Spring Cleaning

Today marks the death of “Dial M for Mighty” and the birth of “Listening to the Weather”, a new collaborative effort with fellow Hamiltonian Fong-Wai “Maggie” Chan. Together we are like the 3-Six-Mafia but not quite. Now, I hope the blog will be more active than it has been in the past semester.

For those of who do not know Maggie, she is a former spy, maverick hairdresser, and a Senior public policy major.

The past few weeks of inactivity has cluttered up my closet and I need to throw some things out. This is not so much as my usual posts, but rather a required wrap-up of the week's events. The semester is finally over and the summer residents have relocated to the summer dorms. Moving was a pain. In fact, I am still not completely unpacked. I am now working full-time (and overtime) as a researcher for Professor James Bradfield in the Economics department. We are working on a new textbook on the Economics of Financial Markets. At the same time, I am interning at Strategic Investments LLC., Utica, NY in their portfolio research department. Should be a busy summer…

I thank everyone for the kind birthday wishes. Turning 21 is a big deal here. Did not particularly do much – it was still finals week! My friends rented a limo and we went to a restaurant, popped some champagne, consumed considerable alcohol, and smoked “Bye-Bye Twenty” at 5 am in the Graveyard watching the sunrise on May 13.

Here is a shout out to Anusha Pai, celebrating her 21^st on the 24^th day of May. Wishes from HamTech; hope you had a great lunch and dinner.

Shout out to Amod Prabhu recently engaged to Aditi Tendulkar (no relation)! Congratulations. I will be in India for the wedding in January.

Graduation or Commencement, as they call it at Hamilton, was on the 21^st. Hats, gowns, Scottish bagpipes, regalia, diplomas in Latin, the whole-shebang. Several close friends graduated this year and this is to wish them all the best. Here is to the Class of 2006.

Hann Yang: My fellow cynical modern algebra lover, I shall miss you.

Mark Lutenski: We never did finish “Big Trouble in Little China”.

Renny Usbay: I forgive you for not speaking to me a whole semester at ITS.

Minkyu Lee: Fellow social/cultural chair = colleagues at GoldmanSachs?

Kosta Popovic: QED.

Renita Moniaga: Stahnkenomics and Kokernomics left with you.

Andrew Fulton: Mar haba! Insh Allah, akhsub ghani. America, fuck yeah!

Andrew Kay: Forever the “shorts and t-shirt guy”.

Katie Cameron: That bad grade on our DE homework will haunt me forever.

John Champagne: Tune in to the Champagne Report?

Greg Gencarello: Naruto vs. Bleach.

Shin Okuzono: Ja ne. Gaam-baate.

Deenea Shepherd: Where’s the microwave?

David Chen: Asian Glo.

Andrew Lyons: I have to call you boss now?

Sushrut Acharya: Tabla in LA!

Qi Ge: Econometrics at Princeton!

Arezoo Taef: They left so much loot in Griffin Road.

Paul Torres: What is EAT SMA QQZ?

Daniele Roper: Comic relief in Peru.

Shraddha Shah: “Lurking Rrrr Proverb Man Future Plane Priya”.

In the words of Dean Paris: “Na, na, na, good-bye!” You must admit, the guy has a pretty good sense of humor.

There is still much to say. Initially we had plans to drive down to Syracuse for the weekend, but if that does not work out, expect a new post soon. Getting all set to bugger off to London... I think I'll back-pack around Europe for a while in August/September. I have way too much time to kill between leaving Ham and starting at LSE. Any suggestions on what I could do between the 10th of August and 24th of September is welcome. Keep in mind I'm a poor international from a third world country. In the meantime, I bid you adieu.

"Wandafuru Raifu"

I don't mean to be airy, but once in a while something happens that makes you rethink, for a lack of a better word, life. For instance, the day before yesterday, I had an amazing dream and in a long, long time I woke uo feeling really, really happy.

Like the movie says, if there was only one memory that you could take with you, what would that be?

I Hate Starbucks?

It's been a while since I last wandered through these woods. A combination of extreme laziness, m*ther fu*kin' modern algebra and total addiction to "Knights of the Old Republic".

This weekend I finished my fellowship program with Yale, Wharton, Colombia and NYU with a presentation of the four month consultancy project I was doing for Starbucks. The results of the Social Innovation Competition (as it was called) demonstrated that there is no place for second best. I was second best. While the winner gets to fly to Seatle and meet the board of directors, I was seen off the premises with a gift hamper and a pat on the bottom...

Last weekend I went to present a paper on inherent computational errors in math modelling softwares at the Hudson River Math Conference. It was a truly incredible experience...albeit some of the undergraduate talks really sucked. For instance, there was Pierre Bordeux (honest) from Williams who gave a talk on how Neo is a Goedel identity. Alright. Fine. But he was talking like one of those people who have a little earpiece and are constantly being told what to say... it was horrible. And then there was a certain Major Whatsit, from the US army who modelled a, I quote, "a better killing system"! It was a hillarious talk, although the mathematical modelling aspect of it was pretty impressive. The keynote speaker gave a really impressive talk on Ramanujan and Partiton Theory, but that doesn't make me like modern algebra any better...

I'm still jobless for the summer. I had two job offers, one as an economic research analyst for an Environmental Agency in DC and another as a consultant at MassMutual Denver, Colorado. In the first case, my mentor decided to take a sabbatical this summer after offering me the job and in the second case, the recruiter suddenly realised that there's a no international students policy after offering me the job... bastards! So as of now, I'm jobless... pretty sad considering this is going to be another wasted summer.

So I find there are a total of six Hamilton students going down to LSE next year. Another six to UCL and a few more to Queen Mary and some other shady schools of London. There's going to be a Hamilton village out there.

Tonight was the opening night of Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia" at Hamilton, directed by Luke Forester and myself. It was fantabulous. Period. Nothing to do with the direction, it's just that the play is brilliant. I recommend you all read it. Stoppard is the same guy who gave us "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead"", "Shakespeare in Love" and "Brazil".

In other news, an old school friend, Pranav Prakash was made major bakra...that kid had it coming.

Shoutout: a very Happy Birthday to Theo and Happy Anniversary to Ashwan and Miyuki. My Starbucks Case Study Team... it was great working with you guys.

"Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art." ~ Tom Stoppard, Artist Descending a Staircase

Conversation Table

I found this lying on one of the tables in the dining hall and found it really amusing...

Do you agree or disagree? Think about three reasons why.

1. Women belong at home taking care of children.

2. People are animals and therefore are not monogamous by nature.

3. Teachers should not socialize with students.

4. Life in the United States is much too easy.

5. Spanking and hitting children is a form of child abuse.

6. Watching a lot of TV and rock videos can make people violent.

7. Interracial marriages should be discouraged.

8. English should be the only international language.


I can think of a million (well not a million but you get the idea) smart ones for these but I need to get back to work, so insert your own wise cracks...

Because It's Overcrowded...

Question:
The average life expectancy in India is 62 years, the average life expectancy in Sweeden is 79 years. So if a person moves from India to Sweeden is he expected to live longer?

Favourite answer:
Yes, he would live longer, considering India is really overcrowded and there is not enough fresh air for everyone, so people die faster.

Now, this would have been a perfectly laughable answer if the student was in grade school, unfortunately this answer was one of the gems I discovered while grading Intro. to Macroeconomics papers at college. That scares me to a certain extent.

I love grading papers, regular source of entertainment!

On another note, I was accepted to the London School of Economics, so I'll be in London next year studying Operations Research, Game Theory, International and Developmental Economics. I'm still waiting to hear from Oxford, but I think I'll go to LSE anyway.

As some of you know, I was accepted into a fellowship program offered by Wharton, Fletcher, Sloan, Columbia, Tuck, Yale and NYU... basically all the big business schools in the Greater New York-Massachusetts region, so I've been traveling quite frequently to attend seminars and work on presentations and case-studies. I was at Wharton last week, and I felt really stupid there. This was the first time all 120 fellows from all across the country (and one student from LSE) were together. Most of these kids were from big name schools and no one had even heard of Hamilton, except this one girl, Jee. The following is the transcript of our converstation:

Jee: So where are you from?
Maity: Hamilton College, you've probably never heard of it's in upstate New York...
Jee: No, I know where Hamilton is. I applied there and didn't get in.
Maity: Really?
Jee: ...yeah...
Maity: YES!!! (aside: finally...)
Jee: Sorry?
Maity: No, nothing. So which school do you go to now?
Jee: Bryn Mawr.

Apart from that I met kids who have been running their own businesses since they were 19. Some NGOs, some own their own clothing line. One kid had a thriving Socially Responsible Company called, damn I forget the name, running in 27 different countries, including India, selling reading glasses...bottomline, most of these kids are really, really smart. Take my case study group for instance: Three girls from Columbia, one from Harvard, one guy from Duke and our team mentor is a manager of SRI at Citibank. Needless to say they're really hardcore about all this and that just cramps my style...

On the upside, I met a bunch of people who were also accepted to LSE, so I'll know some people beforehand, hehehehe. The fellows were given accomodation at the Philadelphia Marriott, unforunately I got kicked out of the hotel for all the wrong reasons on the second day, but that's a different story. On another note, a huge, African-American hooligan (must have been at least 200 kgs!), stole my burger at the bus station at 5 in the morning. That too is another story.

An interesting thing about my fellows were that although most of these kids are highly accomplished and very very smart, they're very keen on NGOs, CSR and SRIs which makes me feel good...

College has been rough. There's always work to be done, grade this, grade that, exams, tests, lab reports, research, editing my professor's book on Financial Market Theory, tax returns, organizing events as social/cultural chair of Asian Cultural Society...the list just goes on.

Speaking of which, ACS celebrated the Lunar New Year last night, slightly belated, but it was great. We had a professional lion dance troop come and perform, there was a martial arts demonstration and of course good ol' Chinese food.

This weekend is going to be rough too, it's becoming a habit now. I still need to find a job for the summer...time is running out and then there is abstract algebra homework to finish.

I need to takesome time off and went frolicking in the Adirondacks, a local mountain range and an awesome hiking trail, just the stress buster I need... I'm way behind on my work.

Sayonara.

PS: If you haven't already seen them, I thoroughly recommend "Munich", "Good Luck and Good Night", "Why We Fight" and "Thank You For Smoking". I'm planning to catch Rang De Basanti in New Jersey when I go to Columbia next weekend.

Red Eye Tripping

Next time I fly long distance I’m going to adopt a little toddler so I can get on the plane early and find an overhead bin to store my carry-on baggage because it is impossible otherwise. At least for a polite person like me.

My flight back to college was star-crossed from the word go. I’m not sure what it was, but I started feeling very sick at the airport and threw up a couple of times before boarding the airplane. I had booked my tickets a long time back and dad had even pre-booked seats for me, but as it turned out, they were really very crappy seats, not Air India crappy, but crappy nevertheless. I was seated next to a boring, middle-aged couple who were carrying their own food and kept eating all the way through to London. Just watching them made me throw up twice in the airplane toilet. I did get around to watching Lord of War and Pride and Prejudice in between my false alarm runs to the can.

London Heathrow was not any better. The transit security check took forever and my cell phone decided to run out of batteries. The duty free shops were charging outrageously compared to India or even Paris, so I ended up buying nothing. Twenty four pounds for a carton of cigarettes, are you insane? I think it’s a conspiracy to stop people from smoking.

The nine-hour flight to Chicago was also marred from the start. For some uncanny reason the plane could not make it to the gate so they provided shuttle service to take the passengers to the plane, all three hundred of us. Sometimes I wonder how a mess up like this is even possible. Anyway, this time I took my seat between an elderly NRI nurse and a rather striking blonde. Well if nothing I could at least squeeze out a conversation with a beautiful girl, but alas, being German, she spoke no English. Perhaps she just did not want to talk to me… My stomach was a little better but I was still feeling lousy. This time I watched The Constant Gardener and Wedding Crashers, but under extreme discomfort. Partially because of my stomach and partially because of the million toddlers on board making a hell of a racket.

Chicago. I passed through immigrations quickly, but then ended up waiting forty minutes for my baggage. No matter, I said to myself, I still have four hours. I quickly moved through Customs and took the train to Terminal 3 only to be told that all flights to Syracuse had been cancelled. I still do not know how I stopped myself from flushing my head down the toilet. The next flight was at ten the next morning. My four-hour wait had now turned into a fourteen-hour wait. What is worse, they did not even give me freaking food coupons. This is the last time I fly with those American Airlines bastards.

I didn’t have much money with me and I finished most of it on a lavish dinner at O’Hare Airport as a celebration of my recuperating stomach, slightly prematurely as it later turned out. It was like Port Authority all over again, minus the illegal Mexican immigrants and gun trotting psychos. But it was still spooky because I was the only passenger in the entire terminal, the rest were the cleaning crew. One of them was watching the CNN News. A SWAT officer shot a 15-year-old kid because he was holding a pellet gun that resembled a .45 automatic. This country I tell you…

I met a whole bunch of college kids at the airport and tried to make polite conversation. It is stupid to ask a kid who goes to college in the US if she enjoys college. I have never heard anyone complain about college here. After all, if you’re forking out more than thirty grand a year for college, you had better enjoy it. You’d look stupid if you left your family and friends and spent a fortune coming to study in the US and then did not enjoy the experience. Even if one hates her college, they’re always go gaga when asked about it.

The next morning I flew to Syracuse. Just barely. We boarded the plane at 9:25 am, due to take off at 10. At 10 the pilot says that there's a slight dent in the right wing and the mechanics want to run a few tests, so be patient. I just hid my head in sorrow. The Syracuse University student next to me started writing poetry. "...and the coocooned caterpillat turned into a butterfly" Oh my God!

My baggage of course had a trip of its own. Interestingly enough my suitcase ended up in Dakota the night before but then they got it back to me in Syracuse airport. I don’t even want to know how. Thank god for that, I had some important stuff in there, including Professor Bradfield’s textbooks. US domestic airlines are such a mess and then they wonder why American Airlines and company are filing for bankruptcy.

It was so cold you couldn’t even finish a thought. Every thought ended prematurely with the exclamation “fuck, it’s cold!” I realized I didn’t have enough cash for a cab. Most of it had gone into my one-man food and booze celebration the night before. But I knew that one Hamilton student was flying in at noon and I was sure there would be more. So I picked up my baggage, borrowed a big blank signboard and wrote “Hamilton Anyone?” and parked myself by the airport exit. As luck would have it, and deservedly so after all the shit I had been through, I saw Ahn as she was walking out of the airport. Thought we'd share a cab back to college but nope, it turned out to be someone else.

There's a pre-paid taxi booth at the airport, but they are crazy expensive, so I decided to call a city metered cab. Unfortunately every Yellow Pages book in the airport had all the pages after T ripped out so Taxis weren't listed. Finally I managed to find one intact copy and dialed the first number on the list. And they sent me a limo. I was chauffered back to college in fucking limo and it cost me a fortune... but perhaps at the end of the day, I deserved it.

I have been sleeping since then and woke up to write this. Perhaps a slightly anti-climactic ending to a rather nefarious series of incidents, but I prefer drab and dull to profoundly infuriating any day…I think.

Russian Roulette

I think it's a fascinating phrase. Just like that. For some reason, however, I don't think it's exactly fair to the Russians either. Why are they always the bad guys. Even in non-political movies like Ronin, the Russians have to mess things up. And if the Russians are as bad as Russian Roulette suggests, why the hell don't they ever win? It's almost as irritating as those new "Pay Your Sales Tax" ads on TV.

The Indian government's come up with a brilliant strategy, shame parents into paying tax by targetting kids through television ads and asking them to ask their parents if they pay taxes. So, what. I can see some little maaru kid [no offense to maarus, just an example] going to his dad and saying "papa, papa, you always say honesty is the best policy, so why are you not paying the government tax? who will make the roads and bridges papa?" and the dad says "ye sab phokat me ata hai popat!" ["it's all for free silly parrot"]... A real brainstorm the Indian government has hit upon, sheer genius!

Ping Pong. The Japs actually made a movie on ping-pong. Well, it’s actually not that surprising considering they also made a very famous movie on noodles, or ramen as they call it. It wasn’t a bad movie actually. Not a typical sports movie. The end especially is particularly really well done. The movie builds in such a way that in the end, the ending becomes irrelevant. With beautiful hyperboles and smart ass dialogues and wickedly crazy characters this movie was a great watch. I wonder if they’ll ever make a movie like this on the Indian cricket team. God knows, with this entire Raj Singh Dungarpur and Saurav Ganguly episode, Indian cricket has become a freaking soap opera complete with the saas, bahu characters! I’ll leave you to decide who’s who.

I was watching Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal about a week ago. Typical Tom Hanks feel good movie, but there were some very funny subtleties thrown in there. The last line of the movie is particularly memorable. Tom Hanks gets into a cab outside JFK airport and asks the driver to take him to downtown NYC. The driver asks Hanks where he’s from and Hanks says “Krakotzia”. The driver smiles and says “Ah, Krakotzia, I’m from Albania”. So Hanks asks him, “So when did you get here?” The driver thinks for a while and then says, “Umm…Tuesday.”

Lansdowne School of Pickpockets

No I'm serious, during the pujas, these people in Lansdowne run the All-India Lansdowne School of Pickpockets. It attracts some of the best talent from all around the country. They can cut your "hidden" pocket and milk you dry before you've even paid the conductor on the bus. These people, ladies and gentlemen, the creme de la creme of the thriving theiving industry.

Interestingly, these young professionals are as selective as secretive. No cellphones, no large bags. Usually it's wallets and purses. I've never seen one at work, but I've heard they're like ninjas.

God, I love this city.

The Semester That Was - Chug, Chug, Chug...

Let me begin by wishing Happy Holidays to all. Speaking of holidays, I wonder if any of you heard about the controversy in the US - Bill O'Reily claimed that good Christians are offended by the phrase "Happy Holidays" replacing the more traditional "Merry Christmas". He went on record and said that liberal pussies like Jon Stewart were waging a war on Christmas...need I say more?

Well, the semester is over and I'm back in Calcutta for the winter. A lot has happened since my last blog. I shall provide brief accounts of them in this blog... a nice way to wrap up the year I suppose.


First up, I never wrote about the crazy Diwali celebrations we had at Ham this year. It was really great and I ended up earning the title of "The Drunken Swordmaster" by the end of the after party, but that's a different story all together.

Anyway, then a bunch of made a very interesting trip to New York City for Thanksgiving. Apart from our car running out of gas in Brooklyn and spending way too much time on the subway and taking wrong turns, it was a fun week. The highlight was, of course, the little party we had at Shraddha's sister's appartment... Yeah, that was a good party alright...

Snow... and lot's of it. Hamilton's been submerged in a few feet of snow in the last couple of weeks. Most of exam week, I spent cooped up in my room because I was too lasy to put on my snow boots and trek across the tundra to the dining halls.

My foster family... Gabi, Elena and Quang all went home for the break... I hope they bring back some good presents for me.

Megha got into Med School. We had a nice little farewell party for her. I think the gift we bought for her is still in the car boot!

I met Sethia in Calcutta and drove around and talked about life.

My flight from Newark to Cal was also very interesting. Met some old acquaintances...

Alex has not tried to kill me in recent history. And now I find myself submerged under a ton of editing work to do for my professor and answering millions of previously ignored emails et al.

However, I did find time to read both Eragon and its sequel Eldest. Kinda hard to swallow that the author is only a couple of years older than me and is already signing movie deals... I also managed to read Bill Bryson's "Sunburned Country" - a hillarious account of his trip across the Aussie outback. Next in line is Mishima's monumental (been a while since I've used that word) tetrology "The Sea of Fertility"...

Recently I figured out something very interesting about Bongs and why Christmas is celebrated with a lot of panache in Cal. I was driving down Park Street in Cal and I was happy to see that the street was as well decorated as any street in NYC... Although Calcutta has lost a lot of its indegenous Christian populace over the past few years under mysterious circumstances, Calcuttans still celebrate Christmas regardless of religion. After all this is the city of Mother Theresa and St. Xavier.

My guess is that because most of the good schools in the city are missionary schools like La Martinere and St. James', St. Xavier's et al... even non-Christian students inculcate a sense of Christmas spirit. However, it's still celebrated at a superficial level. I mean, unlike Durga Puja etc, families don't come together for Christmas. It's limited to an excuse for kids asking parents for presents and eating out and cakes and sweets! Nevertheless it's a fun time to be in Calcutta.

Calcutta and Bengalis are an enigma. Calcutta, during the British rule was the intellectual hub of India with the headquarters of the Indian National Congress and the Moderates (admit it, it was!) and 6 out of the countries 8 Nobel Laureates (as we bongs love pointing out). Bengalis took pride in the intellectual environment of the city and the westernization of the Bengali culture. Educated, English speaking Bengalis became, what I like to call, "brown sahibs". This colonial hangover still lingers over Calcutta although Bengalis have been outnumbered by the Marwaris. Even today you'll find gentlemen's clubs where women aren't allowed and English style pubs, a penchant for jazz and western classical, Voltaire, Marx, Milton... little things that one would associate with an educated sophisticated Englishman. Calcutta is perhaps the last stronghold for such people, for it is a city that still affords all these and actually encourages them. I feel so out of place in my own city.

Well I've droned on for a while. My glasses broke this morning but I also found out I did pretty well on my Finals...so it's win some and lose some I guess. Hope you're all having a great winter.

If At First You Fail, Destroy All Evidence You Tried

Friday. Diwali was successful. People enjoyed the skit. People enjoyed the dance performances. In general people had fun. I had fun too. I deserved it... the rest of the week had been super stressful. As Christina said, my procrastination curve had peaked on Friday and exploded later that evening - with a plastic katana et al.
Priya said that it was a proven fact that hangovers enhance sporting performances. She was wrong. The next morning on Saturday, I lost both my matches to mediocre players at an inter-college table-tennis tournament.
The rest of Saturday, however, progressed rather well. After a long time James and I spent some time cleaning the brain and playing chess, lazing in his suite listening to Talking Heads and Tom Waits and later admiring natural fractals on our monumental expedition to the observatory.
Feeling rather energetic, I borrowed James' iPod and went for a long walk with 'Light My Fire', 'Heard it Through the Grapevine' and 'Crosseyed and Painless' on repeat. Dropped into a random freshman's room and 'borrowed' a can of beef ravioli and chilli noodles. I decided to stop by Pragyan's room and pick up my chocolate brownie fudge ice-cream which had been lying in his fridge for days now... Unfortunately someone had neglected to turn the fridge on, so I found my beloved iced with a crust of fungi.
Dejected, I decided to eat at the diner... the rest of the evening is slightly hazy, except that the three above mentioned songs had been looping in my ears and head for the past few hours. We played hangman in the diner for an uncomfortable length of time. I was pissed I couldn't guess Judge Dredd.
Fearing that the stale warm convection currents of the radiators were messing with my head, I convinced a motley crew of friends and acquaintences to join me for a walk to the dark netherlands of Rogers' Estate, entertaining them with horror stories of naked, psycotic serial killers.
I discovered I'm not the only insane movie buff and that there are people who've probably seen many more movies than me (read: Aglae and Elena), but it's always nice to discuss obscure Chinese and Korean movies with people.
Tired from the day's hurricane, I declined to participate in any further activity and retire. I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. At some inhuman hour an irritating buzz fills my head. It was my phone, not Alex. Don't know which is the lesser evil. Amit says that they (rest of the motley crew) had managed to lock their keys inside the car. If it was a 1985 Maruti Suzuki 800, I would understand how that could happen. But armed with an state of the art automatic, I imagine it would take some skill to find yourself in that situation. Unable to process their request to give them a five minute crash course on how to pick car locks over the telephone, I fell back asleep and had a lovely dream where the Maity name was no longer associated with delinquency. At four thirty in the morning the buzz returned. This time I hoped it was Alex passing gas in his machine gun manner, but it was the phone again.
A very incoherent voice was saying that they had been kidnapped by the Slovakian mafia and were being carted off to Sylvan Beach to be sold as pets to rich Arabian sheiks. My first thought was that the Slovakian mafia was very inefficient. How can you kidnap someone and not pat them down and take their cell phones away... albeit T-Mobile never works anywhere, but someone could have had a Verizon...
Shraddha was freaking out on the phone. I kept mumbling non-commital responses. The phone makes its round around the motley crew. I hear crackling background laughter and a few what the fucks. I almost fall back asleep before someone talks to me again. I think it was either Pragyan or Amit, perhaps it was both, or maybe they are the same person, or perhaps I imagined it all, I am not sure, but someone spoke to me and said that they were fine and that they were driving back to college and started laughing with a hic. I assumed that the coversation was over and fell back asleep. The next morning my neck was sore as I had slept on the phone.
I need a holiday.

"Jab Alex Ko Gussa Ata Hai..."

It was an ordinary Saturday night - cold and windy with a slight drizzle. Warmed with alcohol and a late, late night hot breakfast of eggs, noodles, and sausages I went to bed and promptly fell asleep.

Before long I was woken up by some strange noises. I peeked out, hiding most of my face under my comforter and tried to determine what was making the noise. After a few seconds, I realised my room-mate Alex was muttering in his sleep.

Thinking it was only natural I was about to go back to sleep when Alex started screaming in a deep voice, "Shut the fuck up, or I'm going to kill you, you motherfucker!" Then in another, more mellow voice he answers to himself, "Ok, ok, I'm going to keep quiet, don't kill me..." The deeper voice returned, "I don't care, I'm going to kill everyone anyway..."

Saying that he stood up on his bed, took his clothes off, walked to his computer and turned it on. In the mean time I get out of bed to see if Alex is awake or if he was sleep-walking. I wave my hand, do the St. Vitus' dance... no response. I guessed he was sleep walking. I followed him to the sink, where he poured himself a glass of water and back into the room.

Back in the room Alex walked to his desk and took out the kodachi (Japanese knife, slighlty smaller than a wakizashi) he keeps in his lower drawer, unsheathed it and started swinging it in the air narrowly missing me! (I was standing behind him). I stare in horror as Alex laughs maniacally.

I ran to the closet to fetch the baseball bat and whack him but before I could do that, Alex had kept the kodachi back on the table and was making his way to his bed. I waited for a few minutes, gripping the baseball slugger in my hand, shaking in my slippers. But, as I lowered the bat, I heard machine gun fire, "put-put-putput-putputput-put-put"... it was Alex farting in his sleep.

I wore my clothes, pocketed the kodachi and went for a walk.

DO YOU STILL WANT TO KNOW HOW HARD HAMILTON PARTIES?

The Three Pimping Warlocks of Albany

I read somewhere that six kids from M.I.T. had recently won four million dollars at various Vegas casinos simply using laws of probability. This weekend some of us decided to put that theory to test.

Location: Roulette Table 6, Turning Stone Casino, Oneida County, New York.
Time: Midnight, Saturday.
Participants: Shraddha Shah (financial officer), Pragyan Pradhan (mathematician extraordinaire!), Amit Desai (El Dhanno) and myself (lurking variable).
Initial capital: $100
Result: Hell yeah! Probability rocks!

After making a heavy kill at the roulette table after two hours, we decided to cash in our chips before we lost it all at the Hold'em tables. It was time to celebrate.

On the way back to college, 2 a.m. in the morning, we suddenly decided that we wanted to eat at Denny's at Albany, a town 90 miles west of where we were. So we did just that.

After an hour and a half of driving, with loud music and ghost stories and a video-taped karoake session, we rolled into Dunkin Donuts at Albany for some coffee.

We walk inside and two of us pretend we can't speak English too well and Pragyan acts as chief translator.

Random Dunkin Donuts dude (DD): What can I get for you guys?
Me (pointing at croissant sandwich picture): What kroi-ssanntts thing?

DD elaborately explains what a croissant is...

Me: No English.
Pragyan: They no understand English. Ve vant four cups of kaafee, please.

Shraddha takes us aside and we start chatting randomly in vernacular.

DD: Will that be all?
Pragyan: Please sir, give us another minute, eh, please, sir.
DD: Yeah dude, whatever, man.

We go back to the service counter.

Pragyan: Ok, that will be all. We've come all the way from Nepal (AN: Pragyan is from Katmandu, Nepal) yeah, to eat here, please make this good, yeah?

DD gives us weird looks as Shraddha, Amit and I talk in vernacular, seemingly fascinated by an automatic ketchup dispenser, and goes to get our coffee. A couple of minutes later our coffee arrive in these cups with special lids which can be opened like soda cans. We all pretend we have no fucking idea how to drink the coffee. So I walk up to the Dunkin Donuts dude.

Me (gesturing): How, drink?

DD very kindly opens the lid for me. I give him fancy smile. He shudders.

We take a center table and begin slurrping our coffee as loudly as we can and talk animatedly in vernacular scandalising the other late night patrons of DD, including a bunch of Union College students! Shraddha dares me to stand on a table and seduce her. I do it atanding on a chair instead, 'cause the tables were too wobbly. People start leaving.

After finishing our coffees we get back into our car and drive around looking for Denny's. We find PriceChopper's, a 24 hour supermarket. We walk in. It's 3:30 in the morning.

Shraddha walks up to random people shelving shampoo.

Shraddha: Do you know where I can get the croysaanuts?

Random guys look at each other in confusion.

1st Random Guy: Could you repeat that a little slowly please?

Shraddha: CROIY-SAA-NUTS?

2nd Random Guy: Ano... could you describe what you want?

Shraddha: gesturing It's the bread that goes round and round...

Both Random Guys: Ahh... croissants. At the bakery section in the back.

Pragyan walks to a some dude carrying a huge hunk of beef and stops him. I'm standing behind him.

Pragyan: Excuj me, excuj me, sir, can I ask a question, eh?

Beef Dude: Yeah man, sure.

Pragyan: gesturing Do I look physically capable of doing hard labour?

Beef Dude: looking confused What kind of labour?

Pragyan: You know, the hard kind...

Beef Dude: Yeah man, sure why not...

Beef dude slinks away when Pragyan is about to ask another question. We look around for another bakra. I find a lady stocking shelves in the toys department.

Maity: Do you know where I can get some paaaint?
Lady: Yes, come I'll show you.

I follow the lady to the other end of the store to the hardware section. She spends sometime showing me the different paints and textures. I pretend to listen carefully.

Lady: So what kind of paint would you like?
Maity: No, no, I just wanted to look, thank you.

Saying so I walked away.

MORE TO COME...

The Locking of Amod, Teaser Trailer

Yeah, that's Superman - the mother of all roller-coasters...

Some of us are still wondering, why the fuck do people enjoy sitting on a cart that's going to be tossed about at 2Gs on a flimsy metallic track.

But it was one heck of a ride!

To top the evening off... Amod was locked in the bathroom for half an hour!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DANIELLE.

2 Parts Hypnotic + 1 Part Absolut

There are times when I feel really pissed off with Hamilton College and the U.S. of A in general. Yesterday was one of those times. One of my friends here threw an awesome party last night - a la Stephanian format - complete with contraband and UV lights et al.

The party peaked two hours into binging and after a round of ol' Jane in the bathroom, things were nice and mellow, which explains why the extremely loud, smashing asteroids kind of loud, music totally evaded my senses.

Campus Police came knocking on the door. We asked them to join us - they decided they were better off hosting their own party with our confiscated booze. Why? We ask. 'Cause it's an unauthorised party you schmucks they reply. If that wasn't bad enough, they wrote up everyone who was under-21 and drinking. Seriously sometimes I really wish I was anywhere, even China, anywhere except for this god-forsaken country.

This morning is like one of those where you wake up and you walk around and you feel that you've committed some horrible crime and everyone except for you knows about it. It's not helping. So here I am sitting at my desk job on a bright Sunday afternoon feeling like shit. Such is the irony.

Tenma Warau [1]

After much deliberation, the name for my Bearded Desert Dragon was put to vote to my fellow dorm members. Incidentally he has been accepted as the dorm mascot and is also the symbol for our unofficial fraternity (which is funny since we have women as part of our troupe!) Chi Lambda Omega. The names up for vote were Notiggy, Fafner, Tonton and Quincy (by popular demand!). The public voted for Tonton (I dare say we have too many Star Wars and Naruto fans around...)

For me, with stories true and apocryphal the semester has begun with a rather overwhelming force. Training workshops, jobs, classes, and the usual crestfall of the mundane college life. At the rate at I'm going L.S.E. looks like a distant dream.

The new freshman batch has come in bringing with itself, the usual, the good and the bad. Perhaps as compensation for being in America, this year the international crop was very interesting. Among others there are a few nice freshman girls and Nelson Mandela's grandson . While the girls have attitudes that say "I desperately wanna be white", Mandela Jr. is well he's like Naseruddin Shah's son back in School. Ah well I guess people said the same things about us when we were freshmen.

Sometimes I get the feeling that I am like a crazy ball who doesn't really identify with any group on campus. For instance, I have many Asian (read: Chinese, Koreans, Japanese et al) friends and I am a part of the Asian Cultural Society and often "chill" with the Asian kids. But somehow, everytime, these Asians break into their vernacular diatribe, I don't feel that sense of belonging, or lack of it thereof. Then there are the rich white kids, my buddies, like James... I spend a lot of time with them. Maybe drink on weekends, smoke, or just play chess and listen to the Grateful Dead, but here too my sense of belonging is lost, for obvious reasons. For the black people, I ain't black enough. Then there are the geeks; movie watching, anime loving, book reading, trivia loving, "I never touch alcohol or any other bad things" geeks. I spend time with those types too, I enjoy their sense of humour - witty and referential and aren't always related to sex or drugs. But since I drink and smoke and party once a while I don't get enough credibility to join their ranks either. As for the Indians, well there are more Nepalis on campus than Indians at the moment. So where does that leave me in this compartmentalized mixed fruit jam? The International Students Union - the group of people caught in no-man's land? Honestly, I don't know, I think I'll just let it pass and not think about it too much. Is it really that important to have a concrete identity?

[1] Japanese Buddha's Laughing.

Not Iggy...

Yesterday in a spur of the moment decision, I bought a really awesome Bearded Desert Dragon. They're like Iguanas, only a lot more active. Right now he lives in my room in a 29 by 10 feet glass case, complete with carpetting, fake bonzai (he loves to climb), watering pools and rock formations. He loves hunting live crickets which I keep for him in a special habitat of their own and treat him to on Sundays. Other days of the week, he eats lettuce, grans and dead crickets. Right now he's only a month old and six inches long. He's supposed to grow to almost 2 feet if well taken care of.

His Highness' habitat needs to be vacuumed thrice a month and his water changed everyday and fed a healthy diet.

However, he is still unchristened. If you guys have good ideas for a name (which is not Iggy) I'd like to know.

Cheers!

Hazaar F*cked

The last one week has been exciting, not just in terms of events, what with the Mumbai floods and fires and NASA shuttle launch, but at a personal level as well.

Perhaps it’s just my naivety speaking, but I feel I would have enjoyed the 80s more than the present. Yeah, sure, not all was right with the world then either, but for some reason Upamanyu Chaterjee made me feel that I’d be very much at home.

I first read Chaterjee’s debut novel English, August in school and shelved it as a ho-hum fun read book. Last week I reread it and also managed to watch the movie. I sincerely recommend both. The sequel Mamaries of the Welfare State and Chatterjee’s other novel The Last Burden both, for the lack of a better word, sucked. But I digress…

In many ways I relate very well and empathize with Agastya, the protagonist. We’re both Bengalis who spent their formative years in boarding school, lost a parent very early, and went to college in Delhi (partially in my case) and then were lost; with no idea what to do except fantasize our ideal world with no actual inclination to try and reach there.

Agastya, who spends most of his time smoking marijuana and masturbating while training as an IAS officer in a small, hot town called Madna, does not want much from life. He just wants to bask in the Delhi sun in the winter, read, listen to some music, smoke and drink. Not quite the American Dream, but close enough for me.

So where do we go from here? We get hazaar f*cked. But I’m sure it’ll be fun. You see there in lies the rub. I’m unable to break away from my societal obligations of actually amounting to a normal Bengali man and take a chance.

Last week I also went to IS-CON, Mayapur. Shady is perhaps the first word that comes to mind. All around were clean shaven (all the way round!), saffron clad, stoned foreigners, tripping on acid and religion. To the non-discerning eye nothing seems suspect. Dad never caught anything! But one can clearly see that the euphoria on the young devotees’ faces are artificially induced. I, of course, had my little adventures during my little stay at Mayapur which I won’t delve into. Let it suffice to say that it was a welcome trip for me. It wasn’t easy. The first guy I asked gave me a look as if I had asked if we could shit together.

“Saddam Hussein is a lawyer! I feel sorry for the first guy who told him a lawyer joke.” – Jon Stewart, The Daily Show.

Row Row Row Your Boat

Oye, Bombay boys, how’s the water logging in B’Bay?

Backstroke of the West

Funnier than flushing Pickachu down the toilet in an aeroplane...

http://www.winterson.com.nyud.net:8090/2005/06/episode-iii-backstroke-of-west.html

Sixth Seduction of the Papal Kind

Seriously there’s no news like bad news is there? These days the news is filled with a blast here, a kill there, a Mamta Banerjee here, and more detonations in London. It could be the handiwork of enraged Aussie fans, considering their dismal Day 1 performance at the London test, but I’m skeptical.

But instead of tripping over the pitfalls of tragedy, we should focus on the lighter-side of things…

Well it appears that like Ms. V, there are a lot of Harry Potter haters out there. One of the more hardcore ones is a German, Gabriele Kuby; who hates HP enough to actually write a book about it. Get a job lady. Wait sorry, I forgot Germany was in recession.

The Pope happens to be another aggrieved anti-HP activist. In fact he was quoted as saying that the HP books are “…subtle seductions of children which act unnoticed and by this, deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.”[1]. Subtle seduction of children, eh? Who better to know about that than the clerics, right?

Apart from boring stuff like China re-evaluating its currency and Francis Fanthome being asked to “take a holiday” (never liked that guy, he really screwed my ICSE!), I picked up two rather interesting stories. Three, actually:

Bulletproofing the Ayodhya shrine? Come on mate, surely the good people at DRDO are not that vella.

“Dear terrorists, new firman issued. Kill 10, take a branded T-shirt and be the best terrorist in the group. Jihad begins from July 18-20. – Osama.”
ICICI Prudential actually used this to motivate their insurance salesmen. One wonders why they didn’t dress them up like black bucks, paint a large bulls-eye on them and send them to Pataudi’s home.

On a graver note, a girl was molested in Presidency College at 11:30 am on a staircase after a sociology class by some “outsiders”. What I don’t understand is how this girl was all alone after class on a staircase in the middle of the day in a college with five thousand students? Either Presidency has a serious attendance problem, or this girl lacks friends. But who cares really, it was after all a legitimate reason to call a student strike! Disappointing world we live in, isn't it?

[1] Courtesy "The Daily Show".

Run Rabbit Junk

I had to get out of the Harry Potter groove…

It’s been an exciting few days even without Harry P. What with PM Manmohan Singh visiting the US to a red carpet reception and speaking to a joint session of the Congress and President George Bush not goofing up for the first time in a long time while introducing Manmohan Singh. So, India, US nuclear chaddi-buddies eh? But the funniest part is definitely the Pakistani PM canceling his US visit…and the Left... oh the Left.

Kaur gets thrown out accused of messing around with funds…says she’ll go to court. Face it woman, you’re screwed! I hope you have a couple of million stacked away somewhere safe.

Aishwarya Rai now claims that it’s not her voice either on the tape! Somebody call Oliver Stone.

The Hurriyat meets the Kashmiri Pandit leaders in a conference for the first time in sixteen years. I hope you’re happy now, Athar.

Dada has to play under Rahul Dravid, provided, of course, he gets to play. Is this the end of Saurav Ganguly? With a multi-crore deal with the Nimbus Group, it’s hardly relevant, is it?

Disneyland celebrates its 50th birthday with Arnie, the Gu-von-er of Kali-for-nia. Europe is over ridden with tension – everyone’s crapping their pants. Musharraf blames the Madrasas. British tabloids are making Blair look like a lollipop in Bush’s hands which is being stolen by a big bad bully.

It’s a shame that with so many things happening all around, when I go back to college, conversations as usual will steer into sex, drugs and alcohol. Come to think of it, maybe it’s me who’s got the priorities wrong!

If Dumbledore was a Mumbai Godfather…

Yesterday I managed to watch Sarkar and finish Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

It’s clear that Sarkar has been heavily influenced by The Godfather, but that doesn’t take away the fact that Sarkar is still a brilliantly well made movie. Stellar performances, excellent background score (though very reminiscent of Company) and some rather smart dialogues and camera angles made Sarkar a very worthy watch.

Half Blood Prince on the other hand was a bit of a let down after all the hype, much like Order of the Phoenix. One was hoping that the Harry Potter franchise would not become another Star Wars. Alas, it’s too late now. I still don’t understand that if the potions book was fifty years old, how could it belong to Snape? [Edit: It was originally his mother's] Interestingly enough, the contents of HBP and what is to be expected bear a remarkable similarity to a brilliantly well written fan fiction that Nisha had once showed me.

I noticed a bunch of printing errors and typos in the Bloomsbury edition. They forgot to add Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, in the list of previously published HP books in the back dust cover. There was a lot to be wanted from HBP, but in the end I agree with one review I read in ToI (forgive me!), HP6 is nothing more than a tie up of loose ends before embarking on a grand finale that is to be HP7.

However, HP6 has sparked a lot of speculation, particularly about the mysterious R.A.B. and Snape. Snape of course remains the most enigmatic character and after the movies (cheers Alan Rickman) he's become my favorite!

The HP news on television has been very irritating. It’s like the Beatle mania all over again.

I wonder if HP will become another Sherlock Holmes, to be brought back from the dead by an enraged readership?

Because You Touch Yourself At Night

A couple of days ago, by sheer coincidence, I found an old notice amongst my books, don't know how many of you remember this:

Studants' Union Society

St. Stephen's College

Cordially invite all students to a special dinner.

Venue: Mess Hall

Date: 22nd March, 2004

Time: 7:30pm

(P.S.: Please do not break down the doors this time)

Ah, those were the days when there was little to life than tormenting Tawakley and the SUS...

These days I envy Vaks to a certain extent. At twenty two, he's got it all. A job that pays him to flirt on his blog's chatterbox. Lovable little nephews and nieces who see SUS people and pink sweatshirts and like cracking perverted Santa-Banta jokes, cats to welcome him home and "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince"...sigh, one should be so lucky.

So, here's wishing a very Happy Birthday to Vaibhav Tawakley, without whom I'd be living a boring and pointless life. May he find happiness, and a woman 7000 ks away with a penchant for Brayan Adams, oh wait he already has...

Gone Fishing

Didn't catch shit...

Selling the Drama with Cool Blue Reason [1]

The Japanese actually made a cartoon on spinning tops (Bey Blade) [2]. Suddenly understanding life has become unworthy like a made-in-China Holy Grail.

The summer holidays are nearly drawing to a close. Although, at a personal level, this period has been rather uneventful (just the way I like it), the world it appears has spared no quarter to be as random as ever. If the world is hit by a giant chocolate ice-cream cone, the book can be sent for publishing.

Dad had applied for a US visa and I spent three hours outside the embassy in the pouring Calcutta rain waiting for him. I killed time talking to mothers who's kids were going to Princeton or UCLA or *insert fancy school name here*. There was one rather pretty girl who was happily dispensing advice and gyan to the nail biting mothers outside. She was a returning student to some shady university... I first overheard one of her conversations with a hoity-toity English aunty waiting for her daughter. The accent, the swirl of the skirt, the talk of parties and the gyan, was a hilariously fascinating combination and we struck up a conversation. Soon we were drawing crowds of over anxious mothers desperately trying to keep themselves dry with newspapers… it was like working for the study abroad consultancy company I used to work for while in St. Stephen's. Dad got a 10 year visa.

I did manage several trips to my ancestral village in Midnapore over summer. I couldn’t exactly chill considering the temperature was in the late thirties, but the fishing and soaking in the ponds was fun till someone told me that a crocodile had been spotted in the vicinity. I tried tracing back my lineage.

Among interesting things in the world were the Live 8 concerts and the Floyd reunion and some Japanese dude reciting the value of Pi to 85,000 decimal places (take that Ramola)! It was then that I realized that it was far better vellaing than subjecting myself to such mind-numbing activities…I’d rather smoke pot if I wanted that.

L.K. Advani acts out “The Importance of Being Earnest”, the RSS are pissed. The 2012 Olympics go to London for the third time, ze French are le pissed. Some obscure terrorist group blows up buses and tubes in London in celebration, suicide bombers have a blast in Ayodhya. CPM wins election in West Bengal, again (big surprise there), Bangladesh beat Australia in England (definitely big surprise there). Six cars racing at Indianapolis, Venus Williams acting the monkey, Whacko Jacko gets acquitted, Harry Potter posters gracing flyovers across Calcutta. The absconding IIM-C dhobi makes news in local newspapers. St. Stephen’s has a reunion at the Raj Bhavan in Calcutta. The government wants 25% quota for underprivileged students at private schools; CPI threatens to topple the government. A pauper makes one of the largest companies in the country, his Wharton and Stanford educated sons attempt to undo it. Singapore Airlines is flying you to Singapore and back for Rs. 4000. A friend in college commits suicide.

And here I am writing about Kaiser Blewzew feasting on stuffed peacocks on a blog.

Although, I guess, there is no need to be realistic since Abhishek Gupta is in Calcutta en route to his HLL job posting in Jharkhand [3].

“They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our underpants” – Beau Peep.

[1] “Selling the Drama” – Live! and “Cool Blue Reason” – Cake
[2] Courtesy Jug Suraiya
[3] Courtesy Amit Chandra

"Joie de Vivre"

Joie de Vivre will be a short film for the 24 hour film contest chronicling the effect that the contemplation of one’s mortality has on action. In it, the troubled protagonist, sits as a drone at a computer screen, typing. He begins to think of his life, and what he will reflect upon in the future, when he grows near death. Upon the realization that he might, in theory, have only 24 hours to live, the film bursts into an explosive creative energy that leading film critics have heralded as “magnificent,” “brilliant,” “makes you want to run stark-naked through the dormitory hallways of a small liberal arts college.”

SCENE 1:Protagonist sits in chair in front of a computer, typing. Suddenly he stops.

Various shots of protagonist sitting in front of computer, thinking.
Narration:It is said that “No man on his deathbed wishes that he had spent more time in the office.” What will I, on my deathbed, think? Will I feel satisfied after a long, fulfilling life? Will I feel unsatisfied after having realized that my time was spent unwisely? Will I even have time to reflect upon my experiences? What if I am lying on my deathbed tomorrow? What if I only have 24 hours to live?

Cue music(Possible songs: “Pipeline” The Ventures, “BDNB” Cowboy Bebop, “Winter: Allegro non Molto” Vivaldi or even “Block Rocking Beats” Chemical Brothers).

The protagonist gets up and walks away from the computer.

Montage of the following during music:
• Protagonist frolicking through the woods.
• Protagonist running around, humping people’s legs.
• Protagonist emptying his wallet of all his cards, credit cards, debit cards, phone cards, IDs, laying them out in a row and setting them on fire, a la Jimi Hendrix.
• Protagonist using a fake hand to grope random people, then throwing the hand aside and actually groping people.
• Protagonist getting out of bed in undergarments followed by three girls then a guy getting out of his bed one at a time, also wearing undergarments.
• Protagonist taking his CDs out of their cases and breaking them.
• Protagonist taking a baseball-bat to his printer a la “Office Space”.
• Protagonist running through dorm halls naked, screaming.
• Protagonist planting a charge of C4 on a random car.
• Jamming.
(Anything else we get at the spur of the moment, suggestions are welcome…)

FINAL SCENE:The Protagonist leaps off of the bridge, and frozen in midair, the following is narrated:
Never take leave, of your joie de vivre.

The camera follows his leap as he lands on the bridge, rather than in the ravine as camera would have led you to believe. (Though I would rather leave it frozen and fade out…with the narration slowly coming into focus, white on black)
The End
Idea Conceived By: Noah D. Wright, Hamilton College 2008 ©(Cite your source. Otherwise there is no difference between you and Bollywood.)

Presently working on another idea for the same contest titled "Tamim's Brother Is Bald"

Kaiser Blewzew, Mongoloid, Esq. Chapter 2: The Unassuming Assasin

A long time before The YG or the Boka Gang had taken control of the Stephen’s underground, a man, nay an evil wind known as Blewzew was blowing through the corridors of college. Every clandestine activity, every subtle crime, had his stamp on it. Not only were the authorities helpless, they thanked him for it. Even the college president was too petrified to stop his tyranny.

Blewzew’s penchant for business and his shrewd analytical mind is what made him so successful. In 2003, as the rest of college was distracted by the rigors and tribulations of elections, Harmony and St. Vitus’ Trust, Blewzew, like always, sought an opportunity. In the shadows of ANGA, and shady places in Daryaganj, Blewzew formulated a plan.

In those days I used to live in Blewzew’s neighborhood in ANGA. In those days I also did a lot of gyp work for the SUS. One night, close to the eve of Harmony, as I was going back to my room I happened to stumble upon a Family meeting in the Kaiser’s room. From the reflection off the glass on the door, I could see the Kaiser seated at one end of a low Japanese table. On his right was sitting The Other Guy and on his left sat Hari Om Dahiya. Someone else was sitting at the other end with his back to me, so I couldn’t see his face. Something big was going down. Risking my life I pressed my ear against the door and tried to hear what was being discussed. Suddenly I felt a thick hand on my shoulder and a sharp object probing the bottom of my spine. I turned around to see a scowling face of The Renu. The Renu smiled and I almost soiled myself.

“Bahar kyu kade ho, ander ao…” The Renu said politely waving his kodachi in front of my face. I acquiesced and slowly walked into the Kaiser’s room. Kaiser Blewzew looked up at me and smiled.

“Arrey Maity, ao, ao, baito, yaha baito.” the Kaiser said, pointing to the empty cushion next to Hari Om. Nervously I took of my chappals and walked towards the table. The plush Persian carpeting felt ticklish and the entire room was swamped in the fragrance of French perfume. I tried not to make eye contact with anyone and I could feel four sets of eyes studying me.

“Kuchh khaoge?” The Kaiser asked, forcing me to look at him. No one refused the Kaiser. I smiled politely. The Renu who was leaning against the bookshelf against the wall opposite me, threw a pack of biscuits at me and resumed sharpening a stake with his kodachi. Just for a second there was an uneasy silence. Then Hari Om spoke in his lucid New York accent “Maity, we understand that you are a relatively smart individual. The Family has uses for intelligent people. For now, we don’t expect much. For now, you just keep your mouth sealed and we won’t erase your existence, savvy?” I could hear The Renu chuckle. I nodded.

“Tum ek dusre ko jaante ho?” The Kaiser asked pointing at the person opposite the table. I turned and saw Abhishek Panda desperately trying to smile at me. I nodded. “Accha huya, phir tum jao.” I was puzzled at first but decided to get out before the Kaiser changed his mind. As I was leaving the room, after a quick bow at the Kaiser, I could hear him shout “Arrey tumne to kuch khaya hi nahi!” I ran back to my room and locked the door. What the hell was Panda doing there? I fell into an uneasy asleep. And the next morning I forced myself to forget the whole incident.

Three days later Panda tried to kill me with a pair of scissors.

(Coming Soon: Chapter 3: The Salil Incident)

Kaiser Blewzew, Mongoloid, Esq. Chapter 1: Beginnings

This is a story about change. This is a story about the cruel Delhi culture that brings out the worst in us. This is the story about one man who decided to rise against the tide of apathy and protect those who were close to him. This is a story about Kaiser Blewzew who created one of the most ruthless crime syndicates St. Stephen’s has ever seen. Even Wency Mendes was powerless to stop his rise to power.

In its first few years itself, the Family had grown from a handful of vellas into an organization of massive proportions. By the time I came into college, Blewzew already had a faithful following, loyal and fearsome; men of honor who had sworn oaths of fealty when they had kissed the machwara anguti.

Among the most notable ones were Rahul Renu. The Renu as he was known in the Family was Blewzew’s right hand man. The Renu had grown up in a rough neighborhood and was as tough as dining hall chapatis. His battle-scarred face and the six inch kodachi he kept hidden in his socks kept people at bay and made sure the local dhabas paid up at the end of every month.

On Blewzew’s left hand was The Other Guy. No one knew his real name. He always worked in the shadows. Assassinations and espionage was his forte. He always had a crumpled bidi stuck in his right ear and never wore shoes.

And last but not the least; Hari Om Dahiya, the brains of the organization. Born in the suburbs of New York, Hari Om attended the Wharton School of Business before joining the Family. While The Renu and The Other Guy made sure no one was muscling in on the Family’s territory, Hari Om’s job was to make sure the Family’s money was clean and the IRS was happy and he did his job well.

In the lower echelons of the family there was a myriad crowd all eager to help the Family and keep their ears. Among the more notable members were Nikhilesh S. Chand and Arkoprobho Ray. At the height of its power, the Family boasted a membership of over thirty members including Joe Peschi.

For years Kaiser Blewzew held the campus at ransom. The fastest cars, the prettiest girls, the largest higher education posters, Swaziland…all were his. But it hadn’t been easy.

Coming soon: Chapter 2: The Unassuming Assassin

Left Foot Trapped in a Sensual Seduction

This post has nothing to do with the title. It's random.

A couple of days ago I was speaking to Dinkim and I inquired about my old friend Blewzew. I was disappointed to learn that Blewzew had not made it to an Ivy League, but was setting himself up for a career in politics in Uttar Pradesh. So ends the reign of one of the most God fearing dons at St. Stephen’s College.

So I decided to pay tribute to the glory days of Kaiser Blewzew and the Family and write:
Blewzew, Mongoloid, Esq.

(Coming soon: Chapter 1: Blewzew Begins.)

"Help! I'm A Rock!"

More music angle...

This week, I returned to the roots of rock and roll with "Mr. Rock and Roll: The Alan Freed Story" with a surpisingly brilliant Judd Nelson as Alan Freed (way better than the crappy jobs he's done before!) and the documentary "Rock and Roll" along with the 1971 Frank Zappa movie "200 Motels".

I first heard about Frank Zappa when Griffin Dune starred in the movie "Parental Advisory" as Zappa. The ending credits of the movie claimed that none of Zappa's albums ever received the "Parental Advisory" label, however, Zappa's "Jazz From Hell", which is an instrumental album, did receive such a label! Anyway, at that time there wasn't any Zappa readily available and School wasn't much of a help... it was ATB and trance all the way there. And so my interest in Zappa slowly faded away.

It was only after I watched a recording of a 1978 Zappa concert at California State University in college that I was interested in Zappa again. Fortunately, James, like most other stoners is a big Zappa fan and leant me most of his collection. With more than 60 albums to his name, there's a lot to go through!

Zappa may not suit everyone's tastes, specially those who prefer coherent, romantic and mushy lyrics of say Backstreet Boys (I was going to put Bryan Adams here but decided against it). Most of my favourite Zappa songs, including the title of this post, have strange undecipherable chants and blabber that remind you of Candarian demonic worship but are undeniably catchy.

Speaking of catchy and undecipherable, nothing beats Tom Waits' "Telephone Call From Istanbul".

Black humor and social satire is another intricate aspect of Zappa's music as is evident from "Why Does it Hurt When I Pee", "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama", "Take Your Clothes of When You Dance", "Help I'm A Rock" and "Uncle Remus" (to name a few).

One of Zappa's songs "Watermelon In Easter Hay" was used for the brilliant 2001 Mexican movie "Y Tu Mama Tambien" (which stars Gael Garcia Bernal of "The Motorcycle Diaries", another good movie), although Zappa had requested that three of his songs, including the one in question, be never used in any other media except in an album. However, his widow (Zappa died in 1993) allowed this exception because she was so moved by the film.

LEARN CHINESE IN 3 MINUTES

Read out loud...

1) That's not right ----- Sum Ting Wong

2) Are you harbouring a fugitive? ----- Hu Yu Hai Ding

3) See me ASAP ----- Kum Hia Nao

4) Stupid Man ----- Dum Fuk

5) Small Horse ----- Tai Ni Po Ni

6) Did you go to the beach? ----- Wai Yu So Tan

7) I bumped into a coffee table ----- Ai Bang Mai Fa Kin Ni

8) I think you need a face lift ----- Chin Tu Fat

9) It's very dark in here ----- Wao So Dim

10) I thought you were on a diet ----- Wai Yu Mun Ching?

11) This is a tow away zone ----- No Pah King

12) Our meeting is scheduled for next week ----- Wai Yu Kum Nao?

13) Staying out of sight ----- Lei Ying Lo

14) He's cleaning his automobile ----- Wa Shing Ka

15) Your body odour is offensive ----- Yu Stin Ki Pu

16) Great ----- Fa Kin Su Pah

Sounds more like Arnold Swarchenegger's accent in Predator doesn't it?

“Got 13 Channels of Shit on the T.V. to Choose From”

Edited: May 2011
Apart from the news (actually, even the news is shit these days) and sport, there’s little on television that is not an insult to intelligence. So here’s my own compilation of what’s worth watching these days…

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:
A show that demonstrates how the ridiculous thrive in our very attention deficit society and politics. Stewart and his cronies are brilliant, and approach the world with a vicious yet sophisticated mind. It's amazing that a comedian has become the most trusted man in news, a post the late great Walter Cronkite used to hold.

South Park:
These guys keep getting better and better every week. Satire at it's best.

The Simpsons:
Everyone’s familiar with America’s favourite dysfunctional family…

Whose Line Is It Anyway?:
Although these days we only get to watch re-runs of the American version of the show, Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, Wayne Brady are still as hilarious as ever.

Boston Legal:
A daring show that satirizes some of the most pressing social issues of our time with courtroom antics. Fantastic performances by William Shatner, James Spader, and the rest of the cast.

Top Gear:
Hardly a pragmatic show about cars anymore. It's more like playtime for three middle aged Englishmen being racist, angry, loud, obnoxious, adventurous, and very, very fast. My dream job.

Off the top of my head I can’t think of anything else that I can safely watch without Quincy the iguana throwing up over the sofa.

The Adventures of Glufsvon Zanzibar

After I started visualizing my International Relations professor feeding alligators in a white and scarlet toga, I knew I had had too much to drink. Picking up another vegetable egg roll that we had stolen from the dining hall I tried to tune in on what my roommate James Head, a Connecticut Yankee, was saying across the coffee table we were drinking at. It was something about a man called Glufsvon Zanzibar he had met in Paris a couple of years ago. Apparently this Mr. Zanzibar ran a kenjitsu (samurai sword techniques) school in Paris and believed in the recreational and medicinal qualities of hemp. Of all the places in Paris, James met Glufsvon, who according to James looked like a pirate in his twenties, on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. Tracking the wafting fragrance of marijuana led James to his first meeting with Glufsvon who, leaning against the railings, was sharing a spliff with a certain gentleman who introduced himself as Ntokozo Xaba (pronounced: Toe-ko-zo Chka-aba). According to James, this Glufsvon Zanzibar was the most wholly remarkable person he had ever met. Of course, I only half believed what James said. After all, it was James who had come up the idea of assassinating Salman Rushdie when he had come to speak in college and picking up the bounty he had on his head. It was all too late when we realized that the fatwa on Mr. Rushdie’s head had long been removed. (Note: If you’re interested or know anyone who might be interested in buying a second hand Remington 700 sniper rifle in mint condition, give me a call.)

I’m writing this on the airplane back from Addis Ababa trying to distract myself from the air hostess with sweaty armpits. The last twenty days have been absolutely brilliant. The most fun I’ve had in a long time. I had landed a voluntary research internship at the University of Addis Ababa with a professor of anthropology and once that was over I managed short trips to Egypt and Tanzania to meet a couple of my friends from college who live there. What happened in Cairo was perhaps one of the funniest and most uncanny experiences of my life…

After two weeks of traversing through disease ridden backward Ethiopia and Tanzania, I decided to visit my friend Ngoda in Cairo and spend a week relaxing before flying back home. If you’ve been to Cairo recently you’ll remember that there’s an oasis not far from the pyramids of Giza. Twenty minutes as the camel runs, it’s usually a fairly desolate place, perfect for hanging out on a lazy Sunday evening. Ngoda and I reached the Oasis at six in the evening, just in time to watch the sun set over the dunes. There weren’t many people at the oasis, so Ngoda and I popped open a couple of chilled beers we had brought along and spread ourselves on the sand enjoying the sweet evening air. As I was getting bored with the scenery, I felt a gentle tap on my shoulders. I turned to see a smiling shabby face of bearded Arab. In perfect English he asked me if I had a light. I threw him a box of matches and watched him as he walked back to his friends under a clump of date trees. Catching my eye, the fellow walked back to us and asked us if we wanted to join them.

The next thing I know, Ngoda and I are sitting in a circle drinking thick Turkish coffee (note: never, ever add camel’s milk to coffee) with three other Arabs smoking a hookah and laughing at the stories they were telling us. I was relieved to find that they all spoke English quite fluently. Ngoda and I swapped a few of our own escapades in return. When the first Arab found out that Ngoda was a local kid, he lowered his tone to a whisper and asked him if he wanted to buy a camel real cheap and he whistled and a beautiful camel came and sat on its knees next to him. Ngoda, who I’m guessing knew his camels, asked him how much he was selling her for. I couldn’t quite catch what his reply was, but whatever it was made Ngoda laugh out like crazy. At first I thought it was the effect of the alcohol, but the Arab looked extremely serious.
“How’re you selling her so cheap?” Ngoda asked.
Flushing with a mixture of pride and alcohol the Arab whispered, “It’s stolen. I’m a camel smuggler, it’s what I do. And she’s a fine one as my name is Glufsvon Zanzibar.”
I was stunned. Like a scratched CD I kept muttering “No way”, for the next minute much to the surprise of our other companions.
I quickly narrated James’ story and Glufsvon’s eyes grew in wonder. I don’t know if he actually remembered James, but at least he pretended to. And I have to agree with James, Glufsvon is definitely the most wholly remarkable man I’ve ever met. Kenjitsu sensei, camel smuggler, tour guide, pearl diver, fragrance explorer and come to think of it, he did look like a pirate, minus the polly and the scimitar! The rest of the evenings events are irrelevant but oh so interesting. Even as I’m about to land in Bombay, I’m still in shock. I mean what are the odds that two people from two different parts of the world will meet the same person in two different countries in completely uncanny circumstances? Suddenly the universe seems so simple.

Ways Of Will

I was born in the hot and humid slums of lower Limpopo. Although we spent all day working hard producing our primary export of sweat, Limpopo had failed to make a mark in the international economic scene. Limpopons, however, are always jovial and the poverty of the nation never seemed to bog down their spirit. What we lacked in formal education we made up with innovativeness. In fact, it was this innovativeness that would make Limpopo a global player in the 20th century.

Between 1912 and 1916, while the rest of the world was busy in their petty squabbles, Limpopo was researching some of the most advanced technology known to man - jugaad. So powerful was this new technology that anyone remotely accustomed with its finer aspects could escape from any adverse situation and with a little training could probably turn it to his own advantage. In fact, till 1924 jugaad was considered and protected as a national secret.

In the early 1940s Limpopo decided to start exporting this unique technology and by 1947, jugaad had replaced sweat as Limpopo’s primary export. By 1958 jugaad had taken the world by storm as it was cheaper and better than Chinese imports like the yin-yang, which have a high exchange duty in many parts of the world. In this manner Limpopo grew as an international powerhouse in the 1960s.

The United States, who often forget that a world exists outside North America, had not yet warmed up to jugaad. It was only in the 1990s that the US actually discovered the unique properties of jugaad. Immediately they tried to patent it and threatened to sue Limpopo for stealing their idea.

The Taliban on the other hand decided to rise against this act of American oppression and decided to launch an attack on the US in the middle of a Dallas Cowboys and Florida Dolphins football game. A rattled President Bush spilled his pretzels and ordered the CIA to deal with the matter. The CIA happily obliged by vaporizing the entire country and also capturing a few tons of weapons grade plutonium from a goatherd in Northern Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the plutonium had become unstable and exploded somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic while it was being transported to the US. In a brilliant move Bush accused Green Peace for the mishap and managed to get re-elected marking one of the greatest triumphs of jugaad.

The latest issue of Limpopo Today voted jugaad to be one of the “Top 5 Things the World Can’t Do Without” along with toilet paper and Mexican yo-yos (aren’t those awesome?). The Forbes magazine rated jugaad as the “greatest invention ever”. At the present more than half the world unconsciously runs on jugaad, including the Indian and the US governments. Today Limpopo has a lot to be proud about.

So the next time you use cog-chits to pass a test, or the next time the government cheats you, or you cheat the government, or if you ever do anything as smart as using a broken umbrella as a TV antenna, think of jugaad : Limpopo’s greatest contribution to the civilized world.

Chinese Shower Cabinets

Dad finally got his "O.K. Tested" label on his insanity claim.

I was awakening from my siesta when dad walked in and said "Guess what I bought today?"

"What?" I ask.

"A shower cabinet."

"Ho hum, one of those ones eh? How much did it cost?"

"*insert exorbitant amount of money here*, I'm too embarrased to specify"

I choke on my own spit for a moment. "What the...Is it made of gold or something?"

"No it's really nice, it's got a sauna, steam bath, zaccuzi, radio and even a telephone."

"A sauna, in summer, in Calcutta." I went back to sleep, hoping it was all a bad dream, but deep inside I understood why dad said he could not afford to send me to college...

There goes the excuse, "sorry he can't come to the phone right now, he's in the shower" because now there's a freakin phone in the shower!

Puzzles

Just in case,
If you're the queen of California, baby,
LittlePrince, wat a nite,
Screw aristophanes.

What's there to do in Champaign?
Smoke pot, listen to floyd and phish,
They say if you love something let it go...
If it comes back it's yous...if it doesn't...shoot it!

Tu Me Queries,
Planning to take the world by storm, watch out!
Anger is a gift,
Because i am a devil without a cause.

Franky just thinks he's Irish,
God...I love you
Israfel is gone,
*insert wise crack here*.

La belle dame sams merci,
Life is a waste of time,
Only fools rush in... sigh,
So, it's over?

I have a black-hole where my creativity should be,
Some people say I'm insane, so I kill them.
Still goin on...and will never stop,
Tally ho what, what?

The world is a blister but i'm ok with it.
All my bags are packed,
I'm ready to go,
Time to fade in black.

What The Hell Is Wrong With This Site

It fucking does what the fuck it feels like!

Dodging .45 Caps in NYC, Part Deux

Unlike Lucas' much awaited Star Wars III, hopefully this second and final installment of "New York Minute" won't be sorely disappointing and riddled with corny dialogues.

When we last met our unassuming hero, he was caught in a crossfire of .45 caps at the basement of NYC's hell-hole - the Port Authority Bus Station...

a short recap to bring you back to the scene:

4 am: A massive caucasian male, standing roughly at around 6ft with dirty salt and pepper dreadlocks and a overworn moss green trenchcoat walks into the cafe. No one except for a few people take notice of him or the 9mm pistol he's holding in his right hand. Almost in a whisper he says "I'm so fucking pissed off, I'm going to shoot every one of you mother fuckers overhere". No one really responds. Needless to say, I was shit scared - I didn't really want to die in a cafeteria in a shady NYC bus station, there had to be a better way. With most eyes on him now, this maniac marches upto an old chinese (he could be Korean or Japanese or Thai, I couldn't really tell) guy who was eating a hotdog, picked him by the collar and askedhim "how much money you got huh, how much money you got?"

...END RECAP

The poor Asian gentleman was too scared to react and kept staring at Mr. Dreadlocks. Dreadlocks says, "so you dont have any money huh? I'll show you what money is." and saying so he opens the tote bag he was carrying and starts taking out wads of ten dollar bills (well they looked like $10 bills anyway) and starts placing them on the table. "See, this is what you call money, asshole" He then pushes the Asian gentleman back into his seat, slumps into the closest chair and starts crying. In between sobs he bawls out "What the fuck am I doing here? I'm supposed to in fucking Florida, what the fuck am I doing in NYC surrounded by you assholes!" In the mean time the transit guards have come back and try to appease this dude. For some reason, as if on cue, some dude's 2-in-1 starts playing that oldie Rick Springfield song "Jessie's Girl".

The cops start sweet talking Dreadlocks (interestingly the radio starts playing "Wake me up before you go go"!). The cops tell him "Sir, just take it easy, throw the gun away, stay calm, we'll put u on a bus to florida pronto, just don't do anything rash and all..." Dreadlocks, fortunately decides to acquisce and slides his gun across the table, and the moment he does that, these two cops come in and beat the crap out of the dude with their night sticks...all to the tune of "wake me up before u go go"! It was a pretty insane scene. then they (the cops) take the gun and the money, put it back into the tote bag and took Dreadlocks away...that's the last I got to see these guys.

Then after a while, after all th excitement and adrenalin has subsided, I order some breakfast and try to get back to my book, when this fairly old gentleman, in a gaudy yellowing jacket and and brown sunglasses came and sat opposite me at my table and started dinking my coffee. I noticed that the entire left side of this guys face was burnt and scarred. Before I could react, the man spoke first.

"So you think New York is a dangerous place, huh?" Slightly taken aback, I manage a shrug. "Obviously, you've never been to New Jersey" he continued. "You see these scars on my face? I didn't have these last weekend. I had just come out from a bar last friday night after enjoying a good evening of drinking and I was walking back home when these two muggers cam from behind, stabbed me in the back and threw acid on my face before making off with my wallet." (insert appropriate face of shock) "but these muggers, these muggers I can deal with, the real bastards are the ones who work in government hospitals. When I woke up, i was in this hospital and a couple of days later when they were ready to discharge me, i got my clothes and all back, and guess what, they'd cleaned out my little waist pouch which had all my credit cards and some cash...gone...all empty. but the worst part was, wait, check this..." (he opens the bag he was carrying and takes out a tweed jacket and holds it up and it's been cut quite neatly in two) "...they cut my brand new tweed jacket in half! So i go to the doctor and ask him, why the fuck did he cut my jacket in half? and he says that when i came in i was bleeding profusely and that they had to get the jacket off so he cut it. and i tell him, well if u can't fucking take three buttons off, you shouldn't call yourself a fucking doctor in the first place!" and saying so he picks up what was left of my coffee and bids me good morning and goes off...

I won't describe my reaction. I just quickly finished breakfast and spent the next hour till my bus cam in, in the toilet, trying to get some sleep and generally being safe. Well needless to say I came back to college "shaken but not stirred" and in my unshaven and unclean condition went directly to work (I was still an hour late, but my employeer decided not to dock my pay after she heard my story...)

I know there weren't any lightsabers or starfighters but I'm still working on creating my own brand of merchandise and licensed characters that i can market...

Cleaning the Room

By the end of the year, our room had become the largest landfill in a twenty mile radius. T-shirts, jackets, jeans, soiled panties (yes, we had frequent guests in our room), shoes, socks, fluff, large packets of cereal stolen from the dining hall kitchens, several empty bottles of Jack Daniels, junk mail, midterm papers, we had everything in our closet. Only regular sprays of room freshener had kept the room livable. Then on the eve of our departure as James and I began cleaning the room, we found Jeremiah.

After clearing of the top layer of junk and clothing with nostalgia, we found a bearded face amidst our clothing. In the bad light I thought it was probably a left over mask from Halloween, but as we dug deeper we found a couple of hands, a torso and even two legs and lo, there was Jeremiah!

James was the first to recover from the shock as he tried, much to Jeremiah’s dismay, to pull Jeremiah out of the closet. He looked like a chipped version of John Cleese on crack with a crazy thick beard and unkempt hair and a tattered jacket that smelt like sewage pipes. The worst part was we had never met this person before.

“Who the fuck are you? What the fuck are you doing in our closet?” James asked.

Still shielding his eyes from the light of our bedroom, the man managed to murmur “Jeremiah”. That’s how we got to know his name.

Jeremiah had been living in our closet for the past three months without our knowledge, underneath our heap of clothes and junk. He had been feeding off all the food that’s usually strewn about the room after a good raid at the dining hall kitchens…I don’t have anything to say, nothing, I’m still recovering. Gives a whole new meaning to ‘what lies beneath’ doesn’t it?

4/20

There are many urban legends surrounding 4/20, none of which are true, which is why they are urban legends. Some claim that 420 is the police code for marijuana use, others claim other stuff. Bottom line is, the 20th of April is still International World Smokers Day (although no one apart from a handful of Americans are aware of this) and it is celebrated by smoking at 4:20 am on 4/20 in the Glen beside the bubbling brook and the crayfish pond.

The amount of pot that was floating around college that week was unfathomable. It was unbelievable, I saw at least sixty odd people at a party, all smoking in groups ranging from three to twelve. Personally I  killed "Medium Middle Age", "Reborn" and "Excaliber". I don't quite remember why they were named as such though.

For dessert there was a six feet bong that was shared between the remains of the day...