Expressions!!

ENGINEER that’s what the degree will say some time from now, if I make it, that is. And so will say for the lakhs of people across India. But are we even a tinge of the proper engineer? I guess not. Most of us “CHOOSE” it just as a natural option coming from the mathematical background. Like the natural recourse having passed school with PCM as subject.
Its quite an irony that the global image of india is that of a world leader in engineering services. But the sad story is – as in every other sphere of our lives -we are only good at producing numbers. And within the enormity of these numbers rests the essential skills of the art of engineering – lost and forgotten.
And I guess no one plays the mockery game better than our beloved UPTU. I can’t guess why they have crafted engg. into a 4 year affair, given the road that most of us take it won’t even take half of that time.
Who is to be blamed then? Yup you guessed it right it’s the people’s favorite- THE SYSTEM. They are the one forcing us into this ugly sewer, giving us no choice. Colleges are more interested in getting there curriculum approved by AICTE rather than analyzing whether it serves the purpose or not. There are a lot of niceties involved too but don’t we already know them?? And aren’t we already blind eyed to them??
I hope that things changes somehow, ANYHOW cause the real reason India is the way it is because we have the wrong people in the right places choosing more wrong people for right places.
P.S. - To add to the irony, consider the fact that this was written in a class, that too an important one..

it seems google had made a point to remove my blog every now and then from the internet.
was not working a few days back so posted a fluke post then and it started working but it seems they made a habit of it. Its gone again..
So i will have to post one more and i guess will have to keep it there too so that i
can have my piece of the cyber world..

B.S. (wondering what this B.S. is??? well its my own version of the P.S. thing Before Script. He He)
I know it is quite late to be writing anything about the famous potter series. But nevertheless when you have to say something just say it.
I always doubted the capabilities of the boy wizard to capture my imagination to have my nod of approval as the stuff I usually read are the thrillers. With their “taking over the world plans”, slick action, cool gizmos (satellite imaging, GPS, super secret facilities, spy gadgets to name a few), powerful heroes and even more powerful villains and not to forget weapons of mass destruction.
But I was grossly underestimating Harry……
The first two books gave me ample idea why this potter thing is a huge phenomenon worldwide. Got an idea why lunatics are willing line up in front of the stores so that they can have their copy as soon as possible and most importantly why Ms. Rowling is the only billionaire author in the world.
And as my own potter expert (ragho) says “it’s just the beginning” and if he is right (as he mostly is when he talks about books and literary stuff) I can only drool at the idea of prospective treat coming my way.
Now saying any thing for the books will be like the saying in hindi “suraj ko diya dikhana”. So I won’t wander there. Just to give you an idea of how they had me in a trance, consider two snippets.

1. I BROUGHT THEM (some of em ) and that too from my secret personal funds which I was saving for my tennis racket. And that is a big thing considering the miser I am especially when it comes to buying books (as I think they are useless after one reading so why to spend a fortune on em) kanjoos..well that’s me.

2. Even after spending my fortune on the books (which means that I will have to settle for a PRINCE rather than a WlLSON) some problems affected their timely delivery to me. Anxious, excited and hungry for the sequel (thank god I started reading them after all are readily available. Just imagine waiting for a year to get the next one) waiting was too painful a game for me so I summoned up my faithful servant (my laptop) he said “Master I have the eBooks you can read them. All you need is software named MICROSOFT READER” but with my CD drive gone awry the only option was to download it. And I had to download it over a dial up connection (slow as hell if you ever tried) took 2 hours with the snail like pace (I miss my broadband connection 256 vs. 2.6 blah!!!!). But finally had them both. Started straightaway with the head firmly stuck in the laptop screen(with the seriousness that made Ma think that probably I am busy with something important. With an occasional “Arre chuttiyon main kyun itna padh raha hai” thrown my way too!!!!!) by evening it was finished but even more serious problem loomed large, “BRING me third!!!!!!!”
Sisters are so inefficient!!!!! Grrr……[]
P.S.- At least now I can rest easy that I completed something from my summer wish list as other plans blew out even before they started. So long JAVAscript, AJAX and C#.

So finally it came. Took a long time though. I reckon that was due to the scant occupancy factor. But finally it did come. What?? Have some patience people I just started.
Just a nice chat kind of evening everybody in a light mood, cracking away a joke or two, enjoying the cool crisp perfect summer evening with all the lip smacking goodies( personal favorite of mine). Suddenly its time for the crappiest shit, one of the few things I really hate about being at home.
The topic good ol ominous “What is everyone else’s son/daughter is into??” So each of the esteemed member comes down with a story or two about his/her dazzling nephew/niece (niece only in rare case though, no offence meant. It’s in the figures!!!) . The whole thing goes like, “Tushar you know my _______’s son/daughter just took a flight off to Europe for 6 month training.” With the fire in place other people join in with their little pieces of news suprême. “ My ______’s son/daughter just joined ________(fill in any popular company’s name , people just love to fill it with Infosys though) and he/she is earning _______p.m.(an obscene amount which I doubt even the CEO of the company takes home). So it goes on and on and on. And mind you, you are not allowed to leave for the whole interlude (Beta kabhi to hamare se bhi do baatein kar liya kar din bhar TV aur laptop main hi laga rehta hai), you can’t raise a question about any of the fact( if someone says there is an IIT in Jaipur/Nagpur/anypur you have to gulp down that too, no point arguing) and don’t you even try to hide with the typical, “ Bekaar ki baatein hai I don’t care” cause the minute you utter that ghastly phrase you are doomed. You will get the choicest of REMARKS coming your way questioning your attitude, your behavior and a complaint being pushed toward the high command (read ma). God I hate (sometimes only) a joint family for the very reason.
I question why I must listen and pay any attention to any of this shitty stuff????
If someone is studying “Agricultural Engg” and getting a trip to Europe for it then god bless him!!! (Unless of course if he was interested in weeds all the way!!!) Why should I care? At least I have the satisfaction of living by my choices even if it means being tucked away in a crappy IET in a junk sort of university with its run of the mill students, highly COMPETENT and DEDICATED faculty , the BEST of testing methods and don’t even get me started on *****!!!!!
I guess it’s a trailer of the omnipresent devil, “Peer pressure”. Still lucky though that never got any of this coming from mom dad or the near-dear ones else it would have sounded much stingier. But even coming from others it is quite a pain. Why we can’t be judged on an absolute scale?? Why it always have to be a damn relative thing??
I think that is a mere reflection of the mentality of the great Indian middle class and its acute adherence to the importance of bank balance as a success criterion.
We people give a little too much importance to the money thing. Of course it is important, but still we sure overdo it and that too by a scale way past the acceptable standards. Personally I don’t go exactly by that criteria, to me a broke person who chased his dreams who took his decisions being driven by passion gets more rating points than any accomplished compromiser. I know I belong to a minority here but I am quite happy with that. In one way or the other all this mess around is related to this mad ruckus for filling up our coffers as soon as possible , more precisely faster than the person next to us. And in the process we lose most of the things that really matter. We trade our choices for a raise, push that love for something else down the drain for the plush office and sport, proudly, the tag ‘Happy and loving it’. But are we really?? Well that again is a relative question. Most are happy with whatever they get in the bargain some simply stop thinking this way and get engrossed in the spoils. Sorry for some but life story for the most.
But I’m not here to dish out any advice sort of things hence I won’t suggest anything to anyone but try , not always but sometimes let your true feelings make the decision it may not be as profitable as a ready compromise but at the end of the day you will definitely end with a smile.

Note: Of the few people who are regular readers of my blog (who am I kidding though!! REGULAR READER. Are there any??) may ask, “why do this guy writes about stupid things all the times??” The answer is short and simple, stupidity comes natural to me, don’t have to think a lot about it, it just flows (well not exactly naturally but still it is easier than the other things to write).
So it is the next in line for “ The Agony Of Being” series and the topic this time is , as the title suggested, the agony of being short(as in height). Well I measure a paltry 167 cms and this is the first thing people notice about me (especially the ones who have read LOTR exclaim a lot, “Look ma hobbits DO exist!!”)
Agonizing, to say the least!!!!!!!!
Especially painful is the apathy of the fairer sex with the walking bamboos making the point efficiently than the much prevalent hobbit clan. It is only the tip of the iceberg though when it comes to counting disadvantages of it. It have its tentacles in every sphere of the day to day life, be it in the school life , be it in making a career decision , be it in simple Courting stuff etc etc.
Let’s analyze it in a chronological order.
It starts with the school life itself. You are short, you make the starting end of the class queue and it opens the Pandora’s Box. For the starters consider the most boring part of our school (in general of all schools) the assemblies. The teacher is barking the most boring of material into that over tuned microphone and all you can do is nod because he is right in front of you. You blink he notices, you yawn he signals, you talk he warns and god forbid if you laugh its time for a “get out of the line and stand with your arms up” order. So while the goliaths (read tall people) are having all the laughs its punishment time for us lesser mortals. CRAP.
Well ours was a class which ended up in conflict most of the times, that too with the most powerful of players in the school power hierarchy, and that resulted into a “find the culprit” or “face the music” situations. And trust me we had one almost daily. We always were first in line for the interrogation sessions, quite similar to the countless scenes you see in the routine bollywood movies. So we had the good cop , “ Beta kisne kiya yeh uska naam bata do tumhe kuch nahi kahenge” , the bad cop “ Tum naam batate ho ki tum logo ko suspend kar de” and the ugly cop “ Arre sharmaji yeh aise nahi maanenge meri cane laao abhi sabka muh khulwaata hoon”. But as unity is the name of the game no one ever divulged any information regarding the perpetrators of the crime and that left our EFFICIENT teachers with no other option but to hand out a common punishment to all the students starting from, you guessed it, the first person in the class queue. So here I am standing fifth or sixth from the start, waiting for the imminent disaster, with Mr. Executioner wielding his cane like a sword, ready for the battle (???) ahead. I still appreciate the courage of the first person in our class queue, some amit, for he took a lot of beatings and that too as the first one without ever blowing his top (a few beatings like that would have made me join the ranks of official spy for the school authorities!!!). The disadvantage of ending up in the line of fire so early is catastrophic especially given my elite pedigree in school (my sis was one of the best students of the school ever) the usual last cry is “ it was never expected of you!!! “ And then it comes with all ferocity and lasts for quite a while too. The reason being, you are only the fifth and the teacher is all bustling with energy. He loses the steam as he moves ahead and all that the DESERVING students get is a pat on the hand. God!! How I hated them all for this. It’s only a select few of the long list but you can have an idea. Just iterate the entire sequence for whole two years (11th and 12th) then you will have a little inkling of my plight.
There were a few advantages too. Little tiny ones though but I must give the complete picture. The biggest advantage was that we got the best of seats, right behind the girls, not that I took any advantages of it[;-)] but I often traded my seat with the so called Romeos of the class for favors and trust me I got the best of bargains (the list is a classified one). Another advantage was a one time thing. Our school followed the INDIA, PAKISTAN system of seating girls and boys in an isolated manner. Once a daring teacher (God Bless Her!!!) took the initiative to challenge and change this and guess what I ended up in the most envied position of them all, with the damsel who had most of us in a tizzy. It lasted for only a month though but I thoroughly enjoyed that month. (Sigh!!)
Next in the disadvantages list is the sports part of my life. I always wanted to pursue badminton as a career option but soon I realized that I am not made for it. The short size restricts my reach and hence my court coverage. It also leaves no room for an error in my shots as most of them are to be taken with me being air borne so the tiniest of mistiming leaves no margin for error in even the most straight forward of shots. So here goes my dream of making it big in the badminton arena. Then comes love no.2 that is Tennis. Here the road is a little less obstructed (or so it seems) with only the service part taking the hit but as tennis is all about service, mainly, I lose a lot here too. The advantages, don’t think so there are any, except that a low centre of gravity allows me to perform exaggerated maneuvers which are a little difficult for the tall ones.
Then comes life, in general. Here too there are more than enough things to reproduce. You get the choicest of nick names, the funniest of verbal assaults and people have a nuclear weapon sort of against you, i.e. whenever they are up against you and they start losing their ground they will just play that card and come out unscratched. It happens, rarely with some frequently with the others but it happens. Well that’s too much of blah blah blah for one day so let’s give it a rest. And for more of it you don’t have to read any blog just observe things around and you will get a first hand experience.
Well that’s too much of blah blah blah for one post. Let me just cut it off with a one liner, a suitable one.
Someone once said, “Great things come in small sizes”. Couldn’t agree more!!!!!!!!!!

The blog may seem a little out of place as the exams are already over but had to control the creativity burst so that i can survive the onslaught.
End Semesters,an eventful period. to say the least . a perfect material for a bollywood masala with all da ingredients: the emotion, the drama ,the tragedy, the comedy etc. all it lacks is the action part and it can also become a part of it in case you are really of the type who believe in taking chances and your invigilator sucks. in fact they are a COMPLETE PACKAGE.
The whole story starts the day the lead protagonist i.e. the student part of us becomes aware of the dates of the semester exams. “ Crap !!! still to early to give a damn , let me keep enjoying the way I was “ is the usual thought that follows , at least for the most of us, there are exceptions though(read dedicated ECians and like minded people from each branches). So most people give a loose thought and return to their usual chores and the process loops and loops till someone notifies us(usually the member of the studious bunch) “ I just finished this unit of this subject. What is your status??”
WHAT IS MY STATUS????
The question strikes home like a lightening bolt and suddenly the conscience returns. So now its time for the planning phase, the subject, the units are analyzed with the precision of a surgeon and appropriate plans are ready. So we are now ready to phase the inevitable disaster(?)
ARE WE???
As procrastination is the most common problem of most of us, the student clan( save a few), the plans never materialize and in fact the day the plans are drawn is the only day most of us refer to them. Pardon the presumption , entirely based on personal experience.[:)]. So after numerous “ will start studying from tomorrow pakka” type of self satisfying statements we usually end up in a messed up state which requires immediate attention. So now the sleeping giant gets out of the slumber and PLANS the series of action to be taken.
So another bunch of plans results , albeit much more ambitious. So the plans are there, the state is “CAN’t AFFORD TO LOSE A DAY” all this results in the slow and painful process of getting the dust off those books, searching through every nook and corner for non existent notes that may come in handy and related materials. So slowly and steadily most of us start working (some may relate to the SLOW part and some may relate to the STEADY part, your choice!!!) and something starts taking shape although it’s a highly distorted version as compared to the requirements.
The process really brings out radical transformations in people. Consider this, even the most devout follower of punk rock and Pink Floyd start listening to HEY RAM(JAGJIT SINGH) with all heart and soul. The topics of fights changes from “ which movie to see” to “ which solution is more likely to be correct” or “ which question is expected” etc. usually a stage of regret follows too with an occasional pledge to never end up in the same situation , I call it the “not in next semester dilemma”.
Somehow or rather say anyhow the D day arrives.
Lets keep the rest for the next blog..
The D day follows…
Adios readers(are there any???)