Found 'em 'Lost Keys'

20 things I learnt in college.

2007-2011

1) Mixing drinks….not a good idea. Shooting drinks in large quantities…not a good idea. Drinking till the club stock is finished….not a good idea. Doing all three on the same night... you get the drift…. I guarantee a visit to the emergency ward, 4 stitches and an adrenaline shot. A quicker one-step method of getting there is entitled 'Angel of Death' and may feature on another article someday.

2) It’s always important to revise your syllabus before an exam. It’s a tad bit more important to revise the schedule.

3) Remember how your guitar teacher used to say ‘practice makes perfect’? Its just another one of those famous misquotations you keep reading about. Its actually “practice does not make you John Petrucci so stop destroying any sense of melody in whoever stays next door”.

4) Don’t ever force a drunk person to lie down. Particularly if he has a pocket knife.

5) Slide tackles are a whole lot fun on the football field. Basketball courts on the other hand…

6) It’s a good idea to buy an alarm clock which recognizes the difference between a.m. and p.m. It’s also a good idea to buy a very powerful alarm clock which has the most annoying wake-up tone and plays it continuously till you manage to hit the snooze button. But the best idea of them all is to make sure you switch this alarm clock off before you leave town for the weekend. Otherwise your neighbors might get just a wee bit upset.

7) Rats can eat everything.

Corollary 1: Never ever must you make the mistake of flushing a rat down a toilet.

8) Twins exist. So don’t beat yourself up over supposed déjà vu moments. Especially if you know one, don’t know about the other, address the sibling and get stumped over with no recognition whatsoever. Further, if you happen to see them both on stage performing one after another, you could end up questioning your sanity for a significant amount of time.

9) If you ever manage to park your car in quicksand, make sure you have 6 Israelis nearby.

10) The rooftop is a great place for a party. Not a great place to pass out after one.

11) If they laugh at you, laugh straight back at them. Unless, of course, they are localites. In that case…you run. You run far far away.

12) If you meet a guy who buys a bottle of dettol every week… run. Chances are we are talking about the same guy.

13) Bangalore is a very nice place to visit. Good pubs, great weather and a lot of KFCs. So, the next time you are at an outlet, make sure that it’s NOT situated in a red light area and you are NOT loitering about in front of one. The police won’t be too pleased.

14) If you are playing a pool tournament against a guy who has his own cue stick, has around 6 of his cronies around and pots the 8 ball on the blind… it’s a good idea to lose that tournament.

15) Try to find a guy with sodexo coupons and make him your best friend. However, that dominos treat is happening just once. Consider this the college equivalent of selling your soul to the devil.

16) If you want to pass your math exam, I recommend throwing a coin at a gujju. Will work wonders. Also…location, location, location.

17) So.. its exam time and you have requests from all the early risers to wake you up when you are done for the night. If you really want to get the job done, force the 'wakee' to think that someone broke in through the bathroom window. Very effective. Very little effort.  Very confused wakee. A person woken up from sleep will pretty much believe anything. Ofcourse.. there are two conditions under which this method must NOT be employed. Condition 1: I.Q.  of the wakee is about a hundred points lower than you. Condition  2 : There is a mirror in the bathroom. Might lead to paranoia, self abuse and a broken mirror.

18) Bars can be very dirty. It is essential to look everywhere you tread your feet because, no matter how hard you try to convince yourself… that was NOT a pool of water you stepped on. Of course, you can’t possibly do anything if the guy behind you happens to excel at reverse peristalsis in projectile motion at 45 degrees.

19) Phasing out of conversations is an art form. The occasional smile and constant nodding can go a long way in retaining your sanity.

20) 

   If you must use gtalk please delete your chat history.

   If you must drop your itch guard, don't stake a claim.

   If you must use chits in class, burn after reading.

   If you must wash your underwear with your roomie, don't mention 

   it. Ever.

   If you must cut yourself, don't use a butter knife.

   If you must mix your vices, make sure you don't fall down on your

   head. Twice.

   If you must go freeballing, it’s a good idea to never play football.

   If you must take a crap after getting drunk, don't do it in a bucket.

Who am I?

...Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Chrisitans, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.

- excerpt from Yann Martel's 'Life of Pi'.

From Behind the Kit

A host of shows came and went. So many to remember, very few to forget. I can probably name them all with a little difficulty, but that was never the point of this article. You see, eXiled grew to become quite popular in Manipal and rightfully so. Metal was the genre and people began lapping up every heavy riff or blatantly simple in-your-face 16^th note patterns on the bass drum. So we grew tired of ‘standard’ somewhere down the line. We still love playing the old songs as they represent and mark our progress as musicians. With each show we did become better, tighter in a way and unfailingly more popular. With every slot that we got on stage, the very essence of what drove the band initially, wore off and what replaced it was something unbelievably rare. With each new original, be it ‘My perpetual pain’ and its debut at the Big Gig in Chaitya Hall or ‘Through the Icy Catacombs’ and its inception in Pub Rock Fest or more recently ‘The Thousand Yard Stare’ and when it was first played in the gig at Edge, we were brought closer together by something many of us musicians choose to forget. Success and everything with it seemed to fade off into oblivion and what replaced it was this undying energy to let go and be one with the audience at stage shows. The adrenaline is intoxicating and alarmingly addictive. Soon, it was no longer about, “Hey, do you think they would like to listen to this” or “Should we play it in this order so that the judges think in our favour”. No. It was just, very simply, about having fun on stage and boy, did we live up to that ambition.

All I am saying, is that, finally after 4 long years of mindless engineering and what went along with it, the thing I will remember most about my college life is going to be those insanely long practice sessions in the horticulture room, the random long walk across Manipal in search of some nicotine, the hundreds of cellphones being waved in the air during the middle of Icy at IIM Ahmedabad, The million little Zabriskie Points, Vellore, Surathkal, FMMC, 13^th Block, MIC, the painfully long journey without tickets from Bombay to Chennai on the ticket checkers seat, the crowd pulling down half the P.A. in an effort to mosh in the Big Gig or even walking back from watching Sandmonkeys live. In a way we all started out hoping we reach that level of fame which we had initially projected in our mind. Face it and be a little original and a fair deal more truthful. The whole ‘its all about the music’ is getting old now and everyone wants to be heard and appreciated. To be honest, we surpassed all those expectation we had in our heads by a long shot and towards the end, all we wanted was to get on stage and play our music the way we wanted to without paying heed to anyone or anything. It was always a special feeling when the crowd echoed these very sentiments and in those adrenaline filled moments on stage, that bond between the crowd and us was very evident.

This is not a testimonial in any way to the band. Our journey has probably come to an end. This article is about something much more important. This is a giant red lettered bold ‘Thank You’ to Manipal. To the friends we made and the parties we shared. None of you will be forgotten. We know that we have had the best crowds we could have ever wanted and our support here is endless. To Bhatia, Ranipeta and co. Thank you for the motivation and everything else. This is a tribute to all the bands we shared a stage with. This is respect to all the bands who will pass out from this institution, united under the common black banner that encompasses the Manipal Music Movement. Animus, Drop3, Apocrypha, we salute you for your work and being part of this crazy journey. Aditi Surendra and MJT. Manipal can never thank you enough. Sandmonkey. Need we say more. This was an absolutely mad ride and we achieved more than we ever set out to do. We are molded human beings after this insane trip and like most good things it has to come to an end. I sincerely hope that another group of individuals are as lucky as us one day and find what we have found in this esteemed sense of brotherhood intermingled with a deep passion for music. I honestly hope that this is not the end and that we still have that ‘last show’ under our belts. Till then, we bow down and salute you Manipal for giving us something we shall remember for the rest of our existence. It will never look any better from behind the kit.

Hail hail.

It has been a ghastly 4 years since I have left the hallowed corridors of our alma mater. A lot has changed since then, in my life, as well as of those around me who I have had the honor of sharing my classroom ventures with. What still remains is the fact that we are, always have been and I'm confident, that we always will be.. Martinians for life.

Stand by our school, for she has done no wrong.

Stand by her, if not by the people who run it.

Stand by her for you owe her your life.

Weeping shades of indigo

Poem found in "Maxwell's Elementary Grammar" school book copyright 1904.

"Oho!' said the pot to the kettle;
"You are dirty and ugly and black!
Sure no one would think you were metal,
Except when you're given a crack."
"Not so! not so! kettle said to the pot;
" 'Tis your own dirty image you see;
For I am so clean -without blemish or blot-
That your blackness is mirrored in me"
... so, who are you to wave your finger?

Fear : me

The cringe appeared no further

He thought of no miracle, no wonder

I pondered till the edge of reason
if this is what they'll choose

Did you feel it as you crossed the barrier
between child and man

Did you fell it when you paved the chambers
of time when it was at hand

Will you feel it when the sea
Covers the beach amidst a steady gentle breeze

Where was the danger you asked
it is all but a nasty threat
to our human existence
to our emptyness

Did you see it coming

Did you turn the tide
Did you watch the house
Burn out of sight

I saw it through my naked eyes

the facial expressions change
I saw them sigh

I saw them grieve
I saw them cry
I saw them curl into a sphere
Of misery,darkness,demise

I saw them change shape

I saw them purge

Into the realm of darkness
Into the horizontal world

Of nothingness,numbing the soul
Of no faith in the world
Of no feeling but a strange void
within a blurry mass of vulgar sewage

I saw it all
through my naked eyes
I saw them fear
I saw their flight

I saw them for their hurriedness
I saw them for their cruelty
I saw them for their mindless thoughtless selfish purgatory

Fear unlike anxiety
Requires external force
Requires a stimulus

When there was no stimulus
there was no fear
and when there was no fear
I saw them

but they saw me.

- October 6th. 2009. 12:51 a.m.

The Phone Guy

“Yesh... this phone I got......blah blah blah”...

It is a very rare thing to find a half-decent restaurant in Tamil Nadu... or atleast in the locality in which we were staying. So, when I finally chanced upon one with my family, we immediately took a table and were looking forward to a quiet family dinner, enjoying each others company and relishing on some good food. But all this was not to be. A short while after we took a table, another group walked in and sat next to us. What I gathered was that the man of the house had decided to treat a couple of his colleagues to dinner and had decided to bring his wife and son with him. The man looked about 40...maybe 45. As they promptly made their order for what later “resembled” a chicken sizzler, the man(lets call him Arjun[for the sake of that being the name of the only Tamilian I know]) began his discussion of his new purchase- a certain Nokia N-series model.(My eyes failed to identify which one)

“Bluetooth... Waaaaifaaaai...Wieeerless... and daaaataaa transfer, this phone has it all” said proud Arjun. “Look at modern day technalaagy, eesent eet extra aardinaary.” There began his lecture, and it finally ended (much to his disappointment) when his meal had arrived. And yah, he spoke really fast (and when I say really fast Tamil, I mean... yah... you get the picture)

Friend A, having no option but to be polite asked him, “So how is camera?".

It was almost as if god himself had parted the clouds and poked his shiny little torch through and focused his beam straight on to Arjun. With a smile that can only be described as... err... eerie... he began yet another lecture, which seemed to go on and on until the end of time, or at least until we were done with dinner. I was fed up with Arjun by then. It was probably the umpteenth time that he had sat his new toy upon the table on his portable mobile stand (yes... he carried one with him) and playing his “elegant” choice of songs and demonstrated the phones video playback capabilities. Finally, when we were about to leave, a question on ringtones came up and his friend decided to call Arjun to see how his phone responded to a call (I feel his colleagues were quite fed up just as me, but showing interest in his new toy was probably the least they could have done to repay him for such an hospitable treat) Finally, Friend B took out his own phone (Not an expensive fancy like Arjuns, of course) and he made the call. Looking perplexed, he put pulled his phone from his ear and looked at Arjun with a very confused look. Arjun, (probably blushing, - I said ‘probably’ because his skin tone really did not permit me to judge) with an embarrassed look, said in a voice quite different to the one he had used when demonstrating his phone, “Akhthualee, my phone nambar haws temforaaarily beein deeskanektad”.

Note from the Editor (1): A phone which has every damn thing apart from the ability to call or receive. How so truly it defines its very basic use. So, today, do we not give more importance to the features of a phone rather than its fundamental property? Why call it a ‘phone’ at all if you can’t use it to make calls?

Note from the Editor (2): I had negative balance for almost a week. Talk about Daily Hypocrites!(Weekly, if you must)...

5/4

On finally visiting Kanya Kumari I was enthralled not by the rainfall we experienced 24X7, not by the supposed theory of seeing different colours of sand or the sea(?!?!?!) but by the shear power of cell phone games and how they can keep you addicted for hours at end. But when I finally did decide to step outside the hotel premises and climb atop the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, I was stunned. On being quite bored after the first hour of my visit to the rock memorial, I turned my sight sea-ward... rather rock-ward and noticed a simple percussion beat, a four four being played out between the sea and the rocks. As I stretched my gaze northwards, my eyes stumbled across a beautiful rock piece jutting out to sea. On it I saw a thousand years (or more) of work by mother nature herself, represented in the form of a carved out shallow basin... and as my eyes rested on this work of beauty I saw a complete 5/4 beat being played out in almost perfect periodic timing as in the form of waves crashing against the rock piece. As the turbulent sea threw herself onto the rock, some of the water was duly held in the basin and the rest flowed out in the form of a mini-waterfall. This resulted in the first half of the bar. Water from the basin leaked out and crashed against the approaching wave resembling an accented snare beat. The final bit of the bar was completed as the approaching wave crashed against the rock itself. Being a percussionist myself, I was moved by the musical piece being played out by Mother Nature. It kind of led to the formation of a distorted image of a woman covered in leaves and petals sitting behind a five-piece drum kit. Ahh... the power of imagination coupled with boredom.

Note from the Editor: I have written this article of which many terms (and possibly,the whole article as a general) may seem meaningless to you. Does this make me one of the "neo-bloggers" from my earlier post,"The Intelligentsia"? So is the editor in chief hypocrite being hypocritical in the blog primarily based on social hypocrites about hypocrisy. Get the paradox??

The Intelligentsia

Blogging these days have become the new fad. The neo-bloggers have become quite a source of entertainment (at least for me)... It’s their meaningless "meaningful poetry", their pointless "points on philosophy" and their critical assessments of blogs filled with nothing which have made them the modern day bogging hypocrites. It’s not only because they like to string long complex words together but then they go around expressing their 'profound' thoughts with them and finally sensationalizing their blogs. What's even funnier is when inspired bloggers like themselves go about deducing great meaning from their piece of literature and express their thoughts on their piece. Words like "WOOOOOW!" (Which even the neo-bloggers must agree, doesn’t exist in their famed dictionaries) and "AAAAH!" are frequently used to express their amazement at such pieces of "artistic literature"...

Soon enough the inspired bloggers become the induced bloggers producing even more artistic bullshit which more often than not is their sole way of making their so called "intellect" public. The induced bloggers now become the inducing bloggers; advertising their blogs (in other words, themselves) and making the new inspired bloggers stand shocked and in awe. (or as Hitch so rightly said - shockingly awful.) So the new inspired bloggers become the new induced bloggers and subsequently it’s the inducing bloggers who become the neo-bloggers and device new means of showcasing their “intellect”. (Confused much?) A new method of publishing bullshit becomes a competition among Le Idiots. It’s a race to more "blog visits" coupled by “original ideas". In this amazing race, neo-bloggers suffer great amounts of stress (because they feel their great potential has led to even greater expectation) and rack their brains out, cause after all, they have to contribute to society. Finally, when Le Idiots suffer 'writer’s bock' they are forced to cycle through all blogs possible in search of "original" ideas. With their new piece of work a couple of click away, Le Gods begin with a simple ctrl+A, ctrl+C and ctrl+V procedure. With Microsoft Word providing a thesaurus with a single right click, we are reminded of the Friends episode in which Joey writes a parent evaluation of Chandler and Monica. Walla - their work is complete. It’s exactly the "bullshit" they had ordered. All that’s left is to make sure everybody knows about it. Orkut with their multi-scrap option becomes so damn helpful, doesn’t it? Now to just sit back, relax and wait and watch as the world realises that Wordsworth has been reborn.