Long Runs @ IITM

A few weeks back I went for a run with a couple of friends and professors. The verdant surroundings of the institute are at their best in the mornings. We started out at a comfortable pace and I thought, surely I can manage to run with the profs. But I was in for a surprise. The middle-aged lot outdid us and easily. They have been running for a long time and that was our only consolation for the huffing and puffing. And I thought to myself: I want to run this fast, this easily. It gives you the zest to conquer your physical limits, the feeling of being free, the sense of being able to run away from everything. It’s a form of expression intermingled with physical pleasure.
Here is our track from the last Saturday. I have been doing it for two weeks now and already feel like I have improved. Long runs help. Sticky has put together tips and tricks to do better. Here they are.

super senior

I stop by the notice board, as has been my practice for the last three years. Extramural lectures, mess bills, etc etc. Routine. Events you promise to yourself you will find the time to attend, and lose track of somehow.

Then there were so many other notes scribbled in A4 sheets. Notices calling for volunteers for events , notices requesting you to attend the GBM. And I think, once upon a time, I used to write such notices, signing off as ‘AAS #111′ or ‘Coordinator # mobile number’. I used to list down my name for a Shaastra Volship or a Painting class in the Common Room.

Gone are those days. I don’t know when I came out of it and started looking at it in a detached way. That’s what fourth year does to you. Not knowing freshies’ names, not caring to find out. Stopping cribbing about the hopeless situation of the mess food. Writing funny things under notices concerning serious issues as if you know some greater truth.

‘Super Senior’. Yeah, I am a super senior.

on unfinished books

unnecessary image to encourage you to read the post. It hasn't got much to do with the post as you will soon find out

What do you do in a reference library filled with century old dust covered technical literature? You read books. I read loads of them during my intern in the R&D department of a company. Only problem was, I couldn’t finish any of them.

‘Maximum City’ by Suketu Mehta seemed like a repetition of what I knew already.  ‘A turn in the South’ by V S Naipaul is painfully slow. Although there are delightful (but scarce) moments where you begin to realize why he’s a Nobel laureate.

Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch 22′ was funny enough in the beginning. But it gradually turned monotonous. Some quotes:

The Texan turned out to be good-natured, generous and likable. In three days no one could stand him.

Doc Daneeka was Yossarin’s friend and would do just about nothing in his power to help him.

Next was ‘Made in Japan’ by Akio Morita. Autobiographical book by the Sony co-founder. The problem with this book is that it is too detailed! Well, for me at least. Nevertheless I completed one third of it.

Anita Desai’s  ‘In custody’  managed to lose my attention on the fourth page. Flowery language, elaborate description. The physical description of a yesteryear’s poet can not span a whole page. :P In any case, its too much to take for me.

I never came close to opening ‘Mother’ by Maxim Gorky. Something about the title, I don’t know. Its too basic.

‘Unaccustomed Earth’ by Jhumpa Lahiri also happened. Her previous book ‘Interpreter of Maladies’ is a must read. I did not finish this one though. I didn’t find it as extra-ordinary as the first one. Also, the theme of Indians settled in America gets repetitive after a while, especially when you can’t relate to it.

Now I have started ‘Candy is Dandy’ by Odgen Nash. I don’t think I will finish it. But its really good.

short films @ Saarang!

One really cool short film we got for SFM prelims.

headlines yesterday

TOI knows how to be dramatic. Compare yesterday’s front page news in Times and Hindu.

Read things like “Raju ban gaya Conman…”. As against this the hindu uses no sensational words at all… After being subjected to 20 yrs of TOI reading, I have begun to like the southern favourite.

have you read this?

Yesterday we “had to” attend an emergency meeting by Dean Students. Now I am one of those people who don’t agree with all the rules and restrictions imposed by the Dean (or whoever it is who is responsible for them). Things like locking the Sharav terrace to asking people to stay out of the insti stadium after 10 in the night and the list goes on and on and on…

He did manage to get all sentimental about the placement scenario and the fall in technical knowledge of students (on an average ie…) But he made a LOT of sense on some occasions. For instance, he was talking about the task force report on the UG curriculum. He asked how many had even read the report. And as expected, only few hands went up. When he elaborated on the efforts that went into coming up with the report, some people thought that they should have read it. Girl next to me whispers, “where do I find it now?”

FYI, we have a very resourceful students portal for that. You can find it here.  And please don’t ‘pack it’ because you don’t know your login details. Username is your roll number, and password, you can easily retrieve. So all those discussions people have on smail, spamming everyone’s inbox in the process can be made here. And believe me, it’s more interesting to read than some arbit person’s orkut scrapbook.

I hadn’t read the report either…but I knew where to find it. :-P

30Q

Leela tagged me (@ Lee: now really, did you? :D) for this 30Q thing. Jobless people will respond to this tag and curious+jobless people will read 30As…

1. Last movie you saw in a theater?
A. Don’t remind me about it.

2. What book are you reading?
A. Shantaram

3. Favourite board game?
A. I don’t have any feelings for board games.

4. Favourite magazine/s?
A. Reader’s Digest.

5. Favourite smells?
A. Musk ;)

6. Favourite sounds?
A. Wind chimes

7. Worst feeling in the world?
A. Don’t remind me!

8. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up?
A. Do I really have to wake up?

9. Favourite fast food place?
A. K F C

10. Future child’s name?
A. Almora :D

11. Finish this statement. “If I had lot of money I’d…?”
A. Buy myself a Ferrari and disappear with it.

12. Do you drive fast?
A. Nop. I just about manage not to hit anything or anybody.

13. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
A. Eh?

14. Storms – cool or scary?
A. Coolest ever.

15. What was your first car?
A. Maruti 800

16. Favourite drink?
A. Coffee…

17. Finish this statement, “If I had the time I would…”?
A. I always have time. That’s why I am filling this thing! :P

18. Do you eat the stems on broccoli?
A. That’s the only thing I eat in the broccoli coz that’s the only thing they serve in our mess :-| Just the stem, no flowers :P

19. If you could dye your hair any colour, what would be your choice?
A. Ultramarine Blue :D

20. Name all the different cities/towns you’ve lived in?
A. Mumbai, Chennai. I wish I could boast of having lived in more places.

21. Favourite sports to watch?
A. Tennis and Cricket.

22. One nice thing about the person who sent this to you?
A. Who? What? :D. Lets see. She is nice :)

23. What’s under your bed?
A. Do not remind me……I should have cleared it up looong back.

24. Would you like to be born as yourself again?
A. Of course.

25. Morning person, or night owl?
A. Keeps changing.

26. Over easy, or sunny side up?
A. Sunny side up.

27. Favorite place to relax?
A. Bed.

28. Favourite pie?
A. Hmm.

29. Favourite ice cream flavour?
A. Butterscotch.

30. Of all the people you tagged this to, who’s most likely to respond first?
A. Haven’t tagged anyone.

are you lonesome tonight?

I lost. I lost miserably. I was almost shattered. In spite of knowing that it won’t last long, this pang of defeat, I was still shattered. And I thought she would feel so too. But she didn’t. She had a life of her own. She was listening to an entirely different song, registering totally different emotions from the situation. And I felt so lost, so lonely. And the weird part is that I didn’t blame her for not being sympathetic to my situation. It was more like a realization. Of what? I am not too sure. Let’s say it just brushed past me and I was too meek to look at it in the face.

The realization:

It is a very unpleasant fact as facts many a times are. Harsh truths. Unspeakable realities. We are on our own in this world, have always been so. We were born alone, we die alone and loneliness or rather aloneness touches us every now and then throughout our life too. And many a times it’s not a very pleasant emotion either. So the struggle to brush it off.

Loneliness can be quite an ordeal at times. It is one of the most profound and disturbing of human experiences to strike people in their lifetimes. If we look closely into this sense of loneliness, we find that it is composed of several elements: nostalgia, sadness, silence, and a yearning imagination for “something else” not here, not now. These are probably the times when we wake up from illusions that life has to offer, with all the relationships and emotions, which have people in them. So much is the dependence on them that our story is incomplete without them. The absence of these characters can shake the very basis of our play.

But then, many a times it’s not so unpleasant either. Our language has widely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone. The puzzle is, why is it so pleasant sometimes and so unpleasant on other occasions?

Being by ourselves means no pretensions, no following unwritten codes of social conduct, no expressing interest in something just because you are expected to, no flattering others just so you don’t end up hurting someone. On the contrary being ourselves is being original and honest. We know everything about ourselves, well, better than what most other people do anyway, we agree with whatever we have to say (like duh!) so no arguments. We love ourselves (at least I do). So there you go, you are as such the best company you can ever have.

“We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard’s power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical Someone is the face we see in the mirror: It’s us and our homemade masks.”

Ending on a philosophical notes, a few lines from Siddhartha.

Over the earth there lead
Many roads and paths,
But all have
The same goal.

You can ride and travel
By two and by three,
But the last step
You must go alone.

So there is no knowledge
Or skill or ability so good,
But that everything difficult one must
Do alone.

-Hermann Hesse

However uncalled for it might be, or however desirable at times, loneliness is a part of our life whether we like it or not. Ok, now you may yawn.

king’s cirlce

Some places are special to you. They remind you of memories which have as if frozen. You can’t get hold of them. And they only get distant with time.

King’s Circle hasn’t been renamed as most other places in Mumbai/Bombay. So it somehow manages to sound Victorian and ancient though it’s actually not the case.

King’s Circle, where I would go for evening walks with my grandparents, tiny fingers curled up around their soft palms, jumping a few inches in the air as both would lift me up a bit. That was when I was a five, dependent of older people’s mercies to go places. :P

Then came those visits to buy books with mommy dearest. It started with Enid Blytons and Judy Blumes and by the time i reached Sydney Sheldon and John Grisham, the sister replaced the mom.

King’s Circle is a brilliant place to buy novels. Second hand as well as err… pirated versions.

And books is not all! New shops open up almost every month. There is Madras Cafe, New Yorker, Birdy’s (i think). An evening out with friends wandering about in cafes and book stalls, when we are supposed to be attending classes. I have done a quite few of those :D

The ‘circle’ is in fact a garden named Maheshwari Udyan. A jog in the garden followed by a coffee in Madras Cafe is my idea of a perfect start to the day. I had to take my mom to Madras Cafe to make her believe that coffee is indeed made that dark in some places! It is a struggle forcing her to make strong coffee at home. But yeah. It’s nowhere close to Tiff kaffee :D

If you ask a random Mumbaikar, she/he probably wouldn’t think that it’s such a great place after all. But it has a special place in my heart :)

Boohoo. I miss Mumbaaaaaai :(

say no to firecrackers

Diwali – the festival of lights. And since it’s the age of extravagance and glitz the conventional lanterns are not enough. So there are fireworks. Half a kilometer long defeaning bombs and crackers rocketing into the sky. I never had much attraction for all these. And not because i think it is detrimental to the environment. Partly because I am scared and also because I can’t bear the noise. But i love the color and glitter minus the sound.

There are reasons why we should probably stop using crackers.

I know I know. We know all this. The crap about sound and air pollution. If I say “It increases noise pollution” you will be quick to point out that honking vehicles cause much more harm. If I bring up air pollution, you will hit back with all statistics on air pollutants where fireworks don’t even figure at the top.
But that is not all. The most appalling fact is the way crackers are produced. Kids are forced to work in cracker factories even when they know that it is illegal and fatal. Articles follow, let them do the talking

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2210459.cms

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/27291982.cms

If you don’t know this already, I hope this piece of information changes your viewpoint.

Although there are so many things which need to be done to make the world a better place, this is one of those things we can definitely afford to do! This does not make our life any less comfortable, it is not indispensable, it just adds to our amusement for a few minutes. But surely there are more harmless ways of amusing oneself. It we can’t even find better ways than this, then we should be rather be amused at our lack of imagination!

I am happy to see that Sharav has steeply reduced it’s budget for crackers this time around compared to that of last year’s. I hope there will come a day when we completely do away with it. After all, being the educated and responsible citizens of the country (no comments on the dubiousness of the facts in the statement) we are supposed to set trends for others to follow. We have to put a stop to this. The first step is to stop buying crackers. Like the Nat Geo campaign to stop fur trade says, “If the buying stops, the killing will too”