Instead, this post is a celebration of life in all its pristine glory and an introspective journey to self-discovery in order to overcome an solipsistically driven existential crisis, co-founded on an epistemological understanding of nihilism, and swim freely in the cosmic void. Also, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious honorificabilitudinitatibus antidisestablishmentarianism.

Okay, now that I’ve used verbal douchebaggery to cunningly drive away all the blogomania voters who will rush back to brush up their GRE/ CAT preparation after voting for me, let me get back to what I do best – spewing forth verbal diarrhea.

There comes a time in everyone’s life when one gets a phone call from a random number, is then accused of being a kidnapper and goes on to become a legend of sorts in the kidnapping circles. Such a time came in my life a couple of weeks back.

It was a somnolent Saturday afternoon and I was in bed, exhausted after a long and tiresome night. As everyone who has ever resided in an all male hostel with a bunch of horny teenagers with doubtful sexual preference knows, Friday night is the night for some WILD, VIOLENT, RELENTLESS, DEVIANT ludo. And I was sleeping smugly, basking in the glory of having brought everyone down to their knees, my skilful hands getting the better of their wagging tongues when suddenly, like a death knell, my cell phone rang.

Mr.X: Tell me your name and your address, quick.

Me: The fuck? Who’re you?

Mr.X: You tell me first.

Me: The fuck I will!

Mr.X: Tell!

Me: No.

Mr.X: TELL!

Me: Booya!

Mr.X: Okay. I’m blah blah from blah blah blah. Now, tell me who you are.

Me: The name’s Varun.

Mr.X: Not the world famous AOE player who plays by the name of $ickMyDuck and regularly trounces expert players online?!

Me: The very same.

Mr.X: ZOMG, it’s an honour to speak to you. Now give me back my son Vijay.

Me: Huh?

Mr.X: My Vijay whose voice still echoes in the deepest crevices of my heart.

Me: What the ?

I was beginning to realize that it was one of my stupid friends upto their lame ass pranks.

Mr.X: My son Vijay whom you kidnapped five months ago and who made a call to me yesterday from your phone.

By now, I was certain that it was indeed a prank. Probably, one of the losers from last night was still pissed with me.

Me: Oh that Vijay! Sorry, I accidentally sold him off to a slave trade racket in Addis Ababa where they make you eat food out of human baby skulls and drink iguana blood daily and work for 17 hours a day during weekends and national holidays and 21 hours a day during weekdays when it is forty five degrees in the shade before you ultimately die, not from the abject humiliation that you are forced to endure everyday but from the daily iron tire beatings, and then all your organs are shipped to different parts of the world. Oops. My bad, I guess.

Mr.X: NOOOO…… I WILL MAKE YOU PAY FOR YOUR SINS AND REGRET THE DAY YOU WERE BORN EVEN IF IT’S THE LAST THING I EVER DO. Btw, I’m your biggest fan.

I was halfway out of my bed to search for the foolish bastard who was responsible for this inane, childish prank when I realized it wasn’t worth the effort. Soon, lady slumber got the better of my choler and I went back to sleep. Fifteen minutes later I got another call.

“Varun?”

“Yeah”

“ This is supergenius lady inspector Sherlock Poirot Nancy Drew of the International High IQ Police force, and I’ve called to tell you that I am going to make you SUFFER. I’LL MAKE SURE YOU GET CAPITAL PUNISHMENT FOR YOUR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY. YES, THAT’S RIGHT. CAPITAL, GETIT? WANT ME TO SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU? K-A-P-E-E-T-A-L .”

“ Ermmm…. You know, the thing is…..”

“ OF COURSE I KNOW WHAT THE THING IS. THE THING IS THAT WHICH DECIDES IF ONE IS  A BOY OR A GIRL. DUH.”

“ Haha, Of course. Well, you see…..”

“ YES, I SEE. IN FACT, I’LL SEE YOU AT THE POLICE STATION FIRST THING IN THE MORNING.”

And she hung up. I was amazed at the extent to which some people would go to make a prank successful. But I decided not to lose sleep over it.

The third phone call came the next day at the ungodly hour of 12 P.M when I was of course, sleeping.

“YOU EVIL DEGERATE ROTTEN PIG. HOW DARE YOU DISOBEY MY ORDERS AND NOT COME TO THE POLICE STATION. NOW, I WILL MAKE SURE YOU DIE, AND WILL THEN RESURRECT YOU AND GET YOU HANGED AGAIN.”

I was quick to see through the whole thing and finally understood it for what it really was. Clearly, it was a high level international anti-zionist Jihadi conspiracy with deep Masonic, Illuminati and Shiv Sena ties to overthrow the existing national governments and create a new dystopic Marathi world order. And I was the only one who could stop them. And I would. After I was done sleeping. And I told  supergenius cop lady to come pick me up at my hostel in fifteen minutes.

True to her word, supergenius lady cop arrived at my hostel in fifteen minutes armed with a minigun, hand grenades and accompanied by a set of five fully grown, police trained, ferocious, sniffer Chihuahuas. Her expression seemed to imply that she was perpetually pissed. Or badly constipated. Or both. I was confused, I couldn’t really tell. Upon seeing me, she immediately called up higher authorities who in turn informed the INTERPOL who in turn informed the CIA who in turn immediately shut down all incoming air traffic and placed the White House on high alert.

“ Full name?”

“ Arasu. Varun Arasu” ala James Bond.

“ Madrasi, eh?”

I immediately caught her by the collar, and delivered two tight slaps.

“SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU STEREOTYPING BITCH! I’M FROM BENGALOORU, ALRIGHT?”

Okay, I’m kidding of course – I said ‘Bangalore’ like any self respecting kaddu would.

Then, like every major head honcho, criminal mastermind, evil kingpin who has ever got caught by the long arm of the law, I was taken to the police station in a cycle rickshaw.

Upon my arrival there, the police began grilling me. Supergenius lady inspector started showing me photos of ppl and asked me to identify them.

“ Do you know random person#1 ?”

“No.”

“ Do you know random person#2 ?”

“No.”

…….

…….

…….

“ Do you know random person#999 ?”

“No.” (cough) Uncle senior IAS officer (cough)

“ Do you know random person#1000 ?”

…….

…….

…….

Eleven hours, thirty two minutes and 3,302 random photos later,

“Do you know random person#3303?”

“Yes, he looks suspiciously like that bihari guy with the incredibly small penis, residing in room no.666 of my hostel.”

“LIAR, SHUT YOUR FACE! THAT IS A PHOTO OF MY UNCLE’S SECOND COUSIN’S NEIGHBOUR’S PET DOG TAKEN AFTER HE WAS THE VICTIM OF A MAJOR FLEA ATTACK ON HIS FACE. I PUT HIS PHOTO THERE JUST TO MISLEAD YOU. MUAHAHAHA!”

“But he looks exactly like…”

“I SAID SHUT UP!”

After that, she tried the good cop, bad cop technique. With one modification – she took turns being the bad cop and the good cop.

“Tell us where the kid is or I swear I’ll make sure you spend the rest of your life doing hard labor in a rat infested, flea-ridden, cockroach friendly hellhole of a jail.”

“Please tell us where the kid is. Please, please, pleeeeeze. If you tell me, I’ll be your friend for life. Motherpromise.”

“WE’LL SUBJECT YOU TO THIRD DEGREE CHINESE WATER TORTURE, RAT TORTURE, FLAYING, DENAILING, TOOTH EXTRACTION AND WATERBOARDING IF YOU DON’T TELL US.”

“While we’re at it, would you like a foot massage, a back rub or some chamomile tea?”

This was followed by some hindi expletives which when translated to English word to word meant “I will make your mother and sister into one.” I’m not familiar with the details of this proposed unification of mother and sister but I’m sure that supergenius mensa cop lady had it all figured out. Which made me wonder – what if one day somebody else in my family decided to unite too, say my grand uncle and my niece? Or maybe my cousin and his pet dog. What was I supposed to do then? Being a man of science, I was all for cloning and stuff, but I drew the line at this. And I was about to tell supergenius lady cop exactly that when she suddenly stormed out of the room. The questioning room wasn’t as soundproof as I thought it was, and the painful grunts emerging from the toilet cubicle somehow brought back memories of a donkey castration video I had seen a long time back. Well, at least I wasn’t confused about her expression anymore.

She came back after an hour or so “Aha, I’ve finally figured it out. Your family runs a mafia syndicate dealing with slave trade, snuff pornography, human organ black marketeering, gambling and you ppl kidnap little boys for your child prostitution ring.” I was of course deeply offended by this vile accusation. My family had absolutely no interest in gambling whatsoever. And I was about to break her neck with a killer karate chop and it took twenty three of her colleagues to hold me back.

It was then that my nemesis, the root of all problems, Mr.X made an appearance. And he looked nothing like the evil mastermind I had pictured him him to be. Instead he was a wizened old man, well on his way to celebrate his 111th birthday.

Me: Did you get a ransom call from my number 9999999999?

Mr.X: Yes, I got a call from your number 1111111111.

Me: But my number is 9999999999.

Mr.X: That is exactly what I’m saying -  1111111111

Me: 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 9

Mr.X: I know. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

It took another five minutes to clear things out. As it turned out, it was an honest mistake on the part of the old man, and my name was immediately cleared. Super genius cop lady immediately called up higher authorities who in turn informed INTERPOL who in turn informed the CIA who in turn relaxed security at the White House, and I was let free. I was heading back to my hostel when I got a message from eBay on my cell phone – Kidney sold for 25,000 U.S.D.

I felt evil. (Ominous music playing in the background – $ickMyDuck ko pakadna mushkil hi nahi, naamumkin hain)

P.S: True story. Well, in bits and parts.

P.P.S: Yes, it’s that time of the year again – when Blogomania rears its ugly head again, and every blogger worth his salt gives up blogging in order to create fake email ids and aliases to vote for himself (These are the same bloggers who would sell their mothers for a few votes). I of course, find this to be a lowly act demeaning the sanctity of the blogosphere and sincerely advise my readers against doing so. Instead, what you can do is write a program that keeps logging on to the cognizance site and voting for my blog – cyber booth capturing if you will. You can also start chain mailing all your male friends with emails like ‘Grow your penis 4 inches in 4 days’ which secretly redirects them to my blog link on the voting page. For your female friends use ‘Never seen before proof that girls can’t do math’.  If any of you receive such an email and conveniently choose to delete it without opening, let me warn you – it contains an embedded worm which on the deleting the email, sends your recent browsing history to all your female friends and family members on Facebook. Your choice. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I was beginning to realize that it was one of my stupid friends upto their lame ass pranks.

So anyways, exams were around the corner and being a responsible student of one of the county’s finest academic institutions, I was doing what I generally when do when faced with exams – getting drunk. And by getting drunk, I don’t mean drinking a couple of those James Bond-esque martini shots. I have been regularly known to be single handedly responsible for the bars and pubs in town shutting down before the set deadline. Friends have also suggested that I’m the sole reason why a douchebag like Siddharth Mallya gets to date someone as hot as Deepika Padukone.

So yeah, I was at this Daaru Party (or binge drinking session for all you firang readers) After the usual toasting, head banging to badly remixed Bappi Lahiri songs, and making observations on life, the universe and everything, I decided to spice things up. No, I didn’t strip and go  streaking around the campus. If that had been the case, all I would’ve done is ask others for my pics to upload on FB, and laughed about it the next day and been secretly proud while all my FB friends  complimented me on being so well endowed. No, dear readers, I did something way more embarassing.

General piece of advice- After downing eight beer, two vodka and three whisky bottles, the last thing you’d wanna do is have a long winded conversation with someone over the phone. Especially a girl.

But when a girl calls on your phone, you have to answer. If girl in question happens to be hot, and you have a huge crush on her, you answer real quick. And if your cell phone ringtone happens to be a Spice Girls song (whom you secretly listen to and own a poster of) and everyone else is around and waiting to take your case, you frikkin answer immediately.

Sadly, this line of defence didn’t seem to work, as I was told the next day, that it was me who had drunk dialed P.  So yeah, I called her up. Most of you must be wondering what we talked about. Go ahead, take your pick –

a)      We discussed the global economy and the impact of bailing Greece out on the coffers of the EU.

b)      We discussed AOE strategies and the relevance of a Dark age rush in a predominantly Feudal age assault game.

c)       I asked her out

Subtle hint: Not option a,b, or d.

So, rack your brains and figure out the answer for yourself. Okay, dumb fucks, I asked her out.Hardy har har, I know. Whatever. So, the conversation was something as follows…

Me: So, would you like kinda sorta go out with me sometime soon?

P: Of course I would! A girl would be crazy to say no to a smart, charming, funny, witty, hot stud like you who happens to be India’s highest rated AOE player, and is also Hendrix’s reincarnation when it comes to playing the guitar and is modest enough to make an effort not to brag about it especially on his blog. The only reason I haven’t asked you out, or for that matter, no girl has asked you out yet is that everyone thinks you are way out of their league.

Me: Yeah, come to think of it, maybe I am. So, bye.

Okay, so you guys probably didn’t fall for that. Was worth a try though.

Anyways, what really happened was probably something like this-

Me: Would you like kinda sorta go out wi…….

P:  No! And you needn’t disturb me again tonight. Or ever again. Goodnight!

Okay, this probably never happened either. The only person who remembers what happened that night (and who is soon gonna die a slow, painful death) is this bastard who was constantly egging me on to make a fool out of myself  so that he could laugh about it the next day. Anyway, I got drunk some more, passed out that night, and then went on to ace the exams the following week. (Stop sniggering, you dumb fucks. A guy can wish, can’t he?)

Anyhow, it should it come as no surprise to you guys that when P finally came to R, she didn’t care to tell me about it. But I, being the shameless cunning bastard that I am, found out about it and decided to go meet her anyways. Well, she bore with us for a couple of days before unveiling her noble intentions of encouraging women empowerment by going where no girl had ever gone before –RKB. Obviously, Bagga (three time Param Veer Chakra awardee, seven time National Bodybuilding champion- sub junior high school girls category, and founder and chairman, iHIPS) was made in charge of operations. After going through the blueprints of the building plans many times and conducting several Reconnaissance operations, he came up with his POA – that P, Jaggi and I drop in onto the rooftop through choppers,and bungee jump onto my balcony while he cut off the power supply to the hostel causing a blackout. Once we reached, he would restore the power, and then simultaneously hack all the laptops in the hostel, download and play porn videos on them to distract everyone while we break into our room. He would then proceed to dig a hole from the basement of the hostel to help us escape. Although this sounded like a perfectly reasonable plan, and was so obviously foolproof, we were put off by its absolute simplicity. So, we came up with a slightly more complicated plan – that P wear a turban and oversized jacket and sneak into the hostel through the canteen. Of course, unlike the previous plan, this required split second timing and was fraught with mortal danger but we decided to throw caution to the winds and risk it.

Once we were in, and by sheer co-incidence of course, all the hostel residents were up and about, we decided to hang out at my room. So, when we finally reached my room, and I saw guys lining up outside my room by the dozen, I was sure it was to congratulate me on completing my 42nd week at the top of the AOE leader standings and had nothing to do with the presence of the pretty young thing there. I quickly signed the autographs and rushed back into my room. Where we had a highly intellectually stimulating debate on science, religion and Bagga whenever we weren’t cracking crude jokes about Shobhit’s wiener and Jaggi’s boobs. Yes, P met Shobhit. And fed him Viagra. Shobhit (or Rockstar Shobhitwa as he’s popularly known back home), whenever he’s not letching at stray cows and dogs, or trying to steal undergarments from his neighbour, is invariably ghissing. And goes bat shit crazy while he’s at it. I mean, give the Pope one viagra capsule and even he’d probably be pulling up his frock like a two-penny whore. But not Shobhitwa. Apparently, a little re-direction of blood flow in his body doesn’t really affect his mental concentration. Then again, he is Bihari. So, there’s probably not much change in flow to talk about anyway.  Jaggi, on the other hand, has resigned to his lot, it seems. When you have three viagra pops, and your thoughts still revolve around Cogni finance rather than Megan Fox’s rack, it’s finally time to accept the fact that your appendix is not the only vestigial organ in your body. In his defence though, when you have a rack like his, it’s really hard to think of someone else’s. We’d gotten around to cracking another round of corny Shobhit wiener jokes when P’s bodyguard supreme Punni (Fluorescent pink belt in karate, world weightlifting champion in the 81.46525 to 81.46527 kg category, and three time winner of the world book cricket championship) decided to play party pooper by employing his superhuman senses to locate P and barging into the hostel.

Bagga (yes, the three param veer chakra awardee) and Jaggi, fearing disciplinary action, were scared out of their minds. And quite rightly so. I mean, its not like public beheadings and castrations haven’t been known to occur in R. Disembowelment, waterboarding, and chinese water torture are routinely meted out to students who forget to bring their pencil boxes to class, or to those who do not cut their nails. And sneaking a girl into the guys’ hostel ranks pretty high on the list of heinous crimes one can commit in R – just below mass toddler cannibalism, and just above throwing chalk at each other in class. So, it was indeed understandable that everyone else was scared shitless. But, one of the major benefits of being a kick ass gamer who has regularly been India’s top player for quite some time is that you can brag about it all over your blog your mind has been trained to deal with such sticky situations with panache. So it should come as no surprise that while everyone was running around crapping their pants in worry, I was stoically using my brilliant mind to come up with a way out. And Voila! What could only be characteristic of my genius, I instantaneously came up with an ingenious and elegant solution – that we immediately sneak out of the hostel. This seemed to buoy everyone’s spirits (Bagga almost wept with joy) and we came out of the hostel via the canteen.

Ri and Viggy seemed to be tagging along uninvited for some reason, despite everyone throwing not so subtle hints that they were not welcome. We headed off to KIH to get drunk, and got bored to death instead. We then decided then to go to Rishikesh where we got bored some more. And we came back to R, and were on the verge of setting a new world record for getting bored, when I decided to leave as I was running late for my early morning powerlifting session. True story.

P.S I have now been immortalized in the annals of RKB history. Last I heard, students have my posters on their walls, and have begun worshipping me. If my sources are to be believed, my statue is being erected in the hostel as I type. Which seemed all fine. Till a friend showed me this. WTF. I could still get rusticated from the insti!

So, why exactly am I blogging about this? Beats the hell out of me. Or maybe it’s because P loves my blog and thinks guys can score chicks by blogging (Mannodi, are you reading this?). This of course, is a desecration of the sanctity of the blogosphere, and insulting to those who only use it as a medium of online self-expression. Ergo, it is imperative that we prove her wrong. That would only be possible if all the hot girls in the country join hands and decide to settle for one blogger, and flip off all the other wannabe bloggers. For the sake of the blogosphere, I’m ready to be that one blogger. Only for the sake of the blogosphere, mind you.

P.P.S : <3

P.P.P.S : If anyone from the admin is reading this, my name is Ravnish Bagga and I live in room no.692, and this post has absolutely nothing to do with the resident of room no.645, who is just awesome btw.

Being brought up in a family where Nokia was considered the alpha and the omega of cell phones, even the thought of buying any other brand was heresy. In fact, I had been using a Nokia phone till then, a 3310, a relic of a phone (with a two hour battery life and seven working keys) that had probably been invented right after man was done with the wheel. It found itself in my hands only because no person with the smallest iota of self respect was willing to buy it from my dad. So it was with no little amount of trepidation that I told my dad that I wanted to buy a MotoRazr, and not a Nokia. To my surprise, he told me that he’d gladly pay for it. After which he’d disown me and sever me from his will.

So, Nokia it was to be. Atleast I had been eyeing one particular model for quite some time – 7610. Surprisingly, I had not even considered buying a Sony Ericsson phone. Besides, Hrithik had just become the brand ambassador of Sony, I think. And after watching his magnum opus Krishh, I wanted no association with him whatsoever. No, not even one as tenuous as buying the brand he endorses. I, in fact, remember telling a friend that I wouldn’t buy a Sony Ericsson even if Hrithik were to offer me one himself. So, when I walked into this shady little place where you supposedly got cell phones cheap, I expected it to take no more than a couple of minutes. As I had already decided the phone, my part of the transaction was over and dad got down to the haggling. It was then that I spotted him there. Hrithik Roshan!! I mean, what are the odds, right? Seems too good to be true, eh?

Yeah, that’s right. I just made that up.

But what I did see was a lifelike poster of him holding a K750i. I wanna say that it was love at first sight (And no, I am not coming out of the closet. I meant the phone, you idiots). But it wasn’t. Nonetheless, it didn’t take Sherlock’s genius to notice that the K750i had a whole lot more features than the 7610 and was a whole lot cheaper. I was torn between my principles and the K750i’s 2 MP camera (as opposed to 7610’s 1 MP). And as everyone who has been in that situation knows, the line between rigid moral principles and the desire to buy a funkier phone is a thin one, and transgressing it is no biggie (especially if you are a 15 year old waiting to show off to your friends). A couple of grand saved meant that dad also saw my point clearly. And I walked out of that place with a k750i in my hand. It’s been almost five years since then and there has not been a single day that I regretted the purchase.

Whether it was to kill time during boring lectures, bug the first bencher nerds with long, silly forwards in the middle of the class, secretly listen to Himesh Reshammiya’s songs, password protect and store images of Rakhi Sawant, receive supari calls from friends in the Mumbai underworld, detonate IEDs previously planted in the lecturers’ staff rooms, or secretly store my plans for global domination- my phone had a part to play. But if there was one thing that made the K750i stand apart from the others, it was the wide variety of games one could play on it. From the time I completed the first level of Hangman (dickhead easy mode) in a record time of 2hrs36mins (okay, I admit, I used cheat codes), I knew that my tryst with cell phone games had just begun. It was not like I had not played cell phone games before. On my previous phone, I had already reached beyond godlike levels of pro-ness on snake. So it was just a matter of time before my fingers revealed their magic. I have downloaded hundreds of mobile games since. And the high score in every one of them bears the name of yours truly. Or one of the monikers I had adopted thereof. As a testimony to my superhuman gaming skills, it was on my phone that the Undertaker and Kane first became the runners up of the WWE tag team championship. The fact that they lost to Tori and Stephanie in the finals is a different matter altogether.

It was on my phone that Ajit Agarkar first completed an over with an economy rate of less than six. And no, for the hundredth time, it wasn’t a gully cricket test match against a team of high school girls. Guys, give him some credit. It was an ODI. It was on my phone that India achieved what soothsayers, cynics, pessimists, optimists, analysts, astronauts, particle physicists, serial killers, metaphysical solipsists, transcendental perspectivists, and everyone else who is not this guy, or on high-end hallucinogenics thought was impossible- India routed Brazil 8-0 to win the FIFA world cup. So after creating and recreating history many times over, you can imagine my consternation when my phone started getting cranky, the games became a bit laggy and the frequency of world records seemed to be going downhill. Also, the lens had become foggy, the speakers inaudible, the battery all but dead, the memory card corrupt, and the various viruses meant I couldn’t make phone calls or type messages without pop-ups appearing constantly. But all that I could live with. What I could not live with was my name not adorning the high score list. So, I did what any sane person would have done in my place to fix my phone- get a sledgehammer and hit it continuously before placing it boiling hot water and sending high voltage electric currents through it. Haha, I jest. But what I did do was take it to a Sony Ericsson dealer. Who looked at it for all of one minute before telling me to buy a new phone. He even went ahead to offer me two hundred rupees for the phone. I was already shaking with rage and this sealed the deal for me. I reached across the counter, caught him by the collar and delivered two tight slaps, “YOU BLOODY MOTHERF@#$%R! HOW DARE YOU PUT A PRICE ON MY PHONE? DO YOU PUT A PRICE ON YOUR MOTHER TOO?”

Okay, I exaggerate. Poetic license, I think it is called. But astute readers may laugh and point out that my skill in writing poetry is matched only by that of Shantakumaran Sreesanth, and my blog contains all the poetic eloquence of “tandoori nights”. Yeah, well, screw you. If you want poetry, go do it on your own blog. As usual, I digress. Coming back to the story….

I beat him up some more, and performed a couple of pile-drivers on him. Two hundred rupees, I ask you. How can anyone be so cheap to put such a price on so many years of cellular fun, frolic and adventure when the phone so selflessly offered its services and in lieu expected nothing but a few watts of power to recharge itself? How can anyone be so vile to put such a price on a phone after buying it in its prime and sucking its life dry? Don’t bother answering, they were purely rhetorical. Although I must say, it would have been a different story altogether had he offered me three hundred rupees. I finished off by choke slamming him to the ground.

For all the beating he took, deep down, I knew that he was right about one thing. My phone was dying, and there was nothing I could do about it. Alas, the Undertaker and Kane would never win that championship. India would never again win the FIFA world cup until 2999 A.D. And about Ajit Agarkar, who am I kidding? The high school team won the match in his next over itself.

Cell phone hunting seems to have lost its charm now. One ipod, a couple of mp3 players, two laptops, and a host of earphones and other assorted accessories later, I knew that gadgetophilia still runs in my blood. But I seem to have lost interest in fancy phones. I mean, everyone has one of those goddamn funky touch screen phones nowadays. Maybe I should have taken a leaf out of the ex-chairman’s book, who had had sought out a particularly awful Dell phone just to be different. Oh, what the hell! Even I would’ve bought that Soni erikson iblackberry N95 (available at rs.500), had it not gone out of stock. So, I settled for the next cheapest thing available there – this

Looks like shit, eh? But don’t be deceived. Coz it’s shittier than it looks. Why aim for mediocrity when you can pay so much lesser and be the proud owner of the shittiest phone in town, eh?

P.S: RIP K750i. You will be missed.

P.P.S: Leaving for R in a couple of hours. Packing’s a bitch. Snake’s keeping me company though.

P.P.P.S: Fachchas, line up outside room 645, RKB.

P.P.P.P.S: If you are from the administration, please ignore the previous line.

Driving lessons have been remarkably incident free. No one has been killed yet. Atleast that I know of. The unearthly timings make me kinda grumpy. But I’m always cheered up by the sight of early morning joggers running about madly and screaming their hearts out the moment I place my foot on the accelerator pedal. The sight of the red, gleaming sedan approaching at 80 km/hr has been known to send shivers down the spines of traffic cops and pavement dwellers alike. My driving instructor, for his part, has decided to wear a crash helmet on realizing that seatbelts weren’t safe enough. Lately, he has also resorted to praying. He comes armed with a litany of new prayers every day and never forgets to remind me that he has two kids and is the sole breadwinner of the family. Pussies, I tell you! Should the authorities deem it safe enough to issue me a Driver’s License, I think I might participate in the Greater Noida Grand Prix this October. On second thoughts, maybe not. I wouldn’t miss out on those informal events at Thomso for all the money in the world (Yeah, the Grand Prix is on October 30^th ).

The only thing I have done that has any resemblance to any form of productivity whatsoever is that I have finally removed my rusty guitar from its dusty cover and started playing it. And achieved remarkable success in the process. I mean, I can tune the guitar and tell all the strings by their names already. Plus, I can play the D chord. Quite an Eric Clapton in the making, eh? I think I may finally fulfill my childhood dream of forming a modern classic folk hindustani carnatic alternative punk poprock electronica metal band, and perform concerts in Jhumri Tilaiya with Metallica opening for us. w00t!

One of my gazillion fans commented on my previous post that I should take up writing full time. I can’t deny that I’m flattered, although I’d like to clarify that as far as a career in wordsmithy is concerned, I think the best I can manage to write are ultra-violent erotic fairy tales for kids. Which may not be such a bad idea. I think it is an unexplored genre which has great potential, and is just waiting to be tapped. I mean, which POGO watching, candy eating eight year old wouldn’t wanna read about Snow White doing the seven dwarves, or about what it was that little Red Riding Hood really rode. Or was it only me?

As you can see, my tryst with utter joblessness continues. And for all my lethargy, I shall continue to spew forth such pointless articles (or as Nisha claims ‘verbal diarrhea’) unless I find something worthwhile to do. So, dear readers, pray that something worthwhile turns up for me. Else, suffer the consequences. I might post again tomorrow. Or maybe I won’t. Either of the two. Till then, be good kids and don’t wet yourself in anticipation.

The past few weeks have been unbelievably unproductive. Yes, unbelievable even by my standards. As batchmates and seniors are off to exotic lands like Somalia, Antarctica, Mars or Jhumri Tilaiyya to do their interns, I’m upto what I always do best – sit at home and play pinball. But after your 452^nd successive failure to break that record set by your fifth grader cousin, you tend to get just that wee bit bored. And ennui, it seems, is my only companion this summer. That, and good old sleep. I’ve always known myself to be an incorrigible hypersomniac. Yet, I seem to be exceeding my own abilities and breaking all personal records this summer. Even a paraplegic inmate of an old age home would seem positively vivacious beside me.

I don’t watch movies anymore, and I’ve already watched all sitcoms worth watching twice over. The last few books that I read remain fresh in my memory only by virtue of being my previous blog posts (this and this). So, you can understand my apprehension in going down that road again. As far as gaming is concerned, the name $ickMyDucK still strikes fear in the hearts of AOE gamers worldwide. So much so that I’ve now been banned from all the online gaming portals and have to create new profiles everytime I play. The fact that I also use these forums to showcase my knowledge of ‘Yo Mama’ jokes to other players and hurl verbal abuse at the slightest opportunity might have something to do with it too.

The idiot box seems to be my sole source of entertainment. Realizing that yours truly is almost halfway towards graduating, I decided that reality shows, CID, CN and Aaj Tak were to clear the way for intellectually stimulating news shows, debates and the like. Maturity is creeping upon me, I think. Or maybe, it’s just because no shows of Rakhi Sawant are airing on TV currently.

Either way, the TV became synonymous with another abbreviation – CNBC. For a few days, atleast. Point to be noted, the news is very informative, and helps you gain an in-depth analysis of the business market and the stock exchange. Unfortunately, I don’t understand a word of what they say, and I end up gawking at the buxom news-anchor they just hired. The feeling was much too Joey-esque for my liking and I reverted back to Aaj Tak and India TV. Go ahead, judge me. In my defence, any news channel that makes a documentary on how the Mumbai terrorist attack has affected the lifestyle of pigeons deserves a cult following. Besides, who gives a rat’s ass about the stock market when the world is facing a far more severe crisis – alien abduction and bears with laser guns out for an evening stroll.

In unrelated news, my culinary expertise is no longer restricted to cooking maggi. The magic weaved by my hands in the past few days would have left the Auguste Gusteaus and Sanjeev Kapoors of this world, hanging their head in shame. Mexican, Italian, Thai, or even Swahili – you name it, there is no cuisine that yours truly has tried his hand at, and failed. Miserably at. Unfortunately, no other member of my family wants to be a guinea pig and suffer food poisoning sample the exquisite cuisine and I have to eat the whole thing by myself.

A toothache saw me visit the dentist the other day. The fact that the toothache developed right after I had had one of the aforementioned meals is purely coincidental, and no conclusions should be drawn thereon. Yanyways, I digress. So, it was a bright sunny day, the birds were chirping, the wind was …… blah blah – yes, the whole nine yards. Recollecting my not so pleasant trysts with the exponents of the orthodontal profession in the past, I had decided to employ the services of someone who knew his stuff. Yes, one of those amreeka returned dentists who had more degrees in his pocket than you have money in yours. This particular dentist I was visiting had more degrees in his pocket than I had money in my ATM account. Which was all very reassuring. Except for the fact that it made me realize that this dentist probably had a lot more torture techniques up his sleeve than the shady quack down the road (the ones who drug you and then remove your kidneys when you go to them for a toothache). I waited in the reception hall, as hordes of patients made their way out of the clinic, only to be admitted to the nearest hospital. The unlucky few, however, were carried off to the nearest mortuary. The receptionist’s phone rang, akin to the tolling of a death bell. It was my turn. Ten minutes later, after being victim to some unspeakable gore and violence that would make Auschwitz seem like a Sunday afternoon picnic, I left the clinic lighter by a tooth and half my family fortune. I was alive, but just. At least, both my kidneys were intact.

Weird as it may sound, this near fatal incident has been the only crimson lining in an otherwise monochrome cloud. To say that I have become awfully, dreadfully, appallingly, intolerably bored would be a gross understatement. My day begins with me checking, rechecking, re-rechecking my inbox only to check again after 5 minutes. I remain invisible on gtalk only to pounce upon any unwary user who might have made the terrible mistake of becoming green. Or even red, for that matter. I find myself browsing through lame FB updates and commenting on the lamer ones. Some unsuspecting Omegle users may have become emotionally scarred for life due to their unfortunate trysts with one particularly badmouthed Basement Cat. I’m glad there is no report abuse button, or Omegle might have considered shutting down its operations in India entirely. Any day that I sleep less than twelve hours, I consider myself underslept. Charlie Harper himself would be proud of my sedentary lifestyle. Yet, much to my disbelief,  I find time to get bored. Maybe I’m going crazy and need to see a shrink. Or maybe I’m just suffering from an acute case of what they call hostel sickness.

P.S: Be afraid. Be very afraid. Parents, lock up your kids. Kids, lock up your parents. For yours truly now has a valid learner’s license that allows me to try out all the tricks and moves I learnt in NFS. Scary thought, innit? Scarier though is the fact that the driving lessons begin at 6.00 a.m. Which means that I sit behind the wheel every morning after pulling an all nighter during which I practice (not play) bloody, gore-filled ultra-violent games. Muahahaha!

Let the body count begin.

P.P.S: My online AOE rating has finally crossed 1800. Not too bad, considering that the world’s highest rated player is just 200 points above me. Astute readers may have realized and might be marveling at my sheer cunning in making you read a completely pointless, self obsessed, narcissistic rant when my sole intention was to blow my own trumpet, and that too in the post scripts. Verbosity, FTW.

I’ve never known myself to be nostalgic. Quite the opposite actually. But sometimes, just sometimes (and contrary to popular belief) I do remember and I do reminisce. Or maybe (as some part of my brain keeps telling me annoyingly), I have been watching too much of How I Met Your Mother after all.

It’s been a year since a sudden bout of wayward whim (or perhaps my absolute distaste for Rajnikant and sweating a bucketload a day had something to do with it) saw me put IITR Chem Dual above IITM Meta in my preference list, and in retrospect, it’s been a year with little cause for regret. Sure, my academic accomplishments might not have put others to shame. Far from it, in fact. But belonging to the noble breed of young men who don’t let something as trivial as academics get in the way of focused inactivity (read: sleeping) and spend their otherwise worthless time on other important non value adding hobbies(like gaming), I never expected as much. But do not take that to mean that I have not learnt anything this year(perhaps nothing of value but still!). Learning to do a wheelie on a bicycle, creating 25 knights in 25 minutes and mastering the subtle art of giving proxies all form but the tip of the metaphorical iceberg that happens to be my learning curve in R-land.

It is weird how the tiniest of things seemingly inconsequential at that moment can change a life. Yeah, yeah I know- it sounds straight out of some mushy Hollywood flick but do bear with me, coz it is one of those cliches which are very true. Had I concentrated more on my lecturers than the girls in class, had I realized that there was more to metallurgy than Ellingham’s diagram, had my dislike for aloo sabzi and dal been matched by my dislike for Pongal, had I not been looted by one crazy auto driver on that fateful day of JEE counseling in Madras (or come to think of it, had I spotted even one decent looking girl there),  had I known about MA-102 earlier, or more importantly had I been Christiano Ronaldo, life might have been a whole lot different. Alas, IIT-M wasn’t more fortunate(nor was football).

My first memories of roorkee are probably not the ones I’d  cherish the most. Now, i won’t begin with the “I vividly remember my first day on campus” crap because I don’t. But what I do remember about my first day at roorkee is that it vaguely reminded me of Malgudi. Strange really, because even though I’ve read the book I don’t really remember much of it, but the hustle and bustle at the railway station, the cycle rickshaws, the sights of people by the riverside, the innumerable trees, and the myriads of little shops adorning both sides of the streets somehow made me associate roorkee with malgudi. And yet, I found the place less than endearing at the time. Nesci has nothing on Coffee Day leave alone Barista. Roorkee seemed blissfully unaware of even the ‘T’ of theatres leave alone multiplexes.  Expecting a mall to exist in this place seemed as ludicrous as expecting the Indian football team to win the world cup. Also, I was leaving behind a life of eighteen long years in Bangalore, and the estrangement of old friendships is never too easy ( Not to mention that  the sudden realization, that by coming to Rland I had effectually made myself single till classified ads adorning the newspapers or online marriage portals rendered me otherwise, didn’t help any). To add to this, coming to a land where every sentence began with a certain ‘B’ word and where anyone hailing from south of the Vindhyas was dubbed a ‘madarasi’ and treated with general dislike made me feel as perfectly at home as Sachin Tendulkar would be on a football field. So all I did was rant about it to friends and family. In fact, I even remember writing (and eventually deleting) a long ‘holden caulfieldesque’ blog post ranting about how life in IITR was a bitch. But then as one senior put it then -” Rland grows on you. You’ll learn to like it with time.”

It’s been a year since then and try as I might, I cannot deny that I have missed roorkee these holidays. Perhaps it’s not the place that I miss but the people. Perhaps roorkee will never be the home to me that Bangalore was. But if there’s one thing I have learnt during the past year it is that home is just a fleeting notion. One year down the lane roorkee might still not be the place I’d call ‘Home sweet Home’. But five years from now, I might feel the same way about Bangalore. Which is precisely why, embarking upon a jaunt down memory lane fifty years from now and reminiscing with a ‘Those were the days’ sigh, R-land will still hold a special place in the deepest crevices of my memory.

As a sophomore this year (hard to believe that I passed, huh?), continuing the tradition of R-land I would be expected to dispense unsolicited advice to gullible fachchas (after some bad-ass ragging, i might add) crowding around me (more out of fear than genuine interest) and should I come across anyone cribbing about R-land I should’nt be surprised if I gave him a piece of Joey-esque wisdom – “If chicks, food and weather were the only things to certify a place as worth living (which they are), you and I would probably be in Brazil or Paris, but since neither can afford the plane tickets you’d better STFU”, before reverting to those wise old words - ” Rland grows on you. You’ll learn to like it with time.”. After all, life comes a full circle.

P.S: I composed this thing a few days before I left for roorkee, but lack of a good modem meant I could not post.

P.P.S: My first attempt (and a rather lame one, i might add) at a senti post.

P.P.P.S: The title alludes to a John Denver Song I have been listening to quite a lot lately, and also the fact that Jet Airways>>Any other airline

P.P.P.P.S: Fachchas beware, coz Daddy’s Home.

P.P.P.P.P.S: I luv using P.Ss.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S: Bugger off losers, haven’t you had enough P.Ss already??

Let’s face it, Robert Langdon as the offspring of Sherlock Holmes, step-brother to Superman, and the new avatar of Don Juan was interesting in the first book, bearable in the second and torturous now. Not only does The Lost Symbol have a done to death plot as original as a Nintendo playbox 360 available in the local market, it is about as close to objective reality as Ajit Agarkar is to beating Sachin Tendulkar’s batting records, while generating all the excitement associated with a Zimbabwe- Bangladesh test match. Hell, I’ve seen pornos with more original (and definitely more exciting) plots than this. Ofc, I know this will be made into a movie in years to come with Tom Hanks once again showcasing his vast repertoire of facial expressions (namely the dumb, dazed, perplexed, no-idea-what-the-hell-is-going-on-but-I’ll-still-play-along, constipated and again dumb looks), but I’d be better off watching re-runs of ‘Rakhi ka Swayamwar’ or hopefully ‘Rakhi ki Suhaagrat’on my TV.

So anyways, digressions apart, the story begins with a mention of a stupid little secret society called the FreeMasons that no one’s heard of (or cares about) , a leading member (some Peter dude, I forget the name) of which, is kidnapped and has his hand cut off by a tattooed villain (with an outrageously scary name Mal’akh) who incidentally seems as dangerous and threatening as a pickpocket on a local bus. The villain seeks to find out some particular word which will help him obtain an ancient source of power and the only person in the whole world who can help him do it is (drumroll)……..yep you guessed it right- the great claustrophobic Robert Langdon. And his bargaining chip (other than poor ol’ Peter  who no one really cares about) happens to be the possession of some video of powerful government officials indulging in a ‘secretive Masonic ritual’ (which is, no doubt, some code word for some wild monkey sex ). So there you have it, a wild caveman is on the loose, armed with a porno (probably) and a sidekick armed with err… one arm, on course for world domination and it is upto Robert ‘I’m so scared of elevators’ Langdon to save the world. How about that for a plot, eh? (Incidentally, one question kept bothering me the whole time. If Robert Langdon is so scared of moving in closed elevators how does he take a crap in closed toilet cubicles? Or does he keep the doors open?)

So as is the case with the other books, Robert Langdon hops around from one country to another running away from the police agency of whichever country he is in, taking time breaks in between to visit all the monuments around him while giving gyaan on matters of universal importance like Madonna’s surname (Yes, he actually does that in Angels and Demons), and uses some weird symbols, ancient paintings, pyramids and objects of similar importance to solve silly mysteries that no one really cares about and save the world yet again, while hitting on hyper-intelligent uber-hot chicks at the same time. Did I mention that he does all this in a span of twelve hours? Talk about multitasking! Now, I could go on for pages on how he uses the stupid symbols to save the world, but since I don’t subscribe to Dan Brown’s philosophy of “Why use only one word to convey something when you can do it in 1024?”, I’ll skip right to the end.

As you might very well know by now, Dan Brown’s books are characterised by twists. And so in a shocking twist in the tale he reveals to us – brace yourselves ppl (warning: definitely not for the weak hearted)-  that good ol’ Mal’akh is actually that Peter guy’s son (ooohs and aaahs all around). I could again go on for pages about how Langdon and co. rescue the Peter guy in the nick of time, but fearing brickbats from readers whose patience has already been stretched to its limits, I won’t. In a fitting finale to this epic thriller, we have Robert Langdon uncovering some of the best kept secrets in the world, for the protection of which millions of masons have been martyred over the millenia (Note the alliteration ). Move over 42, you are not the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything as Langdon as finds out. In fact, the the answer is -hold your breaths, ppl- (drumroll)………. that * Wait for it*………. God is a part of Man and two heads are better than one (Tada! Applause and cheering). Profound, isn’t it??

So you see, after suffering 450 pages of this celebration of craptasticity (I know there is no such word), i expected atleast a half-decent ending, but I realize Dan Brown’s sole intention was to unzip his fly and let loose all over Douglas Adams’ grave. And I had half a mind to do just that (on the book, I mean). Because, for all his show of bringing out an intellectual book by making references to Noetic sciences and the like, it would be insulting to the average reader’s intelligence if he expects us to believe half the codswallop that he dishes out in the last 50 pages or so.

The book ends with the word ‘Hope’ and if there is one thing where Dan Brown has never failed to deliver, it is in giving others hope. Hope that one day duds like me could a write a book with utterly pointless symbolism, formulaic plots, lame Panchatantra flourishes as endings and get away with a readership of 5.5 million. Or so I thought until I saw this  http://www.slate.com/id/2228327/ and this http://www.columbia.edu/~ip71/fun/danbrown.html. No point in me doing it when a computer can do it better, huh?

P.S: One thing’s certain tho, that this is my last Dan Brown book ever. Period. Hence the name of the title.

P.P.S: (I love using parentheses in my posts. )

Disclaimer: Any reference to any person living, dead, seriously sick or comatose is probably intended, and put forth with deliberate malicious and sadistic intent. Comments will be heavily moderated. Spammers will be tracked down, convicted under the Threat to the Nation Act (2010), Section-42 and will then be publicly castrated.  So, moral leaders of the new fangled world like the anonymous in the comments section here, if you are reading this (which I seriously doubt, coz this would involve errr…..reading), before you start dispensing your moral strictures, you are kindly requested to bugger off.

Warning: Longish post. Best read with gaps of fifteen minutes in between, as the level of awesomeness cannot be absorbed by the human optic nerve at one stretch.

Glossary:

RJB: The official residence of the first yearites. But every IITRian worth his willy knows that it is actually a third world refugee camp whose inmates have to regularly go to labs as guinea pigs for horrendous experiments and torture which would make Guantanamo bay seem like a Sunday afternoon picnic.

LH (Lecture Hall(ocaust)) : One of the aforementioned labs which also happens to be the lair of demented mentors (dementors in short), commonly known as profs. Also a rehabilitation centre to treat insomniacs and ppl with sleep disorders.

Library: Dunno. Never been there.

RJB Mess: The only garbage disposal site in the world where the garbage is disposed off in plates. Rumour has it that the health authorities, in order to justify their existence in the campus, regularly pay the mess workers a small amount of money to maintain a continuous inflow of students into the hospital.

NCC (Nazi Concentration Camp): The Institution where the likes of Hitler, Osama, Idi Amin are employed.

NSS( Nasty Social Service): The place where little pansies who were too chicken to take up NCC rot. The guys have to service little kids orally (read out books to underprivileged kids, you perverted bastards!) and the girls constantly work for the upliftment of their masses.

UG Club: The place where Btech students, potheads and old age home escapees alike gather to watch matches (women’s beach volleyball or women’s wrestling, whichever is playing) and ofc, Rakhi ka Swayamwar on TV.

Nesci: The poshest and most awesome eating joint in the whole of the 100 square metres beside the UG Club.

As I’m performing my daily, or to be more precise, monthly ablutions to try and scrape off the fungi and multiple layers of algae that have settled upon my luxuriant skin in the past few weeks I experience musical bliss that one can only associate with the bathroom cubicles of a RJB bathroom on a somnolent Sunday morning. It starts off with me checking under my feet to see if I have stepped on any frogs by mistake only to realize that the melodious croaks are emerging from the other occupied bathroom cubicle, with the background score being provided by the occupant in the toilet cubicle. The sounds emerging from the toilet cubicle, akin to the painful grunts of a newly castrated bull, remind me to reprimand the mess secretary for not having enough fiber in the mess food, and the repulsive odour arising from the same leave me mentally castigating its occupant for the excess consumption of oily food.

Amidst this serene tranquility, comes the alluring music of Mithunda`s “I’m a disco dancer” to which I immediately start shaking a foot or two before I realize it is actually my cell phone ringing.  I answer the phone suavely, a la James Bond giving out my surname first and then my name. The conversation from the other end begins in typical R-land style-with a flurry of expletives and rather unloving references to every single close female relative that I possess. After the caller has exhausted the entire range of his expletives, he demands that I appear at his toilet cublicle with a bucketful of water. Apparently, the Bhawan authorities, no doubt influenced by the “Save Water” campaigns happening all around the world have decided to cut water supply to the toilets. I admire this noble gesture, if only to hear the squeaky little mandrill on the other end plead and wail and squirm. And I switch off the phone.

I appear out of the bathroom, and march into the corridor rejuvenated, (by the news of ravana still suffering in the toilet, and not by the ablutions I might add), my smug grin directed at the passers-by hardly suppressing my feeling of superiority on having woken up early abandoning the comfort of my bed. The cold air kissing my bare skin would have sent even rakhi sawant running for her clothes, but I bear it with my characteristic fortitude, and make my way to my room, only to find it locked.

As I stand there in the middle of the corridor putting salman khan to shame with my barest of the bare belongings, with most passers- by giggling, the ‘happier’ ones ogling , and the ‘happiest’ ones sulking (they were hoping I would do a ranbir kapoor from ‘Saanwariya’ as well) I realize that tearing out every strand of hair on my head in frustration isn’t gonna help (although it might reduce my hair cutting expenses). I decide to wait for my room partner. Half an hour(and half a fistful of torn hair) later the situation is still the same.  My initial assumption that my room partner is outside SB bribing the watchman to let him in is replaced by the realization that he has probably been abducted by aliens, and is halfway to zorgobia. As I look around, I spot a worn out old tee and a pair of Bermudas on my neighbour’s clothesline. My sartorial ambitions were never the highest. Quite the contrary, actually. But I’m pretty sure they never revolved around floral yellow tees and rotten ole Bermudas, which in my humblest opinion are just a tad above Neanderthal man’s banana leaf skirt, tiger claw necklace and feather headgear on the “Check me out, girl” scale. But if govinda can carry it off, I realize that so can I.

Hungry, jobless, clueless and most importantly keyless as I am, I make my way to the mess to feast on last night’s leftovers.  The mess cooks seem to have attended cooking classes during the winter, what with the eclectic variety of quasi-vegetarian dishes they are experimenting with and all? We get twigs with the rice, worms in the rajma, cockroaches taking swimming lessons in the water jugs, cats in the sambar, and aloo in aloo paratha. I’m kidding abt the last two ofc!!  This morning they had decided to serve puris and aloo sabzi. Puris made out of hard vulcanized rubber and deep fried in concentrated sulphuric acid and the sabzi consisting of yellow gooey dog refuse that would have left  Hannibal lecter getting all squeamish and running to the nearest bathroom. I make my way to the nearest table and sit down. It is then that I realize that I’m still wearing my Bermudas.

The residential warden walks into the mess with all the pomposity of a roman general returning home after a long, victorious campaign. With all the alertness of a hawk looking for its prey, he looks around and spots me, or rather my Bermudas. He comes over to my table all frothing at the mouth, with a ridiculously contorted facial expression like he has chilly sauce smeared all over his bottom, and in general acting like a maniac who would make the Joker fear for his life, and starts howling like a flatulent, old wolf with a bad case of constipation.  Expletives, snarls, and spit alike spurt out of his mouth continuously for a long time. I shamelessly wait till he gets all tired and starts panting like a steam engine before resorting to my favourite tactic of “Hindi nahi jaanta”. Then the moron gets all preachy talking about the traditions of the 150 year old insti and starts dispensing moral homilies about Indian culture which he had no doubt rehearsed for some 5^th grade elocution contest. He even goes so far as to say ”It is allright to wear Bermudas in your room, but while stepping out, you must respect your culture.”

By not wearing my Bermudas??!! WTF!!Dude, this is Indian institute of technology, not Indiana institute of technology.

Distraught at my abject humiliation in the mess, I trudge back to my room at a pace a herd of tortoises stampeding through peanut butter would scoff at. Deep, dark, morbid ‘Bagga-esque’ thoughts start surfacing in my mind. I start contemplating the various ways to commit suicide. Do I kill myself with books at the library? Do I eat the burgers at Nesci? Do I attend classes at the LH? Or do I just attend NCC? My train of thoughts is stopped by the realization it is Sunday and I have NCC sessions today. It is better to be dead than be late for NCC.

I barge into my neighbour’s room, which thankfully isn’t locked. I wake him up from his deep REM slumber gently. Well, as gently as my large fists can manage. I ask him for his NCC uniform.  He starts out with an expletive but stops short when he realizes that the colossal mass of rippling muscles, with six pack abs and herculean physique standing before him is not the Hulk but yours truly deeply madly. He grins sheepishly, flips out an arm from under his covers, and points to his cupboard before going back to sleep. With a small tug of my little finger I open the door of his cupboard which immediately loses contact with the hinges and with the NCC uniform neatly ironed and kept there I dress up. I realize that I can’t find the cap (or beret if you insist). I ask him where he keeps his cap. He refuses to dignify this with a response, pretending to be asleep. I ask him again. He shows me the finger this time. I’m one of the greatest believers in the Mahatma’s principle of persevering with dialogue in every endeavour. But as the cliché goes “sometimes a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s to do” (even if that guy happens to be a uber awesome stud like me). So my attention for the next few moments is taken up with administering some well deserved slaps, the sound of which resonates along the corridor.

When I stand up again, the situation is pretty much the same as before, except that I’m perspiring a little and he is a contrite model of cooperation, with perhaps a slight reversal in the topography of his facial features. He gets up faster than you can say “Honorificabilitudinitatibus”. He flings clothes from his cupboard, empties his drawers, rips apart his blankets and bed, checks under his bed, puts his hand in the dustbin before he remembers that he had lent it to someone in the other block the previous week.  He darts to the other block like a bullet from the muzzle of a LMG and returns in a minute. He apologizes profusely for keeping a gentleman like me waiting, and I readily forgive him. I’m not too bad that way.

I make a dash for the NCC parade ground.

The whip bearing Azkaban prison guards who are recuited as NCC commanders over here are cruel, heartless beasts who, if, someone faints during the drills, leave them lying on the ground under the blazing sun, only to be trampled upon later by the marching cadets. Naaa, I’m kidding ofc, the commanders are kind little souls who immediately pick up the unconscious cadets and rush them to the hospital, where they are drugged, operated upon and discharged the next day. Minus a kidney or two.

The corridor is deserted. All the room lights are off. Apparently, everyone’s gone to the new DJ event happening at the large, colossal, open space near the UG Club sparring several thousand square centimeters. Deserted and alone, I stand in the lawns, the cold wind engulfing me like a venomous python around its prey. Ennui creeping into me like a fast developing tumour, I decide that I have to go the DJ event before I turn into an icicle. This time the event, like all the other events so far, consists mainly of self proclaimed uber cool dud(e)s (who were all probably major playboy studs back in their respective native villages) wearing collared-up fluorescent tee shirts and oversized dark shades. Which was cool. Except that it was night. They all have one more thing in common- brought up on a diet of Set Wet and Bryllcreem ads, they all tend to believe that it is necessary to pour a bottle of gel on their heads(or was that oil?) to get a crown of greasy, smelly fibrous mush and later spike up their hair to resemble that of a cat before setting out of their rooms. As always the DJ Springeez (imported from the wastelands of Siberia), after a round of ‘angrezi’ expletives and much guttural, constipated roaring kicks off the proceedings with an awesome himesh crooning – Tandoori nights. To the beats of which, the aforesaid studs start practicing sunny deol steps with all the grace of angry chimps stomping on cockroaches, and moving their hands all over their bodies wildly like they had just bathed in itching powder.

Ofc there is the other kind of suave and sophisticated dud(e)- the one who just stands there, not dancing or anything, but ogling the infinitesimally small number of girls with the half smug smile and a “I know you think I am hot” look.  He does little else, just gives ppl those cool, calculating looks with a cocky grin on his face, and waits there to give autographs to his fans from the audience. All he has to do is say “Meouw”, and you have to peel the girls off him to let him breathe. Or so he believes.

The girls –many of them with half a kg of makeup on their face and decked up in bridalwear- were playing their part as well in making this a night to remember. Ofc, there were those who could make rakhi sawant feel like an Eskimo. The repertoire of their dance steps runs the entire gamut of pelvic thrusts and heaves. Not that I’m complaining though.

After a long and hard day, I get back to the hostel. I see the silhouette of a shapely young maiden with long flowing hair following me. I feel a familiar stirring in my Bermudas (familiar bcoz it is my cell phone vibrating, you perverted bastards!) The silhouette unfortunately turns out to be that of a freshly bathed sardar with his hair untied. So I remove my cell from my pocket to read the message received. –“Hope you got the key, it lies on the window sill as usual.”

I read five point someone a couple of months back. Despite being in an iit, I found unable to connect myself with any of the characters in the book, and found the book a little far-fetched and cut off from reality (especially the getting laid part. Yeah right! Try getting laid in an IIT and you’ll know. You’ll have better chances at the Vatican) Nonetheless, it was an amusing read with an interesting plot. Which is more than what can be said about one night at the call center, the plot of which is about as interesting as, and contains all the excitement of a national geographic documentary on the inter racial marriages of the members of the zulu tribe in Africa (Believe me, I’ve watched it.), with more holes in it than the roads of Bangalore during monsoon. Chetan again tries his hand at a badly concocted brew of subtle humour, (which again matches the subtlety of a sledgehammer hitting you on your head, and is as iterative and monotonous as a for loop in a C program, so much so that I couldn’t help but scream out “Stop, stop. I get it, I get it” while reading the book) and pathos, with splotches of mushy lines being thrown in for good measure. As far as the pathos is concerned, I can honestly say that I’ve been more moved by the plight of the losing contestants of “Rakhi ka Swayamwar” than the characters of the book.

Now all of you must be wondering what made me, who, incidentally, hasn’t been diagnosed with any mental illness till now, go out of my way and buy the book. Well, staying in no LAN’s land with a useless comp (with only freecell and solitaire in the games folder) for a companion equipped with an even more useless modem, coupled with the fact that TV was rendered useless as you could bounce an eyeball at the kotla pitch made me leave my humble abode and seek out a book on which I could waste my otherwise worthless time. Ofc, ‘Rocket Singh’ was running successfully at the multiplexes around my place and worldwide (or so the makers would like us to believe) but I would like to clarify to my readers that contrary to popular belief, I am not a masochist, and, no, I do not enjoy inflicting self torture. Now, the more sceptical of you and the singularly persistent, might question my motives in buying this particular book despite myriad other books being present. To them I say, blame the USA. Yes, it is bcoz of that godforsaken country that I find myself broke as an aftereffect of the economic recession they unleashed upon an otherwise wealthy world. Cash-strapped as I was, I wasn’t looking for a long term affair with an expensive 1000 odd page book, but a one night stand with a cheap one. (And boy, the book took cheapness to all new depths!) So it was either on@tcc, 3 mistakes or two states and I made the grave mistake (for the sake of Indian literature I hope that it was a mistake) of buying this lame excuse for a book.

But I digress. Coming back to the plot, the book starts off with chetan bhagat sitting in an empty compartment of a train, when a hot chick enters. And that is the end of the interesting part of the book. Now, I would have expected established writers like him to be well versed with pick up lines like “hey, is your name summer?” “No, why?” “ coz I think you are hot” (hehe. Lame, I know. But considering it was Chetan Bhagat, I coudn’t resist taking a dig) But like every IITian endowed with cotton-wool balls, the writer does nothing of the sort and goes on a mauna vrat for an hour or so. Then the chick decides to tell him a story on the condition that he will write it in his next book, and so begins the story. Basically, the plot revolves around the life of a loser called shyam, and his loser friends. Nothing like a story about losers and their lousy lives to attract crowds to buy a book during times of recession, eh folks? Neways, shyam works in a call center which he hates. He is low on confidence, and has just been dumped by his unjust girlfriend priyanka, who is also his colleague, and hasn’t gotten over it yet. Shyam also has a new semi-girlfriend Shefali whom he doesn’t approve of completely, but still hangs on to coz he’s tired of jerking off to porn everyday. His best buddy is varun, my namesake I know, but there ends the resemblance. Varun or Vroom as he’s known has a fetish for bikes and nurtures a hatred for america that the CPI and taliban combined cannot match. He’s infatuated with esha, a colleague who is supposedly pretty but pretty stunted in height and cranial capacity. She works at the call center at night and sleeps with fashion designers during the day. Radhika is a married woman working in the call center who is too dense to realize that her husband is cheating on her. Military uncle is an ex-army man working in the call center to supplement his meager pension. He has parted ways with his son, who lives in the US. He constantly tries to talk to his grandson but is castigated by his son, and rightly so, what with the growing number of paedophilia and incest cases in the US.

 Does shyam get back his lost love or is he left jerking off for the rest of his life?

Does priyanka truly love shyam or is she secretly a lesbian taking advantage of the newly revoked section 377?

Does Vroom become an anti-american terrorist or does he replace prakash karat as the new leader of the cpi? Is he successful in wooing esha or is he left married to his bike for the rest of his lousy life?

Is esha’s lot restricted to the BPO industry or does she sleep her way thru the modeling industry?

Does radhika dump her cheating husband or is she okay with a threesome every night?

Is military uncle just a benevolent grandfather doting on his grandson or is he a Michael Jackson fan with sinister designs? Can this septuagenarian with hormones still raging, leave the call center and make more moolah by becoming a poster boy for viagra??

 And the most profound of all – Is this a story written by india’s most popular writer or is this something some italian guy came up with, while banging a hooker in a las vegas casino????

To find out the answers to these profound questions, get your fat derrieres off that seat and buy yourself a copy of on@tcc OR you can just read further. As a coup de grace to this epic saga of love and lost love, the author comes up with a brilliant ending. An ending so meaningful and so well thought off that it will leave you marvelling at its intrinsic profundity. The author comes up with an ending on these lines – Imagine you are caught up in a precarious situation – something akin to hanging at the edge of a cliff. Also imagine that you have your cell phone. What would you do? Call 911??

Well, 911 just got obsolete. Coz you can call up God! And as added bonus, during times of recession, you don’t even have to waste your balance calling up God, coz God calls you, even if your cell phone doesn’t have a battery!! And that is precisely what happens in the book. God takes up the role of a counselor and not only saves them from their dangerous situation but gives solutions to remedy their messed up lives. A brilliant ending! An ending so blissful that it left me, an atheist, screaming in wonder “Oh God!”. An then, the author finishes off on a lovey-dovey note that would give karan johar and yash chopra a run for their money. Also, and this is the BEST part of the book, the hot chick in the train turns out to be well, God.

I know many of you might have read this book already, but for those of you who haven’t, a piece of advice- avoid it like you would avoid a dark alley full of mangy curs with rabies on a full moon night.

And those of you who are out of your seats and off to buy the book, try tossing a few bricks in the air and see if you can bounce them off your head while you are at it.

P.S: I know i’ve bashed up the book pretty badly but boy, after reading the book, was i pissed off or what!!

P.P.S: Roorkee, here i come.

 Oh, I have to warn you, this auspicious moment marks the return of my PJs as well, so proceed with caution.  

                And a lot many things of paramount importance seemed to have happened during my absence- rakhi sawant has got married,  nobel prizes have been auctioned, yash chopra has dished out cinematic scum yet again, paedophiles  have died, tigers have been snared,  and fellow bloggers seem to have got their 15 seconds of fame.

                And in the time that I have been away, ive got my 42 seconds of fame as well for ive been around searching for the ultimate answer of life. Well, atleast in IITR life. To the ultimate question- How to effectively cheat in exams? And its not been a Sunday picnic ride for me folks, let me assure you.  In my quest to find the answer to ultimate question, I have been to the Himalayas, the vindhyas, the andes, the steppes, the south pole, the north pole, inside mariana trench, the top of everest, unexplored Amazonian jungles, inside mount Fujiyama, Mars, the IITR library. Okay, okay, I admit, im kidding about the last two ofc, but you get the point, right? And in those two months, I have achieved what took the Buddha many years to achieve – nirvana. (Ofc, I had it on my ipod before, hehe).

                But my humility prevents me from taking all the credit, as this profound knowledge has been garnered from various sources – celebs, politicians, sportsmen, ascetics, cows etc. So here are the methods:

The rakhi sawant method: For this method to be successful, you need to watch all the episodes of ‘rakhi ka swayamwar’, being telecast on the appositely named NDTV??Imagine!! at least ten times. Coz this is not just another reality show. It is a revolutionary, breathtaking, gutwrenching, heartbreaking, mindblowing tribute to the institution of marriage, relevant in today’s kalyug world. Go to the exam hall in the guise of a simple, cultured, traditional bharatiya pativrata naari, wearing half a kg of makeup of on your face, with fake eyelashes and equally fake football sized silicone replacements. The epileptic gait, ceaselessly fluttering eyelids, and demure giggles are sure to charm the crap out of the examiner. A few item numbers in the hall might help too. Your friends can cheat while you manage to distract the examiner. Ofc, you don’t gain anything out of this method. But being altruistic comes as a part of being rakhi sawant as she has constantly been working for the upliftment of her masses, err.. I mean, the masses ever since her stellar performance as a chick with a dick in masti. And yeah, before I forget to mention, you need to be a guy for this method to work.   

The rajnikant menthod: Perhaps the greatest caveman of our times, his Neanderthal machismo, and simian flamboyance have long since kept bad ass villains at bay, so much so that he could give marvel comics superheroes a run for their money. Now its time for him to take on the examiner. Or rather, its time for you to take on the examiner using his method. And for that to work, you need to go to the exam hall in all your hirsuteness, for that gives the intimidating effect. If you are bald, or don’t sport a moustache, this method won’t work. Well, it will work if you can manage to transplant that annoying hair from your chest, underarms and you know where to your balding head and face and still maintain a straight face. Or you can get a wig and make up as he did for rs 3 crore in sivaji. (Ofc if u had that kind of money, you wouldn’t need to take exams.). Memorize a long list of expletives and go recite the same in tamilian  accented english in the exam hall. Then tell the examiner how you will pulverize every bone, tear every muscle, slice every vein, rip every nerve, pound every organ, pull every hair out of his body if he doesn’t  let you cheat in the exam. That should be intimidating enough.       

The salman khan method: In the lineage of western superheroes like superman, spiderman and batman comes india’s very own bald headed eagle sal-man. Brought up on a diet of smoked salman, this bollywood superhero has an idiosyncratic aversion towards deer meat, and has made it his duty to eliminate the scourge of deer in india. Now, as for the method- go to the exam hall with flexed arms, oiled biceps and err… bare chest, and showcase plenty of brucelee-gone-tipsy action which is sure to send chills down the spines of footpath dwellers and black bucks and  ofc the examiner. As barrack obama would say, yes, you khan. I mean yes, you can.

The govinda method: This is the no.1 method. Wear the brightest fluorescent pink, yellow or orange tee shirt that you have to the exam hall.  As the examiner will be blinded by the glare of the tee, you can sit down and cheat. If the examiner happens to possess a pair of highly advanced UV reflecting shades, showcase your belly dancing skills and start singing songs with abstrusely profound lyrics like “ main bhel puri khaa raha tha, raste pe jaa raha tha” and poignant pity evoking lyrics ”meri naani mari to main kya karoo”? the examiner is bound to be touched by them and will remove his shades to shed his tears,  either at your abysmal dancing or at the poignant songs. He will be blinded again and you can cheat.

The tiger woods method:  As I approach the world’s best known golfer to know the secret of his doing well academically in school despite his inclination towards golf, he replies “What school? Dude, I never  went to school”. On being asked how he managed to do well in exams despite not attending school he replies with a sly grin on his face, “Simple, man, I just slept with the examiner. Before the exam, while others were working their arses off, I just worked on the examiner’s. I’m a tiger not just in the golf court, you know.” With the revoking of section 377, even the happier lot can try their luck with this method now.

The mamata bannerjee method:  March to the exam hall and claim that cheating is your birth right and you will have it. If the examiner doesn’t subscribe to your views, gather all the farmers in town and organize hunger strikes, bandhs, marches, nude marches, and burn down a few buses asking for the banning of examiners in the exam hall. After  all, didi isn’t known as miss BANnerjee without good reason.

The jayalalitha method: Probably the easiest method if executed carefully. Send police commissioner Muthukaruppan(or anyone else u can get your hands on) at the break of dawn to the examiner’s house and have him arrested. So you can cheat all you want during the exam while the examiner is busy counting the iron bars.

p.s: These methods will definitely not get you the blessings of goddess Saraswati, and maybe not even a BC (branch change) but they most certainly will get you a BS (Back save).

p.p.s : Awaiting the next big revolutionary show on ndtv??imagine!! – “rakhi ki suhaagraat” eagerly.