Yay !

Hot on the heels of completing an year on the blog - it has recorded over 1000 hits in less than 6 months :D
Noticed this : Just now. Yay !

Not all those who Wander are lost !

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring;

Renenwed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.

: J.R.R. Tolkien

Needless to say - I derive the title of my blog from this poem!
Stumbled on this, today.
Since its a great poem, might as well share it :)

Why I left the LT at 44/3 ...

Over the years, I have come to realise that India cant win when Sachin doesnt play.

Obviously, like any fan of Sachin, I have heard a lot of things about how, no longer can he win matches, how he hasnt played any inning of importance for long. how he is a ghost of what he was and is highly over-rated and tons of other things you had to say to me!

But I knew the instant that Tendulkar was out - this was to be script that i had often seen in the past.
Indian cricket team- other than one lucky Lords' evening - cant win a match [especially while chasing] when Sachin doesnt play atleast a supporting role.
My heart breaks for this man , if this turns out to be his last match in a World Cup!

Thus I knew it the instant, that he was out, India isnt winning this match & the irony of the situation will be that Sachin will be blamed for non-performance and the team's failure.

Hate the 10 other woMen in Blue !

11 mein se 15 bekaar,
fir bhi mera Bharaat mahaan!


The anguish doesnt stop at 1 blog post !

Americans on Cricket :D

“You mean people actually pay to watch this?” exclaimed one American I tried to interest in the game. “It’s about as exciting as measuring global warming.”

“And just as vital to the rest of the planet,” I retorted.
: Shashi Tharoor

In an editorial to NY Times - Shashi Tharoor, whom I long suspected to be as Indian as say, V S Naipaul, actually makes a good stand for cricket !


I really hope India wins today - Tendulkar might have another chance at lifting the Cup
I really hope India loses today - I will spend much less time hereforth till 28th April.
Till then - I head out to LT to watch the screening :)

PAF 2007 - Aashayein

Yesterday night - the PAFs for the year 2007 got underway !

Hostels 3, 8 , 10 & Tansa House came together to present the 1st one - Aashayein (Hindi for 'Hopes') on 18th March , ie : yesterday.

[All IITB lingo & usages explained here]
Background:
Hostel 3 wanted to get some guilt and shame washed off - after a forgettable 'Camouflages' . The current 3rdie batch, has over the past 2 years, shown enough promise in Dram, and was raring to go. Mishra, Golu, SMS, etc. were really pitching in. Chaube, Pondy, Nana were there to help out.
Choreo has always found H3 lacking, but with freshie enthu & H10 participation, there didnt seem a likely shortage of dancers. phew !
H 10 - the UG Girls hostel - has finished 2nd both years I have been here. Clearly something that clearly doesnt go too well down with them, given that no one remembers when was the last time they actually won a PAF. Dependable for Choreo and FA work.
H 8 - Mix of good enthu seniors and talent.

OAT :
Though practice had begun much earlier - I will cut short to the hand over of OAT [Open Air Theatre] the venue.
We had OAT for 72 hrs, before performing and handing it over to next hostel pairings. Institute wide student body elections were held that night hence the there was general ruffling about. Even then, most of the prod was moved into the OAT. There were quite a handful of frames [of bamboo] that were ready, yet the major wood frame for the central backdrop was yet to be made [by an external carpenter].
Saw how the PAF was shaping up for the first time - and - it wasnt a pretty site.

Since, most of the students attended classes on a working Friday, rehearsals and work commenced only in the evening. We had the 1st run-through scheduled at night, meant that all departments had to get their act together.
Prod - fata pada tha. The stadium was only vaguely visible.
Dram - major changes were to be made. There were long scenes that werent rehearsed even once. A chopping was on the anvil. The +ve - no ego clashes and people were ready to work around this problem and get things done as well was required.
Music - Heard it for the 1st time & was damn impressive. All was live - which is incredible. To top it off, there were a couple of original scores, which were really coming off well. :)
Choreo - neat. more later.

The run-through that started at 1 pm extended to well past 330 until - it was discontinued because the subsequent scenes were not practiced, and major reshaping of the earlier pieces was required. :D
We might not end up requiring the last scenes, if the IIT crowd doesnt take a great liking to the initial scenes. :P

Work started at around noon on a hot saturday working. Mostly Prod work - since the entire cricket stadium had to be made. A great number of seniors got cracking. We were going to try an idea to use curtains to hide the entire stage while a major prod change happened during the performance. If the curtains, putched during show - it might have been curtains then and there.

We had another run through that night.
The scenes just stretched on and on. Deletions were called for. Redundancy was to be eliminated. The entire character [of numerologist Bejan Daruwalla] was dropped from the script. (Reminded me of the quack in 'Lage Raho! MunnaBhai' who couldnt predict his future successfully at gunpoint. Like wise - Daruwalla was dropped unceremoniously from the script - almost as bad a Ganguly ;) )
There was a palpable tension among the seniors / OCs since it was a distinct possibility that the PAF might , again, not end. Faces were lined with sweat and creased with tension. An emergency meeting was convened to look into what could be done to revive. No one was really hungry to geez the Maddu food, that came along.
As usual, music & dance junta came , performed satisfactorily and left.

'D'ay
18th dawned late - since anyway everyone was around till 7 am with a hangover from the previous nights morale low.

why r we dancing ...yahan pe to kuch bhi prod nahin dikh raha hai ......paf ho bhi raha hai ya nahin ???
- Choreo Team on 18th Morn

kinda sums up the feeling.
Still the prod team was reliably up early - by mid afternoon - things were distinctly looking up on the prod front.
Non-stop dram / voice over practices lent a semblance of completeness with a fresh & slim script to boot.

Another run-through later, we were finally ready to roll at 930 pm.

The 1st boost of confidence was felt after the dream choreo was pretty well received. Though irritated by the excessive and abstract choreos, the choreo was done beautifully to say the least.
I always, knew that there were good dancers in here, but this was so close that - it was almost surreal. Anshu was too good and as graceful as i have seen any dancer [after Madhuri Dixit ;) ].
Mishra was again amazingly elegant and gave a power-packed performance. Among the juniors, Vrinda, Aishwarya and a few others were mind-blowing. The thing that was most appealing was that the dancers were actually enjoying themselves, while dancing under the spotlight and it showed brilliantly. I tried to tape as much as the dance as possible, but since I had a subsequent scene - tried to get back into my elements. Even later, I was just so floored by their dances. If everyone accepts my Orkut friendship requests, I will become a fan instantly. :)

Soon - the PAF was truly underway and inspite of the occasional heckling at lengthy monologues and cliched jokes we were going to finish this thing no matter what!

The FAgiri was visibly brilliant - Haji Ali was never so beautifully captured. Pop Tates was as close to reality as it gets. Classroom walls had realistic graffiti - it said 'Pandey Rocks'!
Kudos to Jango, Shiksha and many others.

Lights held up brilliantly inspite of lack of co-ordination during earlier run throughs.
Prod shifts were quick and swift. Music was captivating and held the audience for a really long time as the curtains were closed and there wasnt any other action to hold the crowd's action. Live singing added to the beauty. Innovative use of flute as well as Mandolin was great :) Guitar was nice as well.
At one hour mark - my initial apprehension was dispelled. After another short acting stint, I was done for the night. :D
Later, the crowd was brilliant and brilliantly reactive. They actually cowered as rains came down on Eden Garden. That wasnt even practised. Their cheers really brought the punch of the match into the PAF. Sidhu is always welcome.
This part of the match, was again - loaded with choreo - yawn - eventhough the dancing was upto standards.

But as the final wicket fell - we knew we had delivered a complete PAF - winnable or not has to wait for the next 10 days, but certainly complete. Vartika's senti ended in quick time - which is important since the audience really doesnt appreciate too long fundaes, especially at the end of 1.5 hours, [which is extremely long by PAF stds.]

Thank you all !
It might not have been a Dastak - but it was far from Camouflages.
Eventhough my contribution to the PAF was at best minimal, I had no feeling of wanting to leave the OAT at the end of it.

Cheers !

--------------------------
Short guide to IIT Lingo

• Lingo : Language frequently used that is not comprehendable by an outsider
• Dram : Dramatics, simple enuf
• Choreo : Choreography , or Dance
• Prod : The sets and related stuff of the production.
  
• FA : Fine Arts - painting and so on.
• enthu : enthusiam.
  
• putch : flaw in the performance.
• senti : sentimental speech

---
Edit :- dated 21.3.2007

Check out PAF pics on http://www.it.iitb.ac.in/[tilde]vikram/PAF-2007/
Photographer's Request - Dont add a link to the above url - in a place - where crawlers can take over
---
Edit :- dated 28.3.2007

We came 2nd in Overall Trophy & 1st in VoiceOver Trophy
Not too good [I believe we could have won] but then...
---

An year gone by ...

On 13th March 2006, in a moment of extreme frustration, mental unrest, self-hate and many other such emotions, I first decided to put hand to keyboard.

A complete solar revolution has happened since, and I am 1 year old on this blogspace.
I know that, what is written here is not of any literary importance & doesnt mean anything to anyone but me, but it means the world to me.

The blog stemmed out of a long bottled up urge to scream out at the IIT system, at my friends, at the power hierarchies of this college that :: let me be myself and just f*ck off into nothingness. I am not too sure, that the release is complete. I am not too sure whether it mattered, but one thing is sure that - this blog allows me to be myself.
Whether someone reads it or doesnt is immaterial, because this is a place where I am closed to review & criticism. Its an equivalent of biking down Marine Lines at 90Kmph in the dead of the night without a helmet - never thinking twice about any damn thing in the world, be it the signals, the police, the law, the road or its potholes. Its just about feeling the wind through your hair and defiance in your blood. If there are additional rain droplets and/or a girl on the pillion, I couldnt ask for anything else in the world.
Blogging is about a similar personal ecstacy!

As a result, you could say that I am senti about my blog. Sitting comfortably cross-legged on a couch, at home with laptop on my laps and writing a blog at unearthly hours is something I always wanted to do - and coincidentally I am doing this for the first time on this occasion.

With an year gone by, I wonder what all has changed. Nothing at the face of it. I am still as angry, much more confused, as much a lazy-bum & most of my posts are still post-midnight.
But the last year has been a year of great learning and experiences.

I turned 20. I decided that I would first say things about growing up, when the pangs of turning 20 first hit me on Sudeep's Bday. Then again, I was practically shaking when the bike-ride from Eesha's midnight cake-party to IIT allowed me time to think of how much turning 20 means and how little it seems. I ended up scaring her as much.
I have a draft of all that I wanted to say - on my 20th Bday & never could till then. I never got around to publishing that as well.
Each time, i realised that writing about growing up - isnt a night's work.

The year has been marked by endless nightouts discussing friendship, relationships, marriage, parenting, life, career - rather the challenges of each one of them.

It was an year of taking up challenges and failing in them. The spectacular banding of Speakers' Club sophies and as spectacular failure of the idea will haunt me for quite some time. That thing hurt me very deep, because I had put in a real fight to pull that idea off. Just that there werent enough freebies/incentives to be handed out at each point of time. Yet it was an year, when I realised that given a responsibility I can execute it well & that I can be entrusted with things.

Last year, I discovered that the joys of having a hang-out group far outweigh the transience of hopping from one group to another and exchanging pleasantries with them. I really need to write about all my friends one-of-these days and establish the role they play in maintaining my sanity.

Bike was such a crucial cog in the year gone by, that I dedicated a seperate blog to my passion. [Though I cant say, I do justice to it]. Airport, SakiNaka, Juhu Beach, Parel & Pune.

This was the year of THE 5th SEM, of persistent segmentation faults, core-dumps, of reliving the joy of being in CSE, of a week in Bangalore, of MSR, Google, of OSL, of Coffee & Biscuits, of Maddu and Jalebis.

It was of persistence through asking times, cribbing in every blog post.
It was of blogging, when the mind runs out of ideas & of blogging, when the mind is full of them, of blogging, when the mind seeks shelter & blogging, when the mind reports adventure.

It was an year of the Blog My Blog !

I Hate it when ...

Weekends go by without any activity! Sigh ..

Weekends represent a break, rather an escape from the routine of IITB tyranny :P, a chance to meet new people, relax unwind and not-look-forward-to the next week!

And all that I am doing on a Holi weekend is - face a monitor at 330 in the afternoon, with no plans for the next hour, this evening, this night or tomorrow !
& just when the weekend draws to a close, suddenly there are a heap of things to do.

Things that I could have done this weekend :
1. Go on a car-ride to some beach
2. Go to Pune for general timewasting :)
3. Spend a weekend at home and catch up with School friends.
4. Actually, get some quality seminar work done!

Alas ! none of that is happening !

If Men Could Menstruate ...

Found this pretty hilarious :D

Living in India made me understand that a white minority of the world has spent centuries conning us into thinking a white skin makes people superior, even though the only thing it really does is make them more subject to ultraviolet rays and wrinkles.

Reading Freud made me just as skeptical about penis envy. The power of giving birth makes "womb envy" more logical, and an organ as external and unprotected as the penis makes men very vulnerable indeed.

But listening recently to a woman describe the unexpected arrival of her menstrual period (a red stain had spread on her dress as she argued heatedly on the public stage) still made me cringe with embarrassment. That is, until she explained that, when finally informed in whispers of the obvious event, she said to the all-male audience, "and you should be proud to have a menstruating woman on your stage. It's probably the first real thing that's happened to this group in years."

Laughter. Relief. She had turned a negative into a positive. Somehow her story merged with India and Freud to make me finally understand the power of positive thinking. Whatever a "superior" group has will be used to justify its superiority, and whatever and "inferior" group has will be used to justify its plight. Black me were given poorly paid jobs because they were said to be "stronger" than white men, while all women were relegated to poorly paid jobs because they were said to be "weaker." As the little boy said when asked if he wanted to be a lawyer like his mother, "Oh no, that's women's work." Logic has nothing to do with oppression.

So what would happen if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?

Clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event:

Men would brag about how long and how much.

Young boys would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood. Gifts, religious ceremonies, family dinners, and stag parties would mark the day.

To prevent monthly work loss among the powerful, Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea. Doctors would research little about heart attacks, from which men would be hormonally protected, but everything about cramps.

Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammad Ali's Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields- "For Those Light Bachelor Days."

Statistical surveys would show that men did better in sports and won more Olympic medals during their periods.

Generals, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation ("men-struation") as proof that only men could serve God and country in combat ("You have to give blood to take blood"), occupy high political office ("Can women be properly fierce without a monthly cycle governed by the planet Mars?"), be priests, ministers, God Himself ("He gave this blood for our sins"), or rabbis ("Without a monthly purge of impurities, women are unclean").

Male liberals and radicals, however, would insist that women are equal, just different; and that any woman could join their ranks if only she were willing to recognize the primacy of menstrual rights ("Everything else is a single issue") or self-inflict a major wound every month ("You must give blood for the revolution").

Street guys would invent slang ("He's a three-pad man") and "give fives" on the corner with some exchenge like, "Man you lookin' good!"

"Yeah, man, I'm on the rag!"

TV shows would treat the subject openly. (Happy Days: Richie and Potsie try to convince Fonzie that he is still "The Fonz," though he has missed two periods in a row. Hill Street Blues: The whole precinct hits the same cycle.) So would newspapers. (Summer Shark Scare Threatens Menstruating Men. Judge Cites Monthlies In Pardoning Rapist.) And so would movies. (Newman and Redford in Blood Brothers!)

Men would convince women that sex was more pleasurable at "that time of the month." Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself, though all they needed was a good menstruating man.

Medical schools would limit women's entry ("they might faint at the sight of blood").

Of course, intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguements. Without the biological gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets, how could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics-- or the ability to measure anything at all? In philosophy and religion, how could women compensate for being disconnected from the rhythm of the universe? Or for their lack of symbolic death and resurrection every month?

Menopause would be celebrated as a positive event, the symbol that men had accumulated enough years of cyclical wisdom to need no more.

Liberal males in every field would try to be kind. The fact that "these people" have no gift for measuring life, the liberals would explain, should be punishment enough.

And how would women be trained to react? One can imagine right-wing women agreeing to all these arguements with a staunch and smiling masochism. ("The ERA would force housewives to wound themselves every month": Phyllis Schlafly)

In short, we would discover, as we should already, that logic is in the eye of the logician. (For instance, here's an idea for theorists and logicians: if women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn't it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long? I leave further improvisation up to you.)

The truth is that, if men could menstruate, the power justifications would go on and on.

If we let them.

(c) Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions. NY: NAL, 1986.

Can be found at: http://www.haverford.edu/psych/ddavis/p109g/steinem.menstruate.html