Anything and Everything under the Sun

The following conversation, (which took place at a devilish time of half past 7 in the morning the other day) has been replicated (as much as possible) as it actually panned out. Minor alterations may have been made, taking the sensitivity of the readers into account.


Index
*.......* : Action
#........# : Comment


Udayan: Wake up, you bastard!

Me: Huh!

Udayan: *Whacks me with a pillow.*

Me: Mother fucker!

Udayan: Wake up. How much time will you sleep for?

Me: Dude, I just slept for like 8 fuckin hours. And I got up a couple of times in between.

Udayan: Fuck you! You sleep like a pig everyday and then you crib.

#We associate pig with gluttony, greed, sloth and every other vice, since it is convenient#

Me: Fuck you! *Wakes up with a groan and curses everything under the sun.*

.........................

.........................

Udayan: Dude, I was just wondering as to why people celebrate birthdays.

Me: #Comment deleted due to its inappropriateness.#

Udayan: I mean, with every passing year one only gets closer to death। So the birthday isn't
actually an occasion to celebrate.

# A brief note on the author at this point would help the reader better appreciate the rest of the conversation. I have an annoying habit of countering opinions (and sometimes even plain facts), just for the heck of it. The low general awareness necessitates me to come up with unconventional (or ridiculous, according to most people I know) arguments all the time.#

Me: Screw the ‘celebrations’ part. But well, I am not too sure about the ‘getting closer to dying with every birthday’ part.

Udayan: What are you blabbering? Let’s say one has a life time of 70 years. Isn’t he closer to 70 when he is 40 than when he is when he is 39.

Me: Dude, but it is not decided beforehand as to how long one is going to live.

#I don’t believe in destiny, fate and other gay stuff like that.#

Udayan: Let us not get into whether it is pre-decided or not. Irrespective of everything, one is nearing the end as time passes.

Me: Not necessarily. Doesn’t the passing of every year alter one’s chances of further survival?Isn’t the time one has survived till date a factor which influences how much longer he would live for?

Udayan: Dude, cut the crap. *Shakes his head in disgust.*

Me: The probility of one living till the age of 70 when he is 40 is different from the probability of his living till the age of 70 when he is 39. The fact that he survived for another year should increase his chances of living till 70.

#The usage of the word ‘probability’ elicited laughter from both parties as we reminisced the idiosyncrasies of that wierdly strange professor who lectured us on probability during our 11th and 12th standard years.#

Udayan: I will slit your throat open right now and then we will see how probability works.

Me: Whatever. Fuck you!

Udayan: Fuck you! *Goes to the wash room.*

Me: *Lies down on the bed again and curses everything under the sun.*



The following are certain things I wanted to report:

1) Luthra is on a roll in snooker. He recently thrashed my opponent (who, if you remember from the earlier post, thrashed me) by a margin of 40 odd points with 3 balls remaining. This makes me look even worse. Bloody relativity.

2) Keshav is carrying 4 mobile phones with him these days. When I asked him, ‘But, why?’, he replied that using 4 phones would give him expertise in multitasking. I shall refrain from commenting on this.

3) And finally and most importantly, Atul ‘I-don’t-give-a-fuck-for-anything-under-the-sun’ Jain has secured arguably the best internship of the MDI PGPIM 08 batch. His status message on Google Talk now reads as ‘CITI NEVER SLEEPS’. Killer!


Anyway, whatever.

Why I hate Relativity. And the Beastly Beauty.

1) Damn my mind for not being able see the Absolute

The other day, Luthra and me had gone to a snooker parlour to catch a game or two. All the tables were taken up and since we weren't too keen on waiting, we agreed to join others. The dashing gambler that Luthra is and the egoistic, arrogant prick that I am, we individually agreed to the challenges posed by our respective opponents (who we realised by then were bloody good at the game) with monetory stakes.

Luthra lost by the margin of a few points, but gained the respect of his opponent.

Although the following account might suggest othewise, I am not too bad a player (courtesy of the fascination with the game during my 11th and 12th standard). Here was my opponent who seemed like snooker was the only reason for his existence and here was I, having not played the game for quite some time and it being my first time to that particular parlour and therefore that particular table(for those, who aren't very accustomed to the game, note that prior playing on a table gives a slight advantage).

I wish I could write that I fought the good fight and emerged victorious against all odds. But sadly that wasn't the case. I was losing by 50 odd points with the last 3 coloured balls to be potted. Like one of those losers who try to salvage whatever little they can, I thought to myself that I should keep the margin under 50. And in the end, I lost by 32. It wasn't as bad as losing by 70 points, but 32 is pathetic enough.

And disgustingly, I was happy.

I had a gleeful smirk on my face, although I had just got embarassingly outplayed and my wallet was a couple of hundred bucks lighter.

Fuckin relativity.

2) The Beauty and The Beauty

Beauty, 'they' say, lies in the eyes of the beholder. ['They' incude the self-important dorks who make such well-sounding (but totally retarded) statements and the 'dull' people who quote them to validate their opinion. I shall be quite 'dull' myself here and do the same. I will show the applicability of this proverb in a certain personal context and then generalize it as a universal truth].

Adolf, to Udayan and me is the most beautiful thing ever. There is nothing which is even comparable. But that is not exactly the opinion anyone who has had the 'privilege' of laying their eyes on him have . In fact, it would be the exact opposite. It scares the day lights out of everyone and we are quite confident that certain people, when in close proximity to him would actually faint. The sadists that we are, we plan to test our presumptions.

Adolf, by the way is Udayan's rotweiller. I am Adolf's godfather (I christened him). I had left him as a 4 month old 'puppy' (I am using the word 'puppy' out of lack of other words. He was quite a beast even back then.) only to find him become a fearsome monster 5 months later. It has been around a couple of weeks since I have been around and I am still skeptical of 'fooling around' with him. For everytime, he has the chance, he ravages me. His ramming with brute force, pricking of my feet and gnawing at my arms (fortunately, he still doesn't know how to bite forcefully) could be construed as friendly playfulness or ruthless hatred. I like to believe that it is the former. And actually hope as well.

All in all, Adolf is frightening (there are few sights scarier than that of Adolf in the dark with his glowing eyes), destructive (the broken windows in the house are a testament of that) and untamable (he is not taken for a walk, he takes the holder of the leash on an unpleasant ride).

But then, he is the most beautiful thing ever.

Anyway, whatever.

Beyond the scope...

The first sentence of any post of my blog is the only one which needs some thought. The rest of the post writes itself. The reason I am mentioning this is to escape even that minor inconvenience.

Now that that has been taken care of, I can now move onto other things. What other things? I can’t think of any other things. I am at my ordinary best these days. So what the heck? I will just fill this post by mentioning the awfully uninteresting events and things in my rather boring life over the past few days.

29/7/09 and 30/7/09: The return flight from UK to India.

I just can’t get myself to sleep on a flight. And add to it an annoying co-passenger sitting beside you, the TV screen in front of you not working and having a 4 hour transit stop. Can you script a more perfect disaster?

31/7/09 and 1/8/09: Can’t remember.

I would most probably have been glorifying the Queen’s country and rubbishing my very own (UK is so clean, India is so crowded and other idiotic statements like that). How I wish someone just punched me in the face during this time!

2/8/09 and 3/8/09: I re..re..re..really love gaming [Ladha style].

There are few things more beautiful than FIFA 09 on the X-Box 360. With updated summer transfers, my beloved Juventus FC team looked strong on paper (or should I say, screen) and I went wild with all my crazy formations.

4/8/09 and 5/8/09: Things getting back to being exactly as they were always.

My criticism of my mom’s cooking, haunting coffee shops, obsessive following of football news, rubbishing everything and everyone under the sun. I even performed my routine ritual of torturing myself (which is watching a Telugu movie). [Telugu is the funny-sounding language, I speak at home].

6/8/09 and 7/8/09: Something else and the gentleman’s game

It’s been quite some time since I played cricket, but as always I came across as someone who has a good batting technique. I typically achieve this by tapping the bat on the ground and playing classy, imaginary shots in the air after every ball

8/8/09 and 9/8/09: A visit to the zoo and something else

The reasons for us going to the zoo are beyond the scope of this blog. Anyway, the sloth bear did gross injustice to its name by running around like a maniac in its enclosure. I was disappointed. The hippo was absolutely delightful, though. The next day was the 9^th of August 2009.

10/8/09 and 11/8/09: qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm

Posters of 'The Godfather', debates over and about ice creams, bitching about my engineering college were the common themes. A few words about the mundane things like life and future might have figured in the discussions, but were promptly discarded and forgotten.

Oh, boy! I am disgusting myself now with all this rubbish. And so I shall put an end to this.

Anyway, whatever.

Before I forget, I just want to mention unlike what some might suspect, Ta Da is not a stylised form of Ta Ta (which means bye). What Ta Da means is beyond the scope of the reader.

At long last!

This post is by the guest.

To give a brief introduction, the guest blogger is a certain Monsieur Louis Costamagna. He is a thinker.[Always has a profound expression on his face. I suspect that he does that intentionally to trick people into believing that he is wise]. He also considers himself to be a 'global leader'. [Has taken the lectures of 'Leading Globally' back in MDI a little too seriously]. Louis is also the authority in the profane usage of the Hindi language. [I totally envy him for that].

To know more about Louis Cos*whatever* [and I thought I had a terribly difficult surname!], you can visit the following link:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=527362798

Below is the post:

Laziness (no other word came in my mind)

I have to admit that I accepted to write this “guest post” because my friend Madhu lost his brilliance for sure. I have never seen a lamest thing such as writing a blog. But this is not the topic of today. I am here writing about my Indian friends in a European context.

First I have to apologise because I am late. But important people do not lose their precious time to write in a lousy blog, do they? However as I promised to be able to say stupid things about my Indian friends in Europe, and the way they live, I am doing so.

What is quite funny about this blog is the expression “Anyway, Whatever” because I think that it describes quite accurately the behaviour of some of our Indian friends. They do not really care as long as you do not bother them too much.

Indeed for European people like I am (even though I like to consider myself as a World citizen), saying yes –and I do not even talk about the way Indian people nod the head, would be too long- to a question like “will you help us to do the group work? “ will mean that you will do it. In fact, Indian people never say no, they just usually do not do it. But as I see my friend Madhu (pronounce Ta Da, and I mean Ta Da) I would consider it as “these European fellows do not know how to do and manage things” or “anyway we are the next Big Thing”.

For us –please understand the old fashioned occidental people – the most astonishing thing about our Indian counterparts is their internal clock. For our dirty and intelligent minds, Day is used to work, chill out, see friends and all these social, vital or whatever things. On the contrary Night is usually used to do the useless thing on earth: Sleep.

My Indian friends are used to do it the other way. This has raised a lot of debates among a group of European people. Is the world divided into two separate parts where people consider Day and Night differently? Or is it just pure laziness? The second proposition has curiously held the majority of opinions. Or maybe we could include it in the Figin index (the most stupid theory on earth), that will be the real nobel prize winning work… I could all tell you the numerous theories we have settled in our minds concerning this matter but would be uninteresting, so I leave it to your suggestions that I am waiting for in comments.

After that I could speak again about the reactions in front of a big engine car or a small piece of cloth on a big piece of skinned body (a.k.a. a big engine woman)… But I won’t do so in order to avoid troubles with the readers (I know that they are numerous) and the people concerned.

I may forget a lot of things but this is it.

I have however to mention some stupid things that have been written in this blog. First, I have to tell you that Madhu is still considered as being a shitty football player, what we would call in French a lemon cutter i.e. the guy who’s staying on the bench in order not to trouble the real squad. Second, if one day Madhu obtain knighthood, it will be because the King has become an Indian and has invented the laziness Knighthood.

To finish as the blog rules: anyway, whatever.

Ta Da (a.k.a. LC your French servitor)

PS: Please excuse my poor English, French people are more famous for other things.

TIME, the grand illusion

Don't worry. It is not another gay post in which I talk about the things I would be missing or the leaving of the house. I have had enough of that rubbish.

I felt like this blog isn't doing justice to it's core purpose of 'educating' and 'enlightening' the readers and therefore I thought I would remedy the situation with this post.

Guneet, Ikam and me had taken a boat ride from London Bridge to Greenwich (for some unfathomable reason, it is pronounced as Greenich) the other day. GMT. Does it ring a bell? The destination and the journey made us think about the concept of time. Deep discussion resulted in us understanding the logic behind the measurement of time by combining whatever little knowledge we had with some of the tid-bits the guide on the boat announced. Or atleast we thought we did.

Standing on the prime meridian line (0 degrees longitude) at the Royal Observatory of Greenwich, I felt like I found my true calling: 'Study of Time'. My ignorance of longitudes and latitudes till a few minutes earlier wasn't much of a dampener. I am independent of the variable of time and therefore I believe would be able to give an outsider perspective to this enigma.

Among the other intellectual conversations we had, included Guneet contemplating the possibility of changing the positions of the hands of the Great Clock Tower of Westminister (apparently the Big Ben is the name of the bell of the clock and not the tower or the clock). We agreed that the Clock Tower showing the wrong time, would shock and confuse people and it would be great fun.

Also I wondered as to whether all birds could float in water. We were victims of the availability heurestic and watching the sea gulls float around on the Thames, conveniently concluded that all birds could. If anyone knows for sure, do post it in the comments section.

I always felt that I was the laziest thing on Earth and no one could sleep as much as I did, but Ikam shattered my false sense of superiority by mentioning that the koala bear moves like in slow motion and sleeps for around 20 hours in a day. Damn the competition!

This is my last post in London. My next stop is Hyderabad. (Actually not. I have a painful 4 hour stop over at Bangalore, making my total journey time a frightening 15 and a half hours).

Sticking to the topic of time, I gained 5 and a half hours on my arrival to UK, only for the evil 'day light savings' to gobble up an hour and leave me with 4 and a half, which I would be losing on my return to India. It seems like it is a return to status quo for me in every sense of the term. Or is it?

Anyway, whatever.

Remember, Remember

29th of July 2009. Remember, remember the 29th of July 2009.

There are certain things my MDI classmates in London, who have gone back to India are and those who would be doing so in the coming months would be missing. High in that list are the rather generous display of skin and the sexy-looking automobiles, both of which almost always elicited oohs and aahs. Also the clean streets, cleaner air and the cleanest parks were well appreciated. I am not sure if I would really be bothered about these things. But I would certainly miss the London pigeons, my heroes.

Talking about the magnificent species, I must share a particular incident I had the privilege to witness the other day. There were two ladies walking and there was this big, fat pigeon ambling towards them in the opposite direction. The two parties approached the point of collision. And then the most amazing thing happened. The pigeon wouldn't change its course and the two ladies had to step aside and make way for the majestic beast. (Trust me. I am not making this up). I was astounded and at that moment my respect level for the bird soared at a staggering high. Ha. This wasn't plain laziness. This wasn't plain carelessness. This was much more that that. This was outright arrogance and snobbery, bordering on condescension. And this begs the question, I posed in one of my earlier posts regarding Pluto. Does size matter?

I would also miss the references to The Queen. [ Did you know that the national anthem of UK starts with 'God Save The Queen'? And a number of products, including the Ferry dish washing liquid in my kitchen, prominently display the message 'By appointment to Her Majesty, The Queen'. ] Ha. Fascinating, isn't it?

Did I mention that I would also miss the insanely amazing double chocolate chip cookies at Subway, the delightful ducks at Hamstead Heath and the moody London weather.

Boy, am I a becoming a victim of the human emotion of attachment or what? Oh Brilliance, where have thou disappeared?

29th, it finally is. 29th of July 2009 is when I would be flying back to India. 29/7/2009. The jerk in me is making me emphasize the date, as if it were something one would need to take note of. Remember, remember the 29th of July 2009.

For certain reasons I won't go into, I am feeling quite worthless and my misplaced sense of pride and ego is hurt quite bad. So I now resort to my usual coping mechanism of making tall claims to make myself feel better. Here I go.

1) I have become a very skilful and a highly impactful football player now. Not that I was a bad player earlier, but I now play like someone 'who one doesn't get to see everyday'. I think I can get away with this claim. Tushar has only recently learned how to use his email account. It would take him ages to understand the concept of a blog and comment on it. Ikam, please refrain from sharing your opinion on this.

2) The next time I come to this country, it would be for accepting knighthood from The Queen.

So until then, it is a 'Royal' goodbye to the United Kingdom.

Do you think, my second claim is unrealistic? Do you? Do you? Think again. Ha.

I would like to thank my good friend, Chinmay who shared an interesting new dimension on the 'Figin Index'. As a token of my appreciation I shall present you the first copy of my book, "Why the frog shouldn't leave the well", specially autographed by yours truly, Sir Madhu Varma.

Anyway, whatever.

Not ta da. TA DA.

4 and all its GLORY.

525

'525' or 'The House of The Dead' or 'Maison de la Mort' is, as I have mentioned a million times already is where I 'exist' along with my other 3 flatmates. But that won't be true, come the 8th of this month. So I write this post with a heavy heart, extolling the virtues of the place which filled the void left by IDPL (arguably the most uninhabitable place on Earth). I will talk about IDPL in another post. I keep reserving a lot of topics for later posts. The '2+3=5 theory', how I intend to regain my fast-depleting brilliance, the name of my first dog when I shall get one and now IDPL. [To the uninformed, IDPL is my hostel campus during the first semester at MDI, Gurgaon]. I think I shall adress all of them very soon.

THE TRANSFORMATION

I have posted about 'The Nest', 'The Crib', 'The Ghetto' and 'The Madhouse' in an earlier post (refer to the post 'Crib. Me? Come on.' of 23 April 2009 for the details regarding the 4 rooms and the 4 residents), but I never spoke about our kitchen. The kitchen is a completer disaster. If you ever wanted to see a horror show, you should have had a look at our kitchen. Although, that is not the case now. That is because we cleaned it a couple of days back. No, clean is not the right word. We made it 'shine'. It is now spotless and sparkling. I guess I am getting a little carried away but compared to its previous state, you wouldn't blame me for thinking that it now seems like heaven itself. This was possible by the concerted effort of the 4 of us and we are all genuinely and pleasantly surprised at what we have accomplished and truly deserve a pat on our backs.

IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING

This was how we achieved the 'plutonian' task. Colonel Raaj took the lead. He was in one of his ebullient moods, barking out orders to us. Chadha was uncharacteristically purposeful and did a major part of the cleaning. Tushar's penchant for the to and fro motion was especially helpful with the mopping of the dirt-stained floor. He was the destroyer-in-chief of the kitchen over the 4 months but he more than made up for his 'sins' with his contribution. Seeing the 3 men toil away with such grit and determination, elevated their status in my eyes and I almost had tears. All I had to do was play second fiddle and play a supporting role.

COPING MECHANISMS

Anyway, the point is that we would be leaving the house in a few days. And everyone has been shattered by that fact. Colonel Raaj has been trying to drown his 'melancholy' (the only word I remember from 'Merchant of Venice', which we had in its damn original text for our 10th standard) with JD but to no avail.Therefore he chose to go to the 'liberal' and liberating land of Amsterdam. Chadha is so inconsalable that his mom is coming to London tomorrow to comfort him. And Tushar has gone crazy. He has been trying to keep 'The Ghetto' clean, as if that is going to prevent us from having to leave the house.

MY MISGIVINGS OF 525

The radiator in my room is malfunctioning and as a result my room has been unbearably hot over the past few days. And I continue to burn the food, despite my best efforts. Whatever I do, the food and the cooker get burned almost every single day. It is very mysterious and strange. It is as if, I am cursed. The house in general and 'The Crib' in particular has been a source of deep embarassment for me. I have aplogised to everyone that came to our house over the past 4 months for its shabby state.

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

All in all, I would still miss The House of the Dead. And so would the others.

Gulati is moving into a crazy house called 'LadhaLand' to join Sayyam 'Faux Pas' Ladha, Guneet 'Come On' Kwatra and Ikampreet 'The Jewel' Singh. Chadha would continue with his mad ways at his uncle's place in Moor Park. Tushar and me would make the short journey to the house on 591 Finchley Road(The House of the Dead is at 525 Finchley Road). And so it continues.

Follow Ups: 1) The guest poster hasn't had the time to 'grace' my blog. I shall post a hate essay on him if he doesn't do so soon.

2) The blank in 'fill in the blank' of the previous post was to be filled with 'Anyway, whatever'. I guess none of you could be bothered to give the answer, but I would like to think that you didn't get it, since you are, let's say dull.

Anyway, whatever.

ta DA, not TA da!