Googlemath

           "Dude, it's high time", I said.
           "Whose time?", posed the Titan.
           I gave him a look that would have burnt a chihuahua and slapped my forehead in total defeat. Our pedantic, maniac Math sir, had dropped an obvious hint which on the top, appeared to be a simple statement, but an in-depth analysis said more and had the effect of your daughter uttering those two, deadly words: "I'm pregnant". He had babbled vaguely of a surprise quiz the next day, to test whether we've been following his classes or sleeping/playing tic-tac-toe/staring at pallid females/scratching beard/counting-down the seconds.
           I was thoroughly worried chicken poop. It was ages, since I had tried to drill something into that mass of colossal refuse that is so generously referred to as a brain. My brain had grown dull and refused to live up to it's self declared reputation of possessing an IQ along the lines of Einstein's uncle's grand-daughter's boyfriend's neighbour. Quickening my pace, I sped to the dormitory and almost ran into my room, without opening the door. Rubbing my nose and swearing at everybody in Yale, I fumbled for my keys, opened the door and then let myself in.
           I began my quest without further ado. The Search For The Missing Math Book. After hours of back breaking search, I found the book lodged behind the flush tank in the toilet covered in an inch thick layer of dust molecules and what looked hen's eggs through a microscope. I brought the book to my room, thrashing the dust out of it by swinging against the rails vigorously and missing at least a hundred pages including the cover, in the process.
           Armed with a rough note, my half naked Math book and a pencil, I settled down to finally do what my parents have been asking me to in their everyday sermon for the past twenty years. Throwing a desperate prayer to God and flinging a kiss to my heartthrob, I licked my pencil and started to.... zzzzzzzzz. Snores reverberated within the room like a steam boiler with no boiler. The moon smiled an all-knowing smile.

12 hours later:

           The day dawned. Chimp woke up with a start and got up, the pillow sticking to his face. He knew he was screwed. It was 8:45 and classes began at 9:00 sharp. And our man's mind was squeaky clean; cleaner than a new-born baby's bottom. He quickly pulled on some clothes and ran to the class, just on time.
           Sir entered the class and started talking in a tone, that made a vacuum cleaner sound more interesting. Half the class, immediately settled into a deep inertia of stupor but was wide awake enough to listen to what he said.
           "So where did we leave off yesterday? Ahhh... Probability. Let me see. Probability. Hmmm... What exactly is probability in an ergodistical condition? It is something pertaining to the condition that, in an interval of sufficient duration, a system will return to states that are closely similar to previous ones: the assumption of such a condition underlies statistical methods used in modern dynamics and atomic theory.... blah.. blah.. blah.. "
           That nincompoop had completely forgotten that he had announced a test. I was shocked, furious, angry, puzzled and surprised, in any unnecessary order that makes complete nonsense. Then it finally hit me. The guy was clever. Very clever.
           He had said a surprise quiz. Had he given a quiz today, it would not have been a reflex action. My admiration for this guy rose several notches.
           And so I escaped.
           Only to cram another day.
           Tomorrow.


        PS: Chanced to download 12 Angry Men Loved this scene.

Over Rated

           He was the epitome of it all. A zenith. The embodiment of that singularly important action which he can perform with a flair, never repeated so far by any of his more professionally, well-equipped counterparts. He was a legend. All this and more he claims, conviction ringing in his voice like a bronze church bell with no pendulum. And we all listened to that truck load of trash without batting an eyelid. We believed him implicitly, throwing all caution to the winds and tossed the ball to him for him to bowl.
           It all began an hour ago when thirteen people, lazing around in different parts of the campus, simultaneously heard the inner call, yearning for the traditional past time of every Indian. They got up immediately from their various postures, called each other up, fished out a tattered bat and an even tattered ball out of nowhere and scampered off to the ground in ten minutes flat. Never have I seen such zeal. It was a direct contrast to going to class every morning where each man would compete with the other to be the last to enter. Women are immaculate. No other comments.
           Digressions apart and zooming in on the ground, the pitch looked as if it had been run over by a couple of hundred hippos. It was mutilated beyond repair. But nothing could deter our heroes. They pulled out some earth and more or less leveled it out. It still looked like a construction site though. Our men did not mind. They quickly crossed out teams, paid tribute to Kapil Dev, Aamir Khan and Zeenat Aman in that order, tossed a coin, scampered for it, lost it and finally began playing.
           Team A batted first and scored a decent fistful of runs. Team B followed. The batting line up of Team B was more or less equivalent to a dysfunctional bunch of nincompoops. They ploughed on, gathering runs very slowly. Had they been any slower, they would have ended up with a negative score. After an hour of, breath-not-taking fielding, hopeless batting and comparatively sad bowling the match was poised unevenly at fifteen runs to be taken by Team B in the last over to win.
           Now, given the excellent pitch conditions the batting team had as good a chance of making it as Mr. Himesh Reshammaiyya had of winning a Granny. In addition, light was failing rapidly and darkness was slowly enveloping. It was virtually impossible. Or so we thought. Where did that last drop of idiocy come from is something that remains a mystery. Apparently, all of us had succumbed to Mait's charm. We gave the ball to him to bowl.

           Napolean Bonaparte's Russian campaign.
           Watching Fool N Final on the first day.
           T. Rajendar acting in a movie.

           All these are mistakes that were justified in their means and of course totally unavoidable. But ours was not. We committed a mistake, which we rue to this day.
           Mait measured his run-up and flailed his hands like a drowning man, trying to get the blood flow into his muscles. He then belted out instructions with a voice that would give a sick colonel, a run for his money any time, attempting unsuccessfully to arrange the fielding setup, to nullify his bowling repercussions. When he was thoroughly satisfied, he gave a thumbs-up to the captain who unsuspectingly lifted his thumb too. The will to win, the determination to perform, the conciousness of duty is what drives a man deliver his best; our forefathers have spat and gone. God knows what drove Mait.
           He rode down his run-up like the Bombay metro train, pulled his elbow back, jumped high into the air like a cooker-whistle and crashed down, delivering the tattered ball. The ball's trajectory was a circle with an enormous radius. The batsman lunged at the no-ball with the agility of a dyspeptic porcine and connected. Two runs. So began The Over.
           Two more runs, a couple of no balls and three wides all brought the score to needing six runs and the captain's blood pressure touched record heights. The very next ball, obviously a no-ball (no points there), got blown to the boundary without even touching the turf. The batting team erupted. The bowling team were left scraping their jaws on the ground.
           Mait had bowled exactly one ball and given sixteen runs. He grinned sheepishly and said the Golden Words of Wisdom, "It's just a game, yaar. He...He...."
           The agony of loss, the determination to outperform, the conciousness of anger is what drives a man deliver his best. We knew what to do and we did it. We gave the campus hospital a new patient to tend to that evening.

At Wit's End

           I did it. I finally did it. But it came at a cost. Sixteen of them.
           It all began, when I erroneously chose to organise a movie expedition. I am as responsible as Chuck Norris, when it comes to managing or leading stuff. I bungle like hell. This was no exception.
           I had been waiting for a whole year. The enthusiasm that I had built within myself, was enough to sink a heavily loaded barge and I was not alone. Fortunately or unfortunately, there were other mortal creatures who surprisingly, shared my emotional incapabilties. And so, one stupid Thursday evening saw me booking sixteen tickets for the Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. There began the confusion.
           Due to apparent plenitude of contact gaps, I had to resort to the Ceasar-age style of conveying funeral dates: Word of mouth. This turned out to be the most abysmal and inefficient method of communication, ever discovered by man, after the Indian Postal Service, of course. Quite a few of them, movie buffs, were left out and were very, very disappointed. One in particular, had the gall to call me rude. If not for the fact, that my muscles were not what they never used to be, I would have shown a thing or two. But never mind, all these are sub-plots and we need not necesarily give them more attention, than what they deserve.
           And so, inspite of the fact that I had gotten a couple of extra tickets, all of of them were taken up the second I came back from the theatre and they wanted more. The Dietician was beside himself with rage. All that I could do was shrug, and give them the theatre phone number. Now comes the entry of our hero, the List.
           The List was something which I had made up, of the guys coming to the movie, not giving my incompetent memory a chance to redeem itself. And I conveniently misplaced it, as happens with any list. So I made up a new one that had three types incorporated,

(i) Guys who were coming to the movie.
(ii) Guys who were coming to the movie but had booked tickets separately.
(iii) Guys who were not coming to the movie but wanted to come.

           The List was royally messed. It now contained twenty three entries for 16 tickets. All the three types had gotten themselves overlapped and mixed. I ran around the whole day, intimating people, giving them tickets, cancelling a few who did not want to come, exchanging the tickets, checking and double-checking, deciding on the time of the rendezvous, flirting with old women, scratching my beard and napping in class. I also had to submit a bloody assignment the next day, which I completed in a slip-shod manner. Above all this, there was a plan to drop in at Mocha, before the movie started. I was getting totally muddled and my list, even more. It looked like my Math paper. All scribbles and no sense.
           It continued, till the second the movie started. One dolt was missing. We finally located him with his phone stuck to his right cheek, grinning from ear to ear, both of which I promptly boxed and subsequently pulled.
           Inside the theatre hall, I was literally made to take attendance, much to the amusement of the audience sitting, right before the movie started. Thanks to DFock, everybody were in place and accounted for. The movie began. I had done it. I did a victory dance and settled down comfortably to watch the movie in peace.
           Half an hour into the movie, my eyelids got themselves attached to a pair of lead-balls and they fell.
           Half an hour more and His Highness' mouth mimicked a tunnel opening.
           Ten minutes later, I was waltzing in dream land.

I saw forty percent of the movie with my eyes wide shut and trashed it. If ever anything could go worse, I woke up just in time to puke at Keira Knightley's thighs being enlarged on the screen.


PS: Later, I saw the movie on the computer and I loved it. Johnny Depp, man, you do the rocks!! Going again this week to watch it...;)

Check out the pics here:

Mocha.zip

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Singin' in the sun

           Something was burning. I knew it. I sensed it. From the second, the Great Chimp's revered feet set itself upon Ahmedabad, the smell followed him everywhere. From the airport, in the taxi, into the campus, right upto my room, it faithfully sought after me like a trained circus elephant. Throughout the whole day. I was confused. As far my memory was able to fling itself and boomerang back, I knew that I had a bath. But the smell existed. It did not seem to be a hallucination because if it was then I might very well be hallucinating the hallucination which made perfect sense to me.
           Lunch came and by now, it was quite a flustered and tired Chimp that trudged to the mess, mentally solving complex equations, eliminating possibilities and calculating various permutations and combinations, trying to solve the mystery of the burning odour. I absently gobbled up the food, engrossed in my own mental machinations. I vaguely remembered somebody, with a lot of teeth telling me that an informal meeting of the first years was scheduled at the LKP in the night.
           Nine 'o' clock sharp, I started getting ready to go. I emptied a bottle of Denim cologne and some Domex as well, to unsuccesfully drive the vapour away. The AXE effect proved to be effectively effectless. Having torn out most of the little hair that I had, I accepted defeat and strode purposefully to the LKP throwing caution to the North-Eastern draught.
           And then only did I realise, that I did not have the faintest idea of what LKP means. I roamed here and there, trying to converse in broken Hindi with the watchman asking where LKP was. God knows what he understood, I wound up in front of the men's restroom. I just pulled in my nostrils and stumbled out, barely alive, when I came upon a huge open area with a small board at one end that bore the legend, Loius Kahn Plaza. Swearing at that Khan or Kahn or whatever, I proceeded.
           There, I found bunches of people who were assiduously standing, loitering, sleeping, scratching and grazing grass. I marched towards one bunch and dawdled around for some time, nervously saying hellos to silent lifeforms until I squished something soft. One of them got up and gave me a visual demonstration of the dental implants given to it by it's immediate parents. I took to my heels and bumped into another gang which seemed to be made of humans. I melted myself into the group, under the cover of darkness without a murmur hoping that none of them saw a handsome boy running and screaming around the LKP with a disgruntled canine at his heels.
           We simply stood staring at each other, for quite a long time, smiling away like men who were told that their wives had suddenly been jailed for apparently no reason. Suddenly, all them were juggled out of their lip widening performances by a voice that would have easily put a banshee out of business. The voice continued it's Arnold Scwharznegger style articulation and asked each one to introduce ourselves. We did obediently. And that supposedly broke the proverbial ice. After some time we again hit boredom and slowly ambled towards the flood lights. There again, under the pugnacious request of the Voice and it's newly acquired partner- Karaoke, we introduced ourselves. Then we settled down to pleasant conversations and once again just before we split, introduced ourselves to ward off the Evil Eye and broke up for the night.
           I walked back to my dorm in abject dejection. Me, the only genius in the Universe ever to have invented Bed Cricket, the only warrior to have gotten both his cheeks finger-stamped by a record, sixteen members of the infamous fairer species of humankind; I, Chimp, was dumbfounded. I was irritated that I was not able to do anything about the dratted smell and in my furious temper, broke an imaginary vase and an imaginary table lamp. That irritated me even further. Anger clouded my usually crappy judgement and I stripped the jeans which I was wearing and hurled it out of the balcony onto a male pigeon, unwittingly ruining it's mating plans for the night in the process.
           And then, suddenly the smell miraculously vanished! It was too good to be true! As I sat down trying to take it in, it struck me with the effect of a 600-pound dog pound van crashing into the Kanchenjunga.
           The question was simple and so was the answer.
           What do you get when you cross a 45 degree celsius weather and a pair of Denim jeans?
           So began my life at IIMA.