45. ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS.

The compartment was empty when we entered it. Phew thank God! We have the place all for ourselves! The sun was fading behind the horizon, as the train slowly gathered speed. Each of us(She I, She II & Me) was in a rather contemplative mood, and therefore the empty seats by the window side helped us much. Time passed by, and we were lost in our own world (And of course, we have a whole lot of things to think about –life, studies, future, guys, films, dresses, friends, politics, world peace, economic crisis…yea, the earth would stop spinning if we stopped thinking:P) when all of a sudden, a little commotion at the door woke us up from our reverie.

It was a couple with two small kids, who had just boarded the train.Alas! We had to bid goodbye to the comforts of the lavish empty seats (and to our privacy) and resign ourselves to the side seats.

Back to the contemplative mood……nah! The two pesky kids were making too much of a rattle for us to engage in any ‘serious’ thinking. Hardly half a dozen year old, the kiddos were chattering away to glory(Perhaps they too must have thought that the earth would stop spinning if they shut their mouth!)

The ‘Grown ups’ –(yea the 3 of us again) –try to engage in some ‘serious’ ‘grown up’ talks throwing irritated skeptical glances at the kids every now and then. They had now started playing ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’…

The compartment echoed with their – ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’… ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’…chant.

Having exhausted our topics to talk, we next sought refuge in one of our lappys to evade boredom…listened to some songs, watched some video clips…

Rock, Paper, Scissors’… Rock, Paper, Scissors’…the kids kept on chanting.

The kids just wouldn’t go to sleep! Don’t they have anything better to do? Isn’t that a dumb old worn out game? Come on kiddos, grow up!!!... The ‘grown ups’ smirked.

Time ticked by. The lappy ran out of charge. Once again, we found ourselves having nothing to do.

‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’…‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’…

We threw meaningful glance at each other. We badly wanted the children to go to sleep. Come on! Stop it! Go sleep! We waited…

Rock, Paper, Scissors’… Rock, Paper, Scissors’…

Finally…finally…after tiring us out(rather than tiring themselves…)they settled themselves down, pulled the sheets over them…and went to sleep for good! Phew!

The lights were turned off…only the dim glow of the night lamp lighted the compartment..

The watch displayed the Titan Ad.

Out of the darkness, silhouetted against the dim light, appeared three hands and in the silence of the night, in almost muffled whispers, there could be heard, a faint chant… ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’

Two tiny heads popped out from under the sheets, and gave the ‘grown-ups’ a meaningful smirk.

Author’s note: This happened when RAC, Crazy and I were going home for Easter. The kids were actually very adorable, though quite annoying.

44. Life’s like that! –A few snippets from the campus

They say that the best way to keep oneself awake in the class is to keep a watch on the rest of the lot who are sleeping –might be true. I tried to experiment this and see for myself! Couldn’t help take a pic, when this guy dozed off and finally banged his head on the table

Spotted the ‘red head’?

When they said that the mess menu was gonna be upgraded, I never thought they’d go this far...

New item in the mess menu?

Don’t mistake this for a haunted house…it’s one of the rooms in the LH…good thing that our mothers seldom pay a visit to our hostels!

Haunted house?

. Gee..dats ma room(the day when I cleaned it;))…

Yea I know… I should grow up!

This is the instruction sheet that one of our sirs gave us, the day b4 the exam! No wonder I ended up getting an A in the exam

All that matters!

When animals and humans share the same seat…(notice how the feline family have carefully chosen the best chair for themselves..)

Feline Recline!

Ah! This is the view that we get from our LH top floor…I always love to gaze at the evening sky. It’s so amazingly beautiful…Each day, at dusk, the sky turns itself into a new canvas, playing with different hues n shades!! I bet the morning sky would be equally beautiful (sheesh! only if I had the habit of waking up early)

Nature’s treat!

Classes need'nt necessarily be restricted to the classroom alone...

And there’s more!

Oh yea…you will get to see such sights too! No need to rub your eyes; it’s Mr. Chettan Bhagat himself! Thanks to the various clubs which try to out-do each other, such people set foot on our campus.

One night @ NITC!

Uncanny things seem to find their way into the trash box…

Out here, Lilies grow out of the trash box …

More things find their way to the dump place…

That’s all trash!

PS: Courtsey images:k750i

43. Through the classroom window…….

The picturesque backdrop of the stark blue skies, which seem to be intricately woven with patches of fragile white clouds; the encompassing lush green vegetation; the flame-of-the-forest, or the bright orange gulmohars that bedeck the greenery…amidst all this Nature’s splendour, stands majestically, the Wayanad hill ranges….

….View from our classroom(DB 308), captured during one of those lectures that force us to witness daybreak. A breath-taking sight indeed! Thanks to the spectacular view, boring lectures can be easily evaded. A proper seat if taken, you can be seen looking straight at the faculty, pretending to be wide awake and listening to him/her, while you can be actually miles away, lost in thoughts, admiring Nature

Take care however, that the guy sitting next to the window doesn’t mistake you for ogling at him!

42. Of Turmeric and Neem

-The Last Phase of chicken pox: The good-news is, you are finally allowed to take a bath, but before heaving a sigh of relief, the bad news is, you are not allowed to use soap!!! Apparently, that comes as a part of the ‘Neem and Turmeric’ treatment!

It’s not one of the pleasantest experiences, I’ll tell you….and Neem-leaf paste is definitely not the ‘fragrantest’ substitute for soap either. Neither is it, for shampoo. Yea, the paste is even applied on the hair. And getting these infinite tiny bits of leaves out of your hair is no easy task, due to which, once the hair gets dried, you’ll look as though you had just been in a hurricane, while passing through a Neem-forest! Add to this, all your clothes get freely dyed bright yellow!

Today is the last day of my CP vacs, and boy! am I glad to get back to normalcy. Now I’ve got a new friend who’ll stay with me for life –Varcy, aka Varcilla Zoster Virus(lurking somewhere inside of me….)

and also the CP memories –the days survived on

fluid diet, the taste of Aciclovir tablets, the fragrance of burning myrrh, the Neem, the Turmeric, the Love, the Care…

A Tribute to BLAH!

Do you know what tops the list of the world's ten most overrated things? Do you know what’s the world’s longest book/novel(which apparently contains the world’s longest word, sentence, poem and drama!Woah!!!)? Do you know the next gen name for ‘BLOG’, which is likely to replace the term ‘BLOG’ in the near future? Do you know, what is the most searched topic for a book, in the Amazon.com?

.....Well….It’s all Blah! Won’t believe me? There you go!(click the link)

PS: Lachoo, that an appetizing treat to me! Would make up for your never-ending leg-pulling

CHICKEN POX- for a STRESSED SOUL!

Red itchy rashes of fluid filled blisters, high fever, unbearable body aches, nausea, loss of appetite, flu-like symptoms…all these loom large in the mind, by the very mention of the term chicken pox(CP)…don’t they?

So when the possibility of a chicken pox first struck me, these fears crept in,and I was scared shit, dreading the days ahead… Little did I know what was in store for me though! As soon as I was positively diagnosed CP, the scardy cats in the hostel didn’t allow me to stay there a moment longer, and hence I was soon expatriated from the hostel. And…..

……And well, nothing happened! Oh yea! I did suffer for the first two days…I had this extremely bad body ache+ joint ache+ head ache which can be described as just excruciating. But other than that none of the afore-mentioned fears were actually realized. A few small harmless spots appeared here and there(thankfully none on my face and hands!), which scaled off after around a week. No itch; no pain; and no yucky fluid-filled blisters….Nothing really happened, and this even made some of my friends ask me to double check if it really is CP!

Therefore I came to the conclusion that God allowed this CP just to give a break to this ‘stressed’ soul. Now, I really am having a good time at home –having gladly missed the interim exams, and being pampered by my parents and grand-parents, and of course friends too who despite of their busy acads, find time to check often whether I’m doing alright,!! Thanks a looot guys

Nevertheless, I have my rants too…. I have been robbed off my rights to take a proper bath for the past 1 week. Imagine having to resort to taking hot-water sponge bath in this sweltering heat!! And I still am subjected to isolation of sorts, and am not allowed to roam around the house( my parents haven’t had CP yet!). Hmph!.....maybe it’s time I get back to normal and head back to college.
Sheesh! I hate to think of the loads of work awaiting me there!!

An uncanny way out!

Those of you who had read my previous post, didn’t you feel that I needed a break (well atleast I did…infact I was yearning for one), and looks like even God did. And so did I receive my break that was rightly due. Two whole weeks free from classes, assignments and deadlines of what-so-ever form. Two blissful weeks at home, where I can sleep round the clock, oblivious to all the cares in the world; hog on, as and when and what I want; watch ‘n’ number of movies in the lappy;……the list goes on. The only hitch being that, I have to do all this in isolation(Ah!as if I care!). Yea, certain maladies can come in handy at times. Chicken pox rox!

Stressed!

Alright! Maybe I had talked a li'l too much in the last post. Was vaunting away to glory that I was having the time of my life, and all was well and blissful so much so that life seemed to be a bed of roses...Well nothing could be as contrary to it, as was proved by the last few weeks or rather the whole month...Sessionals, lab tests, assignment, submissions, project work, drawing, seminars all kept coming in one by one ceaselessly!!!Man, S6 is hectic. Period.

Miniproject work(mipro) is literally eating away the whole of our time, including the weekends. Even a single set of experiments often leaves us completely drained of all our energy and thoroughly exhausted, rendering us useless for the rest of the day! Add to the physical exhaustion, we get mentally exhausted too, as we are supposed to come up with certain numerical models, wherein we concoct some relation between seemingly unrelated stuff….And imagine, if added to that comes financial exhaustion too!!! Yea, we break this 250 ml borosil measuring jar in the SM lab, and the next day saw us hunting the shops for a similar jar ….Yea, and that caused our pockets to weigh less by 505 bucks. But every cloud has a silver lining…and so did this. I had been searching for a flower vase to keep my money plant …A Fanta bottle was acting as its makeshift home, and there comes this black cloud! On extricating the silver lining, I made a beautiful home for my plant, that has a ‘techy’ edge to it…yea a ‘calibrated measuring vase’!(Those stones are also the souvenirs from civil lab;)

....Howdy?

The mipro even robbed me of my Valentines’ day. Spent the whole day in the lab grr...!@$@!%Oh btw..Nikhil had gifted me this bouquent of white roses through his Valentine’s day post. Thankzzz!! atleast something to mark the day!

Anyways…looking forward, I can see only even more hectic days, as the next set of sessioanls are just round the corner. Added to that we have our interim mipro evaluation coming up soon…As though my hands are not yet full, I have the responsibility to keep updating the ragam blog too –which I have royally neglected so far…my Muse isn’t helping either.(Keep visiting the ragam blog for updates and try to make it for the event!)

Thus far...This way...

Nearly half a month into the new-year…hmm…and so far, it has been not all that bad. Classes haven’t really started in full swing yet, and assignments haven’t started piling up.(Thanks to the Muharam holiday which came on the right day, we saved ourselves from a drawing class + submition of 3 drawings next week. )Have been running around for a mini-project topic past two weeks; and voila, our project guide came up with this really nice project on ‘Liquefaction’(er… I dun have much idea about it as of now, but atleast those who know,testify that it’s a really ‘stud’ topic) Great weekend coming up ahead –a two-day class trip to Idukki(dam),Thekkadi and Athirapalli!yay!

And there was a pleasant surprise for me in the blogosphere as well! I have been awarded as the best blogger of the year by the CEO of the blospot… Okay, I know, that went a li’l overboard. But seriously, I did get something of the sort…I got a ‘200% awesome blogger’ credit…all thanks to Nikhil(MM) who seems to have been on an awarding spree right at the beginging of the year(superb way to start the year MM, …thanks a ton…)….


Anyways dunno whether it was due to this, or out of no reason at all, I’m in this writing mood these days. Boring classes are becoming my blogging classes now.…Hopefully I'll be able to blog more frequently(fingers crossed!) So thanks again MM…and apologies for taking this long to come up with this post(you know my close alliance with laziness…I am infact surprised that you didn’t give me the lazy blogger award instead )

A prayer for 2009

Dear God, thank you for the year 2008 you gave us,

Wherein we had moments of joy n laughter amidst sorrow n fear.

Thank you for all the good and the seemingly bad

That had transpired during the past one year.

Let the new year be one that will dispel

All feelings of hatred among humanity;

So that, there will be no more attacks

Against the Hindu, Muslim or Christian community.

Let the new year be one which will witness

People rising above petty divisions,

Based on caste, creed and class so that,

There won’t be any more Gujjar agitations.

Let the new year be one in which the political parties

Do for the nation, something utile;

Rather than engage themselves

In petty fights and strikes futile.

Let the new year be such that there won’t be

Any suicide attacks on the Indian embassies;

Or any terrorist-strikes at the Indian heritage hotels,

Which aggravates man’s agonies.

Let the new year be one in which the countries

Cease to fight over a piece of land,

Which leads to nothing but,

Shattering man’s peace of mind.

Let the new year be one in which the players

Stop hitting and slapping each other,

Instead focus more on hitting the ball,

Sending it to a four or a sixer.

Let the new year be one that will bring

Happy tidings to the world economy.

So that people won’t find themselves

Thrown out of their jobs, abruptly.

Instead Lord, give mankind

A new vision and a mission,

That will enable us to broaden our horizon

And use our potential to send more space missions.

Let the year bring forth more Adigas

To enrich our casket of literature,

And more Bindras and Parvathys

On the world stage to venture.

Let the new year behold India –

An emerging super power;

Whom the US takes pride in calling its ‘staunchest ally’,

And the EU states her, its ‘strategic partner.’

Above all dear Lord, help us to stand

Together as one –both men and women;

And enable us to see your glory,

Each moment of the year! Amen.

Author’s note: I wanted to write a new-year post(well that was one week before)…and I started writing a post(prose), however it ended as a 'poem'. This is my second attempt at writing a poem. (Must be inspired by reading too much of CRAZY poems!!!for some reason or the other she never publishes her poems in her blog.sad!)