71. April 1st

Well, its All Fools day again. For those who wanna know the reason behind this day being called so, have a look at this :
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/aprilfools1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools'_Day


Just finished my 3rd term xams yesterday, which officially completes my first year of stay at this place. Its been a year.....Whoosh..... Time just flies. And I'll be flying off to Dubai in a couple of days for my summer intern. I just remembered what I was doing this time last year. Waiting for all the b-skool final results. I'd goto office, open pagalguy and browse through every minimally related thread and would do this for the whole day(with lunch and tea breaks in between...oh, and work too).

Once the group-discussion and Personal Interview stage gets over, all that an aspirant can do is wait. And the wait seems endless. So many post posts on pagalguy, where people write inane insanely repetitive, dumb and retarded stuff.
Thread name : IMT Ghaziabad results 2008-10

Dumbfuck1(Trainee pagal) : The wait is killing me.... :S
FireInMyAss (Major paagal) : I can't wait to end this wait.
MrNoSocialLife (Expert paagal): Hey puys, I talked with college authorities yesterday. They said the results would be declared soon. So chill.
nishu84 : Hi, I am nisha. I am new to PG. I got 97.8 %le and have 2 years work-ex in IBM. Will I get a seat ? When will the results be declared ? (without reading any of the previous posts in the thread)

Wandering aimlessly through PG during the months of March and April is called puy'ing I believe. I'd be reading such stuff all day, seeming busy. My manager and team lead were always at loggerheads with me for not doing my work in time. There were a couple of others too, who'd be doing the same thing. When the results get declared, its hysteria, madness. PG has provided so many kinds of smileys that people make use of each one of them in that one post. There's nothing short of fireworks. Ahh....It all seems to have happened so long back now.

70. Because *I'm that* bored

Because I'm *that* bored.

Name: Abhay Krishna
Nickname(s): chris,A.K,A.B.K,abdul,chachi,420, bai babu(i hated this one)

Single or Taken? : ummm....not taken
Sex: Male
Birthday: Nov 24th, every year.
Blood group: O +
Sign: Saggi
Siblings: a brother whoz a bass guitarist
Hair color: Black
Eye color: Brown
Shoe size: 7/8/9....I dunno, somewhere in that range
What are you wearing right now? A striped shirt and a dockers trouser
Where do you live? Hyderabad.
Have You Ever:-given anyone a bath? : nooooooooooooo....(as russell peters says)
bungee jumped? : want to, not yet.
broken the law? : yea, luv it :)
made yourself throw-up? : bad question
gone skinny dipping? : Nope
been in the opposite sex's bathroom? : ummm....hmmm :)
eaten a dog biscuit? : wat !
put your tongue on a frozen pole? : done worse, put it on a hot plate
broken a bone? : Yep...bone, tendon,cartilage,muscle
played truth or dare? : Yes, but always dared 
been in a physical fight? : Show me one guy who hasn't been in one
been in a police car? : Took a lift once :P
been on a plane? : Yea...wanna be on a copter
been in a hot tub? : Yep
swam in the ocean? : No way.....i only swim in pools
fallen asleep in college? : I find it hard to sleep in awkward postures....i get very jealous when i see my feloow ppl happily dozing away while the prof pours all that verbal diarrhoea on the class.
Cried when someone died? : No
Flashed someone? : Nah
Lied? : Nope. Dammit, did it again.
Laughed so hard you fell off your chair? : Yea. have fallen off every piece of furniture at least once.
Sat by the phone all night waiting for a call? : Yes....waiting for an sms in fact.
Saved e-mails? : totally
wished you were someone else? : hmm, we all do that.....I wanted to be number 23 (MJ)
wished you were a member of the opposite sex? : Nah
Been rejected? : hmmm
used someone? : hmmm
been cheated on? : Not that I know of.
Done something you regret? : Lots of stuff. I blabber too much.....hav caused a stir or two many-a-times

First Thing That Comes to Mind:-
Yellow: Sun
Blue: Robin blue
Happy: the song 'Egire Egire' (frm the movie KIKK)
Autumn: leaves.....doesnt ring a bell otherwise
Cow: Moooo.....RSS trying to sell cow urine as the new coke

Have you ever had:-


chicken pox? Yes
sore throat? Yes....am having one now
cold? Yea
stitches? Yea
bloody nose? Yea
sex? that's a good build up for this question

Do you:-

believe in love at first sight? : Yea, u're still in love with your mom nd dad rite  :P
enjoy parks? : Not quite
like picnics? : Nah....picnics used to be good back in school
ike school? : totally....missin skool like hell
hate anyone? : I'd be damned if i say i don't.

Who:-

is the last person that called you? : Swaroop
makes you laugh the most? : quite a few....off late, its been Mr.OK
can make you feel better no matter what? : Hmmm, that's  bit too personal
was the last person you touched? : Bro
you hugged? : Don't quite remember
you yelled at? : Bro
told you they loved you? : Mum

Do You/Are You:-

like yourself? : No :)
dye your hair? : Nope
have piercings below the waist? : eww....gross
stolen anything over $50? : not in cash, but in kind....stole optical mice frm the comp lab.
like ice cream? : wat kind of a question is that ? 
Flavor : bavarian chocolate, Place : Softy den
like cold coffee? too expensive
Smoke? uhhhhh.
have beer? : yea
obsessive? : ummm....yeah.
Compulsive? : yea....i hope i get points for all this 'yea' answers
Depressed? : Not quite
suicidal? : Not in the recent past

Random:-

Prized possession: lost it just recently....was in my wallet which got stolen :(
Last thing you said? : hey bro, what's the spelling of 'bass' as in a bass guitar ?
"What is beside you? : a guitar, some dvds, lots of orbit chewing gum(un-used), a dictionary, a novel, a pen drive, guitar stubs, playing cards on the floor....man, this place is a mess
Last thing you ate? : murukulu..yumm
Are you right handed or lefty? Right
Favourite song: I can see clearly now - Johnny Nash
Worst thing that has happened to you this year: Losing my wallet...had lots of good stuff, lucky charms in it :(


Time started: 12:44 pm
Time finished: 1:13 pm


To share my boredom, am tagging ppl hu r equally bored.


Ginny 
Satish 
Puneet 

69. b-skool cartoon strip - 3

Frequency mis-match

Lateral thinking

Room-mates

68. A guest's dilemma

I was a guest at 5 more places on my 3-city trip....Nowhere did I feel as out of place. When you're a guest at someone's place, you expect that certain someone to stay by your side(for a major chunk of the time) during the short stint(of time) that you are there(in this case, 4hrs)....Isn't this the norm, the way things are supposed to be in the civilized world. But what I saw there was something different. The host, who stayed along with two others(and had two regular visitors then at their place then....and I knew none of them before hand) expected me to like gel in with the group on my own. Reluctant to do something that I'm not used to doing, I kept mum for most of the time, keeping meaningless chatter to the minimal and just watched the television for most of the time(yea, they had a TV with cable :D). Yea, the host had to divide attention amongst the two other visitors and me, but the division dint exactly work in my favour.

Was it expected of me to open-up to the whole bunch there and do instant-socializing? Is this the new norm? Have I missed a few decades of evolution here? Has there been a progressive shift in the train of social thought? I have been living in urban India all my life, so I guess I should have caught up with any trend that has started. For instance, no one uses email anymore, its all orkut and facebook. Its all debit and credit cards, no more cheques and DDs and plain cash.Its all DVDs and blue-rays, no more CDs and floppies.....I've managed to keep up with most of the trends. I wonder how I missed this one.hmmm....May be I'm just crazy.

67. b-skool cartoon strip - 2

I thought I'd start V-day on a rebellious note. So posting some more of my insane cartoon strips.

                            Class Birthday Fund

             Dare to think !

                      The ideal b-skool interview

  
A life

Priceless

66. Survival versus Morality

A scene from the movie 'My fair lady'. 


Mr.Dolittle is Eliza's father(a labourer who is seldom able to make both ends meet), while Colonel Pickering is the one(along with Higgins) who wants to give Eliza lessons in phonetics so that she can live like a lady and commands respect. In this respect, he wants to keep Eliza in his home for 6 months, and is having a conversation with her father regarding this issue. 


 Mr.Dolittle : If you want the girl, I ain't so set on 'avin' her home again.......but what I might be open to is an arrangement. All I ask is my rights as a father.You're the last man alive to expect me to let her go for nothing. I can see you'rea straight sort, Governor. So...what's a five pound note to you? An' what's Eliza to me?


Mr.Pickering : I think you should know, Doolittle...that Mr. Higgins' intentions are entirely honorable.   
                   
Mr.Dolittle : Of course they are, Governor.If I thought they wasn't, I'd ask for  50.   
                   
Mr.Pickering : You mean, you'd sell your daughter for pounds? Have you no morals, man?   
                   
Mr.Dolittle : No, I can't afford 'em, Governor. Neither could you if you was as poor as me.Not that I mean   any 'arm, but......if Eliza is gonna have a bit out o' this, why not me, too? Why not? Look at it my way. What am l?I ask ya, what am l? I'm one o' the undeserving poor, that's what I am. Think what that means to a man. It means he's up against middle-class morality for all the time.If there's anything goin' an' I ask for a bit of it, it's always the same story: '"You're undeservin', so you can't have it.'" But my needs is as great as the most deservin' widows that ever got money......out of six different charities in one week for the death o' the same 'usband. I don't need less than a deservin' man, I need more. I don't eat less 'earty than he does and I drink...a lot more.I'm playin' straight with you. I ain't pretendin' to be deservin'. No, I'm undeservin'......and I mean to go on bein' undeservin'.I like it an' that's the truth. But will you take advantage of a man's nature......do him out of the price of his own daughter, what he's brought up......fed and clothed by the sweat of his brow......till she's growed big enough to be interestin' to you two gentlemen? Is five pounds unreasonable, I put it to you? And I leave it  to you.




This tells us a lot about morality and survival. The poor cant afford to have morals. Survival is their basic instinct.I particularly found this issue interesting coz I am having a course on ethics right now, and I am always at a fix while deciding what is right and what is not. But this case makes it clear cut. Survival is the biggest driving force, ethics and morality have to take a back seat. Hell, we procreate so that our gene survives even after we expire. Te miracle of life is meant to be celebrated. But if we are in no position to continue living, then being ethical and dying is not the answer. Be smart, greedy, selfish, stealthy. Or as James Bond once said, 'Live today, to die another day'.

65. Women

A stand-up bit done by Jerry. Hilarious to say the least.

JERRY(at the night-club) :  I swear, I have absolutely no idea what women are thinking. I don't get it, OK? I, I, I admit, I, I'm not getting the signals. I am not getting it! Women, they're so subtle, their little...everything they do is subtle...men are not subtle, we are obvious. Women know what men want, men know what men want, what do we want? We want women, that's it!...It's the only thing we know for sure, it really is: we want women. How do we get them? Oh, we don't know 'bout that, we don't know. The next step after that we have no idea. This is why you see men honking car-horns, yelling from construction sites. These are the best ideas we've had so far.

The car-horn-honk, is that a beauty? Have you seen men doing this? What is this? The man is in the car, the woman walks by the front of the car, he honks: [imitates horn] e-eeehh, eehhh, eehhh, this man is out of ideas. How does it...? [imitates horn again] e-e-e-eeeehhhh, "I don't think she likes me"

The amazing thing is, that we still get women, don't we. Men, I mean, men are with women. You see men with women. How are men getting women, many people wonder. Let me tell you a little bit about our organization. "Where ever women are?", we have a man working on the situation right now. Now, he may not be our best man, OK, we have a lot of areas to cover, but someone from our staff is on the scene...That's why, I think, men get frustrated, when we see women reading articles, like: "Where to meet men?". We're here, we are everywhere. We're honking our horns to serve you better.

64. Investment

This is something Jerry Seinfeld said in 1990, which in the wake of this liquidity crisis seems so true and common-sensical. 

JERRY: I'm not an investor. People always tell me, you should have your money working for you. I've decided I'll do the work. I'm gonna let the money relax. You know what I mean? 'Cause you send your money out there - working for you - a lot of times, it gets fired. You go back there, "What happened? I had my money. It was here, it was working for me." "Yeah, I remember your money. Showing up late. Taking time off. We had to let him go."

63. The un-said

What's left unsaid stays in the mind and haunts us from time to time. And as more and more things are left unsaid, the clutter builds up, increasing the levels of mental unrest.

This gyaan from a movie called 'Little Manhattan', a really cute little story about a 10-year old new yorker's first love.

Come to think of it, there is always a lot that's left unsaid. Unless everything goes right, we do tend to not say the intended, as it is bound to sound out of place. Sometimes, the unsaid gets said, under unforseen circumstances. Lets look at some ways in which the unsaid somehow gets said (atleast in the movies).

Alcohol
The reason why alcohol probably is a major success world-over, is coz it helps you to get over your inhibitions and say the unsaid. Most daring of confessions happen after a few large pegs of whisky sink in.

Time
Time kills, Time heals, Time keeps ticking away. Lack of time puts one in a position to reveal or say something that could have waited for a wee bit longer otherwise. Time is a tricky thing, people make promises without taking into account, it's unpredictable nature. When the girl is gonna be gone for a while, the guy gets very limited time, so he feels that he needs to change to the 'fast-forward' mode so as to take the relationship to the next stage.

Family
The most influential social group, these people can at times also be the ones who push you to your limits, which makes you say things which you'd always wanted to but never intended to.

Messengers/Letters
What cant be said is sometimes written or typed. Letters are a much safer option, since its one-sided. Saying the unsaid on the messengers can create quite a weird situation. Suppose the unsaid is said, then there'll be some discussion on the topic. One person may be more eager than the other for an answer, building up anxiety and frustration. Typing speeds are never good when complicated issues are handled. So the sender takes his/her own sweet time thinking of the right words while the reciever waits at the other end staring at the 'sender123 is typing...' message on top of the sender's chat window. What messes up the situation further is if one of the two get disconnected due to a network failure or a power failure, which in our country is a daily occurence.

Ok, so much for the reasons. Why do we have things left unsaid ? The right place and the right time always elude the right dialogue. We later ponder over the timing and the content of the dialogue that had to be delivered. We evaluate the merit of not having said a thing with the consequences if we had said it. Psychologists make a living out of hearing the unsaid. What we cant tell to the rest of the world, we tell to our shrink.  The shrink is a 'you' outside yourself. They wont tell you what's right or wrong, rather, they'll help you weigh your options and take better decisions. If the mind is stable enough, one can assume the shrink's role oneself, cant one ?

Ok, this one's gone haywire, lets just leave the rest of the clutter in my mind for the time being. Some things have to be unsaid right :)

This article is put up on  - www.themag.in

62. Slumdog Millionaire

The movie starts off with Jamal(Dev Patel, our slumdog err protagonist) being tortured in a jail cell. The belief is that this young chai-wallah cheats on 'Who wants to be a Millionaire'(hosted by Anil Kapoor) and answers all the quesitons right, which makes him a slumdog millionaire overnight. The lives and hardships in the slums of Bombay have been captured in some great sequences, as we run through Jamal's childhood in the flashback (for those of you who dint know this, Dharavi is Asia's biggest slum). How Jamal gets to know of the answers for the questions is cleverly intertwined while describing his past. He gets on the show not to win the millions, but to get a chance to be seen by his long-lost childhood love Lathika(played by Freida Pinto).

The child protagonists (Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and Ayush Mahesh Khedekar) are splendidly natural, the first quarter of the movie is by-far the most gripping. The movie has those distinct 'Danny Boyle trademark' moments and they hit the bullseye each time. The plot does have some holes, and gets a bit too Bollywoodish at times. The ten year olds start speaking about destiny, join mob gangs rather effortlessly and also manage to find and pull Lathika(Freida) out of the red-light area with great ease. Anil Kapoor does a great job playing the smug show host. He brings with him an air of sophistication, pomp and snobbery to the show.

The mellifluous background scores splendidly blend in with the screenplay, cant believe that Subhash Ghai rejected the 'O Sara' OST for his Yuvraj(I can spell it only this way, am sorry, i dont type extra unnecessary alphabets). The Danny Boyle - John Hodge pair would have handled this subject better and made it more impactful than it already is. Its high time they re-join as a team and bring to us another marvel like 'The Beach'. Trainspotting still is Danny Boyle's best movie till date. Slumdog comes a close third, after "The Beach'. 

This article is put up on  - www.themag.in

61. The New Year

May it turn out the way you want it to.

Lets try to be better people.
Lets indulge in acts of random kindness.
Lets play safe.
Lets be a bit more positive.
Lets bring a change in the world around.

Amen.

60. A Prisoner's dilemma

Lets just say that there's this prisoner, lets call him Pappu. Now, our Pappu serves a two-year sentence in a  dingy, over-crowded  facility called the 'Innovative Molesters and Torturers' demented center,where the in-mates are a bunch of frustrated criminals. They've all been put in for crimes ranging from petty stuff like 'following the crowd', 'excessive drinking before the day of crime' to major ones like kidnaps and molestation. The general pop. there vent out their anger by howling (from their cells)at night, stealing each others' belongings and even exercising the pleasure of sodomizing a few weak members of their brethren(whenever time permits).

Amidst these hysterical crackpots, there are a few sensible heads who got caught in the line of fire and so were arrested and thrown into this facility. Pappu initially has a hard time adjusting to the new prison. As time passes, he makes friends with a few of the good people over there, which makes the ordeal a bit less painful.

But here's the deal. The times that were the hardest are the ones that one remembers the most. Pappu wants to forget that these two years ever happened to him. He just wants to wake up and find himself out of prison again. But since it is here that he has been screwed the most, he isn't able to erase these memories so easily. Moreover, when he thinks of the few good times he has had in prison, of the few goodfellas he hung around with, that 'good' feel gets engulfed by the hatred for the facility, which makes the whole 'memory-recollection process' dole out a pretty twisted emotion. Pappu wants to retain the good memories but not at the expense of retaining the traumatic ones. That's his dilemma.

59. I knew it

Now, 6 days after the Mumbai massacre, everyone who is anyone seems to have known or have had some information about the occurrence of such an attack for months !

We get to read that Maharashtra's deputy CM knew about it 4 months back, the Navy knew about it, IB knew about it, RAW knew about it, the fishermen's union knew about it, the turtles on the beach knew about it, even Bejan Daruwala claims to have known that such an incident would occur: this he inferred by looking at the stars, moons, comets and the cows in the by-lanes. 

My only question: if so many people knew about it, then why wasn't anything done? It seems like only you and me are the ignorant ones in the country; everyone else seems to have known that such a thing would happen. Like expecting a movie release, or a solar eclipse. And all these people are calling the leaders 'toothless', 'careless' while they could themselves have helped to make these people look toothed and careful, by helping them out with information.

Be it as it may be, two things seem clear - either people knew about it and wished to remain quiet, or this was a genuine intelligence failure where no one knew pretty much anything. If its the latter(which I think it is), then the govt can draw a new intelligence strategy and beef it up with the technologies and minds required. But if it's the former, then our country is in grave danger. The mindset of the people is in question then. Whoever knew about it and helped this dirty cause, or even let it carry on without reporting it to the authorities, has traded his/her country off for some material benefit. It can be for a new boat, a promotion, obscene amounts of money, an oil-well or a Russian blonde. 

The mindset of the people has to change, that is the only true way in which we can shield ourselves from any attack ever. This can only be done through education. Look at our country's literacy rate. It is still down there, and a lot needs to be done to improve it. But why don't politicians do anything about it ? 

It is not difficult to realise why - It's because the more intelligent a voter gets, the tougher it is for a party to get his vote. An illiterate will vote for you if you give him a mere bottle of liquor, and a pack of biryani. If he learns more, he will bargain for better, won't he? If he is poor and uneducated, he will remain poor, his next generation will also remain poor. He will continue to believe in the false promises each political party makes, not being able to understand what's actually going on. 

Look at countries which started at par with us when we got independence...Just see where they are now. Its only after a country has achieved development at the grass-root levels, that it makes sense to send stuff to the Moon or Mars or Krypton. Wouldn't you agree? 

But, not doing what we always do, let us, ourselves, start paying close attention to what is going on around us.Let us be sensitized to our environments; let us be aware. If we get the hint of anyone being involved in something shady, let us not ignore it? And as for ourselves getting involved in something shady, think again - is it worth putting our country in jeopardy for a few more shillings.

This article has been put up on http://themag.in/

58. Don't call me a weirdo now

Ok. Here's the deal. I wake up late, start to rush to the class when I remember that taking the 'Marketing' text book is mandatory. So I start searching for mine. I take a quick look into my pile of books, clothes and rubbish but I cant find it. I find my room-mate's 'Marketing' text book lying right on his table, waiting for me to take it to class, which I eventually do. We have 4 class sessions for the day. After 3 classes, I go out for a fag during the break. But by the time I return from my fag-break, I am late by 10 minutes for the next lecture. And it so happens that the prof bolts the classroom from inside for that very lecture(she hasn't done that ever). So I go back to my room, message one guy who's in the class to get my textbook(my roomie's actually) from class and keep it safe. Time passes and I forget about collecting that book from him.

Mid term exams are around the corner, people start to crib about the syllabus and the toppers who always study - all that stuff.  A week passes. Mid term exams are on. It so happens that the 'Marketing Management' exam is an open-book exam. My room-mate looks for his text book all around and doesn't find it. He asks me and I say that I am unaware of the wherabouts of that book. So he gets a 'Marketing' book from a guy in the senior batch(last year's edition). It so happens thatin the 20-mark paper there's a 5-mark question that deals with a concept that's there only in the new edition. My roomie is real angry that he had to miss that question coz of the idiot who misplaced his book. 

One week  after the mid terms are over, the guy whom I had given my roomie's book to, reminds me to take it from his room. Now here's the dilemma. Do I give it back to my roomie ? I mean I want to. But I also dont want to earn his ire for this one innocuous mistake of mine. I want him to have his book back, coz if the final exam is an open-book again, he stands to lose some marks again(if the nitwit prof chooses topics which aren't there in the previous edition). If I tell him directly and give the book back, he'll give me the "You fuckin asshole, you ruined my Marketing paper" look, which I dont want to be the recipient of.  So I am thinking of keeping it in a remote corner of the room, where he may not have looked while searching for the book before. But if he had looked in that place on that day, then he would know that I had planted it there now, which would make me look more idiotic and stupid than in the case where I tell him directly about it. On the contrary, I think placing it just on his table or his bed would do the trick. He may feel that someone who had his book has come and dropped it on the bed. But then, he'd ask me who was the guy who had dropped it on the bed ? (we are 2 persons per room actually). Thinking of so many difficult solutions makes me fall back on the easiest solution, doing nothing about it. Sometimes, it is better not to do anything, coz doing anything may only do more damage to the already bad situation in hand. But then, doing the right thing is what people so easily do in the movies and TV serials. What's the maximum punishment an actor can get? His character may be killed, that's all na. He'll find some new roles to do, life would go on. But this is real life. I can lose my life for real if my roomie, out of frust, pulls out a sub-machine and carries out another 'Virginia tech' shootout in our hostel lobby. So that brings me to the question again - What do I do? Am still thinking......

57. B-school cartoon strip

Some gyan :

Two b-school guys talkin nonsense is the essence.

'Passions' is IMT's cult cum b-fest. 

Read on.

56. Video games

Technology has taken the video-game to unbelievable heights. The gaming consoles have a million controls and give real-time vibrations which are in-sync with the game that you're playing. Each game has so many stages and once you're done, you can complete the same game at 10 or more different difficulty-levels(ranging from 'easy' to 'hard' to 'insane' to 'beyond-god-like' to 'out of this f'kin universe'). Every game is slotted into a genre, may be action(Tomb raider) or Arcade(Tekken) or adventure(GTA) or military operations(Commando, IGI) or animation(Lion king). There's so much attention to detail.

But lets do a rewind. Lets go back ten,fifteen years in time. When the video-game was a relatively new concept, when gully cricket was still the most popular urban-colony pass-time. First came the hand-held or pocket video games(called hand-video game or the brick game back then). Kids used to endlessly play games like Tetris, 101 Dalmations, SkaterBoy and GunMan. They'd take so much pride in getting a 'high score' that they'd share their moment of joy with all the kids in the neighborhood. Kids who were good at video-games used to don the 'cool-dude' image in the neighbourhood. There'd be large video-game gossip sessions.

You know, Adren went upto level 12 in 101 Dalmations.
Ahh, big deal. I crossed Skaterboy the very first time I played it.
In Tetris, I scored 99,000 at level 8, beat that.
Tetris is a lame game, who plays Tetris nowadays !
Arey, I heard that when you goto level 13 na, you get some magic potion.
I was just about to cross level 12, but my batteries went down and so I lost that game.

Then came the TV video game era, which took every urban household by storm. Kids, teens, parents, grandparents, servants....in short, everyone was hooked onto them. When they were'nt playing, they were watching others in the house play. It was an addiction that had taken the nation by storm. Dads fought with their kids for some video-game time, moms used to watch in despair as grandpa's used to cry like babies trying to snatch the joysticks from the kids. Kids used to pester the hell outta their parents till they got themselves one game console. The one set that was popular then was the 'Terminator' video-game console, the 'Media Game-Boy' was also in vogue.

Once the console and settings in place, the first game which everyone invariably played was 'Super Mario'. Then, once you'd get bored of 'Mario' and gun-games like 'Wild Gunman' and 'Duck Hunt', you'd wait for the next new video-game cassette to hit the market. The '64-in one' era was succeeded by the '76-in one' era which was followed by the '8-in one' era. By the late 90's, the video-game fever had spread far and wide. It was a natural stress buster, people played Mario and Contra for hours after coming back from work.

Siblings settled scores by playing against each other and see who played better. The wife and husband would sit together and play the typical non-violent 2-player games, whereas the older junta mostly preferred the easier ones. All this while, the servant maids would just observe and try to make sense of reason behind the animated faces staring at the TV screens while pushing buttons randomly on a joystick.


Some of these games have really left an indelible impression in my head. It is these games which I cherished playing, more than the other hi-fi ones. Here are some.

Super Mario - Needless to say, this game was synonymous with the term video-game back then. Easily the most popular game a very likeable one.

Spartan X - Nice action game, the audio track being superb. Mr.X's sinister laugh at the end of each level still rings in my ears.

Contra - Contra, Super Contra, Super Contra-2, Super Contra Force, New Contra....have played 5 versions of this game. I just loved the background scores for each level, the different guns (the 'S' power, the 'F' power) and the gawky lookin enemies.

Wild GunMan - Shoot the bad cowboy....The only game ever which required you to use that gun instead of the game pads or joysticks.

Islander - Pretty much similar to Mario, but the only likeable thing about this game was that our hero is a rolly-polly fatso who throws hammers at birds :)

Mappy - The rat in a maze game....simply brilliant

DJ boy - Really tough game, our hero gets to move on skates throughout the game. The level of description on each level of the game still amazes me.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Turtles, whether on the TV screen or the video-game console, were always my favourites.

Street Fighter - The first ever arcade game that had some intricacy in it.

Elevator Action - Very few must've played this, but I was really thrilled the concept of killing enemies while you're in an elevator, get 30 floors down and run away in a car.


This article has been put up on - http://themag.in/

55. Tinda !

I had to write a post on this one. Was heading for the mess hall in clg for lunch. Reached, saw that the subji for the day was 'Tinda'(or the Indian round gourd). A friend behind, looked as disgusted as me. I just turned around to him nd said, "Wtf is this man !" To this he replied "You dont know what this is? This is 'Tinda' my friend, 'gay'ziabad's exotic vegetable 'tinda'. Come on, lets dig in and tingle our taste buds."

Oh how much i laughed :)

54. Hey teachers! leave them kids alone!

This is the worst class that I have ever taught !
This is the n'th time that I am scolding your class and I feel very bad everytime do it.
This should be the last time that I scold your class for being noisy and indisciplined !
Please be a little serious in the class !
I will not get affected if some of you do not listen to my lecture. It is you who will suffer. It is your career at stake !
This is the most indisciplined bunch of students that I have ever taught !

Are they kidding us ? Do they still believe that this works. Telling us that we're the worst class is like the oldest trick in the book. Come on teachers and professors. Cant you come up with something more innovative. Just updating the curriculum and the courses which you forcibly spoon feed to us hapless students is not enough. Come up with a better way to hold the attention of the class. Its only coz of your inability to hold our attention in the conventional way that you people take to using these kinds of dialogues which have 'emotional blackmail' written all over their faces. If I really was so consistently indisciplined right from kindergarten till my post-graduation, I surely would have become a criminal somewhere down the line. The very fact that I've reached a post-grad college proves otherwise. So why? Why is it that you people are hell bent upon labelling me and a bunch of my peers as indisciplined, worthless, ignorant imbeciles.

I protest !
We don't need no education
We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teachers leave them kids alone
Hey! Teachers! Leave them kids alone!
All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

53. Snakey - The blue enigma.,

'Dasavataram' is a real life story inspired by Snakey's avatars. His avatars are as follows.
1) German sniper M. (an 18th century assasin)
2) Nai'X (50 B.C Greek mythological God who fought the Shadow fiend)
3) Mojo (Mojo is rising.)
4) Rimbaud like Snakey (26th century poet)
5) CoLdbLood (Vachesthunnaru vachesthunnaru vachesthunnaru....)
6) lavanyA. (Snakey loves himself so much that he reincarnated in the female form and married himself)
7) Jew (A 1930's snake charmer who danced with the angels to celebrate the holocaust)
8) S4 (Surrealist Snakey's Secret Society 's founder and the only member)
9) Tyler Durden (Snakey's alter ego)
10) Phani Shashank (Jack's broken dream)

- Snakey lives in parallel universes traversing through alternate timelines.

- Snakey has one girlfriend in every continent of the world, per universe.

- Snakey believes that sporting 'kaajal' on his eyelashes will give him a good score on the Counter-Strike(CS) server.

- Snakey always updates his 'about me' the moment he wakes up from his sleep, and he sleeps three times a day.

- When Snakey uploads a photo in his album, it gets blurred automatically.

- Snakey has been molested more number of times than anyone else, except Rahul Sharma.

- Snakey once laugh-farted continously for 5 minutes. Now a laugh-fart is a combo of human body responses where air gets exhorted from one's mouth first and from the ass thereafter, with each response sounding more like the other.

- Snakey ate a Frankie with Prankie in front of a monkey.

- Snakey can transform into a night-stalker just by wearing a 2K rupee night-pant, even during the day.

- Snakey once shared a 'Macaroni Marlboro' with the Naix after THEIR victory over the blood-thirsty cannibals under the pyramids of Mount Olympia.

- Snakey thought he could reach the 'Red oblivion' by dyeing his hair(only his sidelocks) red.

- If every sentence of yours ends with 'man', you are allowed to sleep on or below Snakey's bed.

- In every typed message of yours, only if commas and full stops exceeds the number of words, will it appear on Snakey's scrapbook.

- Snakey is spelt as S.hNa.KeY, (dont forget the space after the comma).

- Snakey loves Ingrid Bergman.

- Snakey discusses Existentialism and Objectivism at bed time with the 'man' and the dog who sleep under his bed.

- Snakey's poems are more encrypted than a regular SSL secure connection.

- Google crashed when Snakey searched for "M. + GerMAny + SArtRe + surreaLism + shlokie".

This is a joint effort from me and Potu. Please comment :)

52. An outburst

Alrite.Am gonna sound a bit patronizing but since this is an 'outburst' post, I dont care. People tell us that we need to have goals, ambitions and aspirations. Look at what you want to be, say 5 years from now or 10 years from now. Then model your way of thinking to attain that goal. They go to the extent of telling that a goal-less man/woman is bound to fail in life. He/She will definitely go wayward. And when i be honest and tell them that I really dont have any such ambition till now, they go ahead and tell me that i need to be responsible and take stock of my life.

Isn't this bullshit fed into our minds from day 1, from the day we learnt to understand what a human mouth could convey. All I wanna ask you people is, do you know what's going to happen tomorrow ? or the day after ? No, you dont. Then do you know what's gonna happen to YOU tomorrow, or the day after ? Do you even bloody realise that death is the only truth in life ! And you people are conveniently avoiding to face it day in and day out, building dreams and what not. You may not exist for long. You may become impotent or go blind or win a whore-house in a lottery or die due to constipation. Anything's possible. Then how is it that you can be so sure of being an investment banker or a CEO of a company in 10 years from now? Ok, if you arent so sure of that, you atleast seem pretty sure that you will be living until then. What gives you that confidence? And what audacity you have to come tell me or anyone else that if I dont have a long term goal, I will suffer in life, struggle in life !

Life's one big journey people. You never know when it'll end. All you know is that you've got the chance to live this moment and so go ahead and live it, embrace it, enjoy it. In this way, when life does end, you dont look back at it and say that I was running all along the journey and never had time to stop at the pitstops and look at the world around. Dont compromise on the present for the future, coz you never know if you do have one. And if you really dont have an ambition as of now and people are forcing you to get one, show them the midde finger and move on. Or better yet, laugh at their ignorance.