Beta kuchh khate kyun nahin?

Discovery is the channel to look out for. If nothing else it'll save me the sighs every time I hear "beta kuchh khate kyun nahin?"
Some scientists have concluded that people can be fat without eating too much or thin in spite of eating normally. Its got something to do with metabolism rate, fat storage, etc etc.... you get the picture. Anyway, no point explaining all this to you now. I am a changed person now. Even I have started eating, hogging on every specimen that mankind is known to digest. As someone rightly said, "If you believe in something with all your heart, the whole world conspires to prove you wrong."

Don't believe it? Well, then read on.

I hear it from my mom almost on an hourly basis. Protest, mild consternation followed by flattery does the trick of calming her vehement protests about my eating habits.

Old aunts invariably start their conversations wondering aloud whether food was a scarcity in Madras, and how on earth am I supposed to find a girl and marry with a figure like that (most of them don't yet know that half the job is already done :P ). In such cases, I just let out a sigh, raise my hands upwards transferring all the blame to the almighty above. Never argue with old aunts, experience speaking.

Then there is dad who starts the topic by saying how he used to be when he was my age. Now I can't remember the last time when dad saw eye to eye with me or vice versa. Now, I have observed that there is a certain age beyond which it feels as if dads say the opposite thing just to contradict you and the feeling is mutual. The chance of winning an argument against your dad is always very alluring, so I try to expalain my views on the subject. Ultimately mom becomes the peacemaker and the debate whether I eat enough comes to an end without any conclusion.

At least one gets to open his mouth and argue with dad. Not so with girlfriend. She goes on and on about what i should eat, how I should eat, when I should eat ad infinitum. By the time I try to get a word or two edgeways she has moved on to another topic (Why doesn't a beautician open her parlour on weekdays in the campus?).

However the most embarrasing one has to be the chat wala incident last night. I had had a big, really big lunch and so was not in a mood to eat any more after having two sweets. But this friend of mine gets two plates of alu tikki chat and I had a tough time finishing it. You'll sympathize with me if I tell you that a dinner awaited me at home five minutes later, and try telling mom that you can't finish your dinner because you have had aloo tikki chat from a thela.

Eventually I had to call the friend for help. The glutton that he is, he had finished his plate by the time I was taking my second spoon! Now the chat wala saw this. "Can't finish it son?" he asked. "Well no wonder, you look like that. Beta kuchh khate kyun nahi?"

Of boys and boys who became girls

In std 3 the teachers had this weird idea of a couple dance for our annual day. You can't call it Salsa, or Tango or anything for that matter. It was like one of those Bollywood numbers, the sort of dance where a girl holds a bloke's hand, and they jump together, sway, spin.... I hope you get the picture. Now, our school being a boys school, you can imagine how inappropriate a boy-boy couple would have looked dancing.

Relationship with Carmel school, the girls school with whom we shared a boundary wall was not friendly. Maybe the kindergarten-kids-of-Saint-Paul's-throw-stones-at-Carmel-injure-girl incident may have something to do with it. Maybe they were plain jealous of our new auditorium. There is also the offhand chance that it might have been triggered by the way we guys from Saint Paul's gape at them during parade, as if the girls materialized from thin air and we aren't quite sure what to do with that. I must mention here that students of std 6 gape with the widest open eyes followed by the 7, 8, 9 and 10.
The gist of all these babble here is that girls from Carmel could not be bribed into partnering us in the dance.

Ingenuity coupled with need led to an interesting solution. Dress up half the boys in frocks. At that tender age there are hardly any visible physical differences between the two sexes, I mean nothing that a touch of rougue and a bar of lipstick can't fix :P

There were some ready volunteers who probably thought they would get chocolates if they became "girls." Then there were some who were enticed into it by a few flattering words of the teachers. Then there were some like me who were just told to become a girl. I am still cloudy as to why I thought protest was not an option! Looking back at it now from so far away in time makes it an amusing incident but I remember how terrified I was initially.

Because of my height, I was the first in line, and the teachers who used to train us would say how cute I was and that embarrassed me to no end. Anyway, there I was leading the group wearing my sister's frock on the annual day. I don't remember who my partner was, but I recall that it was hugely popular among the crowds. The people loved the show happily clicking away the beautiful "girls" with lipstick, rouge, hairbands, colourful frocks, the works!

The makeup was so good that even I couldn't recognize one of my classmates for quite some time.

Beauty in Rourkela

Having spent the first 17 years of my life at this small town followed by 4 years in Chennai interspersed with a few months of Bangalore in between, I can now say with conviction that I love to be in Rourkela more than anywhere else. What appeals most to me is its simplicity.

There are few people, just one main road encircling the town, two prominent markets, good schools, one NIT, and one big hospital. Ideal for an idyllic life.

You never worry which road to take to avoid traffic.

Don't have to worry about where the season sales offers include 2 free with every 3 purchases, and whether 33.33% discount is better than that. Just two markets, so you go to whichever is closer to you.

You don't have to spend an entire day to keep up with your 9 to 5 job! My school used to start at 10. Starting from home at 9:50 used to give me two minutes leeway which i spent fruitfully playing hand-cricket before the assembly began.



Apart from its simplicity, I adore the beauty of this small town. The ring road especially looks charming with its tree lined wide roads.

Lack of good quality restaurants are made up the myriad fast food joints. My favourites are the tangy papri-chat at NAC market and the ghoogni-chat at Gundicha Mandir. Also worth mentioning are the dosas here which are way better than anywhere else, and that includes Bangalore and Chennai.

of boys and girls

One thing I haven't been able to decide conclusively is whether it would have been better studying at a co-educational school. Having studied at a boys school for the first twelve years of my life, and then IIT, my judgment is bound to be biased.

My opinion is that in a boys school one grows up with a very inaccurate and narrow perception of the other sex. Girls were considered a curiosity and to be able to talk to them a big achievement. Till Std 10 i don't remember any girl or anything related to them ever mentioned among us, and by "us" I mean my group of friends including me.

Friends who have studied at co-educational schools narrate how they had fights among the two sexes. I recall a particularly funny incident narrated by my mom who is a teacher. The story concerns students of Std 9.

Scene: The Classroom
There is some minor disagreement between Boy1 and Girl1

Girl1: Tujhe AIDS ho jaye!

Boy1(flummoxed): Kya boli? (To his friends)Suna tum logon ne isne muhje kya bola!

Many dissenting voices heard in the background as boys protest.

Girl2(coming to the rescue of her friend): Tum saare ladkon ko AIDS ho jaye!

Uproar.
The boys go to the teacher's common room en block and complain against the girls. I don't know how the issue was resolved and in in whose favour the decision was awarded, but my mom said that all the teachers had a good laugh about it.

Now I have no idea whether all co-ed schools have such colourful existence, but if they do I certainly would have preferred that to a boys school. The only incident in my school that bears any semblance to the above is when I was in Std 11 and Std 3 students started throwing water at us through the window. We were defeated, but in my defense I have to say that we were severely handicapped by the fact that they had water bottles and as a mark of "adulthood" hardly anyone in our class used to carry those.

Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle

People have many a times expressed surprise over my certainty of marrying the girl I am in love with currently. "How can you be so sure that you'll still be in love with her five years down the line?"
Well, after some frantic flow of ions through the grey matter I have concluded that it all boils down to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle!
The confusion and indecision that pervade all other decisions of my life amply make up for the certainty of this one thing. At least, I hope so.

Splashing Waves

Today’s evening at Elliot’s beach was about:
Sweet corn,
Rustling wind,
Gurgling waters,
Punjabi kulfi,
Punjabi kudi,
Wet trousers,
Starry night,
Slippery slippers,
McD Burger,
Coke

and now back to BTP!

Happiness lies in the journey and not the destination.

Why do we bother so much about results then?

Maybe thats the question that decides our state of "happiness."

Hips Don't Lie

You must have seen Shakira shake her hips. Now watch it once more :)
This was an impromptu dance of a bunch of crazy guys inhabiting the 3rd wing of Godavari Hostel at IIT Madras. Particularly watch out for Tejas (in blue full sleeved at the back) and Bharath at the denouement.

a short story

This semester I had a course "Short Story Classics." And we had to write a story as part of the course. Here's my humble attempt.

From a train window

When I wake, up it is ten o'clock. As I grudgingly open my eyes and look down from my upper berth, for a minute I am confounded whether by mistake I am in a Mumbai local. But then I forget that this is quintessential Tata/Dhanbad-Allepey- the only train I believe, where you experience India within a span of 32 hours. There being only one direct link between my hometown and Chennai, inevitably I have to relive this experience at least 4 times a year.

However I have never a felt any sense of deja vu, rather what unfolds in each journey is a hitherto unknown page of the same old chapter in the book of my life. The fact is I have come to relish these journeys as opportunities for reflection and contemplation. It was in such a journey that I had planned that perfect proposal. Alas, if only things went as smoothly as planned. I mean how on earth do you account for aberrant weather in such a case. That my friends makes for another story altogether and I shall not bore you with that here. As I was saying, train journey in India is an experience in itself.

I love looking out of the train window. I watch as the tress fly by while the mountains behind it try to race with the train, but eventually they also fall behind. The golden sun behind the mountains follows me further before that also is swallowed among the orange clouds. As the blanket of darkness slowly engulfs the world around me, I suddenly feel very small. I feel scared and alone in a train chugging along amidst an unending wilderness. Not a single ray of light-the mark of civilization at night- is visible till the eyes can see. But the gush of cold air on my face never felt so refreshing. All the tension of placements, career, future, app and job are cleansed out of my system and th rush of cool forest air that goes into my lungs breathes a new life within.

The window is soon closed as it gets colder with the progress of night. There are three couples in my compartment-each from a different walk of life. One newly engaged, who retire together to an upper berth and carry on with their honeymoon oblivious of the stares of curious children, angry mothers, and hawkers who look with an air of nonchalance mixed with resignation. Another couple have a small kid with them who kept himself busy eating something or the other and jumping on me throughout the journey. Currently the couple are engaged in cleaning up the mess created by the apple of their eyes, and I decide never to travel long-distance on a train with the future-apple-of-my-eye. The third couple is past their prime, maybe retired from their jobs as well. The lady is involved in knitting intricate patterns with two sewing needles, and the man is saying something about the cold in India and the coming elections. If I remember correctly, he had started with Pakistan about an hour ago, and I have been nodding my head since then.

But I am soon bored of looking at people. They are always the same. Unlike the darkness beyond the windows which provokes a new thought every time you stare into it.