The "manipalites"

Today, I was just pondering over (Okay… I agree that I like observing things very keenly and think too much :P) the new and different elements (read “people” ) that I’ve come in contact with, in Manipal. I just felt like posting something bout them. So here I go! :D

1. My physics teacher( fondly called “correcta”)- No prizes for guessing why we call him “correcta”. Each time he says a sentence and end it with “correcta???”, the entire class answers in a chorus- “correcta!!!” :D Also, another prominent quality of this great personality is that he rarely loses his cool. I mean, the amount of rubbish we do in his class is unimaginable. But each time the noise gets intolerable, he turns around, looks at us as if he is gonna lose his cool, big time, but then suddenly changes his mind, turns towards the blackboard and starts teaching again.
2. My second physics teacher- (yes, we have two of them to tolerate) She scurries into the classroom (I hope u can imagine a rat, can u? *hopeful look*) with her laptop in her hand, takes 10 mins to adjust her saree (and keeps doing this throughout the class) and to pin the mike onto it. Also, she keeps throwing in praises for our class, once in every 15 mins of her lecture, because she knows that befriending us and being in our good books is the best way to keep us in limits and allow her to teach peacefully:P She then goes to the next class and bitches about us. *nods her head in disgust*. Today, while calling out the attendance, she called a guy “Rachit” as “Rachita” (do all people in south India, have a fetish for the letter “a”, coz they seem to love to attach it after every word ? :P) and when the whole class sniggered and giggled (yes, the giggling was done by the girls), she spent the next 25 minutes trying to convince us, that in Sanskrit even “Ram” is written as “Rama”. So much for hating to be wrong! :P
3. The famous (or rather infamous) workshop teacher- he luurrves to tell tales about his grandfather, who seems to find place in everything we do in the workshop, from our behavior in there, to our workshop models. According to this “gentleman” (he, btw, uses this word very often), everything we do, right from breathing to sweating it out in the workshop, is somehow connected to engineering.
4. My Maths teacher- Dude! He should seriously try modeling for one of the south Indian versions of Baywatch (if there exists one). The poses that he marofies in class and the classy expressions that he gives, the way he talks and the way he carries himself... *shakes her head in amazement*.
5. My SOM teacher- Now that she has finally got use to “entering into the zoo” and teaching its inmates (:P these are her words, btw) (I wonder what she considers herself to be then??? *looks thoughfully*), she has now actually started making sarcastic remarks on us, whenever she can. ( see, we do have positive influence on people you know ;)) And, I must not forget that its because of her that 14 martyrs of our class, happily sacrificed 3 days of classes. (:P) Ma’am, we would like to request you to be a teeny-weeny bit more considerate about you 'lil' students and not drag the civil HOD and the honorable director of the college, into meager issues like throwing of 200 + paper balls in class.
6. The English-translator of the movies screened at movie dome- (movie dome is one of the two sad movie halls that we have in manipal, where movies are screened through projectors.) Sir, iam sure that iam not as competent in English as you are, but still, I cannot digest the fact that the English translation of “yeh toh Ram- Laxman ki jodi hai” is “both of them were like “Humpty- Dumpty” (: I)
7. The local-bus conductors- The way they say “uduppi…uduppi…uduppi…” and “mandipal…mandipal…mandipal….” Is kinda funnily cute :D
8. The manipal couples- They don’t even need an occasion to get started! Be it in front of 13^thth block, “badnaam gali” (yes, there is such a place in our college) or in front of NLH (our air-conditioned classrooms :D). Hehee! For all of the people who linger outside the 13 block (that’s the most famous girls hostel block in MIT) at night, for innocent reasons (:P), it can become quite “embracing” at times. (:P)
9. This one “filmy” couple (who deserves a special m ention here)- okay, I have been a witness to a number of sad partings that take place outside my block each night, but this one takes the cake. This couple stood hand in hand, facing each other. Then, I think it was time to part (or so it seemed to be) cause they started moving backwards (blog readers, kindly use your imagination and knowledge of bollywood movies to perfectly picturize this scene :P), their arms out stretched till the point that their fingertips could also no longer meet. Then, both of them dramatically turn back, their backs facing each other, and start walking in opposite directions. On the approximate count of three, they again turn to face each other, run towards one another with their arms outstretched, and hug. Lol! Guys, believe me, this is not a made-up story! :P
10. Our block matron- whenever you are dressed for a party (specially on Saturdays ;)) and innocently try to sneak out of the block after signing, she keeps staring suspiciously, over her spectacles, and asks in her high-pitched voice- “kidhar jane ka hai? Sign karne ke baad bahar nahin jane ka. Pata hai na?” hehee! Sorry akka (kannad for sister), kya Karein, control hi nahin hota :P. she is very upset over the fact that I have an official perm till 12 (of which I make most use of) and don’t have to sign the late register :D *devilish grin*
11. I dunno how i forgot to mention this before, but thanks to all my teachers "circuits" have now become "sir- cutes" for me :P
    

There are new additions to this list practically everyday, and Iam sure that by the end of 4 years, I will have loads of new people who will make a place for themselves in this esteem list :D

p.s. 1)- the above post is not meant to harm the sentiments of any teacher or couple (:P), or “akka” or the “translator” and should be taken in good humor.

2)- i just got a scrap on orkut which says " hi how r u friendship". can someone please help me to decipher the message it wants to convey??? (:P)

Silent Revealations....

NOTE- The lines below donot refer to anyone in particular and are just an outcome of me being unable to sleep till 4 last night.

Iam sorry things had to be like this,

my heart breaks to see you this way,

but trust me, I had no other option,

there was nothing I could say.

I knew my words would fail

(to convince you)

and (as always) I would be left

feeling guilty for something I havent done.

Iam tired of questioning myself

since the time this “mess” begun.

I dunno what went wrong,

(something definitely did)

how things fell apart so soon.

A reason does pop up in my head,

and I pray and hope it’s not true.

Because if it is, then we’ll have to part ways,

as I see no middle ground,

Both of us are equally stubborn,

And think we are not wrong.

You lied to me,

(don’t you know how much I hate liars??)

But I believed everything you said.

You kept me in the dark,

In spite of calling me your “friend”??

How often have we snapped at each other these days,

Barely exchanging a word otherwise?

How often did we have to struggle

to maintain our cool?

I dunno what is happening………..

But it’s killing me to

lose a friend like YOU.

HOPE

An honest thought,

A heartfelt desire,

An insatiable longing for something,

(at times against the common norms)

And the heart sinks with realization…..

The magnum opus dreams fall as fast as they had risen.

Reality strikes hard.

Thousands of doubts flood the brain

Leaving no scope for anything to flourish .

The tug of war between fact and fiction,

Right and wrong, wanting and getting,

Takes a heavy toll.

All the warnings and forebodings,

predictions and snide remarks

elbow their way to the forefront

canopying even the slightest possibility

of going ahead and metamorphosing one’s dream

into reality.

Just as this rendezvous with the feelings

threatens never to end,

a surreal warmth fills the body

pushing all the negative emotions

into oblivion.

It caresses the soul

and teaches it to dream again.

It acts like the guiding light,

the voice of the angel

rekindling the flame of optimism

that had been mercilessly extinguished.

It doesnot make any promises,

It does not guarantee anything for sure,

All it ensures is peace of mind.

It calls itself ‘HOPE’.

WORKSHOP TORTURE

Yes…. I take back my words. Just few weeks into this sem , one of my friends had asked me bout how I was finding the physics cycle to be, as compared to the chemistry cycle. (for all of you guys unaware of how things work at my college, lemme tell you that our first year is divided into two cycles, physics and chemistry. Half of the first years study the subjects related to one cycle for one sem and the other half study the subjects of the other cycle. In the second sem, the subjects, and the cycle as a whole (:P) gets swapped )

So, my answer to this guy’s question was ‘' oh! Its awesome. Much better than the chemistry cycle (which I had to endure in my first sem.) the subjects are easier, plus workshop and EG (engineering graphics) are kind of interesting. Atleast one doesnot fall asleep in practically every class! ’'

Today, this same question was again put forth by the same guy, who stood right behind me in the workshop class and saw me practically struggle to file and saw that one small piece of metal. (Phew! It was torturous!) He kept pulling my leg all through the class . This time, i answered with just a sheepish grin. All my enthusiasm has finally worn off and cutting and chopping wood or metal till 2 in the afternoon no longer seem to be my cup of tea.

Though I managed to get through the first class of filing (which involves cutting and shaping metal) with just a few cuts, I had a very close shave with the saw today. Oh! and yes, this guy whose roll number comes just after me, deserves a small mention here, coz he is the always the first one to leave class and takes half the time that others take to complete a model.(he has helped me out a couple of times too.) I was really stumped by his energy and eagerness to finish the work, ASAP, so that he could go and meet his girlfriend. :P *shakes her head in amazement*

The few positive things (yes… iam gonna be a die-hard optimistic from now on :I) that has come out of these workshop classes is that, I get amazing sleep after I come back (:P), the yucksie mess food tastes heavenly, those three hours in the workshop is the only time when I ‘feel’ like an engineer and last but definitely not the least, my respect for carpenters and workers of all categories has seen a quantum leap. I SO admire their strength!

p.s- The pic put above is not mine(:I) and i would like to thank my classmate for it.

CYBER AURA

Last night, as me and Sun sat munching on something that was supposed to be our dinner and Shi tried her best to study (which ofcourse, she miserably failed to do) we generally started discussing bout ‘destiny’ and how we meet people in our life who later get connected to it in some way and how all of us met each other when things were actually supposed to be quite different. As I have already mentioned in my post- ‘college..’, I first met Shi through ‘Orkut’ (Need i say anything bout this site??) Had we not decided to become roomies then, then most probably Shi would have been sharing a room with Sun now. Soon our conversation drifted towards what our initial impression bout each other was.

Shi- ‘u remember when I asked you if you wanted to share a room with me? You were like, “yeah! Sure” Had we not spoken back then, I would have been sharing room space with Sun or probably with some complete stranger!’

Me- ‘ Yeah…. I swear! But u know… initially, i thought you that you had oodles of attitude. I mean, after seeing your scraps and stuff . You are quite a different person in reality. A much better one. ’

Shi- *laughs* ‘ Dats weird, coz initially even I thought that you had an attitude problem. (Me?? And Attitude??? *aghast* NO! NOT possible…I am sure u guys will vouch for that. *hopeful look* ) Infact when my mom saw your pic, she was like ‘ your roomie looks pretty smart. Iam sure she must be pretty popular wherever she goes’

(I would have been floating in air on having received this compliment, had the previous remark bout me having an attitude *sob sob* not punctured my bubble of happiness, even before it blew up.)

Sun- (who had thoughtfully been listening to our convo) ‘ you know, I would call it CYBER AURA.’

Both me and Shi stared at her. Infact Sun herself sat there trying to comprehend what she meant by that, so that she could answer our questioning looks.

Sun -‘What??!! Don’t look at me like that!! I simply made this word up, right now. ‘

( Didn’t I mention anything bout our madhouse and its inhabitants anywhere on this blog?? :P)

But you know what? This word- 'Cyber Aura' and the fact that it actually defines something which does exist (though we are pretty oblivious of it), did set my mind ticking....

(p.s. looks like I’ll havta now include ‘shi’ and ‘sun’ in my label list coz they seem to be giving me loads to blog bout ;)

@suk- yes...i have removed word verifiation from my comment pg (:P) so now u can leave comments without grumbling :P)

BHOOKAD CLUB-1

With the mess food sucking big time, exams causing a nightmare and the thought of sitting and thinking yet again about where to have dinner that night , being enough to drive one’s voracious pangs of hunger away, Abhu, shi, sun and mek (check the post titled “college…” to figure out these abbreviations) decided to MAKE dinner that night.

It all started with Abhu smsing Shi to buy some fruits on her way back from the reading room, because that night she felt like having fruit salad for dinner. At 8:30 Abhu gets an anxious message from Shi, asking her if she was feeling alright. Shi couldn’t believe that Abhu wanted to have FRUIT salad for dinner. (huh! See what a wrong impression people have about Abhu?? Agreed she is not too fond of fruits but does that mean she cant ,for a change, decide to have em??)

So, Shi returns to the room at 10, with fruits, veggies , mek and sun accompanying her. Mek had a packet of Knorr Hot n Sour soup and some kinda mixture that was supposed to be added to the veggie salad. Before they knew a full fledged menu had been planned for a special and healthy dinner.

Menu:
1. Hot n sour soup (with some kinda noodles added to it which ultimately made it taste like manchow)
2. Doritos with cheese ('Bahrain ki cheese ' if i may add. again, refer to the post- 'college...' for clarification)
3. Veggie salad with some kinda mixture in it :P
4. Fruit salad

Now came the most important part of it all- cutting the fruits and veggies. They sent Sun to fetch Doritos and cheese from mek’s room (her room is filled with all these yum things from Bahrain). Abhu was on her laptop, quickly saying a bye to all the 5 people with whom she was chatting at a time ( Tn- her very very good friend from skul , Suk, and 3 other friends from MIT ). Meanwhile, Shi ( who is good at cutting fruits and veggies started peeling off the cucumber and cutting it. Shi unaware of Abhu’s poor cutting and chopping skills handed her an apple to cut. Abhu tried to do her best, but she must have looked extremely comical trying to gingerly cut the apple into two, cause Mek and Shi coulnot control their giggles. As soon as the apple was cut into two, Abhu jumped to do an impromptu jig, elated at finally having cut a fruit into half with a knife. Heheee! Though she abandoned any attempt to cut the fruit into smaller pieces, she then took up the work of adding chat masala to the fruit salad.(u can see the pic above :P) Meanwhile, Mek prepared the soup adding noodles and other ingredients which she thought would make it yum.

With loud music playing in the room, sun cutting onions, all of them sniffing and removing tears from their eyes, thanks to the onions, they had an amazing time preparing this meal!

R n R (Roadies and Raghu)

Iam not sure, if I contribute even an iota to the viewership of MTV HeroHonda Roadies (hope I got the entire name correct) and form a part of the millions who watch it open mouthed, seated at the edge of their seats, their backs bent forward in interest, with hundreds of multicolored , animated visions flashing past their already-overexcited cerebrums, where they imagine themselves to be right there and doing it all.

No! iam not here to express my keen desire to be a Roadie, coz I have none such desires, neither am I gonna criticize the judges or the tasks that the contestants are made to do, because I feel all of them they have an idea about what they are getting into and hence I have no right to comment on their decision.

I am here to give my opinion on one one of the esteemed judges- Raghu.

I admit I have not been a regular viewer of this show in the past, owing to certain unavoidable reasons, but now, in college, when I got hold of the audition episodes of this show, I couldnot help but get hooked on to it. I remember, two years ago, when I first saw the auditions, I couldnot help but sympathize with the contestants who were mercilessly grilled by Raghu. It was beyond my comprehension as to how someone could be so rude towards people, unnecessarily creating a commotion. But now, when I see the auditions for roadies 5.0 taking place, iam actually amazed by how much good it does to the contestants who get a chance to have a interview with the judges. It is very obvious that most of the people who want to get into this show, are not very clear bout why they wanna do it, save the fame and money part involved with it and whether they have it in them or not. After getting a good dose of character analysis from the judges, iam sure a person with an attitude open to self-improvement, will do very well for himself in the future.

I must admit, I was really awed by Raghu’s sharp sense of analysis and the frank way with which he expressed his opinions. There are very few people in this world who actually give a true and unbiased opinion on things and undoubtedly, Raghu currently tops my list of such people. I actually feel he is a very good judge of character. Being rude and testing the patience of the contestants, forms an inseparable part of his job, which I think he executes magnificently. On top of that, from some recent episodes that I saw, I feel he makes an excellent counselor, though a very harsh one. I have never come across a person who is so sure of himself, has his fundas crystal clear and has confidence oozing out of every cell of his body. U know, I have heard of most of the contestants biting their finger nails and almost peeing in their pants at the thought of their encounter with Raghu ? But I think he will be a very interesting person to meet……

Its 10:30 in the evening and iam sitting outside my hostel. The thought of going into my hostel , despite having an official perm till 1 (thanks to my dance practices) seems very foolish. Iam not exactly in the best of moods. Just one of those same stupid mood swings, I guess. I am lost in thoughts when a group of friends pass by. Inspite of being in an awful mood, I smile and wave a wannabe-cheery “wassup”.

This is one incident, which has happened to me loads of times. Not just in college, even in many social gatherings. This is what is generally termed as “social obligations”.

Now, after having spent 5 months in college, I have finally realized the importance of these social obligations but that does not make me change my opinion about it. I still don’t get any valid justification for it. I still don’t like the behind-the-mask personality. Why cant we just be ourselves? why do we have to smile when we dont feel like? why do we have to be cordial to people whom we hate from the core of our heart? Why this two faced personality? All this just because we live in a society and well, havta be good to everyone for well.... our own benifit??

It may arise from the fact that there are loads of people around all the time and there are some emotions which one may not want to display in public.

*sigh* I wish life was not so complicated. I wish I never felt lonely despite being surrounded by 20 other people. I dunno if its just me or there are others who feel the same way. It is as if when you want to be alone, no one allows you to do so. And when you are in the mood to party, there is no one to accompany you and enjoy with you. I wonder why my tastes are so different from the others. I just can’t seem to figure it out.

Does life in a hostel do this to you? I have seen many other friends also go through a similar phase aswell. Iam too frustrated to think bout it now. Probably a good night’s sleep will help me gather my thoughts. It always does. And well…if not for anything else, I like these “weird phases” because it atleast gives me the chance or blog:P

It kinda becomes mandatory in order to achieve peace of mind.

blah!!!!

Why am I feeling so restless today? This place is not new to me. This is what I chose for myself and I have no regrets bout it. Absolutely none. Its probably the fact that um not feeling well today coupled with…well…home sickness that’s making me feel so weird.

Dunno….

Guess I will take a few days to get into the mould of things,but I don’t wont those few days to be HELL! And to top it off…its my birthday in a few days…(shhhhh!!!! I don’t want too many people to know) lolz…see…how confused I am??? Writing it in my blog and not wanting people to know. Heheee…

Um feeling too dirty…guess should have a nice hot bath…after that 12 hr long bus journey…that terrible journey…twisting and turning in that highly uncomfortable seat. *disgusted luk* and then all that unpacking, cleaning the dust….heheee…hostel lyf doesnot sound too inviting, does it?

But then again, it’s the way one looks at thing. Probably another few hours of sleep will do me good (and that’s gonna make it like some 14 hours that ive slept).

Anyways…adieu till my next post which um sure I will write in a much better mood and which I sincerely hope will be quite soon :)

College...

Sheesh!!!! Its been 4 whole months since i blogged!!!! Well....its been 4 months since i joined college too. Life has been SO busy that ive barely had time to sit and gather my thoughts. I have to admit that there have been loads of instances when i’ve wanted to blog but i just couldn’t due to many reasons :P and yes...i would like to partly blame it on the unavailability of WIFI in our block. Now that we have FINALLY ( yes...i hope iam able to convey the sense of relief i experience, through my words) got wifi, i promise to try my best to be as regular as possible with my blog.
So, lemme first introduce to you the members of our madhouse (its really surprising how iam able to find crazy people like me where ever i go. I must not be DAT crazy you know...*thoughtful look*).
1> Shi- (my roomie)- well....this is one thing i HAVE to thank orkut for. She was the first girl from my college whom i met online, and since we kinda had similar choices and didn’t want to be stuck with a complete stranger in our first sem in college, we decided to become roommates. And am i not glad for that!!!! We seem to be SO similar!! There is loads we have in common, from our past experiences to our liking for dance, our choice of movies and music, etc etc. So basically, though she can be VERY careless at times and irritates me with her endless talks on the phone (she can be on the phone for hours!!)...um happy sharing a room with her.
2> Sun-(my neighbour)- the three of us, i.e sun, shi and myself, bonded from the time we were in the 7th block (our temporary hostel block which its own stories and incidents, about which i shall blog some other day;) ) man!!! She is such a hypochondriac!!!! We are really dreading the day when she might fall sick (though i hope it never happens)coz if that happens then she’ll either drive us mad, or herself become insane.We keep pulling her leg and she too get back at us whenever she can. Its almost like the three of us share a room . Another very “prominent feature” of sun is that she has this very irritating habit of dropping almost everything she holds (sheesh!!!she’s definitely gonna throttle me if she ever comes across this post :P) and you HAVE to keep your food drawer locked when she’s around coz if you don’t you find anything left in it with her “only one bite”. But jokes apart, she’s a sweetheart. We can bitch bout anything and everything under the sun and both of us love gossiping and eating ;)
3> Mek- Dunno where to start writing bout her from. She can be a lil baby and and at the same time one of the most mature person for her age , if she wants to. I love pulling her leg because of her fetish for “Bahrain ki coke”, “Bahrain ki coffee”, “Bahrain ka pizza” etc etc... She’s one person you can bank upon to accompany you, whenever you wanna go somewhere or do something. This chick can’t say no! And guess what??? She too is crazy bout astro related stuff!!! Man!!! I was so glad to find someone with whom i could discuss bout all this.
4> Sho- she’s the intellectual one in our group. Loves to go deep into philosophical stuff. You should see her belly dance!!! She’s awesome! A gem of a person. By the way, mek and sho are also roomies and since their room falls on the way to our’s , we always end up stopping by their room whenever we pass that way, and once we do that nothing can stop us from gossiping for hours (unless sho gives her “enough-lets-study-now” looks during exam time:P)

Um seriously very glad to have found such a wonderful group of friends here so soon. Oh yeah...i must tell you bout our “bhookad club” headed by mek and sun. All of us are big foodies and love to visit the night canteen or the “coffee dabba” in our block just 5 minutes before 12 (coz the canteen closes at 12 and so does our hostel door.) We love to give the matron “we-r-feeling-very-very-hungry-plz-let-us-out” looks just before 12 and leave her grumbling bout how she cant even go to sleep peacefully at 12. Wicked...aint it *devilish look* .Thank goodness, all of us love hanging out, going to the disc and doing “bakchodi”:P . in short, we rock!!!