hey ankit!

Transition

2006-08-09T21:10:00.000+05:30

So the transition period to college has begun. But before I tell you about that, here are some updates:

Saw 'Darwaaza Band Rakho' with Mom n Dad at Waves. Good comedy movie, except that it lacked humor.
Dad pointed out an article in a magazine which had some of the letters Einstein wrote to his son. In one, Einstein had mentioned the importance of brushing your teeth twice a day. It appears that fathertellingsontobrushtwicedaily is a very old and common phenomenon.
I've been having more and more instances of phonesia: you know, when you call someone and forget who you called, the moment they pick-up. It's so embarrassing.
Rita aunty gifted me a very sexy watch as a present before I go. It makes my old Timex Flix look like a complete joke.
I turn on the T.V. and I see a guy with a round face, beard and cap, singing in a high pitch. Then I change the channel and I see him dancing with Akshaye Khanna and Katrina Kaif. I change channels again, and there he is with a different song but same tune. Yes, I am truly fed up with Himesh Reshammiya and his all-sound-alike songs.

Anyways, I have begun shopping for clothes and stuff to take to Duke. I hate shopping. Really. It's sooo tiring and pointless. I would have ordered everything online if only I could some how try out the sizes sitting at home. How can girls love shopping?
I have already had my fair share of problems in my 'transition phase'. Have still not received the book "My Sister's Keepers" which is part of this year's summer reading program. A discussion will be held on the book, among the freshmen, when we arrive. For some reason, the book seems to have gone 'out of stock' simultaneously from all the bookstores in Delhi and NCR.
Also, I still don't know who my roommate is, which is really important so that we can get in touch and decide who will bring what appliance.

So here I am, bored and hoping to get things sorted out soon.

DO NOT READ THIS POST

2006-08-03T11:56:00.000+05:30

Haven't updated my blog in a while, cause there just hasn't been to much to say. See, this is the point where a boring life starts losing its charm. Geez, in 12th I would have killed for some free time. We would wait so desperately for vacations, and when vacations would come, there would always be stuff lagging over from school that we had to complete. And now? Now, I'm just desperate for college to start. The fact that these vacations were extremely long probably just contributed to the boredom: in India the academic year ends early and starts early; in America, they end late and start late. Since I'm going from India to America, my vacation this year started earlier (I also didn't have to give all the engineering competition exams like my classmates) and will end late. And I haven't really done anything productive since the end of March apart from publishing the school's fat annual magazine and watching movies that I missed out upon over the past two years.

Btw, I saw 'Golmaal' and 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest' yesterday. And Pirates of the Caribbean sucked big time. Whenever I take Mom n Dad for some English movie, the movie turns out to be really pathetic. And now they either think I have really bad taste or that English movies are horrible by nature :P . I am also updating my phone directory before I leave. That basically means calling everybody up (everybody!) and asking them things like their postal address, email ids, messenger ids, Birthday, etc. So if you know me, and I still haven't called you, please email me these details at ankit.webmaster@gmail.com .

By now you're probably wondering why I told you not to read this posting... I mean, its just a stupid, not-at-all-interesting waste of time! I agree and that's why I told you not to read it dumbo.

Nostalgia

2006-07-28T01:44:00.000+05:30

All of my RKP friends have already left Delhi for their colleges. :(

Had a talk with Abhinav Sinha two days ago on the phone. (I was with Abhinav in DPS Patna till 10th, after which he left for Goa with his Mom.) Now, he's in NIT Trichy, Tamil Nadu studying computer engineering. He seemed pretty frustrated with the food there -- breakfast is bread, butter and sambhar-vada; or bread, jam and sambhar-vada; while lunch consists of rice, dal, rasam (type of thin dal), and one boiled-type vegetable. Basically, he misses north Indian food. Poor him. He also seemed pretty disappointed with the south-indian girls -- according to him, most of the girls there know no Hindi and have mushtashes! :P . Girls also seemed to be weighing down Aneesh's mind the other day: I asked him before he left for college, what he was most anxious about, expecting some reply about missing his family or friends. Instead he answered, "yaar, i wonder what the sex ratio in class will be like -- after all, in BITS Pilani, there are only two girls' hostels and ten boys' hostels!"
LOL!

Now that EVERYONE's gone or joined college, I've really started to miss my good friends. Really badly :(( Wonder how I'll survive in Duke...there I'll miss my parents too! Feeling lonely at home, I called up some hostlers including Afzal, Vinit, Aparajit. Vinit's joining electronics at NSIT, and will reach Delhi by the 1st of August, while Afzal's dropping and taking coaching here in Delhi at Kalusarai. I talked to Dad today, and decided that I'll try to get everything out of the way by the 10th, so I can meet all those who are in Delhi (those who've joined DU, and those who're dropping a year and are @ Kalusarai) before I leave.

BLOG FOR SALE! and other tid-bits of the day

2006-07-26T22:27:00.000+05:30

Technocrati measures my blog to be worth $1,129.08 !!! (See Sidebar) Now I know my blog is really priceless, but I'm ready to sell it for half that price. Eager webmasters, contact me at ankit.webmaster@gmail.com, and we'll work the transaction details out. :-)
Second day driving class. Still controlling only accelerator and steering but now on the main roads.
Wrote a 'keep up the great work' kinda e-mail to Professor Timothy Tailor, the lecturer of the recorded Teaching Company economics lectures I'm listening to. Got a polite thank you reply from him where he also explained some differences I might find between recorded lectures and an actual economics lecture in college.
Today, while playing badminton at Aneesh's house, I found out why it makes sense to play football in the rain, but not badminton. It's cause in football, you have to look down at the ball, while in badminton you look up at the shuttle and drops start falling into your eyes. While playing I licked the raindrops off my lips.

Khera School of Motor Driving

2006-07-25T18:41:00.000+05:30

Ohk, so after 2 months of not being able to decide whether to learn how to drive in India or not, I decided to go ahead with it anyway. Dad had recommended to go to America and learn left hand driving instead of first learning right-hand drive and trying to switch. According to him, switching driving sides involves a bit of un-learing which can sometimes be painful. But a few days ago, I thought, what the heck?, and called up Khera driving school to fix an appointment.
Today, was my first class. The trainer came in a run-down Santro whose dash-board was cracked, had no wipers and one window failed to close after I'd opened it. Connected to the clutch and brake pedals were rods which ended in another clucth and brake in front of the trainer's seat, next to the driver's. Thus, the trainer could control the brake and clutch as well. Today, when the trainer came it started raining. No, raining would be an understatement; it started pouring. Now the car had no wipers, so we had to wait for the rain to lighten a bit. But I finally got to drive within the colony after an hour's wait. Today, I just had to control the accelerator and steering; the trainer took care of the braking and gear switching.

A terrible thing happened today when I was learning how to drive. Some girls' college in my colony had just dispersed. Not to mention that it was still slightly raining. I almost ran the car up a tree when I started looking out the window once! Girls should be banned from the road when boys are learning how to drive. Especially girls in the rain. I mean, I wouldn't want this to happen to me:

Net Humor

2006-07-24T00:10:00.000+05:30

MTNL Delhi lifted the ban yesterday and now I can access my blog via http://heyankit.blogspot.com instead of through some foreign proxy. Aneesh informed me though that Sify still hasn't lifted the ban and he still has to visit my site via http://heyankit.tk or http://ankit.speaksup.com

Anyways, I came across this really funny video by google on how Boing Boing (the world's most popular blog) got blocked in many countries:

(Click on image above; video will open in new window)

----
And here are two really really humorous (must must see) videos, in which an Alaskan senator explains what the internet is. As a fellow member of BloggersCollective puts it: "Wait till you hear the great senator from Alaska, Ted Stevens, head of the Senate Commerce Committee, a position in which he regulates e-commerce [and the net] in the US, explain the internet to you...You could just search for Ted Stevens on youtube and find atleast 4 different clips about Ted's interpretation of the internet. We don't need to be ashamed of our Laloos, Yechuris and other assortment of dingleberries." The TWO videos:

(Click on images above; videos will open in new windows)

The Big Fight

2006-07-23T20:11:00.000+05:30

Day-before-yesterday, that is on Friday, I went to attend "The Big Fight". The Big Fight is this another famous talkshow hosted on NDTV in which the three participants stand on one end while the host (currently Vikram Chandra; see pic) sits at a table in another corner. The participants called are often those who hold contradictory views on the same topic, often resulting in a heated debate. The role of the host is to ask provocative questions and cause the heated debate. After the debate, the audience gets 15 minutes to ask questions to the panelists.
Today's topic was "Should the government censor the internet?"
On the panel were:
1. Jayanti Natrajan (congress Spokeswoman),
2. Sidharth Luthra (a supreme court advocate specializing in cyber law; he fought the Bazee-MMS case)
3. Paranjay Guha Thukrata, Director School of Convergence
Then joining via satellite (there was a large LCD TV where we could see
them) were:
4. Principal, Modern School, Barakhamba Road
5. Mr Deepak Maheswari, Director, ISPAI (Internet Service Providers'
Association of India)

First Vikram Chandra asked the panelists their views on the blog
blockage and later the topic shifted to general internet censorship.
Jayanti Natrajan made some outragous comments like:
"Bloggers should exercise Self-Control" and "The government only meant
to block out 17 harmful site, not tons of regular sites".

Toward the end, Mrs. Natrajan created a hulaaboo about having to go
quickly as her flight was in 1.5 hours and she still hadn't done her
"homework" (her terminology). As a result, the audience was only given
10 minutes to put forward their question and I only got one chance to
ask something, so I asked what I thought important then,

(I quoted her comments mentioned above) "Maam, you mentioned that
bloggers should exercise self-control and that the government only
meant to block out harmful sites; yet the only four blogspot sites on
the list were: princesskimberly, a teenager's defunt diary from 2004,
not harmful and non political; commonfolkcommonsense.blogspot.com a
japanese site; and two anti-leftist (exposingtheleft and pajamaeditors)
American sites. How are these blogging sites a threat to Indian
National Security? Why were they banned?"

Mrs Natrajan answers, "(nervous laugh) The internet is a new medium of communication and as with every new medium, there may be mistakes, but I was saying that we
need to sensor the internet from harmful things against national
security or child pornography...." and blah blah blah. (note: this has not been quoted verbmatim, instead, this is as close to her answer as I can remember)

The show was aired on NDTV 24X7 yesterday, at 8:00pm

Face the Music

2006-07-22T10:35:00.000+05:30

Prateek Josheph from NDTV Audience Cell called me a few days ago asking if I could coordinate ten to fifteen people to participate in the audience in a episode of the NDTV talkshow, Face the Music.
The show was held day before yesterday in Laxmi Studio, FilmCity, Noida. I was only able to get about 9 people though, since the hostlers were either not in Delhi, or those who had joined DU had to attend classes; so Aneesh and Golu went along; Rishabh also came with two cousins; there was also Sid (Ed-Board) and his friend; and Akash Bansal (who's back for the summer from Duke). I forgot to take my camera, so I got those pics of the people who came from the net (for future reference purposes).
Having decided that we would take the bus, Aneesh, Golu and I left at 2:45pm (we were told to reach by 4:30). At the bus stop however, we took an auto instead (don't know what came over us then -- an auto to Noida cost us three times the bus fare for three people!) As a result, we reached Laxmi Studio by 3:30.

With one hour to spare, feeling vella, and nothing to do, the three of us wandered around to nearby APEEJAY Public School.
Aneesh (to the guard): Bhaiya, school dekhna hai aur teachers se milna hai.
Guard: Aap kaun hai?
Aneesh: Hum Passouts hain.
Guard (disbelievingly): Kab pass kiye the?
Me (seeing Aneesh stumble): 2003
Guard: High School yaa Inter?
Me: Class 12
Guard: 4th saturdays ko aayiga; us din Parents Teacher's Interaction hota hai.

...and so on with guards of different buildings like IndianExpress, till we had exhausted our one hour.

Now Laxmi Studios is owned by T-Series. And the owner of T-Series insures that you understand that he is a religious person. When you first enter the Studio, you see a huge (HUGE!!!) bronze statue of the Hindu god Shiva, which is twice as tall as the four-floor studio complex. Next to it there are three large temples of other Hindu gods. And just in case we hadn't got the idea, when we entered the building there were another 6 three-feet tall god statues in one corner; not to mention numerous portraits of gods. I really have nothing against theism, but this is seriously overkill.

'Face the Music' is hosted by the famous newspaper reporter, Vir Sanghvi (that's the guy in black in the above hodgepodge of pictures). The studio consisted of a half-wood-half-glass red-and-silver semicircular stage and black chairs to seat about a hundred people. Silver cage-like tubes ran from the stage to the sealing giving the stage a unique look.
Vir Sanghvi introduced the first guest,

She is to politics, what Vyajanti Mala is to glamour.
And she is to glamour what Chidambharam is to boredom,
Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome, Spokesperson for the congress, Mrs. Jayanti Natrajan.

Clap clap, clap clap, clap (somebody from behind would give us the que to clap by starting the clapping).
And after a ten-minute talk with Mrs. Natrajan (she's the lady in the black-and-white pic above) on how she joined politics, death of Rajiv Gandhi, and so on, there was a short break.

Then came the second celebrity of the day. Lola Kutty (the Channel [V] VJ; Lola Kutty, "beauty on duty"; her real name's Anuradha Menon; she's the one with the flowers on her hair, and yes, she actually came looking like that to the studio). So in comes Kutty and the first thing she does is sing a rap which would put Eminem's Real Slim Shady to shame:

May I harv yorr adinshen, please. May I harv yorr adinshen please! I ahm Lola Kutty, And yes, I ahm the real Kuddy. And you other Lola Kuddies arr jusd eemitatin', So won'd the real Lola Kuddy, Please Stahnd Ub, Please Stahnd Up!

Now, when a new celeb comes, the one already on stage stays put. So now we had two celebs and a host there. Mr. Sanghvi didn't manage to get much out of Ms Kutty, because of the way she would fake her accent (Lola Kutty purposely fakes a comical accent, like the one when she sang The Real Lola Kutty, in all of her Channel [V] shows, and she maintained this accent throughout the program). So after a small talk with Kutty, Mr. Sanghvi invited the third guest of the day, Mrs Zila Khan, a very famous (apparently, I had never heard of her) Sufi Singer (she's the one in the last pic above). And after a talk with Mrs Khan on how she inherited the Sufi tradition of her father, she performed a song on stage. The song was nice, but Mrs. Khan had a tendency to over-express; she would raise her hands clenching a fist when she sung certain parts, and at the end make comments like, "oh, this is the kind of music that inspires the fire in you (clenching fists and grinning) eeeeh" (or something along those lines).

The show ended with the rock band (Adveda was the name, I think), which would drum in the filler music in the show, performed some English song.

After the show, Aneesh, Golu, Rishabh (his cousins left separately), and Akash, walked down to sector-18 Centerstage Mall, where we sat down at McDonalds and I asked Akash some questions about what to take to Duke.
Now since we had come by auto, instead of the bus as planned, and since we had not planned on eating, only 300 bucks remained between Aneesh, Golu and Me.
The facts were simple: either we eat and go back to Delhi by bus, or we go back by auto.
The case too, was an open-and-shut one:
We ate.
We also went back by bus. After waiting for half-an-hour at an overcrowded bus stop,
number 323, Daula Kuan-Noida, arrived. The bus was cramped (understatement) -- no matter how hard you tried to stand separately, you were in constant body contact with at least four people. The height of the bus was also an inch shorter than me, so I had to constantly keep my neck bent an inch. We reached home safetly though, at about nine.

PLEASE PARTICIPATE

2006-07-20T13:53:00.000+05:30

FIRST OF ALL, as a blog reader, and a believer in "freedom of expression" please go to the following CNN site and sign the campaign against this arbitrary ban: http://clients.ibnlive.com/features/blogger/index.php

Also, NDTV is holding 'The Big Fight' tomorrow (friday) on the blocked blogs at 2:30pm at NDTV Studios, Archana Complex, Greater Kailash Part-1. To participate and reserve a seat for yourself contact, Prateek Joseph, NDTV Audience Cell at 011-41735106, 9818822252.

So far I have confirmation of 3 Right to Information requests (RTIs) having been filed to the DoT about the blocked blogs. Also, Kajal Basu, a fellow member of Bloggers Collective, has contacted her lawyer and plans to go ahead with the Public Interest Litigation (PIL). "Add your voice to the PIL, contact Arjun at 09911126913 or mail him with your ideas at g_arjun1@yahoo.com."

Lifting the Ban(?) and those that will Remain Blocked.

2006-07-20T11:53:00.000+05:30

It's official. The government only ordered the ISPs to block 17 specific sites. The ISPs screwed up and blocked entire domains; probably because that's the easiest and least resource-consuming way to ban sites. Here is DoT's directive (click on image for larger view):

Reports on rediff (link) suggest that Amitabh Singhal, a spokesperson for the Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI), said that the ban should be lifted in 48 hours:

"An advisory is being sent from ISPAI to member ISPs saying they should configure their Domain Name Servers (DNS) in such a way that they block only the sub-domains DoT wants blocked...The advisory is a result of a meeting held on Wednesday between executive members of ISPAI, representatives of DoT and the Department of Information Technology. "We expect the problem to be resolved within 48 hours," said Singhal.

However, things may not be as simple as they seem. Quoting from Economic Times (today, front page, Delhi Edition, article "All but 17 blogs to be back":

But other blogs may stay blocked if the service provider does not have the monitoring mechanism for selective blockage at sub-domain level.

I don't know which incompetent ISP will fall into that category, but I'm not going to start counting my chickens before they hatch. Anyways, even if the blanket ban is lifted and only certain sites are blocked, in a democracy, a government should explain why it's blocking even those sites. Among the list of sites to be blocked submitted by DoT are four blogspot blogs:

http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com [access this site from India HERE]
http://commonfolkcommonsense.blogspot.com [access this site from India HERE]
http://pajamaeditors.blogspot.com [access this site from India HERE]
http://princesskimberly.blogspot.com [access this site from India HERE]

Even blocking these sites dosen't make any sense. For example, 'PrincessKimberly' is a defunct blog which has only 2 posts from 2004. Quotes from PrincessKimberly:

"...The 2nd 1/2 of my spring break was a lot of fun...Went to Galveston to the beach and rode the ferry. ...I went back to Arlington on Sunday to eat dinner w/ Melbany.. IHOP.. yummy! :) Made it to class this week.. 2 days in a row. Go Kim! Anyway.. Nothing exciting happening now. I just got done kicking Stopher's ass at Solitaire Showdown. But when do I not? :)...
...I spent the majority of my night w/ Aaron watching "Harry Potter, Chamber of Secrets". Great movie I must say!..."

I don't know about you, but I fail to visualize little princess kimberly holding a threat to national security; neither do I know how Exposing the Left, an American Site, is a threat to India. In fact, CommonSenseCommonFolk is a Japanese site! (Go to the sites for yourself from the links above, and decide for yourself how dangerous they are).

Somebody knock some sense into the govt.

Fighting the Block

2006-07-19T22:05:00.000+05:30

Reports suggest that the government issued orders to the ISPs to block only four selective *.blogspot.com domains. The ISPs though, blocked the entire IP address on which all blogspot blogs are stored, possibly because this is the easiest way of blocking sites and much less resource consuming than the packet ban which would enable specific sub-domains to be blocked.

Anyways, the media has given some attention to the issue. Hindustan Times, Delhi published a front-page article and devoted the entire page 11 to the ban. On TV, NDTV and CNN-IBN have been running small reports from time to time.

Today, I along with a handful of bloggers, met at the India Habitat Center on Lodi Road to meet up with a reporter from NDTV and express our opinions. Soon, CNN-IBN had arrived on the spot too, and so had BBC radio. I was the only student there (rest were all working in the computer science field and blogged as a hobby). We now have confirmation of three RTIs filed with the Dept. of Telecommunication. Our opinions should be aired tonight between 8pm-10pm on NDTV and CNN-IBN.

Meanwhile, Prateek Joseph, some other reporter from NDTV, called up with an invitation to the famous NDTV show, The Big Fight on Saturday. The topic for the program is "Has UPA's foreign policy failed?". He also asked if I could get some people for "Face the Music" with Vir Sangvi tomorrow. More on that after I've seen the show.

Bloggers Blocked?

2006-07-18T00:16:00.000+05:30

THIS REALLY PISSES ME OFF. THE FACT THAT I CHOSE TO TYPE IN CAPSLOCK PROBABLY HINTS MY CURRENT MOOD.

APPARENTLY, UNDER A DIRECTION FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF TELECOMMUNICATION (DoT), ACCESS TO ALL blogspot.com BLOGS (that includes this one) HAVE BEEN BLOCKED BY VARIOUS ISPS (INCLUDING MTNL) FROM ALL OVER INDIA. BASICALLY, THE GOVT HAS BLOCKED INDIANS FROM ACCESSING ALL *.blogspot.com ADDRESSES. (SOURCES SAY ALL GEOCITIES.COM SITES HAVE BEEN BLOCKED TOO) WHAT THE F*CK HAPPENED TO FREEDOM OF SPEECH? I DIDN'T KNOW THAT THE SEVEN RIGHTS WERE JUST SOME BULLSHIT HYPE! I MEAN BLOCKING ALL BLOGS? I CAN ONLY HOPE THAT SOMEBODY BANGS THE GOVT OFFICIAL WHO DID THIS ON THE HEAD, AND BRINGS HIM TO HIS SENSES SOON. Someone suggested that the govt took this brainless step as the Mumbai blast terrorists had used websites to communicate. That's probably as appropriate a step as cutting out the city's water supply under the alibi that the terrorists drunk tap water. Besides, what use is cutting out only blogspot and geocities ids; they'll just use some other site. And why all blogspot/typepad/geocities sites? That's not national security; that's National Stupidity. Quoting from Rediff's article linked below,

"Under the Information Technology Act, 2000, a body called the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN)...also oversees Internet censorship under a clause that seeks to ensure 'balanced flow of information.' ...sites may be blocked within the provisions of the Fundamental Right to free speech and expression, granted in India's Constitution," said cyber-law expert Praveen Dalal, adding, "If, however, the blocking is arbitrary, unreasonable and unfair, it would be in violation of Articles 14, 19 and 21 of the Constitution of India."

I certainly believe the blocking is arbitrary, unreasonable and unfair, to say the least.

MEANWHILE, IF YOU ARE IN INDIA AND NEED TO ACCESS A BLOGSPOT BLOG (INCLUDING MINE), READ ON. A SITE inblogs.net ACTS AS A PROXY SERVER DEROUTING TO THE BLOG SO YOU CAN ACCESS IT FROM THERE. BASICALLY INSTEAD OF TYPING something.blogspot.com TYPE inblogs.net/something.
AFTER THE BLOCK PLACED ON INDIAN BLOGS, THERE'S BEEN A SUDDEN SOAR OF TRAFFIC TO PKBLOGS, RESULTING IN PKBLOGS SLOWING DOWN SOMETIMES. IF YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO ACCESS A BLOG VIA PK BLOGS, ACCESS THE BLOGS BY GOING TO EITHER ninjaproxy.com OR hidemyass.com AND THEN TYPING THE ENTIRE OLD ADDRESS THERE

EG. IF U ARE IN INDIA AND WANT TO GO TO http://heyankit.blogspot.com TRY TYPING http://inblogs.net/heyankit INSTEAD.

For more info,

1) READ THE OFFICIAL NEWS REPORT FROM REDIFF HERE, FROM ECONOMIC TIMES HERE, AND HINDUSTAN TIMES HERE.

2) Try visiting the google group BloggersCollective where this problem is being discussed here: http://groups.google.com/group/BloggersCollective?lnk=oa

3) Read a detailed article with useful links, like the lists of blocked domains and the ISPs that seem to have blocked them: http://www.withinandwithout.com/?p=854

Bulletin

2006-07-17T00:38:00.000+05:30

Things seem to be better after that low weather there.
Got more books: 'A Matter of Honour' by Jeffery Archer; the last two Artemis Fowl; 'Seawitch' by Alisair Maclean; and 'Freakonomics'.
Chances are, one of Shoaib's classmate in Amity might be Hemant Chug (doesn't ring a bell? how about MMS?)
I really suggest all of you to watch this really cool clip (click HERE). It's about a desi guy, Kripal, staying abroad, whose dog gets kicked by some foreign girl.

!!!TURBULENCE!!!

2006-07-16T13:17:00.000+05:30

On the 14th, that is the day before yesterday, I was supposed to go for a movie with Aparajit and Aneesh, one last time before Appa was to leave for Patna today. And, though Appa is to join Amity Biotech, he would come to Delhi back on the 21st of August, a day after I leave for America. Unfortunately, in comes an aunty, to our house at 11am, to talk to Mo -- and while aunty talked to Mom, I was supposed to stick around at home with her son. Aunty left at 6pm! I will not elaborate my feelings then, but to cut a long story short, I could not go. I had hoped I would be able to meet him yesterday.

Yesterday=Saturday. Saturday=Dad stays at home.
Dad stays at home=Dad wants to spend weekends with me (listening to recorded economics lectures, academic discussions and "quality family time") before I go in a month.
Dad stays at home+Dad wants to spend time with me=I stay at home.
I stay at home => I can't go out with Appa for the day.

Basically, Dad and I got into a little (understatement) quarrel over me going out. And after a heated "discussion" we went into Hmph mode. Hmph mode as in "Hmph! I'm not going to talk to you" mode. We finally reached some sort of a patch-up in hte evening. As a result, a routine now has been set-up for the weekdays which I'm supposed to follow (don't dare ask about the week-ends!).
Get-up at 6:45am. 7-9 with Dad before he leaves for office. Now between 10-3 I have to study Maths for 2 hours and something else (which will be decided in the 7-9 period) for 1 hour. 3-5 free time/blogging time. 5-7:30 go out to play. 7:30-11 with Dad. (No more late night surfing/chatting for me :( )
Poor Afzal called me up at my home number right in the midst of our discussion. Unfortunately for him, my parents picked up, and assuming he was also part of our plan to go out, gave him a "stern", "why are you troubling Ankit" warning (they appologized to him later).
Ultimately, I did go to meet Appa yesterday evening for two hours (he was staying at Aneesh's). The only good that did come out of yesterday was perhaps that Appa said he would try to come to Delhi by the 10th or 15th of August so that he could meet be before I leave.

The McCafferty Series

2006-07-13T13:51:00.000+05:30

[In the photo (L to R) on my desk: 'Sloppy Firsts' by Megan McCafferty, 'Second Helpings' by Megan McCafferty, 'Charmed Thirds' by Megan McCafferty, and 'How Opal Mehta got Kissed, got Wild, and got a Life' by Kaavya Viswanathan]

Just received the three Megan McCafferty novels in the mail from Amazon.com .
When the Opal Mehta book became controversial two months ago, I was filled with a sense of curiosity as to exactly how much similarity there was between the Kaavya Viswanathan's Opal Mehta book and 'Sloppy Firsts' and 'Charmed Seconds', the two books by McCafferty from which Viswanathan is said to have "borrowed" some sentences. So first, I went out on a treasure hunt looking for any Opal Mehta copies that might still be lying on shelves somewhere or on the net. In my anxiety to get the book, and rightly so before it was called back by the publishers, I ended up with two copies of the book. (So if any one of you want a like-brand-new copy of Opal Mehta, no longer available in the market, contact me, and I'd readily sell a copy at an exorbitant price ;-) ). Then, I ordered Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings from Amazon, since they didn't seem to be available in India. In the process, my eyes landed on Charmed Thirds, the newest McCafferty book, and I got a copy of that as well.

I still have to read the McCafferty series before I can comment on textual similarities with Viswanathan's book. But I did see another similarity the moment I saw the books: the girls. All covers of McCafferty's novel sport a girl's legs/thighs or in case of 'Second Helpings', the body upto the lips; but NEVER shows the complete face. The Indian Time-Warner edition of Opal Mehta, which I have, too shows a girl up to the lips (not whole face) on the cover and a girl's legs on the back cover (see pics on left).

A lot has already been said on Kaavya's acts of plagiarism, and I won't belabor the point. I will add one comment though: as it appears from newspaper reports, no whole sentence exactly matches between Kaavya's and Megan's work, only certain paragraphing constructions and vocabulary are similar. Just goes to show you how stringent intellectual copyright laws and their implimentation are in some parts of the world as against India. One such example:

From page 7 of McCafferty's first novel: Bridget is my age and lives across the street. For the first twelve years of my life, these qualifications were all I needed in a best friend. But that was before Bridget's braces came off and her boyfriend Burke got on, before Hope and I met in our seventh-grade honors classes.

From page 14 of Viswanathan's novel: Priscilla was my age and lived two blocks away. For the first fifteen years of my life, those were the only qualifications I needed in a best friend. We had first bonded over our mutual fascination with the abacus in a playgroup for gifted kids. But that was before freshman year, when Priscilla's glasses came off, and the first in a long string of boyfriends got on.Â

(from The Harvard Crimson, full article and more examples HERE)

Generally, when Dad ordered my SAT books from Amazon.com, he would opt for the faster (and more expensive) shipping methods. However, this time, since there was no great urgency for the McCafferty books, I opted for the slowest method of international shipping (which cost me $22 anyways). That was over two months ago. And I got the books today. Now I know what a wise decision it had been to get the SAT books via Express delivery.

[Those who want to read more on the Viswanathan controversy, search it up on google, or go NYTimes, Newshour, Harvard Crimson or Another Blog's Post]

A little bit of Superman

2006-07-12T10:20:00.000+05:30

I am currently very frustrated with my course selection for Duke. As it turns out, I will not be needing to take any Chem since I shall receive credit for it from my CBSE marks. As a result, now I don't know what to take instead: the higher courses have basic courses as prerequisites, timings of some basic courses are simply clashing with others, and the remaining have been filled by senior students. Compound that with the fact that registration has to be done at 10pm tonight.

So I decided to take my frustration out by bitching about the Man Of Steel. I saw 'Superman Returns' the day it came out, and though some of my friends seemed to like it, I'm going to take a stand and say I didn't.

The biggest disappointment of the movie was probably the villain, Lex Luthor, played by Kevin Spacey. Spacey acts as a half-jokey, half-evil character, who looks more comical than wicked, leaving us completely bewildered as to whether one aught to take him seriously or not. (Take a good look at Luthor and his goofy gang in the pic on the right. How villainous do they really look?) His evil plan too is a complete joke: Luthor plans to drop some crystals from Superman's home planet into the ocean to create a complete new continent that would submerge America. He would then sell this new land at exorbitant prices. As Anthony Lane, in his review for The New Yorker (link), comments:

Picture my disappointment as I realized that, for all the pizzazz of Superman Returns, its global weapon of choice would not be terrorism, or nuclear piracy, or dirty bombs. It would be real estate. What does Warner Bros. have in mind for the next installment? Superman overhauls corporate pension plans? Luthor screws Medicare?

I mean, *why* should any country listen to Lex Luthor when he tries to sell a land illegally created and occupied only by him? Wouldn't some country rather just send an army and some B-52s to acquire the land instead? The comeuppance Lex receives for his deeds at the end is also a total gag: he, along with his girlfriend, get trapped on an island with no fuel in the helicopter and only coconuts for food. Compare this villain with Dr. Oc. from Spiderman 2 or the villains of X-Men 3: The Last Stand, and well, you just don't have a very attractive villain.

Now about Superman. "Any guy, provided that he looks like a black-haired Adonis, can play the superhero. So the real deal here is to find someone who can play Clark Kent" (Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle, link). And this is precisely where Brandon Routh fails. Clark spends more than half of the movie trying to entice already-engaged Lois Lane, ultimately realizing there's just *no* hope. As it turns out, Superman, not Lois Lane's fiance, is the father of her son (Superman had sex with Lois Lane in Superman II, released in 1980). When Superman finds this out at the end though, he just kisses Lois and his son goodbye!

The Superman-saves-Boeing747-LoisLane-and-SpaceShuttle-simultaneously is probably the only real jaw-dropping scene. Basically, if you've seen the trailer of Superman Returns, you've seen all that is worth seeing. And,

if Superman is such a paragon, how come he wants to save a species so universally dumb that not a single member of it recognizes him when he puts on a pair of glasses? (Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, link)

Recylotronics

2006-07-11T13:27:00.000+05:30

It's not till you start throwing something away that you realize its value.
With our old AIWA deck falling apart, Dad decided to get a new music system. Not having had a good experience with AIWA it was quickly determined that we would go only for Sony (we had bought the AIWA system before the AIWA company was bought over by Sony). Mom then raised the possibility of exchanging our AIWA deck for a discount. Suddenly, I found my eyes filling with tears for our deceased deck (note: slight exaggeration).

So I decided to try to put the deck to some good use. First, I went over what was wrong with the old system: Chews up cassettes, CD changer not revolving, no DVD/MP3 capabilities, and radio not working since we left the antenna back in Patna when we moved. A small screw driver and two hours of time proved to be enough to fix the CD changer. An old wire cut, slit and slightly modified proved to work decently enough as an antenna. Cassettes though, still don't work, and MP3s don't play. Since most of our songs are mp3s, we went ahead and bought a touch-screen Sony AZ deck which can read mp3s right off a pen-drive and can be connected to a computer through a USB wire.

As for the old AIWA system, I convinced my parents not to sell it, and moved it into my room. With the proper wire from Pallika bazaar, I connected its auxillary input to the PC in my room and presto: 1500W speakers for my computer! The picture on the left shows the set-up. Since the deck's radio now works, I have started listening to FM a lot (I am thoroughly bored with the MTech/7Heaven developers ad on radio, and if you agree please drop a comment). The wire you see hanging on the wall is the new antenna for the radio.

Now this is recycling!

The Pre-Departure Orientation

2006-07-08T23:22:00.000+05:30

Attended USEFI's Pre-departure Orientation for students going to America this year (for those who have no idea, USEFI stands for United States' Education Foundation in India). This was definitely USEFI's best organized program so far and they served tea and lunch too :-) The fact that this time they charged everybody 150 bucks might have had something to do with that though...
The program was held not at USEFI's building but at the American Center on Kasturva Gandhi Marg. The first thing that hit me when I reached the building at eight-thirty in the morning was the long line. See, these guys have got to show they're an American establishment and that they're really tight on security. So outside the main boundary wall, you wait in a line, till a guy scans you with a hand held metal detector. Then you are allowed to enter the outer gate, where you wait in another line to enter the building. When you enter the building door, first a guard has you deposit your cell-phone; then you pass through one of those standing metal detectors and again, a guy runs over you with a hand-held metal detector. Meanwhile, if you have a bag or a purse, you are made to pass that through one of those X-Ray baggage checkers like you see at the airports. Gee, no wonder the line was so long. [All those who've read my previous post on 'Getting the American Visa' will sense a sense of deja-vu (you can read that incident HERE).] You might be wondering by now whether the American Center is like some second high-security home of the US Ambassador. No, it's actually more like a library and some auditoriums.

Once we were in, everyone was handed (A) A sheet containing the day's schedule; (B) The list of all the participants for the program (about 150), along with the university they were going to and their e-mail ids; (C) A thin booklet, 'The Student's Guide to Traveling Overseas' by American Express; and (D) a 120 page book titled ' USEFI - Pre Departure Orientation Booklet containing useful information on Educational, Social and Cultural Life in the USA'.
The book was very very detailed and definitely contained useful info covering everything from airport formalities, VISA, course credits and TAs to local slang, amount to tip waiters, personal hygiene, dating and sex. An example of one of the less (or more, depending on perspective) useful tips (page 62):

Patting a woman on her rear end is not appropriate, and will likely get your face slapped.

OR,

Never show your fist with the middle finger extended. This is an insult.

In the auditorium, I, Prerna Sekri (Yale) and two other dipsites, going to Drexel, took seats together. Once everyone had settled down, the first session began. On the stage sat the panel: a group of four Indians who are currently studying in America and two American girls who are doing their intern at USEFI. During the first half hour they talked about what to take, airport check-ins, what to do on the plane, port of entry, why not to carry pirated CDs, and so on. Then we had tea break outside the audi. The sponsors of the program (American Express, Centurion Bank of Punjab, two international cell phone companies, and ISE Cards) had counters, where the counter-people were giving the students critical information like why American Express Travelers Cheques are the best travelers cheques out there. They would hand out brochures, request you to fill your contact info, and hand you a free pen or bag marked Centurion Bank of Punjab or something like that.

After Tea, the same panel returned, this time discussing academic topics like Honor Code and Plagiarism in the US, course registration and syllabuses. However at the start of the session, Luna Das (one of the familiar faces from USEFI), announced that there was going to be a favorite recipe competition. Everybody was handed a sheet and was told to write down their favorite recipe and hand them in to her. After the academic-discussion session, she would announce the best recipes which would get prizes. The whole point of the exercise, according to her, was to emphasize that in the US, we students may need to cook sometimes. Unfortunately, since Ms. Das had specifically mentioned that no recipes for Maggi or omelets would be accepted (the two things I can cook really well), I did not really give an entry. Maybe I should listen to Mom more often, who has been frequently telling me for the past month to learn how to cook. First prize went to 'Baigan ka Bharta'. The recipe went something like this:
1. Baigan (according to number of people) 2. oil (a few tsp) 3. Onions (no mention of quantity) 4. salt (to taste) and some more things I don't remember, followed by equally abstruse instructions. And so, one by one, 5 people came on stage and read their artistic recipes out loud.
After 'My favorite Recipe', each sponsor was given ten minutes to make a presentation. So somebody from American Express came and showed us Powerpoint slides on how to use travelers' cheques (a useful presentation, I must say), a guy from Centurion Bank came and talked about different methods of transferring/carrying money internationally (another useful presentation) and another person came from Matrix mobile services and boasted about how Matrix mobile services were the cheapest (a not so useful presentation). Then we had lunch. I had assumed lunch meant buffet. I was wrong. It meant Nathu's packed packets - one nan, a tiny tiny bowl of rice, dal, and curry (missing sabzi if you ask me). When everybody was seated again in the audi, we were handed out a quiz: 4-page printouts of MCQs on USA and India. Luna Das announced not to cheat by discussing questions with the ones next to you. I don't know how many people heard her though, for when the prizes were announced, all three went to three kids sitting next to each other in the fourth row.

There was another session, where the panelists spoke on the culture life in the USA (dating, racism, etc) followed by the Grand Finale, a short play enacted by the same panelists about adjusting to life in America.

The whole program lasted a little less then seven hours and though it was 3:40 in the afternoon by the time I stepped out, the program proved to be very informative (and humorous).

Apart from the Pre-Departure Orientation

2006-07-08T22:33:00.000+05:30

1. Abhinav forgot (forgot!) to meet me yesterday. Either he's forgetful, or I'm not memorable enough. I couldn't reach him when I called him up in the day (after USEFI's thing) and when I finally reached him in the night, he seemed extremely grieved at this mistake and promised to make up for it by coming over to my house today morning - despite the fact that he had his train for Trichi today at 1 pm (he's joining NIT Trichi). Nevertheless, he kept his promise and dropped by at nine. He still has the same old accent and the askew corner front tooth. He's grown slightly plump too. We talked about life in general and how scattered our once close-knit DPS Patna gang has become, with everybody going off to different places. We talked about how, in Patna, we would spend spend two to three hours on the phone each day, planning what to study that day and discussing what we had already read. At times, one of us would call up the other, "hey, don't start history yet -- there's this really cool movie on HBO which I'm watching. why don't you watch it too." One day before the science exam (10th boards), "Do you realize we still haven't done the CBSE sample papers? Let's do it now." And we would do the whole paper over the phone. Tends to bring nostalgia for the old times. Waaaaaaah. I miss DPSP. And I'll miss RKP too, esp the hostel.

2. Attended Priyanka's Sis's marriage. Was at her home yesterday evening. Other dipsites were there too. Among those who I knew (and who knew me), included Dhruv Khattar, Aditi Mishra, Rahat Sud and Nikhil Dua. I say 'and who knew me' for there were other faintly familiar faces from school who I didn't really know.

Mixed Reactions

2006-07-08T22:10:00.000+05:30

(note: the following post refers to the blog's old ocean template)

Oh K, so this is my blog's new ocean design. I like it: it's calm, serene and professional.

But it has definately provoked many mixed reactions:

your new template is............is......is.........is............shit.

Your new template looks pretty much plain. Although it gives one a sense of calmness and coolness, yet it somehow it lacks the sense of excitement which drives one to read on. I am not criticizing! It is just my own personal opinion.

your blog looks awesome, much better that previous one

it's nice. but it's girlish. but it's nice. [by a girl]

it's good. but the previous one was not bad either. this one just might not suit the humor of your blog.

i like the new design more... very peppy. it's kinda cooling considering delhi weather.

Thanks for the critisism people, and please do leave some comments, especially covering things like,
>Looks - Doesn't suit the humor of your blog. Or, No I like it. It's cooool.
>Jokes - I liked the funtoosh random joke. What happened to that. Or, No I'm glad you removed it.
>Change - I like change. Keep changing your templates for variety. Or, Hell no, you force us to read your blog and keep changing designs so we have to adjust our eyes every time! Who do you think you are?!!

I'm not Lax

2006-07-06T17:57:00.000+05:30

Nikhil Agarwal called up yesterday (like every other day - not that I'm complaining, it's nice of him to keep in touch) and commented that I was getting lax in updating my blog. The truth is that I was really busy between 29th June and 3rd July since so many relatives were over. And frankly, the last few days have been rather bland. I am surprised how the site's counter went from 540 to 630 in four days (wow, people have actually started to read my stuff), so I decided to go ahead and update this page anyways.

Abhinav is in Delhi (we're old friends from DPS Patna, he was in Goa for the past two years). Aneesh and I had to go meet him today, but Aneesh suddenly ran off to Karnaal to some relatives and I didn't have Abhinav's phone number. When I finally managed to get it (it took me a good two hours and many contacts), I called him up to learn that he is leaving for NIT the day after (wonder why he chose NIT over St Stephen's). Today, he is at his Chacha's in Noida, so that leaves me with only tomorrow to meet him. And tomorrow is going to be a really hectic day - Predepature Orientation at the American Center from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm and Priyanka's Sis's marriage in the evening. Abhinav too has to pick up his mom from the train station sometime tomorrow, but we'll both try to somehow squeeze in a half-hour to meet up after two years.

Went out to buy some things for Golu's room. Golu is my cousin by the way who will stay with us for the next two years - he's doing his 11th and 12th from some school in Delhi. He's Golu only for nickname's sake, actually he's thinner than Avinash and two inches taller than me. Golu's parents (Mama/Mami) left a couple of minutes back. They left me richer by a pair of really cool shoes and some other stuff.

The Height of Boredom

2006-07-04T16:30:00.000+05:30

Oh Boy, I'm bored. Very bored. Very, very bored.
zzzzzZZZZZZZZZ.
zzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZ.
Oh, yeah, where was I?
So, I'm, like, at home right now. And I'm bored. Very Bored. Oh heck, you get the idea. Why did I keep the blog's caption, '...because sometimes a boring life can be interesting'. It should be more like, 'well most of the time its just plain boring'.
Anyways, yesterday was no different. I called up Rahul and Sana (who are still in Delhi) to see if they had any bright ideas on what to do. Superman, Kkrish, Ice Age 2, MI3, I had seen. Chup Chup Ke, Rahul had seen. Phir Hera Pheri, Sana had seen. The only movie left was 'When a stranger returns (A)', but that was only playing in Saket -- and as usual, Saket, at Rs. 150 a ticket plus transport plus food (we eat alot), is a bit expensive. Sangam, Chanakya and Priya were more like our range, but they were all showing Kkrish. What I love about these guys is that like me, they're often short on cash. While few of the RKP hostlers learnt how to manage their money in their years there, we just learnt how to spent it all in the first few days of the month and spend the rest of the month as total misers. Sana, after having spent thousands of bucks in R World, playing Counterstrike, is now too bankrupt to afford decent accomodation (our batch had to leave the hostel latest by June 15th). So now he's living in the dorm of some Aashram waiting for St. Stephen's classes to start on July 14th.
Anyways, with nothing better to do, we met at Priya where, after great thought, we decided to play pool at eighty bucks an hour. We spent the rest of our remaining cash on food, eating till we had only change left in our pockets. With no more money for an auto, we took the bus to our homes.

Priyanka's Sis's marriage on the 7th. Priyanka invited me for a dance n some skit to be enacted on that day (to practice for which I would have to go to her house today n tomorrow). I think that was a really noble gesture by her, especially considering how bored I am. Alas, I have to go out with Mama/Mami who want to get some stuff while they are in Delhi; Dad is behind me to listen to some Economics lectures recorded on tape; and I, well, am not a very good dancer.

2006-07-03T10:12:00.000+05:30

What do you get when you cross Universal Studios effects, intricate carvings, and a rich society adamnt on promoting its founder?

Akshardham

After dropping Nikku n Sinni didi at the airport yesterday (their college classes start today), we (mama, mami, Dad, Mom, and I) proceeded to Akshardham. At the entry of Akshardham, you are ordered to take off your belt, watch, wallet, and keychains, then pass through a metal detector, get frisked and wear them all back again. A lady stood at the side complaning that her pace maker had ticked off the metal-detector, thus the security personnel were not letting her in. She was desparately trying to explain to the guard that there was no way she could remove her pace-maker.

Once we were all in, we saw a long line to buy 125 rupee tickets for some show in some building somewhere inside Akshardham. I asked some of those standing in the line what the tickets were for, but all I got were replies like, "I don't know either" or "that's what I'm going to see too". Dad chuckled, "The sheer population of India insures that if you get two monkies to dance, start charging for the tickets, gather around fifty people, then in no time, the crowd will have increased manifold." But, after all we are Indians, so like the rest of India, we got into line to buy tickets; for what? we had *no* idea. Standing in the sun made us all thirsty, so we entered a room marked 'Filtered Drinking Water'. There was a row of taps there each labled, 'pani upar se piyen'. I don't know about you, but I couldn't figure out pani neeche se kaise peetein hain. The taps too were inside this tiny cubicles dug into the wall, so I found it really difficult getting my head and hand inside together.

After getting the tickets, we joined the line to enter the exhibit where the tickets would take us. The first exhibit turned out to be Sahajanand Pradarshan which used stuffed figures and dioramas complete with Universal Studio like effects of rain and lighting to showcase stages from Swaminarayan's life. Swaminarayan was the founder of the sect whose principles BAPS (the society behind Akshardham) believes in. And after half an hour of bosting about Swaminarayan, we were ussered out of that exhibit to the next. (I have nothing against Swaminarayan, but I do believe one should let Swamiji's work speak for itself and promote his teachings rather than trying to idolize him.)

The next exhibit, 'Nilkanth Kalyan Yatra', featured one of those huge I-MAX type screens (complete with I-MAX like sounds) that showed an hour long movie about Swaminarayan's life as a child. It portrayed how he left home at the age of eleven, barefoot and travelled through the Himalyas and across India. (Why didn't he just wear shoes? Is not wearing shoes a sign of greatness? Or plain stupidity?)

The third and final exhibit, rather the best one, featured specially designed peacock boats which floated through an artifical river (obviously pulled by chains underneath). On both sides were exhibits showcasing India's heritage and ancient Indian Emperors, scientists and their contributions to the society. Speakers on the boats explained the exhibits as we sailed through. However, something was wrong: almost ten minutes had passed and I had not seen a single hint of Swamiji. But I was not disappointed -- at the end, after praising Aryabhatta, Emperor Ashok, and the like, there was a diorama of Swaminarayan, portraying him among India's greatest personalities.

After the exhibits, we went to the fountain, overlooking a 50 feet tall statue of Swamiji) to watch the Sangeetmay Phuaarein (Muscial Fountain). Now this, I must comment, was beautiful. Using a combination of multiple water jets and lighting effects the fountain gave the effect of water dancing to music being played in the background. The fountain is one thing though, which cannot be described in words - one has to see it. After the water show, I gave a quick peak to the main Mandir of Swamiji. The extremely intricately carved and well degined Mandir shows the economic status of some of BAPS's and Swamiji's sect's followers (the more famous among them including the Ambanis).

It was eight by the time we left Akshardham so we came straight back home for dinner.

(Further Reading: You can find more about Swamiji HERE, more about his teachings HERE, more about BAPS HERE, and more about Akshardham's exhibits HERE and HERE)

500 hits and more

2006-06-29T23:56:00.000+05:30

The Site's Counter's crossed 500 and I'm having a really good time. Two completely unrelated statements of course (well, not necessarily, but they are). And by the way, its 500 not counting my visits for the counter excludes my IP addresses.

Kkrish, by the way, is a terrible movie. Only the last half-hour is bearable. In fact, it is not till 2.5 hours have passed that Kkrish gets a mask. And it is not till he gets his mask that we are introduced to evil Naseeruddin Shah's evilish plan. And logically, it is not till we see the evilish plan that Kkrish begins with all the action and chasses the bad guy, Shah. Till then all Kkrish does is dress like tarzan and serenade Priyanka Chopra. So we have a superman who dresses like Tarzan, jumps like Neo, falls in love like Shah Rukh Khan, and and dances like Shahid Kapoor. Oh, by the way, Kkrish's father, Rohit (from Koi Mil Gaya) is alive; so we basically have a double role by Hritik Roshan. Superman is to be released tomorrow. I hope we don't meet Lex Luthor at the end of the movie.

Mahendra mama & family (mami, Sinni and Golu) are here. Nikku didi has come too. We went to Metropolitan, Gurgaon today (Mohan bhaiya from IIT D and Sohan bhaiya came along too) . The usual food court and bowling at amoeba were in order. But is was pretty late by the time we went for bowling and amoeba was about to close in half an hour, so we all bowled in separate alleys. Once amoeba had closed and we had been shooed out of the parlour, I saw the amoeba guys proceed to play their own round of bowling :-(. Anyways, we're back now, its late and time to sleep.

DIPS Diary 05-06

2006-06-27T22:36:00.000+05:30

So, it's finally out. The diary has turned out very well, and as always, is very professionally done. Many agree that it is atleast ten times better than last year's (you can learn more about last year's DIPS Diary and see a cover shot HERE). However, as always the magazine has its ups and downs. And though we, in the Ed-Board, selected and edited the content, and designed many pages with the printers, a lot was beyond our control -- for a lot had to be approved. In fact, quite a number of the pages we had designed were later changed (esp. the page backgrounds for the first few sections). This year Udita Ma'am and Atika Ma'am were placed teacher-in-charge of the magazine as Ms. Mamta Sharma had to go to Germany in between.

The Pros: Professionally done. Thick, Glossy Pages. Great content.
Since this year, for the first time, we had a separate magazine for 11th and 12th, the literature is definately more mature. (Do take time out to read the literature section guys).
The Music Section is also very well done with its royal black background superimposed with band pictures. On a lighter note, in an interview with the band Parikrama (pg. 119), Kriti (co-editor) asks, "Do you have any message for the readers of the DIPS Diary?". Parikrama replies,

Use your phones for 'communication' purposes only.

He He (snicker).
The Class photos also look great over the green-red background. For the first time this year, we had class photos of the 12thies and 11thies (lucky class 11!)
The Horroscope is humorous, and so is our Vice-Principal's (Deepa Raghavan Maam's) write-up on SUPWs.

The Cons: Though many people liked the cover, I believe I've seen better covers. Every year the school magazine comes out with dumb covers. Now I know why. It's because many good ones never get approved. So who approves the cover? Well, who else but our own H'onourable Principal Dr. (Mrs.) Shyama Chona (don't forget: Awarded Padamshiri by the President). On a side note, it's not-so-surprising that I forget Lata Mangeshkar got a Padamshiri, but fail to forget that our principal (honorable and Dr. and Mrs.) got one and that too by the President (ooooh! - as if somebody else awards Padamshiris too).
This year over 20 covers were rejected, red ones and blue ones, good ones and very good ones, ones with ambigrambs (that read DIPS DIARY both right-side-up and up-side-down) and ones without. Let's look at some of those rejected (click on the images for a larger view):

All of the above covers were to be printed with metallic colors (do click on the covers for a good look, esp. the 3rd and 4th ones with the film strips - and see the photos in the film strips).

And what's the obsession with 'the cutting edge'? Last year we had the magazine title as 'Life at the cutting edge'. This year we were specifically told (by you know who) to title it, 'Life at the Winning Edge'. As you can see the final product has a shittier message, 'Cutting Edge to the Winning Edge'. Geez. Who thinks of these stuff? As Arjun Davar (a photo editor) once pointed out:

Next we'll have the Grinding Edge, then Chopping Edge, and maybe Shredding Edge and so on. And in the last year, we can write, 'Any fruit salad made?!!'

OKAY, so enough bitching about the cover (it's not that bad anyways).
Earlier today, when I showed the magazine to a friend's mother she first reacted, "Why is there so much of Madam Chona?" And I replied, "Well, we do have to get the magazine approved, you know..."
In the first 19 pages of the magazine, our principal appears 21 times, out of which 3 photographs are solo and 2 are a page big. One one page about her there is a balloon like you see in those advertising brochures:
which is really funny if you ask me because in last year's Dips Diary (page 3, edition 1, Interview with Principal) Ma'am said that she had received 192 awards already by last year. And now she has 100?

The Editors Speak pages (with the editors' words) and the head boys/girls messages have been cut down. Traditionally, the 4 editors got two pages and the four head boys/girls got another two. This year, both had been shortened to fit one page each (eg. one page for all 4 editors). And I found that pretty irritating since pages were incresed to include more and more staff and an entire section on the Principal. Right now, I can think of at least ten completely useless pages (including pages 115, 116, 117 and the last page) that could be cut down instead of Editors Speak.
When the Principal was proofreading the HOD's page, she was like, 'why not get write-ups about this teacher and that teacher'. As a result, 5 random teachers have 500 words of praise each about them. There should be one on Hussain Sir :-(

Chandini's Map of the school has not been included, and so have not two awesome posters by the students. With so many pages added on the staff and teachers (all at the last moment by our principal) the diary looks more like a staff brochure. And many backgrounds have been changed from the colors the Ed-Board consented on, to dull whitish ones.

Don't get me wrong, I love the DIPS Diary. (I helped make it after all). The quality of articles and content truly make this one of the best Dips Diaries. But I believe some things could have been better. If only the school gave the Ed-Board more freedom...

Anyways, the magazine is great, and thanks to the Ed-Board, esp. Sneha, Kriti, Pushpanjali and Suprateek for that. Atika Ma'am too has been a great help throughout. Chandini for the Music Section (well done!) and Siddharth for his wit.

Shadii?!! (and I'm not even 18 yet!)

2006-06-25T18:35:00.000+05:30

Dad, Mom and I went to this Hidesign showroom in south-ex for Mom wanted to buy a purse. Mom went over rows and rows of purses, rejecting each one with things like, 'not this kind of strap', or 'doesn't have a mobile pocket', or 'too many compartments'...
After half-an-hour, we still hadn't come up with anything and Dad turned to me and snickered, "agar mom kabhi tumhare liye isi tarah ladki dhoondegi naa, to tu to harhamesha ke liye unmarried rah jayega."

the AIIMS WAR ZONE

2006-06-24T23:15:00.000+05:30

Went to AIIMS EMERGENCY WARD today, and unfortunately NO, the patient was not me (laugh all you want at that joke, for that's the first and last piece of humor you'll find in this article).

Boy, the place is a war zone -- or at least like one of those medical centers on the front during a war. People, sick people, bullet shot people, almost dead people, and dead people - all on those movable hospital beds - being carried around in a overcrowded hall. Doctors and attendants running from pillar to post, from patient to patient.
As I was about to enter AIIMS, a peon roughly pushed me away from the door, while another guy in a lab coat rushed a 20-something person on a hospital bed through the Emergency door. The patient's hand was hanging from the side, his mouth wide open. As the bed crossed the door, the nurse standing nearby muttered to the guard, "he's gone".

The first room I entered was crowded, to say the least. Dozens of people hogging over a desk behind which stood two doctors. The patient with me described his symptoms to one of them. The doctor pointed down the hall to Medical Emergency (there's also surgical emergency, and another emergency whose name I forget). An Emergency Clinic is not like one of those usual hospital wings with rooms for every patient -- it's one hall with glass partitions at places. One hall, so the Medical Officer and his team can rush from person to person, case to case, examining them all. The patients were put on a hospital bed and aligned in rows in the room. When our turn came, the patient with me described his symptoms as headache, nausea and sudden blurred vision. The doctor first measured blood pressure: 150/120, quite high. Then we were told to get a CAT scan done, confirming that the doctor had in mind the same disease that I had feared for the patient, long before we had come -- brain tumor. Fortunately, with the CT scan done, tumor was put out of question and the culprit was identified as simply high blood pressure. Yet for confirmation the neuromedics doctor called the neurosurgeon. While we waited for him to appear I saw a doctor pushing an old granny on a bed across the ward towards the HDU center in one corner (in the HDU center, they had set-ups like the ICU where they can closely monitor the patients). Walking along side the granny, was presumably the granny's daughter (40s) and the granddaughter (12-13 years old). Suddenly, the 40-something lady yells, "She's turned blue! Woh gayi!" The doctor, as if shot with a dosage of adrenalin, gives a cry and runs with the bed into the HDU center. What happened to the granny, I do not know, but I later saw the 40-something lady desperately crying.

The neurosurgeon came, and he quickly dispelled a burst nerve. So all doctors agreed that blood pressure was the only logical answer. My patient was discharged and given some anti-hypertension medicines. Had any test turned out positive, the patient with me would have been removed from the Emergency Ward and hospitalized into one of the usual rooms upstairs.

According to wikipedia (link), AIIMS treats an astounding 1.58 million patients a year. The government spends over 500 crore rupees an annum on this single hospital. As a result, millions are given the best treatment facilitates at a minimal cost.

May the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.

Mission Impossible 3

2006-06-23T23:24:00.000+05:30

Ankita had described MI3 as fun and funny. And it was just that. Except that Mission Impossible movies are not supposed to be funny.
It had been near 20 days since the movie had been released, and worried that the movie would soon be taken down from the halls, I finally went to see the film today with Aneesh. The movie is great for all its action, but it does have it's down side. The story complexity in the MI movies has been decreasing with each movie: MI had a very complicated storyline with crosses, double-crosses and triple-crosses; MI2 had a pretty straight-forward storyline; and MI3 didn't have any storyline. Agent Ethan Hunt raises a hue and cry over his wife and some weapon called the 'Rabbit's Foot', but we never even come to know what the Rabbit's Foot actually is. Also when a car explodes behind Cruise (seen in trailer as well; pic on left, trailer HERE), he gets thrown to the side. And no matter how cute an agent's wife is, she'll never be allowed in any Top Secret US facillity or building as Ethan Hunt's wife is at the end.
However the movie gives you exactly what it promises: two hours of pure mindless, mind-blowing action. (see trailer HERE, watch movie HERE).

Chandigarh

2006-06-23T10:46:00.000+05:30

20th:
OK, so with Appa coming down with a migraine the plan of going to Mussoorie (with Appa, Omar n Ajit) fell to pieces, and so I tagged along with Dad n Mom to Chandigarh where Dad had some meeting. We reached there on the 20th night and checked in to the Union Territory Guest House (Chandigarh is a UT cause Punjab n Haryana keep arguing over who owns it).

21st Morning:
Now lucky Dad got to attend his meeting in some fancy conference room with important people. I, on the other hand got to go shopping with Mom. We went to the sector-17 market, which basically turned out like Patna's Maurya Lok (no fancy mall here), and shop for shoes and salwaar-kameez. Why, why, why do women always need more shoes? Anyways, I had my iPod with me -- so I plugged my ears with those little white earphones, randomly nodding every now and then as Mom pointed out clothes she liked. Of course, she immediately figured out I was hardly paying attention and stopped asking me for suggestions. The shop walas on the other hand, would get infuriated, wondering what I was doing in their shop - listening to music and snoozing on one of their couches (this was especially a problem when Mom walked off to another corner of the shop and the shop guy had no idea who I was with).

21st Afternoon:
So after five hours of shopping in Chandigarh for stuff we could get in Delhi, we had lunch and rendezvoused with Dad. It was finally time to go sightseeing. Unfortunately, it didn't take long to figure out that there isn't too much to see in Chandigarh. We first saw the rose garden that did not have any roses in the summer. Then we saw the Museum of Evolution of Life, which fortunately was open in the summer and turned out to be slightly interesting. The Museum was divided into 3 sections - the first contained unrealistically colorful paintings of exotic birds, all painted by some Jasbir Singh (or some name like that); the second section was a dome with large wall portraits of different stages of evolution of life on the earth; and the third section had life models of dinosaurs and humans during evolution.
On the way we saw a double-decker bus (like those New York tourist shuttles) cheerfully painted 'Hop-On-Hop-Off tourist coach'. So we hopped on hoping that the bus would show us some good places in Chandigarh. Now in a tourist bus, the driver/conductor/guide is supposed to tell the tourists, "hey, this is this place, and that is that place" - but no, why should Chandigarh tourism give you that luxury? So the bus basically drives around the city like any other bus, stopping at times for people to get on and off, and drives back to the starting point. Tour over, and we had no clue as to what we had seen in the past hour. (Once the bus even came to a point where the driver said we would stop for a five minute break, but it was not till Dad asked that we found out that the place was Punjab University, where Manmohan Singh had studied.) I was so bored by then that when our car driver stopped at the Rock Garden, I urged him to drive on -- later I found out that that's the only place worth seeing in Chandigarh.

22nd:
This day was definitely more eventful. We went to Anantpur Sahib where we saw three Gurudwaras and a 300 crore project by the Punjab govt to make a museum-cum-heritage complex on Sikh history. Then we proceeded 125 kms off, to the Bhakra Nangal Dam, India's first multipurpose hydro project built under the guidance of Nehru (then leaders from over nine countries came to see the Dam). The Dam itself is three times the height of the Qutub Minar and the falling crystal blue water created quite a scene. Cameras are not allowed due to security reasons, but not only did I manage to sneak a camera in, I also took a photo of one of the smaller dams (I could not take a pic of the main dam due to tighter security but its pic is available online HERE).

22nd Evening (4 pm):
So we came back to the guest house from Bhakra Nangal, switched cars, and left for Delhi. On the way, we met a traffic jam apparently caused by gaon ke sardarjis who had parked tractors across the road and were complaining that they weren't getting electricity. Soon the local DIG and SDO came (in that order) to clear up the jam. When Dad saw the SDO, he started explaining to me the dynamics of the SDO's and the daroga's work. A chalak daroga would convince the gaon walas to clearup, then later lodge an FIR against them, while a good SDO had to time his appearance perfectly - if he comes too soon, the infuriated sardarjis would refuse to move; if he comes too late, the situation may get out of hand. Once the jam cleared, our driver, irritated by the hour delay, turned on the car's siren and the red beacon light on top wailing through the crowd at full speed.
We finally stopped at a place to eat. I did not eat then but my hunger quickly returned when I saw a Baskin Robbins counter along the highway from where I got a Brownie-a-la-mode ice-cream for a hundred bucks (remember my previous comment about naming over-priced items?)
It was not till I finally heard Simran's voice on the car FM that I knew we were near Delhi. We reached home at 11:30 pm.

the BOOKBAG

2006-06-19T00:28:00.000+05:30

OK, so I managed to squeeze in all the classes I wanted.

See in Duke you have to decide your classes quite early. For me, that means NOW. Now, that is, at least for the first semester.

Though the actual registration for courses begins on 12th July at 12pm EST US time (2am IST), the classes fill up so quickly, that a one minute delay in selecting a class that day may devoid you of that class for the entire semester. So before the 26th of this month, you can go online to the Duke site and stuff your courses into what they call, 'the bookbag'. And the instant registration opens that fateful day in July, you hit submit, and the site will attempt to register the courses in your bookbag for you. If, unfortunately, a course in your bookbag is no longer available, all is not lost - you have a secondary bookbag with your second most desired courses. Pick a course from that then.

Anyways, so I have successfully planned my bookbag (with a little help from Dad and Mili). Now Engineering requirements dictate me to take one Chem and one Engineering (EGR53), so those are decided. I took one Econ so that I can switch from Engineering to Econ if I desire later. And there's also a Math course and EGR10 (which is only a half credit and a complete joke). Now I sat down with the aim of trying to get classes on the East Campus (near the freshman dorms) and trying to get all classes in the morning (guess a bit of high-school kid is still in me). What I ended up instead is with 12 of 13 classes on West and classes way into the afternoon.
My current bookbag looks like this:

(Click on image for larger view)

Very packed Mondays and Fridays as you can see.
Anyways, so I won't be sleeping that morning on the 12th of July, waiting for that fateful |Submit| button to appear.

FIFA World Cup 2006

2006-06-18T03:01:00.000+05:30

The World Cup is here, and everybody seems to be cashing in with ads like that of IBM's Lenovo sporting Ronaldiniho or Maruti Swift playing ball (it's slogan? Wanna Play?!).
It would have seem inappropriate if this blog didn't follow suit. Hence the World Cup logo.

Anyways, the Italy vs. USA match was just drawn 1-1. And though wild things are known to happen with Italy around, this game definitely got out of hand. With everybody pushing and shoving and kicking like kids fighting over a birthday toy, the referee started distributing colorful cards like confetti. The game saw one goal by Italy, another own goal by Italy, 37 fouls, 18 shots, 16 off-sides (almost all by Italy), 3 Yellow Cards, 3 Red Cards, 1 American bleeding in the face (McBride, seen in photo, hit by De Rossi, resulted in De Rossi's red card), and finally ending with just 9 American Players vs. 10 Italians. Wewf! However, the commentators believe that apart from De Rossi's red card, the other two were way too harsh on the referee's part.

Oh, and speaking about football, Sid mailed me the other day with this really hilarious NIKE ad that was telecast during EURO 2004. Watch the clip HERE. (Do See It)
When you've seen that watch another funny clip on the football fever HERE.

Hey people, be sure to check out the World Cup Special Links on the side. I thought they were pretty cool.

Honor Among Thieves

2006-06-16T14:19:00.000+05:30

Finally finished the damn novel by Jeffrey Archer. Had started it at 1 AM in the night. Minus a short 7-hour nap in between, it took me a good 6.5 hours to complete; that too, when I speed-read during the last few chapters.

The book turned out to be an average Jeffrey Archer, and there were certain elements which appeared unconvincing such as, why a Yale professor, who had only done classroom teaching for the CIA so far, was suddenly sent on one of CIA's most critical missions in Iraq without any field training. The first half of the story was definitely more intriguing than the latter.

Having read eight out of twelve Archer novels, I see his books falling into five categories:
1) The Linear Plot: These include the likes of Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less; and Shall We Tell the President?, both books following a straight-forward and very simple plot of the protagonist(s) going after the villain. It is often Archer's writing style and not the plot that lend these books its vibrance.
False Impression also falls into this category but is a bit more convoluted, yet failing to excite.
2) The Duo Plot: Kane and Abel, Sons of Fortune. Two people, when their lives cross. Moderate level of complexity, typical Jeffrey Archer novels, giving a sense of deja-vu once you've read even one.
3) Spy Game: The Eleventh Commandment, Honor Among Thieves. High number of crosses and double-crosses, rendering a high level of intricacy often making the storyline a bit too complicated.
4) A class apart: As The Crow Flies is definitely Archer's Best. The story is gripping, and the writing style is one I've never experienced before. You start reading from the hero's (Charlie's) point of view for a few years, say 1900-1919, then from his girlfriend's point of view from 1918-1921, then from his rival's point of view from 1920-1925, and so on finally ending 70 years and 740 pages later, again from Charlie's point-of-view. Each time you switch perspective, a few years, like 1920-1921, are repeated so though Charlie's rival may seem like a bad guy from Charlie's side, he actually seems not-so-bad when you see the same incidents through the his own point of view.
5) This Category includes The Prodigal Daughter, First Among Equals, A Matter of Honor, and The Fourth Estate: books that I so far haven't read.

His Prison Diaries (read all three), and Short Stories (read only few) of course fall into different genres and I'm not too fond of either.

Oh, by the way, it just started raining outside, and boy it's raining. Dad commented a few days back that the biggest difference he saw between Patna and Delhi was the weather, Delhi being visited by frequent cloudbursts and rainstorms. Having lived in Delhi for the past two years, I assured Dad that wasn't the case. However, the sudden increase in the number of storms in the past month has put my argument on the back foot.

Happy BDay Siddharth Malhotra

2006-06-15T13:24:00.000+05:30

Oh, I am extremely sorry Sid. Happy Birthday to you too.
(His birthday was yesterday, along with Sneha's)

Happy Bday Sneha

2006-06-14T04:10:00.000+05:30

Sneha's Birthday Today.

And don't ask me why I still haven't slept: it's cause I was watching the Brazil versus Croatia FIFA worldcup match; and though Brazil won 1-0, the game was a very very interesting one, with the teams playing slowly and carefully, constantly making multiple complicated passes.

shahi-gulz-pulz-e-sadhasdjk-dinner

2006-06-13T23:44:00.000+05:30

Dinner at The Taj today. With Rajender uncle (n aunty) who had come from America. Not too much to say except the food was good as usual. We first had coffee in the lounge. I had a caremelocapechino, which was basically a normal caramel coffee except for the price, of course, at two hundred a cup. Then, we had dinner at the 'Haveli' as Taj likes to call their overpriced restaurant. I noticed that the men in suits took the order, and the men in sherwani served them. Dad and Mom had veg thalis, which I must say looked exceptionally tempting, served in an unusual silver plate. Uncle, Aunty n I had Lamb-Raan and Chicken. I fail to understand why hotels like these often love to complicate their menu, just to make dinner sound exotic. I mean instead of calling mixed vegetables as 'mixed-vegetables' they'll call it 'subz-e-gulastan' or some shitty half-urdu-half-hindi-no-english word. Note: the no-english part is important as it helps to confuse the foreigners. Then below the bombastic word will be an equally garbled explanation: 'cauliflower, beans and tomato tossed in robust garlic sauce'. It's not till you receive your order that you realize you basically have, well, mixed vegetables. So our golustian-kebabs turned out to be shami kebabs and our _________ (fill in with some sexy name) chicken was basically butter chicken. I guess these names are just to make it easier for your conscience to shed money on dishes which you might have otherwise avoided. I mean, come on, half-a-grand for baigan-aloo sounds a bit steep, but if you're talking about shahi-ringna-bataka-nu-shaak, well that's a different story.
But big names aside, the food was delicious. And as we feasted, a guy danced on a 3-meter-by-3-meter, 3-inch-high platform in one corner. Now this is the weird part. So we have a guy wearing a golden bird suit: a golden loongi on his lower half and a golden top which covered all except his nipples. Very unusual. Then from about waist length were tied wings with their other ends tied at the wrists, so when he spread his arms out wide, the golden wing spread like one of those Chinese paper fans. And he danced to some nutty tune which was interspersed with Ohm Shanti-hi, Shanti-hi, Shanti...
After the birdie performed his little dance, he was off, only to return fifteen minutes later now dressed as peacock. This time when he spread his hands, (you guessed it!) a peacock wing - complete with feathers - spread out. I managed to get a shot of peacock-man with my mobile phone camera. But as you can see, it's not a very good camera (VGA).
After our meal, we went upstairs to Uncle's room. The first thing I noticed was that Taj has replaced their usual CRT TVs in their rooms with 37 inch widescreen LG LCD televisions. Good idea, unfortunately, cable, here in India, is not designed for widescreen TVs. Conventional TVs (and normal computer monitors) have a length to breath ration of 4:3, for which cable shows are designed. When you view that on a widescreen (16:9 or 5.33:3) you either get a horizontally -stretched picture, or a picture with one inch of its top and bottom cut off. And sure enough, when I ran the TV, the pictures were stretched.Rest of the room pretty much was the same from the last time I entered a Taj room (a month ago, to meet another uncle) -- centralized control for lights, AC and power blinds; 4 phones (one at table, one bedside, one toilet, one fax machine - all connected to the same phone line); 3 inch matchsticks; candy bar, etc, etc. In fact they still hadn't fixed the fire plan: on backside of the main door in every room is a fire exit plan. Below the diagram is written "In case of fire, exit using the fire exits shown, or sound the alarms marked on the map". Unfortunately, though fire exits are clearly marked on the map, no alarms are marked.

So that's all folks, tonight's story, now its off to sleep for me.

Happy BDay Nimmi

2006-06-13T13:22:00.000+05:30

Namrata's Birthday today.

And by the way, the second Artemis Fowl is much better.

Women

2006-06-12T14:12:00.000+05:30

I am always surprised how for women, shopping is often the objective, and not the process leading to the objective.

Another One:

Artemis Fowl

2006-06-12T13:17:00.000+05:30

Just finished the first of Artemis Fowl, which I had started an hour after breakfast. Have started the second one. The first book was OK -- definitely NOT the oh-so-amazing-i-would-die-without-book some fans claim it to be. Like Eragon, John Grishams and the later hefty editions of Harry Potter, you are compelled to read on just to know what ultimately happens at the end -- NOT due to an interest in the plot. And frankly, such books give me more of a headache and less of a feeling of satisfaction of having completed a good novel. Oh and sorry for all you John Grisham fans out there, I hate his books -- they are slow and lackluster. Of course, a good critic wouldn't generalize the comment for all Grishams after having read only one, but what can I say - I am not a very good critic. Either that, or the John Grisham I read was so terrible that though I rarely leave a half-read book, I had to leave that one in the middle. And I am pretty confident it was the latter reason. By the way, the Grisham that I half-read is considered to be one of his best. Wonder what his worst are like...
Why can't these authors learn from the likes of Dan Brown and Jeffrey Archer?

I am continuing with the second Artemis Fowl, hoping it is more involving. All authors have their good and bad books, and I'm hoping Artemis Fowl and the Artic Incident is better than its prequel. Talking about an author's good and bad books, I still remember the first Alistair Maclean I read, 'The Golden Rendezvous' was so compelling, I read on and on in the bathroom, during the middle of the night, and god knows where else, till the story ended. (It took me so long cause I could only read ten pages at a time as I had to hide from Dad who wanted me to study something else.) And another Maclean which I read (something about a plane crashing in the artic) was so boring that I felt like trashing the book after a hundred pages -- the only fact that prevented me from doing so was that it belonged to the school's library.

Wishing me luck for the second Fowl...
-Ankit

Happy B'Day Dad!

2006-06-11T09:57:00.000+05:30

Gathering Reading Material

2006-06-10T23:08:00.000+05:30

I have been very vella over the past few days (and you can see that from the fact that I actually wrote 200 words on IE 7). So I decided to go get some good books, for I don't know when next I'll have so much spare reading time. I remembered some very very big book shop I once saw from the car, but neither Dad nor I could recollect the exact location. So acting on a hunch we went to South-Ex. Ultimately we couldn't find the shop we were looking for and ended up driving to Dad's favourite bookshop, Teksons. We also saw The Bookworm on the way but that was on the opposite side of the road. Anyways, we had stopped in Reebok on the way to buy Dad a pair of sneakers, and as a result it was already eight when we reached Teksons and the shop was on the verge of closing for the day. Reluctantly, we turned around and started to leave when Dad saw a sign for Midland bookstore. Though Midland looks tiny from the outside it is actually of a pretty decent size, for the shop continues into the basement.

I had left home with the aim of buying books of new authors this time, authors apart from Robin Cook, Sidney Sheldon, Alistair Maclean and Archer, in an attempt to widen my reading base. So when I entered Midland I straight-away lunged for the fiction shelf and picked up a Jeffrey Archer (Honor Among Thieves), an Alistair Maclean (Fear is the Key) and the sixth Harry Potter (yes, I still haven't read it). Feeling guilty though, I decided to buy something else too and upon Dad's suggestion bought Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'. And on the way out I also spotted the Artemis Fowl series and bought the first two (four Artemis Fowls have been published so far and I plan to buy the other two if I like these). Dad, on the other hand, got 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail', 'Blink - The Power of thinking without thinking' and 'How to Read a Book'. I found the title of the last book slightly self-contradictory to its format of a book, for if one doesn't know how to read a book how is he supposed to read that one?
Anyways these nine books should be enough to keep me busy for the next week.
And if anyone knows the name of that very very very big book shop I saw somewhere in Delhi (sorry, I don't have any more details) please tell me.

Documenting 9/11

2006-06-09T16:53:00.000+05:30

The following is a documentary on how the 9/11 may have been an act of the U.S. Government. I know the idea sounds wacky, but unfortunately, it doesn't sound so wacky once you've seen this clip.

Click HERE to view.

This is really a great documentary on 9/11 comparable perhaps only to Farenheight 9/11.

Media Polls

2006-06-09T14:02:00.000+05:30

Sometimes, I'm surprised at the absurdity of news channel polls. A few minutes ago Times Now showed a thirty minute video on how Germany was the world favorite for this year's world cup. It showed a clip of the coach of Germany expressing his confidence in the team. Then it showed Germans and German fans praising the team. And after all this German glorification Times Now holds an SMS poll: Do you think Germany will win this year's world cup? And ten minutes later, when the results come out, an enthusiastic newsreader reads: "See, even the public agrees with us; they believe Germany will win this year's world cup!"
On another note, I've been seeing a number of Mission Impossible 3 trailers. Of course, since the movie released today in India, that should not be astonishing. What is surprising though, is that none of these trailers are by Paramount Pictures. One is by DHL, "DHL celebrates MI3"; one is by some clothing company, "Get into style with MI3"; and one is by Nokia.

Microsoft Updates: IE 7

2006-06-09T11:50:00.000+05:30

All you Microsoft critics out there, face it: Microsoft has been successful in making its applications the de-facto standard for much day-to-day work. Not that I disagree with the critics; they are very much justified in calling Microsoft the copycat it is. First came the concept of the Graphical User Interface and the option of a mouse, which the Microsoft conveniently ripped off from Apple's Macintosh. After that came the concept of web browsers. Netscape was unarguably the King in browsing history. King, that is, until Windows 95 Second Edition came out. Windows conveniently started bundling Internet Explorer with Windows 95. And not-so-surprisingly, the looks and buttons of IE looked a lot like Netscape. Overcome with nostalgia, some people continued using Netscape for a few years. But soon, no one bothered to load a second browser when one already existed, and Netscape gradually faded from our memories. Then came Sun's Java. Microsoft started packaging Internet Explorer with Microsoft Virtual Machine, a pretty good replica of the existing Java. Sun Microsystems filed a case against Microsoft and unlike previous battles with Apple and Netscape, Microsoft lost this one to Sun; hence now we're back to downloading Sun Java separately for Internet Explorer.

And then came Firefox. Firefox is a free open-source browser. Meaning, the code of which is freely available on the net. If you have some contributions to make you can add/modify the code and submit it to them. If Mozilla likes it, they'll implement it. In fact, this was how Firefox was created in the first place, with the help of developers around the world, sitting at home. As a result Firefox became a very simple, easy-to-use, no-strings-attached, user-oriented browser. (Some of its concepts, like tabbed browsing, already existed though, in browsers like Opera.) Apparently, Firefox became very popular in a very short span of time. And Microsoft, good as it is in copying, has now implemented Firefox's design in its new Internet Explorer, version 7.
The Older IE 6:
Firefox:
The New IE7 (beta 2):
(The Pros:) In IE7, Microsoft has done away with the BIG buttons and needless toolbars replacing them with more subtle smaller (and fewer) buttons to maximize the page-view window. Now, like Firefox, we just have a back, forward, stop and refresh button along with the address bar in the same line. IE has even copied the idea of having a search bar next to the address bar. Unfortunately, since IE is NOT open-source, not too many different search plugins exist and, unlike Firefox, I have not been able to find search plugins for ebay.in (not ebay.com), download.com, dictionary.com, thesaurus.com , answers.com, images.google.com , etc, etc. Like Firefox (again!), IE 7 supports tabbed browsing and live feeds.
(The Cons:) Microsoft has removed the menu bar (file, edit, view...) from the default layout. Though you can enable this back, it appears below the standard toolbar (back, forward, stop), a positioning I find very awkward. Also, back and forward are on one side of the address bar, stop and refresh are on the other. Unfortunately for Mr. Gates, it is going to take more than just copying Firefox to make me switch to IE.
Currently, Microsoft has only released the beta 2 version of IE7 which can be downloaded HERE. Firefox, as usual, is available HERE.

Smile Plz

2006-06-08T23:09:00.001+05:30

Send this to a friend, click on the white email VV icon below

MaleRestrooms.com - The Problems of Public Bathrooms

2006-06-08T12:55:00.000+05:30

Simply Hilarious

malerestrooms.com

And when you're done with that: femalerestrooms.com

The Big Red Button

2006-06-07T12:32:00.000+05:30

These are by far the best sites ever

This one is sure to drive you bonkers:
http://img252.echo.cx/img252/8159/006wo.swf

And if thats not enough, do see this, it's beautiful once you actually get to view the page.
http://home.comcast.net/~wolfand

Essex Farms

2006-06-06T23:14:00.002+05:30

Went to Essex Farms (for the first time) today. Rishabh, Sidharth, Shashank, Kritika, Ankur, n Priyanka came too. For 150 rupees you get to play all the screen arcade video games you want plus one game of bowling. All the screen arcade video games sucked. Bowling was fun though. Though the last and only time I had bowled was at a friend's Bday party in America in grade 3, I was actually leading the score till about middle of the game today. Then my luck started wearing off and I finished fourth.
Was feeling thirsty. Went to the snack counter there. Asked for Coke. Counterman said the 300 ml Coke was for 20 rupees. I told him that a 300ml bottle has printed MRP at Rs 10. He said that they didn't serve it in a bottle. So I paid the money, and he proceeded to take out a bottle, empty it into a plastic glass and hand the glass over. (note: interesting as this may seem, what he did was perfectly legal. Though you may never charge more than the printed Maximum Retail Price for something, you may charge for the service, say pouring it out in a glass).
Played pool too. I played exceptionally well for somebody who hardly plays pool (won one out of three games against Ankur and Kritika). The fact that those too were amateurs too might have had something to do with it though.

Getting the American Visa : Part 2

2006-06-06T18:44:00.000+05:30

OK. So yesterday I went and picked up my passport from the VFS Center in Nehru Place. Apparently, the embassy has outsourced the collection of applications and passport delivery portion of the VISA application procedure to a private company VFS or 'Visa Facilitation Service'. When I told Dad the following details, he aptly described the quality of VFS's service as 'American Style, Indian maintenance'.
When you open their website (www.vfs-usa.co.in) with Internet Explorer (I currently use version 7), IE says, "There is a problem with this website's security certificate. The security certificate presented by this website has expired or is not yet valid." When you call the VFS center while they make you hold, a prerecorded message says "to track your passport status, you can also message US VISA [passport number] to 7333. Try doing so and you will receive an error message, 'this facility is not available'.

You can collect your passport between 2-4 pm from the VFS center the day they receive it from the embassy (which prints your visa on it and sends it to them). If you don't collect it that very day, they courier it to you. So basically, if you don't want to leave your precious passport in the hands of some courier company, you'll end up calling VFS quite frequently.

Also, VFS charges, at the time you apply for your visa, Rs. 281, for delivering your VISA. However, till a few days back, should you decide to pick up your VISA in person, instead of refunding the delivery charge, they charged a further 56 rupees!!! And we thought that the school bookshop wali aunty was the biggest looteri aunty there is!!

As I was saying, I went there yesterday. At the gate they give you a token and ask you to submit your mobile phone if you're carrying one (for security reasons i guess; but why they take away your phone and not check you for guns or knives beats me, as they do not use a metal detector, nor do they bother to frisk you). The center is basically a room about 24 by 24 feet with chairs lined in rows like a conference hall facing six counters. An electronic display board in one corner is supposed to display the token numbers (note the word 'supposed'). As you've probably figured out, it wasn't working. So, the girl from the counter screamed out the next token number. Unfortunately, she was sitting behind a completely glassed counter and we had to strain our ears hearing her. Fortunately, a guy was standing at the center of the room who would hear her and relay the number by shouting it out. Unfortunately he would disappear from time to time or start flirting with a co-worker, so we would have to strain our ears anyways. And when my token number came (no, I did not hear it called, I went and stood at the counter in advance), I picked up my passport, and well, left.

The F Word Explained

2006-06-05T23:03:00.000+05:30

Do you use the F-word frequently? No need to be ashamed! Be Proud! See the magic of the word for yourself.
NOTE: This dumb clip goes on showing the word 'LOADING' even after the movie has loaded. So just wait for 2-4 minutes for it to load and then click on the play arrow even if the word 'LOADING' is still visible. And turn your speakers on.

See this clip and others HERE

Ha!

2006-06-04T23:36:00.000+05:30

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas

2006-06-04T20:03:00.000+05:30

Have completed about ten missions of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Apparently, this is the third part of the GTA trilogy. And it is the most interesting game I have ever played after Max Payne 2. Carl Johnson (CJ) is the game's protagonist who has been released from jail after 5 years. His Grove City home looks like a typical run-down south city full of punks, gangs, guns, drugs and corruption. The game is very detailed (the cars you drive have 10 radio stations with no repeats). As a result the game comes only on DVD and takes about 5GB on your hard disk. Anyways, you basically have to help CJ's gang get on the top of the San Andreas neighborhood. You do this by butchering (yes, literally butchering) the enemy, buying all property around town, etc, etc. Meanwhile, you can go to the gym, gain some muscle; steal a taxi and make money driving people around; make girlfriends and take them out on a date; or pick up a prostitute.
There are so many things to do that the game may take months to complete (no exaggeration)!
Quoting from gamespy:
"Maybe it's a simple drive-by, or a bank robbery, or an assassination mission. Maybe you need to snipe ten gang members on a rooftop, kill their leader, and chase the final gang member down by boat. Or maybe you need to steal a motorcycle, chase down a helicopter along the freeway, and shoot it down with a missile launcher while being chased by an entire police department." Yup, that's the game. (Read full review with a few screenshots HERE.)
There is also the report of a modification that makes the game extremely explicit (you get to have sex with your girlfriend). This mod has placed the game's creators, Rockstar Games, under great heat. More about the mod HERE and HERE.

Saw XXX2

2006-06-04T16:15:00.000+05:30

Saw XXX2: State of the Union from one of the DVDs. Terrible movie. Saying anything about it will be a waste of my time and yours. Basically, the US Head of Security comes up with a plot to kill the president (the plot requires secretly transporting tanks and helicopters via an aircraft carrier and then killing the president with a pistol). The director NSA and another security guy have no idea who to go to so they pick up this punk from jail who crashes out of jail full of patriotism, scoops up a dozen more punks, who then together fight their way through tanks, choppers and tons of troops and save the President from being shot by his own armed personnel. Whoopee! Van Diesel (from XXX 1) was so much better than Ice Cube who looks more like a household sweetie in this movie.

DVD Plays

2006-06-04T02:00:00.000+05:30

Took a look at the DVDs Aamir left behind a couple of days ago. Gotta return them by the 6th. Would have made a copy; unfortunately, I don't have a DVD writer, just a combo drive (you know, DVD reader n CD writer). So here I have in front of me, National Treasure, Aviator, Alexander, Troy, XXX2, Transporter 2, The Fast and the Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Ocean's Eleven, Ocean's Twelve, Million Dollar Baby, Matrix, Matrix Reloaded, Matrix Revolutions, The Godfather, The Godfather 2, The Godfather 3 and Constantine. Wewf! So much to see, so little time.

I just finished watching Ocean's Eleven. Definitely a much better movie than its sequel (which the entire hostel saw in Priya when it was released; probably because there were not too many great movies viewing then). In Ocean's Eleven at least the gang comes up with an elaborate plan to rob a high security casino in Las Vegas and actually carries it out. In Ocean's Twelve, they just get trapped in prison, get out with the help of contacts, find out the position of a priceless gold egg through another contact, and steal the egg, which was conveniently being transported via backpack without any high-tech security (the entire gang simply had to switch bags). Ocean's Twelve then ends with the sweet n sexy cop AKA Catherine Zeta Jones joining the thieves for a gamble. Of course Ocean's Eleven is not that amazing either; it just outshines its sequel. In fact if you want to watch a good thief movie just go see Entrapment again: at least that has more Catherine Zeta Jones.

Getting the American VISA

2006-06-02T20:41:00.000+05:30

Yup I got it.
Interesting experience though.
The interview appointment letter clearly states "not to appear for your VISA interview more than 15 minutes prior to the appointment time". If I had listened though, I may not have gotten my VISA today. Fortunately, I'm not a very good listener.

I was called at 11:30 am. I arrived at ten. I was interviewed at one-thirty pm.
Dad's IAS batchmate's son, Tushar (IIT Guwahati, going to Minnesota), had his visa- appointment today at eleven. Apparently he had warned my dad that the embassy is unable to abide by the interview timings so if you appear at the time stated, those before you would still be waiting and you would have to stand in line anyway. So I went early.

The first thing that hits you when you appear at the embassy gate is the long line. (Guess bureaucracy transcends boundaries) You have to wait outside in a line for pre-screening. Though Mili had warned me earlier to wear cotton (thanks anyway Mili), fortunately today morning it had rained and the was no sun.

Next to the line was a 14" TV attached to a pole where they were showing still images of airplanes and "Enjoy your visit to the USA" type messages scrolling in dumb word-art. Meanwhile, a small speaker sang, 'America, America god shed thy grace on thee....And crown thy hood with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea' in the most terrible tune I've ever heard.
To get an idea of what it sounded like, picture this: a forty-year-old man, who has just realized that he is about to be run over by a forty-wheel-truck is screeching 'America, America' when somewhere in the background a lady goes 'Oh Yeah America!'. Yup, that would be an accurate representation of what it sounded like. This song was interspersed with bulletins on how to properly have your fingerprint taken and the important forms you must have. During the bulletin the speaker attached to the TV spoke in English while a separate speaker gave the Hindi translation simultaneously. The result? If you are standing between the speaker and the TV, you comprehend neither.

Behind me was this guy who was going for some work. He asked me which university I was going to. I replied Duke, wondering if he had heard about it (Duke famous though it is in America, is not too heard of internationally). He replied, "Congrats, great university! Oh and unfortunately, one of their sports teams is currently caught in some rape case". Yup, he knew Duke, a bit too well for my liking.

So at the end of the line were four counters (mind you, I am still outside the building). I reach a counter where I show all my paperwork and they staple my DS forms and I-20 to the back cover of my passport! Why couldn't they just clip it instead of making a pin mark on my brand new passport? :(

Once you are inside they pass you through a metal detector, then scan you with a hand held metal detector (why?) and then frisk you (jeez!). And by the way, this was the second time: I had to pass through a similar security check before I stood in the first line outside. Then I got to stand in another line (lucky me!) to have my fingerprinting done. Basically, you're just supposed to place your two index fingers one by one on a glass scanner and presto! However, the machine kept failing to read my fingers (dumb machine or smart fingers, I do not know) and I had to repeat the procedure thrice.

Then I got to stand in another line (yippee). This was the line which took you to the interviewers (consuls as they called them). I had expected there to be proper cubicles for the interviews, but nope, why waste room and furniture when you can just have plain counters? There were three lines, one for priority (I don't know what makes you eligible for that), one for the non-English, Hindi or Punjabi speakers, and one general very long line. I got to choose the very long line.

There were six counters operating then and things moved pretty quickly for an hour or so. But at twelve o'clock three counters closed (closed as in blinds fell) and their consuls went off for lunch. That's when things became slow...real slow. One of the open counters started catering to the priority line and one to the non-English line leaving only one measly counter for the long line. And at one o'clock, with the return of the lunching consuls, it was meal-time for the other three consuls. Again, just one counter for the line I was in. Not that I was complaining...I was happy that the first counter was only handling priority; the old lady there was really cranky. She once picked up somebody's application, pointed to a box with a frail, trembling finger and screamed something like 'why isn't this filled?' In fact, I was happy to see that the lady handling my line was the same woman who had held the VISA-info session at USEFI a few days back, for she had seemed to be good-natured then.

I finally reached her and handed over my forms and passport. She gave one look at my I-20, and said, 'Oh Duke, Why Duke?' While I answered, she crossed some things on my DS forms, entered my name on the computer and then suddenly made a face that appeared too confused for my taste. Fortunately, it turned out that was because she had just realized that I had previously stayed in the USA. I explained to her that I was a dependent while my father completed his PhD from Yale and she returned to her previous smile saying, 'Your visa has been granted, your passport shall be mailed to you'.

So I had to wait till one-thirty for my 30-second appointment at eleven-thirty. But then, who's complaining?

And thanks to Tushar, for if he hadn't warned me to come early and I had actually reached at 11:30, perhaps I would not have been able to arrive at the interview counter by four pm and then the embassy would have postponed my interview for the next day.

Dad, Mom and I ate at McDonald's in Connaught Place after that where I waited in another long line at the counter and wondered if we really spend a big chunk of our life waiting in line?!!

VISA Preparations

2006-06-01T21:10:00.000+05:30

Preparing for my Visa interview tomorrow. Its at 11:30 am. Arranging all my financial documents, etc, etc, together. Gotta go now. More tomorrow.

CD Burning

2006-06-01T19:01:00.000+05:30

OK, today Sana Macha n Aamir Ayub came from the hostel to copy CDs (again!). I ended up like copying a dozen CDs which took quite some time. Not that I mind of course, I ended up with tons of DVDs to watch and a thousand more mp3s too. Oh, and I got Max Payne 2 (yeah, ill play it again, its such an addicting game) and GTA San Andreas.

Gmail Sucks

2006-06-01T13:25:00.000+05:30

Whats with Gmail these days?
It is so damn slow!!!
And I'm not able to send e-mails too. It gives some shitty 'cant reach gmail' message.

and chat seems to be giving problems too.

The Da Gurgaon Adventure

2006-05-31T22:42:00.000+05:30

OK.. today was definitely not my kind of day. IIT-JEE results came out, and among the DPS Patna boys who had come to RKP, only two got in. Of course, I hadn't given the test n neither had Aparajit (he's medical). Nobody was crestfallen though (they were well-prepared for this!) and we all decided to go to the Metropolitan Mall, Gurgaon to watch the Da Vinci Code. Raad Halim, who had just come from Kota, came along too. Grishma, of course would reach the mall separately. Aparajit mentioned that it was unfair how many of us would go to Gurgaon to meet GR and she never came to Delhi. I made a mental note of the point and decided that I would express my annoyance at her when we reached the mall. So Arup, Nishith, Aneesh, Kumar Abhishek, and Raad left early; Afzal, Aparajit n I were a little late and took another bus from Daula Kuan.

So the bus was jam-packed (enough people for ATLEAST two busses), and standing in the crowd, the three of us forgot to take tickets. Then on the Gurgaon border the DTC officers got on the bus, made us get down and fined us. There was too much of a crowd on the bus for him to check everybody, but unfortunately for us, we were standing right at the front. Anyways, one officer took pity on us and gave us only two tickets (instead of three) and so we got away sans Rs. 200. Combine the cost of the auto from RKP to Daula Kuan and the Rickshaw from where we got down in Gurgaon to Metropolitan, it cost the three of us 245 rupees to Gurgaon.
Jeez. And in the heat of the excitement, I forgot how displeased I was supposed to be at GR.

So anyways, the ticket for the DaVinci Code cost 150 rupees instead of 125 like in other PVRs and 70 at Priya. Needless to say, my financial resources were depleting much faster than I had anticipated. The only good that came out of all this, was that the movie was actually very good (almost as good as yesterday's X-Men, but then again, the two movies are of different genres).

And when we decided to come back at 5 pm, it was raining terribly. So we had to wait for an hour for the cloudburst to calm down before we could leave. (Poor Aparajit, he had to meet some girl at Priya at 6!) And when we finally left, we got on an over-crowded DTC bus (again!) which broke down on the way due to being terribly overloaded. So everybody got off and then the bus started. And then everybody got on and the bus slugged its way through bumper-to-bumper traffic to Delhi. Raad and I countered boredom by sticking our head out of the bus window and asking the time from uncles/aunties/didis in the car/bike next to us. We got off in front of Qutub Minar (which looked more like a gigantic dick-shaped shadow in the night) and took an auto to RKP reaching home, finally, at 9:30 pm.

Why couldn't we just go to Priya?

Bedtime Verdict

2006-05-31T22:30:00.000+05:30

Living the hostel life for the past two years, my biological clock adjusted so that I would doze off no earlier than three am and get up at ten or eleven. Unfortunately, this did not suit my Dad, who goes to sleep early in the night and leaves for office even before I'm awake! So to maximize on the father-son 'quality time' spent together, I was told to follow a maxim, 'Early to Bed, Early to Rise, Makes a Man Healthy and Wise.'
I responded with another motto, 'Early to Rise, Early to Bed, Makes Man Healthy, but Socially Dead.'
Something tells me I wasn't heard.

PS: I heard they even serve mid-night snacks at Duke during exam weeks!! Yea!!

X-Men 3

2006-05-30T21:02:00.000+05:30

X-traordinary!

Saw the X Men 3: The Last Stand at PVR Naraina with Anurag (Newton), Avinash, Afzal (Chacha), Puneet (Ghoda), Ravi (Baba), Keshav, and Shreyan. Though Avinash n Shreyan had left the hostel already, they were here to give DCE today. Many of the others also planned to leave the hostel after the 31st.
Anyways, the movie was amazing, definitely better than the first two (though Mili, who IMed me later, did not agree). I thought the plots of the 1st two were pretty petty compared to the third one. Anyways, the effects were simply amazing (I haven't seen effects like this since the Matrix).
Some cool dialogues:
Once Magneto ripped the entire san fransisco bridge out of its foundation and turned it to join the island of alcatraz.
Magneto: Charles always wanted to build bridges.
Its funny how they keep on changing the actress for Shadowcat in every X-Men movie. In this one it was this cute girl named Ellen Page.
Juggernaut (to Shadowcat): Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, bitch.
Another one:
Logan: Who's the furball?
Beast (Dr. Hank McCoy): Hank McCoy, Secretary of Mutant Affairs
Logan: Right, right. Secretary. Nice suit.
Professor X (Prof Charles Xavier): Henry, this is Logan. He's, uh...
Beast: Wolverine. I hear you are quite an animal.
Logan: Look who's talkin'.
The fight scenes were extrodinary, especially since a 1000 odd mutants with all kinds of powers took part. By the end of this movie, Cyclops, Jean Grey, Prof. X n many others are dead and Storm becomes the principal of the Xavier institute. A few days before Prof. X dies:
Prof X (to Storm): You of all the people, know how fast the weather can change.
After the movie, I realized that I had not taken the X-shaped promotional pamphlet (which basically had photos and power details of all the mutants) from the counter when we had bought tickets. So I went back to the counter and got one, and everybody else followed suit. Avinash, Shreyan n Afzal went back to the hostel whereas Newton, Ghoda, Keshav n I proceeded to Krips (in Priya; yes we went all the way to Priya from Naraina) to eat the usual Butter Chicken n Nan. Then we all bid each other farewell n we returned home. And to our dismay, we all forgot our pamphlets back at the restaurant.

The Beginning

2006-05-29T10:25:00.000+05:30

Oh K. So I finally begin my blog. Should have done this two years ago; alot of interesting things happen in the RKP hostel. But again, due to the absence of computers, there was no way I could keep updating the site then. So now I am home. The new home in Delhi. Thanks to my parents who shifted here two months ago. In a way, I'm glad they didn't come here two years earlier instead. Would have been deprived of the tremendous hostel experience. I'll keep u uptodate with stuff that happens around me. And once in a while go into flashbacks to give u a sip of the DPS Boys Hoste;.