladder. Also, the environment of FPS games must have the following:

· Long empty corridors

· Rooms full of crates

· Long corridors full of crate

3. Guns, lots of guns: FPS games usually come with an inventory of guns and weapons. From assault rifles to snipers to rocket-launchers they have it all. Also no FPS is complete if they don’t supply you with a crowbar and a knife as well (who cares!) Certain games such as ‘Mortyr’ and ‘Return to castle Wolfenstien’ also allow you to kick enemies; probably to satisfy the urge to humiliate a bad guy rather than riddling him into a leaky piece of meat. It doesn’t stop here. An FPS must allow you to sprint, climb, strafe and jump around and at the same time allow you carry the aforementioned inventory along with a perennial stock of grenades and ammunition.

4. Resources and goodies: You will find lots of resources and goodies while exploring the FPS world. One can pick these up by simply walking over them. Picking up stuff must cause a loud bonky noise. Also resources will be kept in high inaccessible places and usually would come in two flavours- health and armour; health and manna or anything similar. I once collected a big keg of health (worth 200 health points) from the centre of a reactor and another time from a rock amidst a lava pool in ‘Unreal Tournament’.

5. Bad guys: All throughout the course of your journey in the FPS world, you will come across a variety of bad guys. Few of them will be the ‘bosses’ who as the name goes; must be killed before advancing further in the game. The size of the boss is proportional to the level you are playing. Therefore the final boss must really be huge. In that case, I really appreciate the creativity of the developers of ‘Half-Life’ who designed their final boss as a huge baby that fired green bolts from its head.

6. Women: Now this is a cliché that is worth carrying ahead. Women in FPS games are usually veterans in martial art and animated eye-candies with tight outfits and curves. You would usually see them in the role of elite guards and shrewd conspirators or confederates. I have never met a motherly character in an FPS.

Now that I have cut open the FPS genre of action games, next time you see or play one you know what to expect. Dear John Carmack (founding CEO, ID Software, and the god of FPS) forgive me, I have no grudge against you.

The Final Word

2009-04-07T00:25:00.002+05:30

Note: This post was written by me almost a year ago with the motive of signing off from the editorial team of the official newsletter of I.S.M. University: Mailer Daemon (MD). Now that I have reduced my involvement to a bare minimum, I must say that MD has given me the unforgettable memories that I would always cherish. Also I must add that the following post has already been featured on the following two blogs:

• SAME DIFFERENCE by Siddhant Pattanaik at www.whatsinsidshead.blogspot.com
• TO BE OR NOT TO BE by Vijit Prabhu at www.vijit-theomnipresent.blogspot.com
I thank the authors for giving my article a space at a time when I had no identity on the web.

A year has passed since I pushed myself into Team MD. And I have managed to stick to it till today. My colleagues in the team are aware of two kinds of Team MD members: one, those who are dedicated to it and work hard till the end. They ‘eat, dream and think MD’ while working on an issue. The second category belongs to those who were not able to cope up with the pressure and left MD for its and their good. Guess I am a third kind- a category still needed to be researched. (Right now, my colleagues are working on our last issue, while I am typing this article.)
But this article is not about ‘how I fared for MD’. So let us forget this part and let me tell you what is going on in MD right now. Right now, we are interviewing candidates for selecting a new team for MD. How I had waited for this moment since the day I was selected. Back then, I imagined this day as one in which I would scrutinize, analyze and cross-question each candidate so as to bring out the true successors of our team. Now, I amuse myself by watching my colleagues do the same. Just on the second day of the interviews, I found myself hardly uttering a word. (Don’t dream of an HR like me!) ‘My colleagues, try to recall, I was there sitting right beside you.’ I watched, as some anxious, some nervous and some energetic faces took the chair before me while Ishant from one end and Shreya from the other, hovered like vultures, ready to peck at every slip of their tounge. Among the remaining enthusiasts were Sid, Divir, Sukhi, Avinash and Sukanya, ready to chip in their part whenever they got a chance. ‘The dedicated and sincere team MD.’ Meanwhile, ‘the Bad Boy of team MD’ (that’s me) was busy planning this article and was randomly generating numbers to fill up his analysis sheet. I decided to go back in time and put myself in the interviewee’s position to analyze how I would have fared in the same test.

Interviewer (MD): Would you like to introduce yourself?
Me: (Actually no. My name is a bit too long and you would forget it, the moment I leave this room. My branch will sound alien to you and my hobby-reading books- is of no practical use to you. Anything I mention thereafter about myself will generate further cross questions- causing myself to land in trouble. It is most unwise to introduce myself. But will have to say :) Yes.

MD: Introduce yourself.
Me: I would blabber out the usual intro and add nothing extra, lest I provoke further questions. All this, I would say in a loud tone, with an accent so that you get irritated and leave me quickly.

MD: What do you want your role to be in MD?
Me: (Let me think. If I choose editor it means sitting at my comp, reading other’s articles, sometimes writing by myself. OK, I will manage that, others will most probably help. Reporting will mean running here and there, speaking to admin etc etc. That is too much work. Easy decision.) I want to take up an editor’s job.
I now realize that back then my decision to choose editor actually got me selected. I escaped the PI round, something -I now feel, I would never have qualified.

MD: Where is the campus administration building and the maintenance department?
Me: (Campus Administration has to be within the campus. That is one thing I am sure of. But Murphy’s Law states that: ‘the greatest myth about administration is that, it exists.’ That makes CA a mythical place. What the hell!) I don’t know where the CA is.
Of course, I know where the maintenance department is. It is right behind the workshop. I went there once in the first year to get my window’s glass fixed. I had broken it, made it drop right from the first floor. The complaint got registered, nothing happened thereafter.

MD: What are your likes and dislikes about ISMU?
Me: (I must be cautious about this question- a tricky one. These guys love to point out shortcomings about ISMU, be it students or the admin. So to impress them, I must do the same. The part about ‘likes’ is just a pitfall, I must avoid. I am a clever guy.)
I dislike the students of ISMU. They make too much fuss about everything. There is a breed in ISM which wastes a year discussing ‘why shouldn’t we give certificates of merit to our rivals?’And prior to this, they would plan out a strategy for a month to ‘reach to a particular high status so that they can discuss the previously mentioned question.’ There is another species which goes on claiming for ‘more space.’ Then there is another which spends most of their time in challenging this claim. There is a group that has decided that its life’s ambition is to see all the infrastructural developments that ISM is ever capable of within their four or five years of stay in ISMU. Also ISM must have an increased area and the net speed must build up every year-all this they must witness while they are here. Finally there is MD which compiles all of this into six pages and hands it back to them.

What do I like about ISMU? I like the students of ISMU. There is a breed which is hell-bent on making a mark at ISMU. They would go up to any extent to fulfil their ambition, while they are here at ISMU. Be it promoting their departmental identity, helping the poor, or inspiring entrepreneurial skills, they are always out at the forefront. They are warriors. Remember the shout when the trophy of Muqabla was brought home. Remember Mechathlon, remember Sparx. Those were the times when ISM shone like never before. Ask yourself, don’t they deserve a little more than what they are getting? Maybe they asked for coaches, maybe they asked for a little more departmental and admin cooperation. Shouldn’t an effort be made to grant these? Remember: ‘A college is known by its students.’ And finally there is MD, which is composed of heroes selected from this breed. (When shall the groups mentioned previously get merged with this breed? But I guess, they are one and the same. ‘A mere flip changes the face of the coin.’)

MD: Improvements for MD?
Me: MD. When was the last time I read the complete paper? I remember noticing bar graphs in one of the issues. Then once, there was an article about status of girls in ISM - written by girls of course. You generally expect such stuff from them. ‘Good (status) generally leads to the expectation of Better (status).’ Once again, there was a full page of ‘Ruby Survey’. But that article was not for me. I have stopped staring at them since the time they started staring at me as if they were looking at an ‘ascetic kid.’ No wonders there. I hardly speak, while in group. Other than these, I hardly recall any other article. Therefore you must increase the frequency of MD so that people like me at least remember a bunch of articles to speak about.

The final question was usually based on a situation, where one had to interview an admin member usually. I having chosen editorship would have escaped this question. So let me tell you, that my colleagues pretended to be part of the admin and conducted a mock interview. From their act, the following things about the admin were clear:

• The admin is ready to come up with excuses at every mistake that is pointed out.
• The admin/G.Sec is ready to take up any action if ‘approached through a proper channel.’
• Everything is student’s fault. ‘No proper events are conducted because students don’t turn up.’(So no point conducting a better event.) ‘The sports complex need not be improved since the students won’t maintain it.’
• The Yahoo HR will never accept the existence of ISMU at least in this life.
• G.Sec will simply act as an interface between students and admin. He lacks the brains or guts to gather support and fight for a cause.

There were further inferences, but I don’t remember them right now.
There you go. I have spoken my heart out. I seldom do that. Judge for yourself whether I deserve to be in MD team after giving such an interview. By the way do not mistake this for a BC article. Trivial BC is not my job. I am totally serious regarding all views expressed. Also I am responsible for any hurt feelings upon reading this article. ‘Hate mails invited.’

Excursion report: Condensed and Accurate

2009-03-24T20:49:00.002+05:30

As the title goes, I am not going to waste my time over beautiful metaphorical and allegorical descriptions about our experience of the industrial excursion to BSNL, Dhanbad. What follows, is an ultra condensed and accurate description of the excursion that can be framed into a report and can fetch you good grades. So, its no big deal: just facts.

We (that implies fifty odd CSE and nine mathematics students) boarded a bus headed for BSNL, Dhanbad at 10:30 AM.

Reached destination in 10 minutes

The official at the BSNL office naively inquired as to what bizarre circumstances made CSE and maths students plan an excursion to BSNL as they were interested only in Electronics or Electrical engineers.

A lot of irrelevant things happened which included demonstration of large cabinet size machines with multiple glowing LEDs. The kind which one likes to break using a crowbar while playing first person action games.

During the demonstrations, the official instructor mentioned cryptic stuff which I noted down. They are as follows:

"E1000B STS CSNMM SMC SMA SMYA SMT PCM (32 channels) TAX Tier 2 BNG"

Anyone who has any idea about what the above line means is whole-heartedly welcome to enlighten me.

In an hour, everyone was tired of learning and wanted to have beer. We tried to convince the teachers in charge but failed.

We returned- tired and exhausted and suffering from an overdose of industrial exposure and therefore we decided that we will not be attending any classes in the afternoon.

Yay! Another feat added to my CV.

We will not forget...

2009-03-09T18:25:00.005+05:30

The boy was shivering. He hung his head in shame. The teacher had hit him hard on the back. Sixty pairs of eyes stared at him. That is more than sufficient for a boy aged 16 to be grieved beyond limits. But then who comes prepared for answering questions in the very second class of the year. He tried to reason. His inner voice screamed out: “The teacher told everyone to prepare, but you simply weren’t attentive. Now this is the outcome.” The teacher slowly walked away, firing questions at random unsuspecting students, punishing his victims. “Sparing the rod” was a phrase he had never learned. The iron routine would be followed on and on for the next two years as well. Computer Science at intermediate level wasn’t exactly a cakewalk.

The teacher’s effect on his students was tremendous. Initially fuelled by fear, even the lowest of the lot would restore to study the subject. There would be an unnatural silence in the class with all eyes on the masterful teacher, as he moved from topic to topic laying down the foundation with care. Later, the fear would be replaced by respect and a newborn urge to master the subject. My fellow Flowerites would admit that back in the good old days, when people cared about exams, the tests he put us to were the toughest and their level was unmatched by even that of the comparative university papers. Questions were never repeated and brainstorming became an obvious habit.

On the lighter side, he was immensely popular among the students and in every batch, by the end of high school; he would be having a set of fan followers. Those that came to know him beyond the classroom and the rigorous tests would talk about his expertise in almost every known programming language and popular software. Mimicry of his Tamil accent became a favourite pastime of almost every Flowerite. I hereby recount some phrases, clichés, and incidents that people always associated with him:

Short statured and dark complexioned, he would walk in the class with rolled up sleeves and palms smeared with chalk. Almost every class began with: “last class we had gone through...”

The words: “You, corner one, come to the board man...” to an unsuspecting student was a nightmare to all of us.

“How did you get two marks out of sixty?” (Often asked to some girl on the day papers were shown after some examination.)

There would be a thump in every heart and nervous faces as he would announce marks of every student to the entire class –a habit despised by most Flowerites.

“Write a C BLUS BLUS program to ...” was a phrase we heard at least five times in every class.

His passion, devotion, uncanny zeal and enthusiasm motivated scores of students to take up Computer Science and related subjects as their career or at least develop immense potential and interest in the field. He may not remember us but we know that there was:

A Rajeev Aggarwal (‘99 batch), graduated in CSE from IIT Kanpur. He completed his MS in the same from Stanford University.

A Abhijatya Pandey (2k3 batch), alumnus of ISM University (Mineral Engineering)whose programming skills were well known and well utilized at college and now overseas where he works at BHP Billiton (global giant in mineral processing) with a pay package of over Rs. 30 lacs p.a.

A Sankalp Bose (2k3 batch), currently in final year M.Tech CSE at IIT Kanpur, placed at Qualcomm.

A Manavendra Roychoudhury (2k2 batch) who is a successful Applications Engineer at Oracle India.

A Siddhartha Kandoi (2k5 batch), who is currently pursuing his masters in Mathematics and scientific computing at IIT Kanpur. He works in the domain of cipher and cryptography and coordinates the SUN programming club at IIT Kanpur.

The news hit me like a bullet when I came to know, a few months back that he had left the school and went back to his hometown in TN. Last week, I had to apply for a scholarship where there was a field that said: “name of your favourite teacher.” With a heavy heart, I penned down almost instantaneously: “Sir Vasanthraj.”

Femme Fatale!

2009-02-07T00:39:00.006+05:30

I was about to pen down something weird about operating systems when this crazy incident happened which has left me in splits. Well, it so happened that this third year of college has been teaching us professional begging, which people sometimes mistakenly call: requests for sponsorships. It’s high time for us to wind up our fest preparations, but all I see is people virtually falling on their knees before HRs and night after night of intense phone calls pleading for that coveted association. So, one fine evening while I was busy contemplating about the messy condition of my bed and counting the no of objects permanently on it which has now taken a static figure of twelve and includes clothes, a bottle, locks, keys, coins and a pen; Cheema walks in with a cell-phone in his hand, looking for a guy who speaks Bengali. “Here are the contacts of three tentative sponsors for that event related to Geophysics. Two of these are our alumni and the third is a lady. That should be easy picking for you. Just employ that sweet Bengali tongue of yours and let the bucks flow.” I promptly came up with a “sure, I’ll do it” reply. Now I’ll be frank and end the possible confusions that could have emanated from my affirmation:

I have no particular interest in geophysics. Truly speaking, I have absolutely no idea regarding what the subject is all about. All I feel is that, what dt: the infinitely small time period is to mathematicians, a millennia is to geophysicists. These people are mostly concerned about what is going to happen to earth in the next thousand years, nothing short of that.

I speak Bengali with an ‘UPish’ accent and have been screwed for it a number of times at Kolkata.

I do not like to impress lady CEOs and alumni of our college. I do not think any good is ever going to come out of it.

So why did I say ‘yes’? Simply because it is so hard to say ‘no’ to things which let you spend time in the always welcome ‘no brainwork’ fashion.

I sailed through the first and the second telephonic conversations, chanting in Bengali, the well mugged up stuff regarding how fantastic our fest really was, with the actual multiplied by four number of participants visiting the campus from the actual multiplied by two number of colleges from all over India. The bait was well set and they fell for it. Finally, I managed to obtain their email ids and promised to mail them the details ASAP. With the smile of a winner and an unfamiliar confidence, I now dialled the third and final number. It was the lady’s turn.

I have said that the lady wasn’t an alumnus and therefore my strategy was to introduce my college first and then proceed with the pleading –an art which I seem to be mastering in this year. When the conversation began, I came to know that she was in a train (probably local) and was asked to be ‘loud and clear.’ I proceeded in English this time. (I usually like to talk in English with an accent, especially when I am feeling jovial. Don’t ask me why. I do not know.)

“......................................... and so ma’am we would like you to associate with us in the event. We guarantee widespread publicity to your company.”

She: So dear, (now that’s a start) it is so nice of you to have approached us. I will see what I can do. By the way, may I know your branch?

Me: Uhhh. I really don’t want to sound stupid by dropping that I am from mathematics, seeking sponsorship for a geophysics related event. Anyways, what would this lady know? So here goes my bombshell. Ma’am I am from third year Applied Geophysics.

She: Oh! Final year of the postgraduate course? Well, how many students do you have in your batch, dear?

Me: I really don’t get the hang of what she just said. Nor do I realise the deep pit I was sinking in. I simply look at Cheema for aid who mumbles something. I stammer out twenty three for no apparently obvious reason.

She: Twenty three! So many students these days! Oh, my God! So what is the placement scenario like? Are all of you placed?

Me: I was falling down the rabbit hole. The thud was coming. Well, three; no ma’am; two are still to be placed. Economic recession period ma’am, you know. Tough time ma’am, really tough...

She: Oh! I am so sorry! By the way what all companies visited this year? I need to get down from the train but keep talking. It is so nice to hear about my old college.

Me: I cut the phone. Let her get off the train. What was going on? (I suddenly felt the urge to play Hangman with Cheema. His turn first to be hanged!)I knew I had to call back again but companies, placement scenario of geophysics: I didn’t have the faintest idea. I looked at Cheema for aid. This time he was smiling. The game wasn’t up yet. I dialled.

She: The phone got cut somehow. So, you are in this postgraduate course. Tell me about the companies that now visit the campus to recruit you guys.

Me: Cheema has been trying hard to pursue the petroleum engineering course at our college. He definitely had more idea about geophysics than us –guys whom our department wishes to call mathematicians of the future. (Laugh out loud!) He starts stating one by one the companies that recruit geophysicists and I repeat along with him on the phone. I now realise that postgraduate course was ‘deep waters’ and so: Ma’am, actually I am from the undergraduate integrated course. I can mail you the exact details of our seniors if you please.

She: So you are not even confident about your seniors? Undergraduate course... hmmm... you must be JEE qualified.

Me: My chest swelled with pride on having heard her mention JEE. Uncyclopedia describes my feeling in the best way:

“Oh, you are an IITian. You must be very intelligent.” ~ What every IITian wants to hear.

The quote also applies to ISMites. Guys unfortunately tagged by JEE as ‘people supposed to be brilliant.’(Laugh out louder!) Anyways, the ball was back in my court. Then the bullet hit me.

She: Tell me, who is the HOD now?

Me: This time, I seriously thought the woman was making a fool of me. She wanted to prove that I was an impostor. HOD... I thought hard. Then I remembered my friend Siddhant from geophysics. I slammed heavily on his door. It was locked. I knocked on several doors for aid. Seniors and friends from all sorts of branches came out. None from geophysics though. They were all eager to watch the show. I thought hard. Siddhant had mentioned someone. I had already been silent for 20 seconds now. “ Srivastava... Dr. V.K. Srivastava.” I blurted out. I must have leapt at least two feet in the air. The bulls-eye was hit.

She: Oh! Fine enough. Is R.K. Shaw sir still there? And who else is there in the department?

Me: The woman was killing me. I stamped my foot hard on the floor. I hadn’t heard anybody by the name Shaw in the past two and a half years at college. I decided to play a blind. No ma’am, he left three years back. I had the heart in my mouth as I mouthed the letters D-I-A-R-Y to the small group of onlookers surrounding me. Cheema rushed for it. I must have sounded like a typical newsreader as I said: Ma’am, we have one professor.... and in the associate professor category there are...... and three more assistant professors. I fought hard to keep a straight face as the ace was being played and finally gave a sigh of relief, not finding anybody by the name Shaw.

The lady must have finally decided to call it a day. She gave her email id and asked me to mail the brochure. My pen shook heavily as I burst out with laughter, while still on the phone.

Later Cheema mentioned: “You managed to sail through!” “Heh! The sea was rough though,” I replied.

Could it be?

2009-01-26T00:06:00.000+05:30

I had been pacing up and down the Computer Science department, waiting for a chance to get one of my numerous proposals forwarded. The proposal was supposed to benefit the computer student community at our college in general and thus my anxiety was justified. A meeting was underway and I could hear the haughty discussion going on, making it absolutely clear that I was not welcome. The teacher, I was interested in discussing my proposal with was known for his ego which usually overshadowed his kindness to students. Frankly, it was not in my best interests to cross him. Hence the thump in my heart was quite natural and I constantly wished myself a successful and quick discussion.

After ‘toing and froing’ for about half an hour and seeing that there was no end in sight for the meeting, I let my thoughts drift to more interesting channels, when the other Devdeep came up with this crazy idea: why, cannot this meeting be held on GTalk, with the various professors engaging in button punching sessions from their rooms to decide the supposed fate of this department. I would then be able to discuss my agenda without interrupting the meeting. I knew that the other I was talking both sense and nonsense. Sense because had we not participated in numerous such meetings, exchanging ideas, having endless debating sessions in whatever extra -curricular activities we engaged ourselves at college. Also, let me add that these meetings usually continued for hours, often through the entire evening and well into the night. Therefore such ’fruitful’ meetings were actually possible. On the other hand, it was nonsense to think that the professors would acquire such a habit because of the simple reason that they were um,’ professors.’ Can’t compare them to us, frolicking students you know.

But could it be? Could our teachers, with all their experience and knowledge possess the mentoring and the warmth of our seniors? Imagine a college where you can simply barge into the chamber of your most senior professor and he would greet you with a friendly smile of ‘wassup?’ The hierarchy among the Profs on the basis of their official post would not let them cover themselves in the veils of superiority and their every success or promotion will be followed by a gala treat. Would we hesitate then to throw a separate party to them after landing on that 10M package of glory? This is supposed to be a serious post but allow me to say that that my mathematics department is the only one progressing in this direction by giving us regular company at the campus tea stall.

Not that this euphoric dream of extra friendly professors includes the perception of curtailing the seriousness of the job of a teacher. The dream does not allow a student to disobey the teacher without receiving a harsh punishment in return. For that matter, do we not obey our seniors and carry out their errands as if we were part of a team. The dream will only make us obey our teachers with a more willing attitude. Also, we still allow them to set the toughest question papers in the ever formidable examinations albeit with the warmth and enthusiasm with which we set the seemingly disastrous papers of technical competitions. However, this also enforces them to conduct the classes with the attitude of a final year conducting a workshop for his juniors. This should ensure that no stone is left unturned to impart the most difficult concepts in the best possible manner. Imagine a classroom, where the matter is presented through the most professional slides prepared after hunting resources from the global library called internet; where every class is followed by rigorous doubt clearing sessions at the end of which a student is simply left craving for more. Also, the hypothesis ends where you start imagining booze parties with your mentors that you are so familiar with, in the company of seniors.

Now that I have managed to capture your attention by letting you savour this delightful dream of mentoring teachers; like a good mathematician I wish to contradict the foundation of my very own hypothesis thereby stating that achieving this dream is too unrealistic and maybe, too good to be true. The reasons being:

• The age difference between us and our teachers is significantly larger than that our seniors and hence their mentality cannot be compared. Hence a teacher-student relationship is lot more formal than a senior-junior relationship
• The control of our seniors on us is only virtual while teachers virtually control our careers. Hence the seniors need to be friendly as well as strict to their juniors so as to team up with them in order to accomplish a task.
• The comparison between a workshop and a classroom is also unrealistic since a teacher needs to deal with a seemingly endless syllabus. Also, bringing quality into the teaching is not mandatory since teachers need not desire their classroom to be audience puller which is obligatory for the workshop organisers.
• Often the cause of unfriendliness of a teacher towards a student can be attributed to his personal frustration and intra-departmental tensions.

Look around you and you will find even the best and most cordial teachers keeping you at an arm’s length due to one or more of the aforementioned causes. However, if you remember the teachers at your school or at your coaching institute, you would know that they actually come a long way in fulfilling this dream. Hence somehow I still feel that this distance can be bridged, the passage can be levelled. Maybe it requires a total reconstruction of the system, a total remodelling of the mentality and general attitude towards the profession. So what do you think, could this dream be lived? Could it be?

RANDOM THOUGHTS @ 3 IN THE NIGHT

2009-01-13T17:01:00.000+05:30

With blogging as a newfound hobby, comes a plethora of miseries. The constant clicks on the refresh button to check for new daggers. The excitement every evening to check for updates from my allies leading to the anger to see that many of them are almost as miserable in the art as me. There are a few who don’t update their blogs in months. Can’t think of what other hobbies they have engaged themselves in. Then there are others, who update their blogs so frequently that they make the entities comprising the first set think ‘why didn’t I engage myself in some other hobby?’ Talking about comments, here is some real time Gtalk chat that adds to my list of miseries:
The real Devdeep: give some comments on my attempt at blogging (in case u have gone thru it)...
AL: i did go thro it... it was kewl...i din comment over there...but it was cool.....
though i was not much familiar with ISI scene... it was a good attempt to make us understand
watever im saying... if theres a mistake pl do matiyao it... im drunk ill tell u my actual comments tom !!!!!!

Tomorrow never comes. I firmly believe that AL, my good friend's face will serve as a great pincushion. By the way, ‘matiyao’ means ‘procrastinate’ according to our college lingo. All fellow non ISMite bloggers with ‘miserably wide’ vocabulary should know that this one word precisely describes the sole truth of my college life. And probably yours too, unless you are this dude who played the electric guitar since the age of six or this geek who has been breaking into international security since dad brought you a computer for your high school project work. By the way, the ‘miserably wide’ expression does not make sense to me either.
Not all aspects of blogging are disheartening. Take for example, the profile. For a long time, I had left the ‘occupation’ field blank. I had wanted to fill in ‘amateur gamer for life’ or ‘replacement for Enrique in his videos’ or any such interesting stuff. However, I realized that it is still a long way before I can actually write something more worthwhile than ‘penniless couch potato’ and decided to fill in the entry with the names of two illusions, which I have unknowingly allowed to take control of my life in the hope to end the misery of not possessing an Audi.
These days thinking about jobs, gives me goose bumps. You would get those too, if you could imagine that the company you land on one day may cease to exist the other day. Creepy nightmares, with me pinned before a creepier HR is now a common affair. Here is one such interview, I fear to face someday or the other:

What sort of inspiration made you study Mathematics/Computer Science in a mining college?
The same sort which inspired these two departments to open these courses in a mining college. It is known as extreme optimism.

So I am guessing that you are an optimist?
Actually, no. I used to be, until I understood the proposition on which these courses were started.
"Any start-up which is marred by loopholes can be fixed to utter perfection within the next fifteen to twenty years."
I now fear that the above proposition may be true.

Okay. Let us talk academics. What is the part of mathematics that you like the most?
The part that makes you spend evenings at the campus tea stall along with your departmental professors. This is the part they taught us diligently in all the semesters. Rest all the subjects were one night stands before the end of every semester.

Tell us about your organisational skills. What all extracurricular activities did you engage yourself in?
Our college is a harbour of sinking ships. I served as the captain of one such ship. (If this sentence does not make sense to you right now, wait for my future posts. I may decide to write something on this later. No commitments now.)Also we have this annual cultural cum technical festival of ours. I had some role to play in that.

Ok. That would have been interesting. Tell us in detail, how you helped in the organization of your annual fest.
Well, I was an Application Engineer then, which best describes my work. Now before, the reader imagines me taking a plunge into the pool of sheer geekdom, let me explain what I meant by me being an Application Engineer (AE). Being an AE means you need to write numerous applications and letters to all sorts of people. I have written letters to tentative sponsors that involved drowning your event into certain awesomeness that never existed. I have helped in the chalking of tens of proposals and requests to different sections of the administration that makes me feel like an incessant whiner. Really, I will always remember my third year at college for my role as an AE.

Enough! Why should we select you after all?
I may be able to chalk out a proposal to sell out your company in time. That is before you decide to buy another company with your virtual assets and merrily open the Pandora’s Box on us.

I sincerely hope that writing this down, will cause my nightmares to cease once and for all.

MEMORIES AND MEMENTO

2009-01-06T01:50:00.000+05:30

"Before entering into the blogger world, I wish to commend the authors of:

Fish Faced Follies @ www.adlibbingalltheway.blogspot.com: Although I do not know the author personally, I think that this blog is a masterpiece in itself and is my greatest inspiration.
Same Difference @ www.whatsinsidshead.blogspot.com: The author is one of my best friends. It is he who introduced me to the delight of this fascinating hobby."

My last few days at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata during my winter project revealed new and interesting features about the ‘monochrome’ campus. Take for example what it does to the residents who dare to stay on campus for a period more than three weeks (because that is the time we stayed and we are sure that we are still the same). It causes them to develop a certain addiction to locking themselves in their rooms on the pretext of promoting ‘high level research’ giving the campus a curfew like atmosphere throughout the day. However to people like us who possess the innate capability of inserting ‘Enrique’, ‘Shakira’ and ‘Prison Break’ intermissions in between the most rigorous schedules, the campus is lot more lenient. It just contents itself by giving them a ghastly grin, letting them explore new and innovative ways of killing time. Now, after having watched ‘Memento’ for the umpteenth time, the other Devdeep decided to figure out, what would the situation be like if I developed the same condition as Leonard, once I walked into a lifeless campus as this.

SCENE 1:

Venue: The godforsaken mess of the institute.

Characters: Me and my project partner Viz. Also a few ISIites , also referred to as nerds.

Me: Look, did I tell you about the strange fix I am in?

Viz mumbles something indiscernible while trying to fish out prawns from the small ‘pond’ that was served. You see, the mess at ISI, tried to feed you with the queerest kind of dishes, one can possibly imagine. But that is another story.

Viz: I know the fix that we are in now. This food!!

Me: Well... you see... I have developed this condition. It is called short term memory loss. Since the time I have entered ISI I have forgotten the very purpose we are here for. Also I am unable to make new memories. Anything that lasts for a bit too long fades.

Viz tries to comprehend the situation and his face resembles the one on my profile. (For those who are unaware of the character, look for Mike in Disney’s Monsters Inc.) In doing so, his attention wanders to the table nearby, where two nerds are discussing the differences between a generator and a ‘God only knows what.’

Viz: Look this is what we are here for. We are here for churning out our brains on whatever our guide serves us on a plate.

For that is what projects at ISI were like. You were given a topic. That’s all you could expect as a receiver. Beyond that it is all up to you. Anyways, while Viz is explaining this I suddenly get interested in a notice that hung by my side which went on something like this.

THE ADVENTURERS

For the first time at ISI

Rock Climbing Training at Darjeeling

Those who are interested, please contact _______

Me (Hardly hearing whatever Viz just said): Hey! Why don’t we go for this? Sounds cool.

Viz(Irritated Mode): Let us move out. I will explain on the way.

SCENE 2:

Venue: Out in the cold, in the curfew like environment of ISI campus.

Characters: The same old. What do you expect? I am no Shakespeare or Bernard Shaw. By the way, we also have Dr. Guide in this scene, who doesn’t speak a word for reasons soon to be clear.

Situation: Viz has got this strange idea of throwing me in front of the instructor with a stranger hope that putting me in an even greater fix will help me recover from my condition.

Me: So where are we heading?

Viz: You mentioned rock climbing right? That is where we are heading.

Me: Did I? You see, I have this condition...

Viz: I have realized that. I hear this every time we start a conversation. Tell that to the person we are about to meet.

Me: So who is he? Rock climbing instructor?

Viz: Yeah. Just call him instructor. Will you remember that?

Me: Sorry! And stop blabbering. You speak too much. I have started to forget why we are going to this man after all.

Viz(Super irritated mode): You will soon know. Just call him instructor. And you need to do the talking.

We climb the stairs to reach the eighth floor of a nine storey building, thrice during which I have tried to explain to Viz about my condition at the end of which he repeats the instructions narrated previously. The last instance of this cycle happens just before we enter the concerned chamber.

Viz: Hello! Mr. Guide, we are here for...

Me: Rock climbing, dear instructor.

Refer to my profile picture again to if you cannot imagine the expression on Mr. Guide. For some strange reason, Viz suddenly becomes greatly interested in his over-chewed nails.

Me: So when do we get to practice on the equipments? Please... now?

Viz understands that his foiled plan was about to lead him to a life of pain and suffering, proceeds to explain Mr. Guide about my condition, while I try to tug what seems to be a thick cord which turns out a cable connected to Mr. Guide’s Apple Mac at one end and loose at the other.

Apple Mac: CRASH!!!

Viz seems to decide that it is time to say goodbye to Mr. Guide. He fights a raging battle between the intimate desire of setting me on fire and the sincere hope that this short term memory loss is communicative and both he and Mr. Guide have a weak immune system.

SCENE 3

Venue: My room (Room no. 4, M.Tech. Hostel)

Characters: same old and a nerd.

Situation: I have just returned from the showers and am showing my bare skin to whoever is interested. However, presently there is no one in the room but me.

All of a sudden, Viz enters the room with a black marker in his hand.

Me: What the hell!!!

Viz: I had no time to look for needles and colours and I am not gifting you my cell camera this Christmas.

Me: What do you mean? And what the hell are you blabbering. By the way, can you just help me get my clothes? Can’t remember where I placed them.

Viz does not seem to hear a thing. He forces me on the bed and yells with his mouth near my ear: Let my write a few things on you. It is going to sort out this problem.

All this scene and commotion makes the nerd next door shout something indistinctly similar to “Brokeback.”(Readers unfamiliar with the term may check out IMDB for the 2005 blockbuster Brokeback Mountain.)

SCENE 4:

Epilogue

It is Christmas time. When midnight strikes, Viz walks in with two cans of super strong beer hoping to revive his spirits and keeping his fingers crossed against the notion that the beer might clear my head. Fast forward two hours.

I simply ask the reason as to why there are numerous scratches all over my body, and who was the guy with a broken PC whose face had been stamped on my door? Also my next door neighbour’s behaviour seemed utterly mysterious to me. I mean why should someone send me a bouquet of roses with a card that says: “With lots of love!”?

A few days later, Viz lures me to Howrah and sends me back to Dhanbad. He himself returns a week later after completing the project. He has still kept the bouquet as a memento to something he simply ‘can’t remember to forget.’