It all started way back, I guess. Maybe, it just comes with being the older son in a Tamil Iyer family. My mom’s initial fears included my turning out to be a bad student, hence with no job, hence with little or no future, and hence dependent on her all my life. As I aspired and changed fields from Medicine to Biotechnology to Communication to (now) Marketing, my mom’s thoughts on the same fluctuated like a pendulum on cocaine.

Apart from a ruined career, she had several other fears. They ranged from my temper and lavish spending tendencies to the worst fear of every Iyer mom- my getting a Muslim girl home and demanding a wedding. Not that there is anything wrong with women following Islam, but Iyer parents just can’t take it. Nah. Never! I guess they just don’t want the gene pool to have better looks or physical strength. Or lose the IQ that makes Iyers proud. Or worse, (GOD!) have meat eaters at home!

At Diwali, I was asked to suggest matches for my cousin from amongst my Iyer friends. I laughed my arse off! I am NOT aiding an arranged marriage! No way in hell! But those of you ‘eligible’ Iyer guys out there who suddenly sat up, she has never lived in South India, and can talk as much Tamil as a (Seth-u) Marwadi in Sowkarpet can. Okay, not even that much.

My mom and grandmom were upset. Their immediate fear- ‘are you going to go in for a love-u marriage?!’

Me: Of course!

Grandmom: So you have a girl friend now?!

Me: I wish.

Grandmom: Don’t lie!

Me: I wish I were lying. I don’t have one now. But don’t you worry, I will sometime soon. I will let you know before I get married. So how long do I have again?

Grandmom: Poda!

So now coming to line I started this post with. I was on the phone with my mom when she randomly tells me that I should be married in the next couple of years. I laughed my arse off. Told her that that was insane, and that it would never happen. So how do I get her to regret having the very thought?

‘So you want me to find myself a girl within a year and marry her soon after? Sure!’

The silence after that was a given. Followed by a change of topic. I vividly return patting my back and grinning ear-to-ear while continuing to drive down the highway back to Bangalore.

But for those of you women out there interested in making my mom’s dreams come true, you can send me your applications expressing your interest. I would have listed out my criteria and conditions, but then that will need a good half a dozen blog posts worth of lists. Feel to include as many pictures as you can, in as little clothing as you please. Might just improve your chances. Though I don’t guarantee ‘a hand’ in marriage… okay… let us not get that far.

You could use the comments section to express interest or abuse as well.

So here goes…

“Let us watch some funny stuff instead, guys!” he insisted to his four friends seated around the room.  He wore a blue t-shirt with the words “Play Healthy” written in big white letters across the back, and a pair of khakhi shorts. His hair was curly and bushy. His eyes were fixated on the same thing that the other four were looking at. Pictures of brutal murders and post mortem studies kept flashing across the screen. Three guys and two girls were seated around the laptop, in a small room. All of them seem to be of the same age group (early twenties) possibly friends from college. Beyond the laptop screen and footwear scattered across the floor, a door lay partially open. It was dark but clear night outside. Sounds of vehicles speeding down the street could be heard through the door and white-curtained window to its right.

“You should check some of the other stuff out. This rotten.com has some crazy shit in it. Wonder what on earth makes people turn into such animals. It does not affect me at all, but. Choor also I don’t feel bad.” said the girl who was handling the laptop. Her hair tied at the back of her head, but a few strands still falling on her face, hiding her eyes partly- her purple sleeveless t-shirt and a pair of blue faded jeans covering her slender body. She brushed her hair aside with her left hand and lied down on her stomach for a better view of the screen.

Behind her, a guy in a green t-shirt and a short pair of checked shorts covering his vast expanse, and a shaggy beard covering his face turned around to sit with another smaller laptop. The tubelight on the wall opposite him lit up his face as he bent down in concentration to press the “resume” button of the game he was playing. “Let us play Counter Strike, man. Come fast. Join CT. I am terrorist. Join my server. I have to do CRM assignment after that.” Sounds of gunshots and bombs start coming from the laptop as the guy in green starts playing the game with full concentration. A bed lies ahead of him, against the wall, with several wires running near his legs and under the bed in serpentine fashion. An ash tray, a box of Marlboro Lights and a box of Gold Flake lie scattered on the floor.

A table lies to the left of the bed, against the wall. Several things lie scattered on it, including a long mirror against the wall, several keys, medicines, a few empty packets of cigarettes, a big matchbox a bag, women’s accessories, etc.. The girl in purple lights up another cigarette and takes a few puffs, her eyes still fixed on the screen, as another (bespectacled) dark guy in a black t-shirt starts meddling with the laptop, switching between windows. Sounds of “not this one, dude, I have already seen it” and “can we watch some funny shit instead?” are heard in random.

Another rather plump fair girl in a pair of pink pyjamas with floral patterns and a plain, black t-shirt gets up and walks up to the door at the other end of the room, climbing two small stairs to reach the door. “I will be back in a minute, guys,” she says as she reaches the door. Inside are seen a wash basin and a shower, as the door closes behind her. She returns after a couple of minutes, as “Aicha” by Outlandish starts playing from one of the laptops. “Play my favourite song, Sam!” she pleads.

As the song stops and another one starts, the rather oversized guy in the green t-shirt closes his laptop shut, keeps it on the bed next to a book titled “The journal of ADVERTISING,” and starts moving his body to the tune of the song with a wide grin across his face. The others turn to each other, laugh, and start humming the tune of the song as well, waiting for the lyrics to begin.

Suddenly, the door opens forcefully, and in enters another guy in a green, white and blue striped t-shirt and a pair of blue denims. He is lanky, with short hair, a goatee and a sleepy look. The door slams the wall and comes back towards the frame, coming to a stop in a near-closed position. Without saying a word he heads straight to the bed and throws himself on the bed. “NOT ON MY LAPTOP, PABLO!” screams the guy in green. “Why can’t you move it aside? You can see it no? And the journal is not mine also. Library’s! See what you have done,” he says, as he fishes it out from under the new entrant, and displaying the badly folded pages of the book, and keeping his laptop under the bed to keep it safe. All eyes were on the guy on the bed.

“Stop telling me what to do. I am tired, okay? And sleepy. Don’t keep asking a million questions as soon as I come. What do you think?” retorts the guy on the bed, with his face hidden inside the pillow. “I am telling you nicely, right,” says the guy in green, “please take care of my laptop. Don’t jump on it like this. And where are those two people? How was Blues?” The girl in black quips in, “yeah, what the hell were you doing in Blues? I thought you didn’t have any money! And Sup, don’t yell at him. Poor Pablo is tired! Look at him, like a kid he is.” There is laughter and giggling.

“Paaapaa. How cute my Fai is. Don’t shout at him. Look at him. Sooo sweeeet,” says the girl in purple, turning towards the bed and sitting up with knees folded between her arms. “You sleep, Fai. My baby you are. Look at him no. Paaapaa. Hahaha!” She takes another puff and blows it out towards her left. “Stop acting gay! You are too gay da!” she exclaims as the curly-haired guy in the blue t-shirt covers his nose with the edge of his t-shirt to protect himself from the smoke. He shrugs his shoulders and says with his face still hidden behind the t-shirt, “so be it. I don’t want you to kill me. It is okay if you want to smoke. It is an effective way to lose weight… One lung at a time. Suit yourself.”

The attention of all but the guy in bed then turns to the laptop screen that was keeping them busy initially. They start seeing some more gory pictures of a different murder, with “shitttt” and “I can’t stand to see such things” in the chorus.

There is a gentle tap on the door. The door opens slowly. “Don’t freak out guys. Please please don’t freak out. We are both fine. We met with an accident, but we are both fine. Just don’t panic,” says a voice, as a face is slowly visible through the door. A tall and dusky girl is seen, with blood across her chin, lips and right cheek. She is clad in a green sleeveless top, torn in a few places, and a pair of jeans folded up to her knees. The blood on her face is mixed with sand and dust. As she steps in, it is obvious that she is covered in mud, and has injuries in several other parts of her body. Everyone in the room except for the guy lying down on the bed get up immediately to see what the matter was. Some are calm while others panic.

Another figure is visible behind her as the injured girl walks into the room and towards the door at the other end. A fair guy in his mid-twenties is seen. His white shirt with blue and red stripes, folded up just over his elbows and his faded denims are covered in mud as well. His right hand is held in his left hand. His right arm is bleeding profusely, and his clothes are torn near his right thigh, right knee, right shoulder and near his rib cage. He is smiling wide as his face is lit by the tubelight inside the room. “Hey guys,” he says as he notices everyone else looking at him.

The injured girl turns around suddenly just as she was going to enter the bathroom and exclaims, “Ohhh! I forgot! Guys, this is Ashwin. Sorry for introducing him in this state.”

She turned 75 a year or two ago. She fought cancer, not once but twice, losing one breast at a time. The first instance was nearly fatal. But that was about 22 years ago. She worked harder than most people in the family. She came from a much richer family, and yet lived through hardships, as her life post-marriage demanded all of it. Everyone was treated with great love and care. She stayed away from family politics. The sacrifices she made are immense. Just to see the people around her smile. And today, it pains me to see my grandmother’s plight.

Severe arthritis prevents her from being the energetic workaholic that she once was. High blood pressure and years and years of unconquered diabetes as constant hindrances as well. Her lungs and heart are far from their best, since her first rendezvous with cancer. Her left arm is the size of my thigh- and that is not one bit funny- the result of secretions from the glands and nodules that were extracted along with the breast.

Hypersensitive- the apt word to describe the arm. A mosquito bites, the arm swells up even more(and you would think that impossible if you saw the arm in its normal state itself), it turns all red, her body heats up, every breath becomes a pain and her general condition worsens. And not only does this phenomenon go on for up to a week, but it happens almost once a month!

She lives with my grandfather, uncle, aunt and three cousins. There is a servant maid who lives at home as well. Living with my uncle and aunt is what is deemed best for her, as both are senior doctors. The oldest of the three cousins is a doctor-in-the-making. So medical attention is at her beck and call. Or is it?

It may be the age, it may be the suffering, but she almost never seems or sounds happy anymore. She complains of pain, she complains of misery. She even says she wants to live no more. Just writing about it pains me immensely. I am stumped each time she says that she is a burden for us all, and that no one loves her. How can we disregard a pillar of our lives and a vital helping hand to our success? I know it is my fault, but I just can’t get myself to show her how much I love her and how much she means to me.

I might not eat all that she asks me to eat. I might not take everything that she gives me. I know that it saddens her. I try sitting down with her and reasoning out. Maybe I don’t do enough. Maybe I should. When I do sit down with her and try making her feel better, physically or psychologically, the standard response that I get is, “who will do all this for me when you are not around?” “There are many people here for you, Paati,” I reply. “They will all do whatever you need. I will talk to them and ask them to do this for you everyday.” I lie. I wish I needn’t. But I just can’t get myself to do anything more than that. The question always lingers in my head, “who will do all this when you are not around?” It saddens me. I wish I could stick around her a little more than I get to.

But now, I am in Manipal. I have over a year to go to get done with my course. I met my grandmother today. I massaged her hand for over half an hour, tried to reduce the swelling and push the fluid accumulation away from the hand and towards the body. The inclined pillow that I had got stitched for her over a year ago is now flat and of absolutely no use. I needed something to keep her hand in an inclined position at all times. A sling like in the hospitals would help, but where will that come from?

I was told that there was no rope at home. And no cotton-gauze either. I had to take the plastic ribbon-like thing from some packed cardboard box and an old angavasthram of my grandfather’s, tie it to the grill on the floor above and create a make-shift sling which will help her keep the hand elevated. A few pillows and a four-legged walker helped in achieving a decent and comfortable position for her arm. I felt happy that the setup would help. If she used it regularly, her allergic reactions to mosquito bites would come down drastically, and in turn, her suffering as well, to a much greater extent.

“But who will set it up for me everyday once you are gone tomorrow?” I was bummed. I explained the set up to my grandfather and asked him to help out daily. He is the only one who will do so everyday. And he is 84! My mom told me that others would complain about the fact that ugly plastic ropes are hanging near the television set. NEAR THE TELEVISION SET?! What about the oldest lady of the house suffering each moment just in front of that?! Is the suffering of an ageing and ailing person okay, while a rope hanging next to a TV blasphemous?

Medicines will help, yes. But people need a lot more than just medicines to recover. It might be easy for me to say all this when I am not around my grandmother most of the time. Had I been around her all the time I might have had a callous attitude as well. But had I had such an attitude, and I am being honest as hell about it, I would have asked a friend of mine to kick me as hard as he can between my legs. And then repeat it a million times!

It is sad that all these emotions come rushing to me (and my brother too) when I am this far away from her (and so is my brother). What is even worse is that somehow, it feels like those who care the most are the ones who are farthest away from her. It seems like a direct relation between caring and distance. I went down to Chennai to meet my aunt from the US, more than anything else. My aunt came down because my grandmother was ill. For me, it was an excuse to meet my grandparents. But it was still the only reason I openly declared.

It does not take much to sit down and talk to her for 10 minutes each day. It does not take much to do something to make her feel a little better. It does not take much to be nice to someone suffering in front of your eyes all day every day. It does not take much to alleviate her pain and suffering, one bit at a time, immaterial of how small each bit is. It does not take much to love someone who has loved you more than anything else since the time you were born. It does not take much to listen to her crib about you, once you realise where the pain is coming from. It does not take much to put in an extra bit of a prayer when you know that you can only do so much when you are so far away.

I only wish everyone else got that as well.

This post will talk about some, just SOME, of the crazy stuff that we guys are up to most of the time. Not a thing can be spoken about 208, Vaishnavi Bhavan without a mention of Mallu Waters. Now the obvious question is “What on earth is Mallu Waters?” Let me try and explain.

Mallu Waters, besides being the home to an eternally kurta-clad, thick-bearded communist and a football-crazy, loud-mouthed dipsomaniac, is the most happening place in Manipal; or so some of us choose to believe. It has a bar(the bedroom), a dance floor(the living room) and a smoking lounge(get the fuck out of the house if you want to smoke, you Bitch!). The core of the Mallu Waters consists of one Mallu guy(two, actually, but that will not go well with the next bit of the sentence), a Tamil Brahmin girl(who also claims to be in a relationship with the former, but the rest of the world finds it as a ridiculous and hilarious proposition) and a freak of nature who also happens to talk in Tamil. So yeah, the four of them(two Mallus, remember?) form the core of the Mallu Waters.

So what exactly happens there? I guess it will suffice to say that it gets a lot of the attention of old monks who come and go. Not that others don’t come and go, but Mallu Waters would not be Mallu Waters without the Old Monks. And the pickles too, but we will get to that a little later.

Moving on to lesser mortals, like us, now. There are some of us who frequent the place as well. There is this one techie who calls himself Neogenx21. He doesn’t talk much. But when he does, you can’t not appreciate his sarcasm. And in a place like Manipal where absolutely no one seems to get sarcasm, he is one of those few gusts of fresh air in a bloody arid desert. He is also Mallu, by the way. So I think I should say that he is like a single coconut tree standing on a single oasis on the vast Sahara Desert. Or rather, the one guy climbing up the tree to get you that one life saving coconut. And when you come to think of it, it is very much possible to find a Mallu in that very situation, right? So yeah, he is awesome.

There is one other woman, a Mallu this time, who keeps frequenting the place. She is supposed to be the best friend of the guy going out with the “accused” Tamil Brahmin girl. In a way, you can call her the blonde Mallu. I am talking primarily about the IQ level. She is taken, by the way. So those of you still considering you will try your luck, forget it. Her guy is so awesome to her that he openly admits he will trade her for a football. But they are still going out. They will continue doing so. And they frequent Mallu Waters. So when you read about the legends a few years later, you know what made them what they are(will be, rather, but still).

And now we get to the invitees. There are a few people who always figure in the guest list. There is this guy who takes pride in calling himself “Smiley Sil.” Not sure if his being Oriya has anything to do with such a name, but let me not try analysing that a bit too much, and say a few nice things about him as well. He, I am sure, will help design amazing posters and flexes for the promotion of Mallu Waters, when the core decides to go big. For now, subtle publicity is the mantra. Just to test the waters(pun might be intended).

We then move on to a bevy of girls(NOT hot chicks) from “Smiley Sil’s” class. One is a kid(physically and mentally) who hates to be called so. Another is a “muscular” Bihari who loves South Indian sweets more than anything else. The third can be a brand ambassador for Gtalk and Skype, as she is on them ALL the time talking to a certain someone in Australia. The fourth, well, I really don’t know who she is, but was told that she comes as a part of the package. Doubt if they would be regular visitors, but they are invitees anyway.

We then come to a Mallu with an afro and another with a broken leg. They are both funny in several ways. One is a pain when drunk and another is going to be forced to get drunk very soon. Oops! Did I just give away some inside information? It is all cool, though. I doubt if he will be informed about it by Saturday. I won’t elaborate on them any further as we have a lot more aspects to deal with.

From the final year BAJC class, we have several legendary people. I will not get into the details here as that will need an entire post in itself. I think it will suffice to say that we have people who are capable of getting so high that they will lick the spilt booze off a floor which has not been swept or mopped for ages. It might not sound bad enough, but the video that we have will make anyone, yes, ANYONE, call such people insanely drunk.

Though there are several other aspects to be touched upon, I will now move to the “rules and regulations” right away. Mallu Waters charges a very nominal fee of Rs 10 for couple entry and Rs 15 for stag entry. However, entrance is free for those “chicks” deemed “hot” by the Mallu Waters core. And seeing that there are hardly any “hot chicks” around, it really should not affect the earnings of Mallu Waters.

Another rule, and the most important rule at that, is that everyone respects old monks. An Old Monk is a symbol of hope, of a better tomorrow. And when the Mallu Water-folk have pickle at the time of visits by old monks, they experience nothing short of bliss. However, one thing that will NOT be tolerated in Mallu Waters is random puke in all the wrong places. If anyone were to puke in an undesirable place/manner, he/she will be thrown out unceremoniously.

There are several other rules, a few more members and invitees. But all that will have to wait for another day. This blog post has been delayed for nearly a month now. So a Mallu Waters Part II will be up soon. Wait for it! It will surely not disappoint!

And some serious stuff now(yeah right!) LMFAO!

In the meanwhile, please do keep an eye on the Article-19 topic on Twitter. Also, Article-19 is now a member of Twitter too! For those of you who are not aware of it, Article-19 is the annual fest of Manipal Institute of Communication(MIC). To be more precise, it is India’s first ever core communication fest. It is the pride of MIC.

But most importantly, Mister Bijlee is once again the Mascot of Article-19. And Mister Bijlee is BACKKK!!! I mean, he is back to keep you all posted about his whereabouts. Mister Bijlee is waiting where he has always been. You should go pay him a visit. Like NOWWWW! :-p

So what makes the internet connection here so bad? Here is a bit of background info on that.

I got here to Manipal to be informed by my brother and his friends that the block in which I stay has the fastest LAN in any educational institute in the whole of Asia. I was really pleased about it. The real time download speed was about 6 mbps, which is far more than what I have ever used in the past. But as things always work, there was a catch. Facebook, Orkut, YouTube, etc. were all blocked. As were Torrents, that is. The only way to get around the blocks was to use proxy servers.

I first tried out iphone.facebook.com to access Facebook. It sucked SO bad that I decided not to use Facebook at all till when I managed to get the real thing to work. Then, I tried getting a proxy called “Ultrasurf” which is supposed to work really well here. I was happy that it would finally let me access several sites that I were my lifelines. I was not even able to access gmail on my Mozilla Firefox! So I finally got Ultrasurf and decided to give it a try. After a few failed attempts, I was told that it does not work on certain computers with Windows Vista as the operating system. So I had two options. Either stop trying to access FB, Orkut, YouTube, etc. or get a new OS.

Before I could do either of them, there was talk of the LAN being disconnected for good. And it came true! The LAN was dropped and we were stuck with a lousy WiFi connection called ION. On the bright side, ION did not block anything apart from Torrents and porn. So Orkut, Facebook, YouTube, etc. were back again. But there was a downside. WiFi connections might usually not be so bad, but when you are in the second biggest hostel block in the whole of Asia, with just a couple of routers for the whole block, you sure are not going to be happy with the results. And that was just the case with me. The WiFi sucks big time, and I am having to put up with it.

It takes about 2-3 minutes just to sign into Facebook. I have not managed to sign into gtalk even once since the LAN got blocked. Accessing Orkut is a not as bad, but try uploading even a single picture and you will hate yourself for having tried. If Orkut and Facebook are so bad, do you think you can even manage to view a single video on YouTube? It took me over 10 minutes of waiting to be able to watch 10 seconds of a 30 second video on YouTube. After that, I gave up.

Owing to the fact that many of my friends kept asking me to upload pictures taken during my holiday to Rajasthan, and also the more recent pictures from Manipal, I thought I should not disappoint. So I tried uploading pictures on Facebook, only to be told that I did not have some Java plugin. I downloaded that(it took me well over an hour just to download the installation file) and installed the damned thing. Once I was done, I went back to Facebook to upload the pictures. Apparently, I still did not have the plugin, according to Facebook. I am guessing it was because the net sucked THAT bad. I tried uploading pictures on Orkut and the stupid thing would just not work! ION kept asking me for the password each time I tried to upload a picture, and the upload would just hang right there. So much for uploading pictures on social networking sites using ION!

That is when we come to my blog and photobucket. I manage to sign up on Photobucket, as per my friend’s recommendations, and then try uploading pictures. It is then the same old Orkut story all over again! The upload freezes as soon as it starts. ION promptly asks you for the password and jams everything! So that is when I tried experimenting a bit and gave the links to pictures from my Orkut album in my “photoblog.” And things went pretty much along expected lines. Nothing worked!

So what am I going to try now? I will try giving the links to my Facebook albums instead and hope for the best. If nothing else works, it is “goodbye ION” and “hello private connection!” I have had enough of this crap!

Seeing that I am not able to upload any picture anywhere, I might as well give the link to one of my Facebook albums here. For those of you who have not seen it yet, please do let me know what you think. If you have seen them already, I am sorry about this. Will try fixing the problem soon. You can find the album here.

Update: Here is the link to some of the pictures I clicked during my holiday in Rajasthan. Again, it is a link to my Facebook album.

So much for now. I am not sure if these pictures will even appear properly when you try loading the page. Anyway, I am hoping for the best. Many of you might have seen most of these pictures already. Please do bear with me. I will be back with newer pictures ones I manage to upload them somewhere or the other. The present state of the internet here, in the hostel, is making things worse for me. So stay tuned for more. I will not disappoint.

I got here to Manipal exactly two weeks ago. I was told by my brother and a few of his friends that staying in the hostel made a lot of sense and so I complied. My brother and I moved in together to a double room in Xth block. The problem being that we had to do with common toilets in this block, but well, I was told it was not so bad. So here I come on the 26th of July, to do my MS in Communication, staying in Block X of the MIT hostels.

It all seemed fine for the first couple of days. The food in the mess seemed pretty fine. I got paneer on a daily basis and so I thought it was not a bad deal at all. I wondered why my brother, like many others, chose to eat out every once in a while. The first day of college was pretty okay. The orientation program was boring, but I was looking forward to meeting all the teachers, to be able to discuss about every subject, in order to be able to pick my electives.

So I finally decided to drop Media in Security and Terrorism and also Photography, apart from other boring subjects like Business Media and Media Laws and Ethics. I decided to attend all classes on Photography and Security and Terrorism anyway. But let me not bore you people with academics an stuff. So yeah, my bike arrived here almost a week after I got here. In the meanwhile, we had an “interaction session” with the seniors which some anonymous classmates of mine screwed up by tipping off the staff about. A pity indeed, because it was fun(and also because I was the first one to “introduce” myself, and just a few others had their turn before the session was called off owing to the complaint). So anyway, we had a good time getting to know each other, and I am glad that I had to go first, in a way.

By the end of the first week I was down with a bad flu. About 60% of my class was down with a flu by then, actually, and not everyone was as unlucky as I was. My brother actually bunked classes(a very convenient excuse?) and took care of me. Actually, I couldn’t have done without his help. So anyway, by the time I recovered fully, two major events took place. The first being that my bike got confiscated by the security section. I will not bitch about it just yet, because I would like to have my bike back sometime in the near future, and don’t want to screw my chances.

The second major happening(for me) was that I got elected to be the class representative. It might sound like a small and kidding thing, but it sure does mean a lot to me. I take this as a really good start to my 2-year term here, in MIC. I am also hoping that I get my bike back sometime soon. It might sound unreasonable when they ask you to pay Rs 1000 to have your own bike back, under the condition that you leave the hostel with the bike or send the bike back to your hometown, but those are the rules that the place has. And yes, I will have to try and comply with them.

We had a second “interaction session” with our seniors by the end of the second week in college. This time, they were considerate enough to let me go last. But I still had to do the catwalk and walk the ramp to “prove my modelling experiences.” I did not complain, though. Somehow, I think I managed pretty okay. But I will not forgive Faizan for recording the whole thing and putting it up on YouTube. The link to the video will NOT be disclosed on my blog. So no point asking me! And Faizan, I will get back at you soon. You wait and watch! Hehe! Just kidding! Actually not, but still.

I now hardly ever eat the the mess, because somehow, I just can’t get myself to eat there anymore. I mean, it is not that the food is bad or anything. I guess I just lost my appetite for good, ever since I was down with flu. Need to work on it if I need to continue with gym and football at the same time. Talking of which, I was forced to attend the football “tryouts” by a couple of my classmates. Sadly for me, it went pretty well and I am more or less in the team. I quit football over a year ago because my gym trainer asked me to. It is only after that that I managed to put on some mass. With my new diet(the lack of it, rather), clubbed with football, my gym trainer back in Chennai is not going to be happy at all.

But anyway, life must go on. The past two weeks have been pretty crazy. Some good things, and some not-so-nice things. But on the whole, I guess all this was not totally unexpected. Barring a few things, that is. But yes, one thing is certain, I am getting to see a lot of new things on a daily basis, and I sure as hell am not complaining. All this is loads of fun. So what if I have a lousy internet connection which does not let me do half of what I would like to do? I can always get a private connection, right? So what if my bike got confiscated? I can always try getting it back, right? And so what if the hostel seems to be a pain at times? I can always move out of the hostel whenever I want to, if things come down to that, right?

So yes, life does go on. And I am loving every bit of this!

First, it states that “The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will launch a nano satellite designed and developed by students of Sathyabama University for free.” Sathyabama doing some such thing for free? LMFAO! Yeah right! It has an ulterior motive always. AL-effing-WAYS! It then goes on to say that the satellite will “study air and earth surface pollution.” For a guy who does not have a single tree in the entire university campus to come out with a public statement that he wants to study the air and surface pollution, he really must have some balls. Sadly, most people still fall for it.

But that is not all. It says that the ISRO’s chairman confirmed this news “after interacting with students associated with designing the satellite at Sathyabhama University.” I will tell you something. Neither me nor my friend Shankar has seen or heard of a single student who has been working on anything to do with the ISRO, leave alone building a satellite. Yes, the college does boast of having some tie ups with the ISRO, but it only boasts. I have seen a board or two in college which says ISRO or some such thing, but have always found such boards outside locked and/or empty rooms. And for the university to claim that “A Space Technology Centre has been established to conduct advanced research in rocketry, satellites and space applications in university campus,” it is absolute trash, the way many of us (ex)students look at it. Something along the lines of the Nanotechnology Research Centre that Sathayabama has been claiming to be building for over 5 years now, but we haven’t seen a single brick being laid in that direction. Jeppiaar has even been claiming that the DRDO(Defence Research and Development Organisation) has requested him(his college) to make “nano banians!” Nano “vests,” that is. It will “keep the army men cool in summer and warm in winter.” A nice idea indeed, but shouldn’t they have at least started SOMETHING nano before doing any such thing? How about building a block for starters? And how about NOT talking about the projects which the country’s defence research organisation wants to work on? Loser!

I literally fell off my sofa(I do get to be lazy while using the laptop late in the night, don’t I?) when I read that the design department “includes a team of 27 students to build the satellite.”

27 students?!?!?! LMFAO! Can you name one, please? And then I read this:

“The third-year engineering students were selected by ISRO after a screening process that included a written test and interview.”

Okay, now that seems plausible, right? Wrong! Knowing the way Sathyabama works, I am SURE that that is not how things would have worked. Anyway, I will give them(the ISRO and NOT Sathyabama) the benefit of the doubt.

“It is impressive to see that the students developing the concept quickly. Their clarity of concept and commitment to completing the project by the end of the year is impressive,” Nair said- I have too many not-so-nice-things to say in response to this and so I might as well skip that.

Now if you thought that even all that was fine, you need to check out the very last line of the article. Here is how it reads:

Jeppiar, pro chancellor, Sathyabama University said: “We are planning to buy a 15-seater aircraft soon. An air hostess training course will also be started to benefit students from rural areas.” He is buying a 15-seater aircraft for air hostess training for girls from rural areas? Sounds very much like the nursing college that he had(I am not sure if it still exists) and there were LOADS of rumours that he did several things he should not have done to those “girls from poor backgrounds.” Something I was totally shocked to hear that first, as I actually respected(and still do, but to a lower extent than I did initially) the guy. And he says will run an air hostess training academy using a 15-seater aircraft! He expects people to believe this humbug?! The worst part is, they will! Oh! And that statement of his must have been funny as hell when he actually said it. The journalist who interviewed him must have died laughing, and it must have been framed to seem like a sensible statement by someone who had the notes or something(and died laughing eventually reading those notes several times). Want to know what the guy talks like? Check this and this.

So what do I have to say to those who are considering they will get their kids to join Sathyabama? DON’T you ever make that mistake! Many a parent has regretted it, and a lot many students feel even worse.  The only thing that the college was known for is the food that it serves in its mess halls. And even that is much worse than what it was 3-4 years ago. The quality of teaching is as sub-standard as it has ever been, though some of the staff put in the effort. Hats off to those few. The rest of them are there, I quote, “because it pays more than many other colleges in the city, and has friendlier timings. Women can get back home to meet their kids just in time when the kids get back from school.” If that is the reason why lecturers and professors stick to the college, you seriously do need to reconsider getting yours kids to join the institution(not sure if this place even ethically qualifies to be called that). It is only after you join the place and spend a couple of years there that you get to know that not even the staff are happy with the place. They are there because they have no choice. Stuck , would be an apt term, I guess.

So while you still have the choice, stay away from the place. Far FAR away. You will not regret it. And you can actually go “Awwwww” or “HAHAHAHAHA” at the unfortunate ones like me who did get in(and luckily out too) to the “hell hole,” as we call it.

I am sorry for having a slightly serious post this time. Many might complain, I am sure. I assure you that the next one will be more entertaining, and yet filled with more convincing facts.

Well, I am talking about the faggots who smoke their arses off day in and day out, much to the annoyance of many a passive smoker. It is fine if you come across one or two such people each day as they can be easily avoided, but when every other person you meet each day is a smoker, it seriously starts to piss you off if you don’t want your lungs to be the cause of your death, for no fault of yours.

I have had a few conversations with my uncle, a doctor, about passive smoking. According to him, there is little than can be done to set the damage right. So it makes sense to go on a holiday to some hill station every few months, as that trip might act as an elixir, with a lot of fresh, clean air. And that is exactly what I thought I would experience before I set off to Ooty(a hill station) along with my gym friends. About 35 of us on the whole. Did I have an awesome time there? Well, sort of. But it would have been MUCH better if I did not have to put up with drunkards and “bloody human chimneys of death” ALL the time.

Sharing a cottage with 6 other guys is not that bad. Each cottage was big enough to house about 6-8 people and so that was not an issue. The fact that about 25 of the 35 guys were drunk for the best part of the 3 days was also not an issue for me. What WAS an issue was that over half the guys had to keep smoking ALL the time. Here are some of the excuses that some of the smokers come up with each time they pick up a cigarette:

Fag 1: On waking up; I need a fag to get my day started. It acts like a hot cuppa early in the morning.

Fag 2: I can’t take a crap without a fag. (This gives them the license to fill the bathroom with smoke and make sure that it stays that way for at least 15 minutes. It also strengthens my hypothesis that that smokers lose control of their sphincters)

Fag 3: The morning cuppa/tea HAS to go with a fag. Only then do I manage to wake up fully and start the day’s work.

Fag 4,5 and 6: Each meal of the day must be accompanied by a fag because it helps digest my food(and maybe that is why you take ages in the toilet and need fags to build the pressure).

Fag 6 and 7(could be up to fag 15): While on breaks at work, I need a smoke or two to keep me going. The bigger the loser I am, the greater the frequency of my smoke-breaks.

Fag 8: I need a fag before I get home as that is the last fag of the day that I can have in peace. But that will not stop me from going to the terrace to have a quick smoke or two at night. Or maybe the toilet yet again, if the terrace if not private enough.

Fag 9: What is the terrace/bathroom for?

Fag 10: I can’t manage to fall asleep without a smoke. It need a smoke to put me to sleep. (This strengthens my hypothesis that smoking causes the brain to ooze out of your ears over a period of time. How else can people come up with such moronic excuses?!)

My response: You fucking prick, how can the same cigarette put you to sleep AND wake you up?! Stop giving lame-arse excuses, you piece of crap! I wish people would flush down the toilets, the morons who give such lame arse excuses for the sake of a few puffs, in the very same way that they flush down the cigarette butts after finishing their morning activities. It is just bloody lame!

Okay, I know that it might sound a bit too harsh and stuff considering the fact that I have friends who smoke, but I am not against all of them. There are many who respect non-smokers, and that is something that I deeply respect. If you know someone who has a problem with smoke, don’t smoke with him/her aroun no matter what. It is a proven fact that smoking affects passive smokers more than it affects the smokers themselves. Reason? For those of you who have remained ignorant of this fact for all these years, smokers don’t usually fill their lungs with all the harmful smoke that the cigarettes emit. But when they blow it out, we passive smokers breathe it all in. Meaning, the harmful contents reach all corners of our lungs, even though it doesn’t have the same effect on the smokers. And that is precisely the reason why parents are asked not to smoke when they are near their children. But then again, some people are total dunderheads, and they will never understand.

What do I tell my gym friends who keep smoking all day, everyday? “If you want to kill yourself, go ahead. But you bloody well don’t smoke and kill everyone around you!” If they really want to smoke and “enjoy” it all by themselves, let them go sit in closed air-tight rooms and smoke all they want till they breathe every last bit of the smoke. Making others breathe that smoke is just not fair! Like I said, kill yourself if you want to. Killing others is just NOT done!

Here are a few videos that I felt I must share. Nandhu, thanks for giving me some of the links right away.

This next ad is on passive smoking.

This last one might be kind of gay, but it packs it many facts.

More coming up soon on the callous treatment of the issue of smoking by the government. It is funnier than it is sad, in that case, and I have photographs which prove how dumb the government of India is. More on that later. For now, let the debate begin! All you smoking dumb FOKs out there, bring it on! The comments section is waiting for you.

When people first spoke of the case Sravan Kumar, my reaction was: “not another case which will be forgotten in less than a week!” But I guess I was wrong. The reason being, several other such cases started to surface. Take for example the case of the 21-year-old Indian student who was slashed across his chest with a box-cutter knife, when he failed to give five Aussie men a few cigarettes and some petty cash. Now isn’t that something which people usually get to hear in the American suburbs?

Exactly my point!

Such things happen ALL the time EVERYWHERE! Just that this is one incident, a series of events, rather, which has managed to surface at the right time. Students are applying to universities and are completing their visa procedures at around this time of the year. Many Indian students will leave the country for their master’s in a couple of months from now. So I guess that is one reason why this has been taken seriously. Had the timing been any different, I seriously doubt if the reaction would have been of this magnitude. Many such news stories never surface.

Let us face it, racial discrimination goes on everywhere. The US, the UK, Canada, Australia, most of Europe, you name it! Though the degree varies from place to place, racism can be described as a “ubiquitous” phenomenon. My friend recently did his project in a very highly reputed college in the US. People would give their right hands for a seat in that college. And this friend of mine tells me that it is not just the students, but faculty and other scientists as well who have to face the brunt of racism. Most countries will deny such things before you can bat an eyelid, but sadly, this is the harsh reality.

Moving on, the next big news this week was about students having a tough time in colleges in India, especially in places like Chennai. A more recent development is the “capitation fees” scandal that has been “exposed” in a couple of medical colleges. Though there is a lot being spoken about in the news, all that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Almost all private colleges Each and every private college in India runs with the sole purpose of minting money for the owner(s). Medical colleges usually fetch the biggest sums, but the student intake is not very high. Engineering colleges get the biggest chunk of students, and so the “capitation fee/donation” is lower. Arts and science colleges have a smaller margin, but the infrastructure hardly costs much either, and so it is still a good bargain.

This whole episode started when a first year student from St. Joseph’s Engineering College committed suicide a few days ago when the college authorities “did not allow him to take his model exams(pre-final exams, towards the end of every semester), because he had cheated during the practical examinations.” Nothing wrong there, if you ask me. However, it goes without saying that the student would not have been allowed to appear in the semester exams conducted by Anna University either. The guy ended up committing suicide, and left behind 4 letters in his shirt pocket. Two of the letters are said to have been burnt by the college authorities upon being discovered. The two letters, according to witness accounts, spoke about the college. One other letter was addressed to the boy’s parents, and the last letter spoke about his reasons for having committed suicide. He urged the college to return the capitation fee his parents had paid because it would help his brother get a much needed ear operation, for which his parents had no way of raising funds. Sad, isn’t it?

The college authorities immediately came out strongly saying that any college would have taken strong action against students who resorted to malpractice in the exams. Fair enough. But the morons went on to say that they “had no intention of preventing the student from taking his semester exams because of such an offence, and that this misconception made him take the drastic step.” Why do I call them morons? Because guys from Jeppiaar Engieering College, a sister concern of St Joseph’s Engineering College, joined their brothers in the strike and brought out cases where 7 students were not given permission to take their semester exams! Not one or two, but 7!

I am really glad that many things have now come out in the open as a result of this controversy, but I feel sad that a student had to lose his life for some people to open their eyes. I find it amusing, because even now, the entire picture has not come out in the open. Colleges collect huge sums of money in the name of “donation/capitation fees” from the students in order to “reserve” seats. Confession: my parents had to shell out Four Lakh Rupees themselves in order to “reserve” a seat in Sathyabama. St Joseph’s and Sathyabama share a compound wall. All owned by the same guy, Jeppiaar, and run by his family. They have 6 Engineering colleges in all, apart from colleges of nursing, dental colleges and even an international school! The average going rate for an engineering seat last year was 4-6 Lakh, with some NRIs having to shell out as much as 12 Lakh for certain seats. And then the tuition fee is an additional 0.75 lakhs(at least) each year. And all this, for an Engineering college which openly refuses to follow the AICTE guidelines and is notorious in the student community! It is no surprise that Jeppiaar is rumoured to have an empire of well over 3,000 Crore! That is 30,000,000,000 Rupees!

My cousin studies in one of the medical colleges which were a part of the “expose.” Luckily for her, high level influence got her a seat without any capitation fee. How much did her classmates have to pay for their seats last year? The lowest was about 45 Lakh, and the highest was up to 75-80 Lakh! And this, just for an MBBS seat! Apparently, an MD in Radiology costs 2 Crore in the same college! Only hard-cash, by the way. THAT is how expensive Sri Ramachandra Medical College is! And there are several hundreds of such students who join each year! Not just that, all this cash is just the under-the-table transaction to book the seat. The actual “tuition fee” needs to be paid each year and that comes up to about 3.25 lakhs a year. Thankfully, at least that bit is declared openly and parents get a receipt, which can be declared which filing income tax returns.

Some students have parents who can handle that kind of money while others have to study using bank loans. But is all this worth it? ABSOLUTELY NOT! The faculty is usually pathetic. Infrastructure is as bad as bad can get. The faculty openly admit that no real practical knowledge can be gained in college because of the lack of infrastructure. Many students come to such colleges due to parental pressure or due to the government’s system which ensures that most deserving candidates don’t get seats in government colleges. It is not that government colleges are any better in terms of faculty or infrastructure, but at least there, there is no “capitation fee.”

And parents are still hell-bent on getting their wards admitted to some such engineering/medical college as they will be “ensuring a bright future” for their kids. Total BS! And now, as if the insane rules and regulations “exposed” last year were not enough, we have this capitation fee scam coming out in the open as well. Something else next year, I am sure. But still, we will find parents forming never-ending queues outside these colleges, even if their kids want to do some very different course like Psychology, Visual Communication or Literature. They know of all the evils and still don’t want to bring about a change. They don’t want to try and bring the evil practices in the open. They don’t want to get themselves in trouble. Why? Because they are “ensuring a bright future” for their kids! Bright, my arse! Effing cretins!