St.Valentine must probably be turning in his grave!!!

St.Valentine was never a messiah for love..... There are numerous versions of how the day came into being. And there are an equal number of stories about the history of the day.

I was browsing for the actual history of the day when I found this link and many more such. The article on Wiki does not show a unique legend on whose name this day is celebrated. There seem to a fairly large number of St.Valentines or Mr.Valentines. Quite surprised infact, that such a widely celebrated day does not even have accurate history. All botched and made up for the convenience of a certain few commercial ventures/brands that make the most out of mislead people.

Of all the stories I came across, I'd prefer to believe the one about Valentine performing marriages when they were deemed illegal and hence being beheaded. He secretly married couples when marriage was forbidden by the Roman emperor and he was beheaded on this day.

It isn't a bad thing to celebrate LOVE. But these days, People use his name and create a lot of brouhaha and ruckus about being in love and use his name(and in particular this day) to do all sorts of rubbish. So, I guess, he must literally be at unrest in his grave as to how unimaginatively his name and intentions are being misused disguising lust and infatuation as love...................

P.S : Well, it isn't the frustration of not having a Valentine that I am showing off here. I am single and I am fine with it. All I am irked at is the non-sense I've seen people do on this day...... Literally!!!

LIFE

Somewhere along the way, mediocrity creeps in. You become complacent. You take things too easily, take things for granted. All seems fine for a while. And, then suddenly, a loud THWACK on the face.

LIFE IS A BITCH!!! It slaps you hard and how.

Suddenly reality presents itself before you. The gravity of the situation knocks the wind out of your sails. Before you can realize that you are mired in a deep pit, it moves ahead, seemingly with a fierce fervour. Now you try to drag yourself out with whatever you can find hold of. It’s an epic struggle. Most give up while the prudent, stubborn few fight on to get back on track. The lucky few who resurface find that it’s too far ahead now. You have been thrown off track. So you now know all you can do is to play Catch Up. You keep sprinting desperately with determination and HOPE – an immortal soul. But then…………….

Note : Intern Blues

New Year. New Sem

Wish you a HAPPY AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR

(I know its quite late in the day but then its the wishes that count I guess!!!)

Exit 2006. Enter 2007.

As if it makes much of a difference. Life still is the same I guess. The old problems stay. Newer ones await in the wings. So what significance does a New Year hold??? I might sound quite cold and preposterous when I divulge I do not attach much importance to a New Year's Day. It just is another day in this bland routine cycle called Life. Isn't it???

Four or Five years back, I would have been busy on New Year's eve preparing a list of resolutions for the New Year. I also had the habit of making this resolution thingy on my birthday as well. So twice a year, I usually made a list of resolutions and twice a year i wouldn't stick to what I ordered for myself. As the years flew by, I realised I was making a futile effort in trying to change my way of life. Every passing year has been a confirmation of my not sticking to atleast a single resolution I decided upon. So as I grew older and, rightly, wiser, I decided I wouldn't make myself look stupid anymore. So I bid goodbye to writing lists which also meant a lot of energy and time and paper and ink saved. So right now I am not forcing myself to act differently in any sense. Just nice being just ME.

As the importance of the day waned, so did the greetings I'd send. The only recipients this year were my aunt and my school teachers. I did not spend a buck on the phone wishing a friend or relative. It also had to do with the mind tuned to the fact that lines are always busy on New Year's day and it would be a gargantuan task to just get to someone on the phone. A calm day infact.

And oh, Thanks to the Timetable that is adhered to in Kgp, I had to spend a sizeable chunk of New Year's day( 10 hrs to be exact) in the train, for the third year running. So few of us had a small cake cutting bash in the train itself. The cake cutting had more to do with the growling stomach(s) than being a celebration instead. And with Jan 1st almost always being the start of the spring semester every year, it is generally a semester of hope. Every semester at the start I hope to do well and this time it is no different. Sitting pretty on my good performance last semester, I wish to carry forward the momentum this semester. But then Spring Sem has always been my Achilles heel. So I need to carefully tread and see that history isn't repeated. I know I can mess up big time. Hence I need be careful.

Add to that the fact that CAT is just 10 months and a few days away, so I need to prepare a routine for my preparation. 6th semester also comes gift wrapped with a project. So its project time as well. And we need to get geared up for a 2 month internship after the semester and the hunt for an internship too intensifies this sem. Hence the semester finally equates out to CATting + Intern Hunt + Project Work + CG. Wow!!! All in all, a Gala time awaiting me I guess.

So, I sign off the first post this year with no resolutions -- Will just be Me -- and also with clear cut goals for the semester -- the measure of success meant for another post right at the end of the semester. Adios till the next one.

Photo Courtesy of Hallmark Greetings

Ordeal for a BROADBAND Connexion

Homecoming is always sweet. You are home and so you are the KING. At least I am when I come home after a long gap. Mommy just dotes on you and Pops brings all those things YOU like. Mommy doles out the recipes from her Huge Arsenal that wouldn’t fit Pops diabetes routine but nevertheless fares I’d die to gorge on. A welcome change from the bland Mess khana and other kgp stuff. Lots more love fill the day.

Two or three days pass until normalcy is restored. After the initial euphoria settles down, comes the laziness. There is not much on earth you can do but idle away your time. Watching TV and reading the odd magazine consume most of the time and then it is time for you to miss, inarguably, the most important thing in your life for the past 3 years – Kgp’s LAN. It just is something whose absence, you feel, leaves a gaping whole in your daily itinerary. You have grown so used to it and made it such an essential part of your life that its absence really hits you hard.

You feel disconnected from the entire universe and you just can’t stay with that feeling. The closest you can reach is having an internet connection at home. Even though the internet connection might not promise all the benefits that our beloved LAN provides us, something’s better than nothing, you’d agree.

So you reach for the nearest and fastest ISP provider and he promises you the connection in a day when you pay the exorbitant amount. You might argue that any measly sum would seem exorbitant when you pay nothing for the 24 hour net supply in Kgp – in addition to DC++, the source of all movies, sitcoms, series, videos, music there is on the planet. But then that’s the way it is. Whichever way you look at it, TATA INDICOM Broadband is about at least 10 times costlier than BSNL’s Dataone connection. I still rue the fact that there is no BSNL landline at home or else I would have surely preferred the latter.

2 days pass and there is no sign of any personnel from the Tata Indicom. So you go and shout your dismay there and warn and threaten him (The frustration of not being connected is what is supposed to be blamed for all those actions, I suppose). A week passes by wherein each day you barge into the ISP office and threaten and plead him for the connection. Fed up with the daily nuisance he lands up one fine day in the house and the connection is done.

Now that the internet connection has arrived, you feel a bit ecstatic. You begin surfing and then the problems begin. Half the time the server is down (I had to ring up the call centre and register 5 complaints in the span of 6 days) and the other half isn’t much better either. Fluctuating speeds and intermittent delays dampen your enthusiasm to browse. What’s even more annoying is the blank messenger window. Normally it shows one full screen view of online contacts but now with most kgpians relaxing in the comforts of their homes, the empty window makes me feel much more cheesed off. It wasn’t all that worthwhile in the end.

P.S: Typed 2 weeks ago. Troubling Net connection and now the nuisance-making computer caused the delay. Still damn frustrated.

DOWN..... OUT..... 'N' MIGHTY TIRED......

Exams can do a lot to one's psyche. They intimidate you. They terrorise you. They punch you in the face, kick you hard in the gut, effect a KO. The VOLUME of material/books you ought to study to maintain your not-so-great, yet respectable CG(Another 2 dreaded letters) and the TIME you've got on your hands are utterly dispropotionate. For once you are brought down to earth. You get to know ground realities.

Having bunked classes at a feverish pace, sitting right at the back and dreaming (in some cases, sleeping right under the professor's nose) in the very few classes you manage to drag yourself to, just for the sake of an attendance, hardly helps. It desperately feels like a Failed Journey, even before you take-off. Exams are still those dreaded few letters themselves...."EXAMS".

Exams make you sit down and study. For once you open your books. For once you feel you are in HERE with a purpose. You get reminded you are here to get moulded into a MANUFACTURING ENGINEER. And then you realise, you weren't meant to take this shit.

Huh!!! How one wished there weren't any exams. There are far better ways to grade a person, I believe. And I stubbornly believe that CG isn't a true reflection of either a person's technical skills, expertise, grip on the subject, his potential or ability. It might be an indicator of the hardwork he'd put in. Even that can't be said for sure. A Controversial Topic to deal with. I agree. But then I'd really like some other alternative for these exams. Being a Junior Student right now, I shouldn't be sulking and fretting over all these. 5th semester has come to a close and there are 3 more semesters to go. Entering the most crucial phase of my Course(Training and Placement right ahead), I just need to brace myself, command all energy and stamina, race the pack already a fair distance ahead of me and hopefully put up a good fight. By now, you must be saying, "Stop sulking and Put up a fight you @$$."

YEAH!!! I DID. I did it this time around. Relax. It was just a good fight though. I concentrated all my energies, studied hard, put the thoughts behind, worked my ass off on all courses -- only during the exam time though, I must remind. But then I am not sure if it was worth it. The distance will still remain. The gap just isn't looking like its going to diminish. I even didn't go for Ravi's Birthday treat. (Sorry DUDE!!! I wasn't bent on disrupting your party plans but then it just didn't fit into my scheme of things.) But then even though I sound like a soldier wounded or a defeated boxer I am really not worrying about the result. It just feels good having given your best. It was just for one week, I know. But it has been long since I’d done that and it’s quite satisfying. The "working off my ass" has also left me DOWN…. OUT…. And MIGHTY TIRED.

I'd be quite happy if I don't just slip up though...Well, even that isn't in my hands. To hell with the results.........Now for some rest!!!

P.S : The actual version I'd written was quite big and infact boring (Not that this isn't). Hence I edited an incident I'd written about out of this and reposted it below. If you aren't exhausted having read this crap, then test the limits of your patience. See if you can finish the crap below this too.....

THE EDITED PART FROM ABOVE

Well, here is something I wrote along with the one above. But then I edited it out. I felt the post was getting too lengthy. So if you are still not fed up reading the one above… Just go ahead.

Exams make you sit down and study. For once you open your books. For once you feel you are in HERE with a purpose. You get reminded you are here to get moulded into a MANUFACTURING ENGINEER. And then you realise, you weren't meant to take this shit. You just weren't meant to be this. This wasn't meant to be your true calling.

Which transports me back to my school days.

I was in class IX when one of my teachers trivially joked in the class, about how we'd either wind up as engineers and doctors. "Children of this generation hardly have other choices", she declared. I was quite upset at this thought. I wanted to be DIFFERENT. I wanted to different from the rest. I wasn't going to be an engineer or a doc, I told myself. That evening I set out on an onerous task - I'd make a list of all professions other than the aforementioned. I sat down frisking my mind and listing all professions I knew and by the end of the 2 hour study hour, I had a list of 89 professions, to be exact. Quite an amateurish list I must accept. But then I was quite proud of my efforts. I was going to be one of these, or so I thought.

Cut to class X after my board exams, I was busy contemplating which course to join, which college to join, which part of the country. I wanted to pursue Economics or Humanities and was at wit's end as to which one to choose. I knew I had a multitude of career avenues had I chosen Economics -- become an economist or a CA or a wat-else-is-possible. (Oops, I don't have the list with me right now. It is safe along with my letter and greeting collection back home) But I wasn't sure what I'd become pursuing Humanities. It was just my love for the subject, I guess, or maybe it had more do with my History teacher. I just loved her classes and her knowledge base and the way she drilled those stories into our heads. It wasn't that I was weak in Math or in Science. I liked those subjects, found them quite a bit fascinating and thats about it. Maybe those teachers weren't as inspiring and caring as my History ma'am. I had nothing against Math and Science.

I must really consider myself lucky because my parents readily gave me the go-ahead and were really happy about my choice when I'd first informed. For a person who consistently topped the class with minimum effort, (with due respect to my competition, I must admit having considered myself head and shoulders above everyone in the class and percieved myself as being in an altogether different league… Now I ain’t thinking the same though) choosing Humanities over Maths was bound to meet with mixed reactions. I expected my parents would pitch for my pursuing Pure Sciences. But then my parents completely endorsed my view. Mom even went to the extent of wanting to see me do my Bachelors in London School of Economics (LSE) and she was willing to fund it as well if I could get myself a seat in there. So far, so good and the hunt for the school began.

Class Ten results were out. I topped in almost every subject, had the highest total with my nearest competitor almost a fair distance behind me. I'd be getting 4 gold medals (Real Gold worth about 5k each) and lots more cash and goodies that year for my wonderful performance. There was lot of frenzy in the house. People were ecstatic. My parents were very proud of me, though I was sulking at not having crossed the School's Highest Total that was achieved quite a few years back. The house always brimmed with conversations about MY PERFORMANCE and MY FUTURE. They'd discuss it for hours and hours and feel so proud. It was during one causerie when mom told me gently, "Kanna (Means sweet lil' child in Telugu), Doing Humanities or Economics would mean our relatives commenting about your lack of calibre, lack of talent. They might indulge in petty talk that these 4 metallic pieces are just a one-off thing and that you really have no guts or the gumption to face the tougher world -- the Sciences and Math. You must be ready to brave the odds." That's it and nothing more. Suddenly my thought process took over. I sat down thinking. Those few words hit me hard. REAL HARD. I jusn't couldn't imagine myself being labeled a DUMB INCAPABLE SLOUCH.

I wanted to be DIFFERENT. TRUE. But I also wanted to be THE BEST. I wanted to be THE BEST more than being DIFFERENT. And at that very instant, I decided I would pursue only SCIENCES, because the failure to do would be construed my LACK OF ABILITY.

INCESSANT PRIDE. PRESTIGE. TWO SECONDS OF IRRATIONAL THINKING. And I am here what I am. Totally lifeless. Totally Disillusioned. Irate with having not pursued what I truly wanted to.

But then again, Life ain't so bad after all. I am in IIT - the best engineering college in the country. Yet, all these thoughts just keep rushing back when I start studying for the exams. I recollect things, scold myself and then get back to studying. It happens always and exams make me completely frusssssssst.

HUH!!! DUH!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM

Words can’t truly express what I want to blurt out right this instant.

MOM, You have been my biggest source of inspiration and you will remain the single most influential person in my life – and I mean it in every sense of the word. I truly cherish the camaraderie we share. Everything I am right now is all because of what you had done for me – the numerous sacrifices, the heart breaking distances, the setbacks you braved, the love and care you showed. As you step into one more glorious year of your life, Your Birthday gives me a platform to reminisce the very many things that shaped my life -- the advice, the letters, the silly fights, the love, the anger and countless others. Let me thank you for all that you have done. And I am proud of you. Have a wonderful Birthday. YOU ARE MY HERO.

P.S : The pic here is of the card I’d carefully handpicked for MOM the last time I was in Kolkata…. But then I decided against mailing her. I just thought it wasn’t the right time to send a card especially when the whole household is shrouded in grief. Maybe I will make use of it for her birthday next year.