"And to the Child I say,
that thine shall be the Kingdom of Heaven...."
(....and that of boredom too maybe....)
-Christ in the Bible
Frank admission: Life's isn't always haa-haa-hee-hee.....many-a-times, you do end up like me right now, staring at a terminal and typing away for the heck of it 'cuz there isn't really much else to do at the moment. These moments, albeit few and far between, do tend to envelop you with the so-called 'sickly hues of paranoia' (as someone I know might say), and you may feel the all-too-familiar sense of alienation and, shall we say, inadequacy?
In such times, follow these rules:
DO NOT dramatically leap off buildings that may not really be high enough for you to actually get killed. DO NOT take excess sleeping pills (you may accidentally take something else instead and end up like the guy in Scary Movie). DO NOT beat your chest and scream....you will thereby be disproving Darwin, by proving that humans can evolve backwards into lesser primates should need arise. AND......DO NOT, DO NOT EVER sit like a dumbfuck in front of a computer screen and type random arbit rubbish!!!
There, I'm done, post over. That's some seriously solid advice written above. Do follow it.
Good night,
Janus Gunganus
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Friday, February 1, 2008
Grubby thoughts
"Grub chalo!!"
- spoof of Netaji's famous quote "Delhi chalo!!" (on one of our grub posters)....
Now for those who came in late........
Here I am, one fine Saturday morning, as my roomie and the rest of my wing slumbers, I type away on my laptop........simply because there is no time. The last week was a very hectic one, and this one promises to be equally, if not more, hectic. For very different reasons of course.
Of the many forms of 'events' that characterize BITS-Pilani, perhaps the most unique are the annual 'grubs' or food-fests that are put up by every regional assoc. So it was no surprise, ardent foodies that we bongs are known to be, the planning and work started as long as (whoa!) 3 weeks beforehand!!
Itt all kicked off as this huge meeting in FD3 where menu after menu was proposed and subsequently disposed, with us 1st-yearites giving extravagant ideas and our seniors rejecting them on grounds of 'economics' and 'feasibility' (or some similar shit), followed by a rather early date for the grub, which meant we had to start work at once!! We (the 1st yr guys, that is) got a chance to get as close to the hallowed Meera Bhawan as legalities would permit, since we spent whole afternoons with the girls making banners and messads for the grub. Then there were mess-sittings, when we used our best diplomatic skills(hem hem!) to make as many unsuspecting people sign up for the grub as possible.
After a lull for a few days, it was D-day.
We had been strictly instructed by our seniors "Shob lecture guss korbi!" for the purpose of decoration. Well, most of us complied, apart from a few (in)sincere people like Rashmi, who did manage to paint alpana and attend all her lectures too, God bless her. With the help of geniuses like Rwito da and Shouri da the decorations ranged from weird to wonderful.......the highlight being the 3D rosogolla pot that was stuffed with thermocol rosogollas. Meanwhile in the deepest recesses of the messes, the chilly fish was ready, and soon we started sampling fish, mutton and numerous other delicacies......until, that is, Antara di issued a chilling warning to any fish-picketers.
Evening set in.....we rushed to our rooms, got into traditional ensembles and then promptly rushed back (we had it easier in kurta-pyjama than the girls in their aatpouro sarees )..... and then it began. There's no short way to describe the management or the exact proceedings of the grub. It was chaotic, but with the two stalwarts (Ron da in VKB and Soumava da in RPA) doing the rounds, everything was bound to turn out right in the end. And so it did. After the ending of the official grub, our grub began, and how. Out came the special sweets tins reserved for the Moruchayites, including one much-sought-after tin of nalen-gurer rosogolla,a nd a feast like no ther began......all this of course, interspersed with a lot of chatter and group photos, an unsuccesful attempt at marriage for Antara di (which made her momentarily livid), and the de-dhotification of Saikat da and Babali da, the only two people who had decided to go a step further towards traditional attire, and paid for it by returning home in shorts.
And next week, well, next week, Test 1 begins (sigh)! And given my ambitions this sem, I think its gonna be a long time before I start blogging again.
So adias,
Janus
- spoof of Netaji's famous quote "Delhi chalo!!" (on one of our grub posters)....
Now for those who came in late........
Here I am, one fine Saturday morning, as my roomie and the rest of my wing slumbers, I type away on my laptop........simply because there is no time. The last week was a very hectic one, and this one promises to be equally, if not more, hectic. For very different reasons of course.
Of the many forms of 'events' that characterize BITS-Pilani, perhaps the most unique are the annual 'grubs' or food-fests that are put up by every regional assoc. So it was no surprise, ardent foodies that we bongs are known to be, the planning and work started as long as (whoa!) 3 weeks beforehand!!
Itt all kicked off as this huge meeting in FD3 where menu after menu was proposed and subsequently disposed, with us 1st-yearites giving extravagant ideas and our seniors rejecting them on grounds of 'economics' and 'feasibility' (or some similar shit), followed by a rather early date for the grub, which meant we had to start work at once!! We (the 1st yr guys, that is) got a chance to get as close to the hallowed Meera Bhawan as legalities would permit, since we spent whole afternoons with the girls making banners and messads for the grub. Then there were mess-sittings, when we used our best diplomatic skills(hem hem!) to make as many unsuspecting people sign up for the grub as possible.
After a lull for a few days, it was D-day.
We had been strictly instructed by our seniors "Shob lecture guss korbi!" for the purpose of decoration. Well, most of us complied, apart from a few (in)sincere people like Rashmi, who did manage to paint alpana and attend all her lectures too, God bless her. With the help of geniuses like Rwito da and Shouri da the decorations ranged from weird to wonderful.......the highlight being the 3D rosogolla pot that was stuffed with thermocol rosogollas. Meanwhile in the deepest recesses of the messes, the chilly fish was ready, and soon we started sampling fish, mutton and numerous other delicacies......until, that is, Antara di issued a chilling warning to any fish-picketers.
Evening set in.....we rushed to our rooms, got into traditional ensembles and then promptly rushed back (we had it easier in kurta-pyjama than the girls in their aatpouro sarees )..... and then it began. There's no short way to describe the management or the exact proceedings of the grub. It was chaotic, but with the two stalwarts (Ron da in VKB and Soumava da in RPA) doing the rounds, everything was bound to turn out right in the end. And so it did. After the ending of the official grub, our grub began, and how. Out came the special sweets tins reserved for the Moruchayites, including one much-sought-after tin of nalen-gurer rosogolla,a nd a feast like no ther began......all this of course, interspersed with a lot of chatter and group photos, an unsuccesful attempt at marriage for Antara di (which made her momentarily livid), and the de-dhotification of Saikat da and Babali da, the only two people who had decided to go a step further towards traditional attire, and paid for it by returning home in shorts.
And next week, well, next week, Test 1 begins (sigh)! And given my ambitions this sem, I think its gonna be a long time before I start blogging again.
So adias,
Janus
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Ramblings in a new year
"Its a new world,
Its a new plan....
And I'm waiting for you...
Here I Am" - Bryan Adams, "Here I Am".
Well, so here we are!!! Brand new year, new clothes, newly expanded stomach caused by oodles of good food, new shoes, new "resolutions"(what shit) etc. etc.
...but a much older person.
19 years have flown by, and I guess its time to look back.
This holiday has been a mixed bag of sorts, a sort of compendium of joy and boredom. The 'joy' part was primarily in Kolkata, where all of us brothers ans sisters met up. First we saw two really amazing movies...."Kailashe Kelenkari" was special 'cuz for us Bengalis, Felu-da is as much a part of the Bengali sentient as is the taste of ilish or the sound of the Durga Puja dhaak. "Taare Zameen Par" is better, though.
Kolkata is one amazing city. It can fill you up with its sights and sounds.....and I love everything about it, from the rundown tramlines at Behala, the magnificent view of the river Hooghly, with its launch-boats, washermen at the banks, and the grey, dull fog that sets over it in winter, the old-house charm of New Market, to the swank malls at City Centre, Kolkata is one kaleidoscope of humanity, and I was lucky that, since I was mainly more with my brothers and sisters, all of us had a lot of fun. The fun, though, didn't only comprise tours and the like....there were also the winter evenings spent at our Deshapriya Park home, with us playing cricket, scrabble, or some other invented-on-the-spot game.
So.....if that's all the happiness, where did the boredom comes from? It just that I'm bored big-time from parental shackles.....if that's putting it a bit too harshly, I'm sorry, 'cuz my parents really are the world's best. Point is, I am seriously beginning to detest parental care and protection, and I don't know why.
I broke off from the typical I-personify-acads image after Class 8, when I'd been averaging about 95% in my finals for 3 years, and inwardly hating myself for it. I found something I could really put my soul into in the form of debating, where all my prizes and awards helped me believe I was NOT a nerd. Then vice-captainship came calling. The day that Shamik and I lifted the Best House trophy before the whole of St. Pats on Sports Day frankly ranks as the proudest in my life.
Then, again, parents took a real backseat I was packed off to RKM Vidyapith for my +2, a place with no TV or net. We were bound completely within its walls, no outside food, no clothes except the 4 uniforms provided, no musical programs except devotional songs, no other books or magazines than what the school gave us. And loads to study.
But rules are always meant to be broken, and the joy of doing so was beyond description. Feasts with "illegally" bought food (pre-ordered samosas and the like, lobbed over the school walls at an appropriate time and place), the regular 20-minute addas (9:30 to 9:50) every night in Room 5, stashing cheap porn magazines for later perusal in dormitory ventilators, occasionally being middlemen between our Arif-da and his lady love D______, et al. They were magical times.
And.....so......where does it all end up now?? In BITS, where there really aren't anymore rules to break. Where good jobs are just waiting to be taken. just being at BITS is more fun than I can ever imagine, and I'm really happy God has given me so much.
So, self-introspection complete, I find that I'm really happy. Of course, a lot is left to do....my grades aren't good.....and I would like to find a few girlfriends, but that's about it.
Besides, happy birthday to me! I'm 19 now. The number makes me feel all grown-up and shit, though I know that I'm not really as grown-up as I should be!!!
So here's to another great year!!!
Cheers,
SS
Its a new plan....
And I'm waiting for you...
Here I Am" - Bryan Adams, "Here I Am".
Well, so here we are!!! Brand new year, new clothes, newly expanded stomach caused by oodles of good food, new shoes, new "resolutions"(what shit) etc. etc.
...but a much older person.
19 years have flown by, and I guess its time to look back.
This holiday has been a mixed bag of sorts, a sort of compendium of joy and boredom. The 'joy' part was primarily in Kolkata, where all of us brothers ans sisters met up. First we saw two really amazing movies...."Kailashe Kelenkari" was special 'cuz for us Bengalis, Felu-da is as much a part of the Bengali sentient as is the taste of ilish or the sound of the Durga Puja dhaak. "Taare Zameen Par" is better, though.
Kolkata is one amazing city. It can fill you up with its sights and sounds.....and I love everything about it, from the rundown tramlines at Behala, the magnificent view of the river Hooghly, with its launch-boats, washermen at the banks, and the grey, dull fog that sets over it in winter, the old-house charm of New Market, to the swank malls at City Centre, Kolkata is one kaleidoscope of humanity, and I was lucky that, since I was mainly more with my brothers and sisters, all of us had a lot of fun. The fun, though, didn't only comprise tours and the like....there were also the winter evenings spent at our Deshapriya Park home, with us playing cricket, scrabble, or some other invented-on-the-spot game.
So.....if that's all the happiness, where did the boredom comes from? It just that I'm bored big-time from parental shackles.....if that's putting it a bit too harshly, I'm sorry, 'cuz my parents really are the world's best. Point is, I am seriously beginning to detest parental care and protection, and I don't know why.
I broke off from the typical I-personify-acads image after Class 8, when I'd been averaging about 95% in my finals for 3 years, and inwardly hating myself for it. I found something I could really put my soul into in the form of debating, where all my prizes and awards helped me believe I was NOT a nerd. Then vice-captainship came calling. The day that Shamik and I lifted the Best House trophy before the whole of St. Pats on Sports Day frankly ranks as the proudest in my life.
Then, again, parents took a real backseat I was packed off to RKM Vidyapith for my +2, a place with no TV or net. We were bound completely within its walls, no outside food, no clothes except the 4 uniforms provided, no musical programs except devotional songs, no other books or magazines than what the school gave us. And loads to study.
But rules are always meant to be broken, and the joy of doing so was beyond description. Feasts with "illegally" bought food (pre-ordered samosas and the like, lobbed over the school walls at an appropriate time and place), the regular 20-minute addas (9:30 to 9:50) every night in Room 5, stashing cheap porn magazines for later perusal in dormitory ventilators, occasionally being middlemen between our Arif-da and his lady love D______, et al. They were magical times.
And.....so......where does it all end up now?? In BITS, where there really aren't anymore rules to break. Where good jobs are just waiting to be taken. just being at BITS is more fun than I can ever imagine, and I'm really happy God has given me so much.
So, self-introspection complete, I find that I'm really happy. Of course, a lot is left to do....my grades aren't good.....and I would like to find a few girlfriends, but that's about it.
Besides, happy birthday to me! I'm 19 now. The number makes me feel all grown-up and shit, though I know that I'm not really as grown-up as I should be!!!
So here's to another great year!!!
Cheers,
SS
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Puja + Psychedelia + Parents.....whew!!
"Good things always come in threes" - old proverb.
They were supposed to come in threes, but right now they're also coming in pees(sorry, Ps)....pathetic joke...ok here goes....
Today is Bijoya Dashami, the last day of Durga Puja, the one that leaves behind the most bittersweet memories to keep till next year's October. The riot of festivity and colour and dhunuchi-smoke that we call Durga Puja is finally over, and this is the time when on the one hand, we cry "Ma tumi jeyo naa" and on the other, carry the five idols in a truck(well, this puja was a first for me, being on tractors instead) to dump into some pond or lake.......
Here in BITS Pilani, we have a rather sizeable Bengali association called 'Moruchhaya'....for many of us, Moruchhaya is the heart and soul of the BITSian existence. It comprises an extremely diverse range of students, who, though possibly involved with a range of other 'clubs' and 'departments' doing all sorts of ex-co, still do their bit for the pujas,(from packing prasad packets to setting up sounds for the kids' dance programme) with the utmost dedication.....and nowhere are they as free and friendly as here...I am of course talking about our most eclectic group of seniors.
Anyway, thanks to them, this puja has been one of the best in my life....thank God I didn't go home.
Parents are really God's substitutes. My this belief was reinforced when my mother recently took as less as ten minutes to clean a room steadily going downhill w.r.t. habitability, which I had been unsuccessfully trying to do for two and a half months. The rest is best left unsaid, simply because i am too drowsy to say it all.
The last bit is OASIS 2007-PSYCHEDELIA...and believe me, it ROCKED!!!! Surprising how fast the entire campus can be mantled and dismantled again from a temporary state of insanity...but thsi is just what happened. Oct 12,13....nothing except a weird papier-mache thing in D-lawns. Oct 14 evening...poles, sticks, lights all over fd2 and the m-lawns, in D-lawns, the music has increased and so, drastically, has the rate of work. Oct 15 afternoon...D-lawns sports a massively overdone Castle Greyskull, the huts of the departments and clubs are up, so is Dominos, CCD etc. etc. , and so are teh SBI and the Vodafone banners. Oct 15 evening...a simply mindblowing "inaug"...superb performances from our mime and dance clubs.. including an awesome shadow dance to "Muqabla", followed by a rather astute chief-guest's speech, followed by some simply mindblowing fireworks over D-lawns.Meanwhile the DJ table and the Paintball War-Zone is up in C-lawns, stalls and posters for various events are all over Sky and FDII...Oasis has begun.
The highlights of this most memorable week? Lucky Ali's beautiful, soulful voice that left the jam-pcked hall screaming for more, today's visarjan and the exchange of greetings(& rosogullas) that followed, and the lovely sleep in air-conditioned VFast.....that's it.
So, goodnight.
Janus Thickey
EDIT: Rather stupid goof-up; it was supposed to be "astute" but I don't know how I ended up writing "asinine" instead. Maybe psychedelia at work, you never know. Thanks a lot for commenting, Prof. Natarajan.
They were supposed to come in threes, but right now they're also coming in pees(sorry, Ps)....pathetic joke...ok here goes....
Today is Bijoya Dashami, the last day of Durga Puja, the one that leaves behind the most bittersweet memories to keep till next year's October. The riot of festivity and colour and dhunuchi-smoke that we call Durga Puja is finally over, and this is the time when on the one hand, we cry "Ma tumi jeyo naa" and on the other, carry the five idols in a truck(well, this puja was a first for me, being on tractors instead) to dump into some pond or lake.......
Here in BITS Pilani, we have a rather sizeable Bengali association called 'Moruchhaya'....for many of us, Moruchhaya is the heart and soul of the BITSian existence. It comprises an extremely diverse range of students, who, though possibly involved with a range of other 'clubs' and 'departments' doing all sorts of ex-co, still do their bit for the pujas,(from packing prasad packets to setting up sounds for the kids' dance programme) with the utmost dedication.....and nowhere are they as free and friendly as here...I am of course talking about our most eclectic group of seniors.
Anyway, thanks to them, this puja has been one of the best in my life....thank God I didn't go home.
Parents are really God's substitutes. My this belief was reinforced when my mother recently took as less as ten minutes to clean a room steadily going downhill w.r.t. habitability, which I had been unsuccessfully trying to do for two and a half months. The rest is best left unsaid, simply because i am too drowsy to say it all.
The last bit is OASIS 2007-PSYCHEDELIA...and believe me, it ROCKED!!!! Surprising how fast the entire campus can be mantled and dismantled again from a temporary state of insanity...but thsi is just what happened. Oct 12,13....nothing except a weird papier-mache thing in D-lawns. Oct 14 evening...poles, sticks, lights all over fd2 and the m-lawns, in D-lawns, the music has increased and so, drastically, has the rate of work. Oct 15 afternoon...D-lawns sports a massively overdone Castle Greyskull, the huts of the departments and clubs are up, so is Dominos, CCD etc. etc. , and so are teh SBI and the Vodafone banners. Oct 15 evening...a simply mindblowing "inaug"...superb performances from our mime and dance clubs.. including an awesome shadow dance to "Muqabla", followed by a rather astute chief-guest's speech, followed by some simply mindblowing fireworks over D-lawns.Meanwhile the DJ table and the Paintball War-Zone is up in C-lawns, stalls and posters for various events are all over Sky and FDII...Oasis has begun.
The highlights of this most memorable week? Lucky Ali's beautiful, soulful voice that left the jam-pcked hall screaming for more, today's visarjan and the exchange of greetings(& rosogullas) that followed, and the lovely sleep in air-conditioned VFast.....that's it.
So, goodnight.
Janus Thickey
EDIT: Rather stupid goof-up; it was supposed to be "astute" but I don't know how I ended up writing "asinine" instead. Maybe psychedelia at work, you never know. Thanks a lot for commenting, Prof. Natarajan.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Sleep in BITS Pilani
"Strength doesn't lie in numbers
Strength doesn't lie in pain..........
Strength lies in nights of peaceful slumber " - Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music
Sleep is something that is very hard to find here. Pity, really. Dinner by 8:30 is a piece of shit(no, no, not literally).
So now its 12:30 in the morning and I'm too lazy to write another word.
Snooze......................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Strength doesn't lie in pain..........
Strength lies in nights of peaceful slumber " - Julie Andrews, The Sound of Music
Sleep is something that is very hard to find here. Pity, really. Dinner by 8:30 is a piece of shit(no, no, not literally).
So now its 12:30 in the morning and I'm too lazy to write another word.
Snooze......................zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Getting emotional about Janissaries
Hello my free peoples of Middle-Earth,
"Main aisa kyun hun?"- Oh come on, if you're an Indian you know it, if not, just too bad...
So what's the connection between title and quotation?
The Jannisary is my top unit from Age of Empires III. Actually Janissaries were 15th century Ottoman soldiers, fiery, lethal and valiant. Their hallmark was that they were almost always not of Ottoman origin, but were slaves from other regions trained to fight, kill and win massive battles for Ottomans. Their own lives were miserable...but who cared??
Well, I have also been a Janissary somewhat. Interpret meanings for the modern age.
This admission at Pilani that currently I, mom, dad, and most friends are raving about...I don't deserve it. Really, for this, I have been made a slave, a machine, and cog in a wheel with millions of other cogs, have studied, "grinded", ignored the good life for two years, purposefully distanced myself from Harry Potter, without which I normally wouldn't pass a day. Its paid off, yes, but the guy who sat in that terminal to give the exam wasn't really me; it was a nerdier, more brilliant, alert and smart guy honed by two years of...well, sometimes I think, why did I have to do all that, why?
I'm glad its over now, glad that the feathers have been dropping off for the past month, glad that I'm normal again, really glad.
So thank you all for reading one o' my worst blogs...haha
Janus
Monday, July 9, 2007
Whooping(twice) and waiting
Well, hello once again...
"Good things always come in threes." - modification of old saying: "Bad things..." etc etc.(Long time no see. Actually, I was biting my nails. Well, no more dilly-dallying. I won't waste time. I'll be true to what I wrote earlier. I won't waste words either, well...no more than I already have so far)
Well, here we go...
Good Thing 1. Federer beat Nadal!!!!!!!!! A harrowing match...Wimbledon's longest final ever I believe, it consumed all my nails.
Good Thing 2. "You will lose everything"...Harry Potter releases this Friday...who hoooo!!!
OK Thing 1. Long, long, very long(ting tong) wait for my DD to reach Pilani - I'm worried, anxious, eager, insane...phoning the dumb office that refuses to pick up the idiotic thing!!
Ahh...nice to let off so much steam...blogging is a godsend.
Take care,
Janus the Janissary
P.S. : More about Janissaries later.
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