Rudimentary Ramblings

Yup... its that time of the year again. The day of days these days is around the corner. It's Feb 14th in a couple of days. The day many look forward to as it is a day they can spend coochy coing the one they love, or maybe get a nice swanky evening out and a expensive gift from the cutie they have been seeing, or maybe just get to lay the hottie whose conversation they've had to endure for all those days just to get her into bed. Then there are others who dread it because it just reminds them that they have no one to spend it with or may be all that excess red, mush and chocolates around every corner is enough to make them hurl. I, fortunately and/or unfortunately, belong to the second camp.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not one those proponents that all relationships are destined to fail or that love is a waste of time. Neither am I part of the RSS or Shiv Sena who advocates that Valentine's day is a "western" evil. I , however, will agree.... it is an "evil". Its not religious, cultural or political.. it is just pure and simple commercial "evil" and it highlights the gullibility of people and the immense talents of those marketing guys sitting in the offices of every card maker, chocolate confectionery, florists, night club owner, music station, restaurant chain and.. well.. everybody else. I'm fairly sure that even makers of fertilizers, industrial strength steel and paint thinner somehow profit from the annual marketing phenomenon on Feb the 14th.

I remember when Valentine's day used to be an affair of just giving a simple card and may be a simple dinner out when I was in school. Now we have Microsoft urging girls to buy their boyfriends a Xbox. Canon urging lovers to gift each other SLR cameras. Five star hotels trying to convince you why spending half your monthly salary at their disc is the best way to spend the annual festival of love.

Is it really love when you have to convince your mate that you love them only if you give them something on Valentine's? Is it romance when your partner promises you sexual ecstasy only if you give the night out of their lives? Aren't there enough saturdays in a year to go out partying? Do you only have one day in the year to show someone you love them? What happened to the other 364 days in the year? What happened to giving gifts for no apparent reason? And if you are that desperate to get laid I'm sure in today's horny times hiring a call girl would be a more economical option. When will people realise that Feb 14th is no more the day to remember your loved ones. It is a well orchestrated and choreographed event managed by people in boardrooms and offices and the only love I can see is the love these businesses have for what's in your wallet.

An engineer may be defined as a person who is able to apply science without fully understanding its working. An engineer may also be defined as something every something most Indians in their plus twos aspire to be even though they are unaware of the definition which I gave in the first sentence. Due to this lack of knowledge of what an engineer truly is and a lack of knowledge of many parents regarding other professions, engineering colleges have mostly (d)evolved to a point where there is less emphasis on the "applying science" bit and more stress on the "without fully understanding" bit. However mind it, getting into a decent college is still unbelievably tough. It requires immense hardwork and/or immensely deep pockets. There is no other way around it. What to do once you are in is a whole other story.

You thought school is over so no more rote learning. Eager to use your brains and build something? Wrong. Its back to rote as the only way to survive your paper is to commit to memory those tattered notes which were handed to you by your seniors which they themselves got from theirs and so on. These barely legible but really valuable words are what fetch you marks as they always have and always will. Try deviating from the notes and and your professors will be having your marks for dinner.

Ah your professors! Glad to be out of school and away from those homework giving, constantly scolding and nitpicking teachers of yours and hope to find some priestly professors in this temple of higher learning? Wrong again!! Let's face it. In a booming country where engineers are in short supply who would give up high paying jobs in the corporate world to stick around in some college barely earning a 5 digit monthly figure. This is especially true if you happen to study computer science or IT. So those who have the misfortune of teaching are actually fortunate to have a job in the first place. These brainless, skill less and quite often personality less "teachers" will bore you in class, frustrate you when you have doubts and anger you when they don't give you marks. However, do take note, that on a rare occasion you will come across a gem of a teacher who will make you feel that this was the reason you came to college. Try and cherish those moments.

Projects! An integral part of your curricula. At least on paper. In reality, they are like a speed bump in the road of fun and vellapanti that is engineering. So find that smart geeky guy in class and make him your project partner. He/she may be dull as ditchwater but when it comes to doing projects you are dumber than a donkey. So maro some maska and have the smartie work and then have him explain his work to you so you can explain it to your professor and get a better grade than the hardworking idiot. Briliant!!

Ooh! Vellapanti and bakchodi. Far more important than engineering drawing or C++. The latter two may be ignored but the former must not. Class is not a place to listen but to pass notes, irritate the guy/gal in front or text message someone who is doing the exact same thing in some other engineering college halfway across the country. Sitting around at the canteen gazing at that hottie is what vella is being about. Who cares about trying to understand what that stupid professor tried to teach you when you get home at the end of the day? Its all about a bunch of guys drinking beer and just being guys somewhere far away from habitation at 12 am. What a way to end the day!

Assignments! Uff! If projects were speed bumps then assignments are like potholes. You never know when you may come across one. No worry. There will be one goodie touchie who says no to plagiarism and will finish it first. As the rest say a resounding "YES!!" to plagiarism all you have to do is copy from the guy who finished first or someone who copied from him. Yes folks.. this is what man used to do before the Xerox machine was invented.

Exams!! Projects are speed bumps, assignments are potholes and exams are the police checkpoints. Still they too like all hurldes can be crossed without too much issues. So relax, watch a couple of hundred movies, take your girlfriend out on long bike rides or party like crazy. Its only the day before the exam that you need to blow of the dust from those afore mentioned notes, cram through the night and go vomit it out on your paper the next day. Easy peasy!! However it is this last hurdle that many falter at. But when I think about it I understand why. Would you really like to leave behind this heaven sent four years of engineering just to join the rat race of the working world? Maybe those who flunked a couple of years did get a better deal and I was the idiot who ensured my stay in heaven lasted only four short years. DAMN!!!

In my opinion Murphy (whoever he was) was one of the wisest of men. His law regarding everything that can go wrong going wrong cannot be truer. I see it everyday in my life, the lives of those around me and the lives of everybody else. Here are some of my takes :

• The cable goes at precisely the climax of a great movie which you, surprisingly, haven't seen earlier. It shall return not a moment before the start of the ending credits.

• Corollary: The cable works fine when you are watching some really shitty movie and conks out only AFTER the credits start rolling.

• The phone is usually on low battery whenever a charger or power outlet is unavailable.
• The most anticipated movies are somehow released the weekend before some crucial work/academic deadline.
• Corollary: On those rare weekends you do happen to be free there will be no good movies to watch or tickets shall be unavailable.
• Your pet shall wake you from your slumber only when you are dreaming of the girl you've had a crush on for the longest of times (and unlike real life, in the dream you were about to get her too)
• The rare important messages that you get on the phone will only come when you are eating, driving, attending a call of nature, in an important meeting, sleeping or otherwise engaged.
  
• Corollary: The messages that you receive when you are relatively free are always spam or some useless forward.
  
• Your computer hard drive shall fail the day before you planned to back up all your important data.
• Corollary: Computer hard drives tend not to fail as long as they don't contain any important data.
• Your software will have a critical update available for it only a week after it has already crashed.
• The RJ never announces the name of a really nice song at its end if you happen to catch it on the radio whilst flipping through stations.
• The power company always cuts the power when you walk back home from work at night and its a moonless night. The power will return only after you reach home.
• The apparel/car/electronics company shall give heavy discounts only after you have already emptied your wallet buying their most desirable product.
• The stock market only goes down when you invest in it. (This isn't that true these days thanks to the economic boom and all)
• Your gadget will conk off only after the warranty expires.
• Your friends are always in town either when you aren't or you just don't have the time.
• Corollary: When you come to town your friends choose precisely that time to make that long delayed trip somewhere out of town.
• The day you plan to get drunk is a dry day or the liquor store doesn't have the liquor of your choice or you can't find a drinking buddy.
• Auto-drivers, rickshaw walas, taxi drivers are always around to pester you when you already have your own car.
• Corollary: Those unfortunate days when you don't have personal transport are the days when the aforementioned pests are nowhere in visual range.
• The day you finally have the time to read the newspaper at leisure is the day that the journalists have nothing to report about.
  
• The girl your really like is always dating the guy you really hate.
• Corollary: The girl who really likes you is usually the one you hate the most.
  
• The only people who do better than you in life are the ones who you hate the most or would like to make jealous the most.
• The only people who read this blog are the ones who don't appreciate it!!
  

I don't quite know how I found this page. One moment I was reading the review for "Superbad" and a few clicks later I'm reading about the sensitivity (or rather the lack of it) of the Delhi Police to the safety of young women from the North-East in our nation's capital. My habit of following links on the internet as led me to many interesting web pages. Just thought this one was exceptional enough to be blogged about.

Following is a poster by filmmaker K.P. Sasi, titled Rules for girls, circulated on an email discussion, gives a telling yet humorous take on the subject of being a woman in a world of sexual predators.

Imagine that it's well past midnight and you are walking all alone in a dark alley. You are confronted by a trio of goons brandishing crude and rusted knives and you realise you are being mugged. You scream for help and who comes to your rescue? Not Dharmendra paaji yelling "Kutto!! Kamino!!" and flexing his muscles who thrashes the goons to kingdom come with a couple of punches and flying kicks. It's your neighbourhood watchmen who come your aid yielding clumsy bamboo sticks as weapons and probably get knifed themselves trying to save your sorry ass. Then why is it that we idolize our screen heroes who we have never met and in all given probabilty never will but treat our maybe-saviours-in-the-time-of-need with disrespect and disdain. Shouldn't the man who pretends to be someone else for a living treated with disdain and the one who keeps an eye on our safety get the respect he deserves? What's wrong with us?

No, I am not crazy and it may be the pint of beer I had earlier that lead to this blog but just think about it. Have you ever given a second thought to the labourer who toiled in the hot sun to build the roof that is over your head right now? Have you ever looked a toilet cleaner in the eye because of who you don't have to do the dirty work yourself? How many times have you cared for those poor souls who work for bare minimum wages to build a road on which you can cruise in your swanky car? We are grateful to those doctors who operate on us but do we ever bother about the nurses who make sure that we recover from it? But we idolize and build temples for our movie stars. We scream our lungs out and tear our hair out when we see our rock gods at a concert. We are prepared to spend our life savings buying a piece of wood which has our cricketing god's scribbling on it. We swoon over gorgeous models wearing skimpy, impractical and costs-more-than-the-moon clothes. We, as a race, worship those who quite frankly do little to improve or impact our life but choose to ignore those who keep it running like a well oiled machine.

Imagine your life without your maid, your neighbourhood watchman, your city's firefighters or your nation's labourers. Will that sexy fashion model wash your clothes for you? Will your on screen action hero come to your rescue when you are being mugged? Will your favourite rockers pull your burning ass out of a fire? Will that sports team build you the expressway you always wanted to get you to work faster? Then why give all that attention and money to these talented-but-not-really-impacting-the-human-race people rather than make life better for those people who spend their lives improving yours. I may be losing it (I think) but it sure gives you food for thought doesn't it?

Remember mommy and daddy's lessons when we were wee small. Don't lie, never steal, always be polite and respect your elders. And how we followed those lessons until we grew up and saw the world in colours other than black and white. We were introduced to the white lie. We realised that many elders didn't deserve an ounce of respect. We learnt that always being polite would get us trodden over. The one addage we still stick to is never steal. Or do we??

It's true that most of us consciously don't go shoplifting at the neighbourhood store. We don't pick our friends wallet when they aren't looking and nor do we mug strangers in dark alleys. But as I sit here writing this blog, listening to music I downloaded from Limewire I can't help but think that we all are, at some level, thieves.

We may bash up that pickpocket who has the misfortune of getting caught stealing a wallet which only had 50 rupees in it but as I sit and count the thousands of songs I have "illegally" downloaded over the past few years I ask myself, "Am I a bigger thief?". The songs, the movies, the TV shows and the games that I download from the net would probably total up to the cost of a small car if I were to buy them legally. Of course I must not forget the thousands I have further saved by going to bootleggers and pirates. But this isn't just me. Millions of working class Indians are always on the lookout of someway or the other to save their taxes. Even corporations are in on this with IBM and Sahara getting booked for tax evasion to the tune of hundreds of crores. How can I forget the biggest thieves sitting in the seats of power, some with the sole intention of siphoning money from the government's coffers to theirs. The cops who ask speeders for bribes when they get caught and the speeders who pay the bribe because it is less than the official fine. The millions of IAS aspirants whose sole attraction to the civil services are the bribes a civil servant gets.

We jail the robbers and the dacoits. Dish out public beatings to petty thieves. Socially castrate kleptomaniacs. But what about the rest of us? Should we all be rounded up and punished in a similar manner for being the innate thieves we all are? I would love to continue this rant but my movie just finished downloading so I must now go and watch. I guess I'll learn my lesson some other day.