hAPPy B'DaY CArLoS...

           I'm sorry. I shouldn't be calling Carlos Carlos, atleast not on his birthday.But, the thing is this, Trical has christined him Carlos, he will be. Now the important thing, a very happy birthday to you, Carlos; OK, Kanishka Gupta.
           25th December; Jesus Christ landed on this planet to rid the humanity of its sins and teach them the Art of Living. 1991 years later(+6days), 31st december; God sent Kanishka Gupta(later to be known as carlos, by his followers) to this planet, to become a Guru, one of his kind, to teach people how (not) to live.
         The GPL yesterday was awesome; watching people hit him with such energy,vigour, fury; as though they were taking revenge on him for having their parents killed by him or something, proved how much we loved him(please don't mistake this to us taking a grudge on him.No.Not at all.
        So, once a happy birthday to you to Carlos.May you celebrate many more birthdays like this(with the GPL included, of course) and may you live your life happily( and let others live as well)


P.S. If you happen to be carlos, go ahead:
       Arey bhai, on this auspiscious occasion of your birthday, I would want you to take a few resolutions in your life:
   1. Please don't come into my room with your unwashed face, straight from your bed, asking for the paper. That really is horrible.
  2. Smile a lot. You really look good when you smile.
  3. Read the above 2 points once again.
  
 That's all and May GOD BLESS YOU

              The alumni garden party held at our hostel today made me realize one very important thing, the fact that one day we would pass out from this college, and somewhere 20 years down the lane, we would be here having a get- together, talking about old things, and digging the memories back.
            
              It was really nostalgic watching them tell to their wives and children ( you must be wondering why it is men telling their wives and not the women telling their husbands, you must remember that this is an IIT and IITs have a real scarcity of girls)," It was in this room that I stayed, it was in this mess that I ate"and many other things; But mostly we were actually staring at their daughters , girls of our age and enjoyed the sudden inflow of  the feminine race into our hostel.

             It was what followed that I really enjoyed. We, sitting in the chairs meant for the alumni (after they cleared off, of course), lazing in them and talking about how we'd be doing some 15 years from now, in our thirties, with our wives and children.It really was hilarious. I really would miss the life here, when I leave this place. But, right now, with my friends,in the place I love and I'm having the
 'Time of my life'.

CoNfessions oF A hOMe siCK GuY

        This sort of a feeling, that I've got used to, by now,  usually starts from one day before my leaving to Benaras. Now that I'm going to leave tomorrow, the feeling has only just started. The main symptoms include a queasy feeling in the stomach, getting lost in thought(usually thinking about what I had done in the past days of my holidays at home, the fun I had, the fun I'm going to miss), not talking much to anyone etc. etc. Cure, I guess there is no cure to this, you only need to get used to this. 
         Studying at a place 30 hours far from my place ,Vijayawada, I know that I'm only going to come back home at some time around March. Sad as I might seem at leaving Vijayawada, I know that 3 days from now I'd be enjoying life with my friends at IIT-BHU. It is only during this transition period that I go through all this sort of stuff. I'm not some sort of a loner who stays different from the others. No.  I've had some of the happiest memories of my life at IIT-BHU with my friends. 
        Unlike my other friends  get excited at the thought of coming back to college, I, on the other hand, usually spend time planning how to extend my visit to home , making a one week holiday into a 15 day visit, 3 days to a week; like I have just done ( the fake certificates that I'm going to bring support the fact that I've had typhoid, but all I've had during this one is fun). Maybe it's becoz of the bond I share with my place or my parents, brother, friends who hold me attracted to this place,  I continue to be one of those home loving guys who loves spending time at home.  

THis iS UnFAir

          This is I guess the hundredth I've been asked the same question: " Which college,son?"  Students of our age always are asked this, so not a bit of a thing here. It is what follows my reply that sort of irritates me, no not irritating me but breaks my heart, in a way. So, I give my usual reply: IT-BHU ( more recently, I've been using IIT-BHU knowing that we are anyway going to be an IIT soon and also to get the effect of the magical word IIT). What would I expect, a very good or an 'Oh! good to hear that'. But no, I rarely get this. It is always an 'Eh!',smiling, with their ears pointed towards me for clarity which meant ' Nice, young boy, but I haven't heard of such a college, not atleast in India'.  So now, I reduce the level that I've so long been showing, and say with a dejected look on my face, with voice not as high as before : 'BHU,sir' . Now the world seems to understand. So it replies," Oh! so you're in BHU, the oldest university in India, I guess , right." I say yes sad that the damage has already been done. And then the philosophical part : 'You must be lucky, Son to be staying in the abode of Lord Viswanath'.  Well, thanks to all of you, and yeah, I consider myself lucky to be so close to God. 
    
        But you've forgotten to appreciate the fact that I'm an IITian ( not that I demand an appreciation or something) which the people from other IITs get. I've put in the same effort that maybe the other IITians have, so I guess I need not be put through the trauma of going through all this. I'm not being fussy , but when it comes to my father having to go  through the entire drama, that hurts me. So what do we ITians do?  We wear T-shirts highlighting the IIT word in IIT-BHU, so that maybe the world and the girls, especially, take a second look at us( Come on, if I  don't have an edge in the race for girls, why the heck have I cleared JEE?).


      This is dedicated to all my fellow ITians who have to put up with all this. Don't worry friends, one day we will become an IIT( that I don't know when), there will be no  second time answering the question,' where do you  study, son'? , and one day girls might consider someone from ITBHU to be of IIT standards.

       The last two days, I was busy attending my grandmother's mother's death ceremony( my great grand mother, put another way). She did have a pretty tough time in the end, I mean all the suffering , so I  guess her death put an end to her sufferings( my grandmother was inconsolable, though). I was excepting a really boring time there, but no, I really had fun with my cousins whom I met after, I think , an year and a half ( I was never really that close to them). So time did fly there, but I did manage to learn one very important thing.      
              Relations weren't that good (that good is not enough, it was far more worse) among my great grandmother's  siblings ( 5 brothers and 5 sisters) , I mean each one of them had issues with every other , put another way , all was not well for any of them with any other. Interestingly, these 12days, they've managed to get along very well. I mean, all of them, at the same place, no quarrels ( all of them had equally high tempers), What was important here was they managed to act very well, though they had ill-feelings for someone, they didn't let them come out, and let me tell you , it did look like one happy family.
         Well, what does this mean? it isn't wrong to put on a mask over yourself, not be your natural self,  maybe for the sake of common good, maybe to make someone you love happy. I am not really good at this, to pretend, but yes, this is how the world operates and I need to learn this "Art of acting" as well.                                                                                                                                             

         Went to the Labbipet temple today as it was my mother's birthday, the three of us, my mom,dad and me( my brother couldn't make it as he had classes to attend). This  was a regular visiting place to me when I was a kid, but with time I lost contact with this place(I never knew the exact reason why we stopped visiting the temple, maybe we shifted to a place quite far from here). After all these years, I realized how little the temple managed to change, how all my memories lay there, a childhood me, running  across the corridors, along with my brother (All these things, they make me regret as to why I've grown up so fast).
      Amidst all the traffic, all the honking, I managed to find peace inside the temple, a kind of happiness, unexplainable, maybe it is this feeling that is called GOD, the various forms we give to this feeling. Maybe we can't see God, but atleast we can feel his presence. I don't understand how these Atheists manage to ignore this feeling and preach to the world ," there is no god. It is real foolish of you people to believe this unscientific thing". Whatever, let science make people more scientific, to make them probe into every single thing, but I continue to believe in god and would continue going to places like this.

Jai Hind!

        The other day I was watching this " PROUD TO BE AN INDIAN" video posted of FB. Recently many such videos are being circulated on the net. Ironically, all of them dealt with issues that degrade our country; issues like corruption,The Royal Gandhi Family, The 2G scam etc. I guess we have done away with the habit of brooding over " yeh desh nahi badalne wala hai" and switched over to accepting the reality " yeh desh sach me nahi badalne wala hai" and maybe, laugh over the matter, chit-chat with these topics, say to someone , in a lighter vein , "look at what this bastard (symbolizing a politician) has done?"
        I guess the 'makeover' was right . There is nothing, you and I, sitting at homes can do about this. Anna did come as a ray of hope but in the end, I guess it is the filthy govt. that is going to win. Don't call me a pessimist ; I'm only trying to be practical.( I did shout slogans " Anna tum sangarsh karo , Hum tumhare saath hai")  
       So where does the problem come? How have countries smaller than us come out of conditions more worse than ours and still manage to stay developed?  I guess the problem is we ourselves. The fact that we hold our families, our desire to earn money more important than our country is responsible for our plight. Come on, we all know there can be no bigger talent exporter than India, that 30% of AMERICANS are INDIANS clearly show this.  ( I don't understand how these people manage to live there when they clearly know their country needs them).
        I guess as long we continue living with this attitude of 'self before country' , even a hundred Annas can't change the destiny of this country.                                                                       Remember, for the country to change, it is the people who have to change first.