Walk in the woods test

Despite being a strong believer in the fact that psychoanalysis tests are overrated, I still get fascinated when I have to sit through one. So here's one called the 'Walk in the woods' test. Write down the points as I mention and give your imaginations a real kick on the rear.

Imagine that you are walking through with a friend.
(1) Write down the name of the friend.

As you walk through the forest, you come across an animal. (2) What animal is it? Write it down.

You see the animal. The animal looks back at you. (3) what is your reaction at that point of time? How do you respond? Jot it down.

The animal goes away and you walk along and come across a house. (4) How big is the house? (5) What is the house made of? (6) Does the house have a fence?

You walk into the house and you see a dining table. (7) What do you see on and around the table?

You walk through the back door of the house. (8) You see and see a water body behind the house. What is it? (9) You and your friend walk into the water body and return back. How wet do you get?

Let's get ready for some piece of perspectives.

(1) You were walking with a friend through the forest, didn't you? That friend is the most important friend/ person in your life at this point of time.

(2) You came across an animal. The size of the animal is the size of the problems you seem to have at this point.

(3) You look at the animal, the animal looks back at you. The way you respond is the way you respond to your problems.

(4) You then came across a house. The size of the house is an indication of how ambitious you are at this point of time.

(5) The strength of the material with which the house was built is an indication of how confident you feel that you will achieve your ambition now.

(6) The house not having a fence is an indication of an open person who doesn't have a !ot of secrets between him/her and another person.

(7) You walked into the house and saw a dining table. If you didn't imagine people, fruits or dolls, you are unhappy right now.

(8) You walk out of the house and see a water body. The size of it is the size of your sexual prowess now.

(9) How much you get wet is an indication of the sexual desire you have for the person who is walking besides you.

+1 for those who think this is all true. +1 for those who don't think so.

The day has arrived.

0 days to go. Time to go.

The day has arrived. Packed bags, packed hearts, numerous goodbyes and reflections come flowing like an unsuspected avalanche.

When a senior took such a route a few years ago, I was an unsuspecting kid- I didn't have an iota of idea of what would transpire finally. All that came to my mind was the variety of chocolates that I could get my hands on. USA, to me, was represented by Barack Obama's 'Audacity of Hope', the failing football team, the NBA and the overrates American Football.

15 months ago, when 'What is he going to do after BE?' chatter went out loud, the thinking process commenced. I had dismissed US by then thanks to it's exorbitant Investments. I was Singapore-bound, mentally. And I made a rookie mistake- to prepare and write GRE. That's a mistake that would set the balls rolling, much later.

With a plan to work for some years and catch the long flight later, I sat for a few interviews. In the meantime, the GRE score was too compelling to push the deadline for applying to a few more years later. One fine day, I woke up and decided that it was a now or never chance. I had to finish the TOEFL test within a week (it was almost a disaster).

Although a lot of good souls motivated me, pushed me, self-motivation was sometimes reaching dangerous lows. I pulled myself to a consultancy finally. What was the first piece of advice they gave? "You will face some bouts of depression. You have to be prepared for that!"

Depression #1: Looking at the plethora of questions asked in the online application. The questions kept coming and I kept filling. The task of getting Letter of Recommendations on time was a challenge thanks to the schedules that the professors had. The SOPs took itts time coming to fruition.

Depression #2: You have applied. Now you wait for the decisions. You wait for sometime. You check the website daily. You double check daily, just in case. The 'Yes or No' will take time to come and each day passes with bated breath. At some point, you light want to think again if you applied for the right university.

Depression #3: You get the admits. Now you want the i20 (an official form given while you apply for VISA). For that, the university needs an assurance about your financial stability. Needless to say, not everyone is born with a silver spoon and the first piece of self-doubt if you are financially sound to pursue MS creeps in.

Depression #4: You've chosen the university and the course. You might have to apply for a loan. The banks have to avoid sanctioning bad loans (loans that are not repaid). Yet, the process of obtaining it is riddled with paperwork and people. Now, that is a dangerous combination.

Depression #5 and the most significant: You are moving away from your parents, family and friends for some time (long enough to cause longing). You can't taste your mom's thakkali chutney and travel to heaven for a brief moment. The lovely songs she sings while you wake up in the morning are not going to be a constant in your life for a while. You miss getting to see a man who is dedicated to the family like your dad daily. The family and friends you had will be miles away, despite the technology in hand. Let us admit it, Skype and WhatsApp are ways to just convince ourselves that distance is an illusion. The distance is huge. Ouch!

Yet, good things are worth fighting for. A new dawn has just begun. The good days are coming. Everyday that slowly builds up to those good days- the days when your father and mother are going to be so damn proud of you- will be definitely worth it. Miles to go, miles to go before you sleep.

The homemaker conundrum

25 days to go..

Over the past few weeks, I had a chance to meet a few relatives, family friends and others. I came acros what is, perhaps, the last generation of people who have a decent percentage of homemakers. The very concept of having homemakers, the pros, the cons, the stigma and the benefits of it are debatable. The fact that Germany is fast realizing the trend of househusbands unleashed is food for thought. Generally, what does an average homemaker do everyday? ("Does she do anything?", chirps the chauvinist). That's the homemaker conundrum.

One of them, a proud mother of two children whose ages hover near the heavier side of 20's physically and mathematically, has been a homemaker for close to 25 years. With her husband gone to work for long hours, she tells me that having a television was the best thing that happened to her. She casually remarks that she just wants to have the TV left switched on irrespective of her watching it. She calls it her own company and tells me that it gives her a sense of security and calmness that everything is going well. She tells me of various instances where she would slip to sleep while watching TV, some people would see her sleeping and switch off the TV. What happened the minute the TV was switched off? She would immediately get up and lose all sleep.

Last week, I went to meet a family where the homemaker had taken up teaching school kids after they came back home. (For folks not from India, this might sound weird. But this is true! We go to school to learn. After coming back home, we'll go to a 'tuition' to learn what we learned in school.). She started teaching kids because she wanted a way to channelize her strengths for something noble.

What started as a hobby is now a full time work after 16 years. Her son joined a boarding school. What did she get in return? An opportunity to teach the friends from his former school. "I see each kid as my own kid!", she says. Her students know the house in and out, remind her to take food and medicines regularly and get nice gifts for their birthday.  What started as a hobby is a perfect  regimen for her.

What made them choose what they are doing is the puzzle. Let that stay in the Pandora's box for some more time.

The first book

32 days to go..

Circa 2008. 

Summers always start early and end early in Coimbatore. I had just finished one more year clueless of my existence. I chanced upon the book gathering dust somewhere in the nook of the shelf. 'Gora' by Rabindranath Tagore. Rupa Publications.

Thanks to being a poor reader, it took me an entire month to consume the book, consume the emotions and jump into a sea of characters. West Bengal has always been at the forefront of thinking forward compared to the rest of India. The book introduced the concept of soul-searching, self-contradiction and of being resolute to me. Set in the early 1900's, the topic of orthodoxy pitted against progressiveness was dealt with such subtlety. I could jump into the life of Gora, the protagonist and not know if I was truly progressive or truly orthodox. 

Over the years, I have wondered how enchanting it would have been to read the novel in its native language with the Rabindranath Tagore touch. The comparison, sadly, had to end there thanks to my absolute lack of proficiency in Bengali language. I have also come across some jigsaw puzzles from the ocean of journalists of how Tagore had been an absolute hypocrite when it comes to women empowerment. 

But it doesn't matter to me now what he was, as a person. It was in the summer of 2006, when, as a clueless kid, I visited Bangalore and a distant relative of mine offered me two books and told me, "Here, pick a book of your choice! You can have it!" 

I don't remember what was the other book (It had a picture of a train on its cover). My instincts were to take the book which had more pages. I picked Gora, then. To the distant relative whose name I don't remember anymore, thank you for introducing me to the world of books. 

“I've travelled the world twice over,

Met the famous; saints and sinners,

Poets and artists, kings and queens,

Old stars and hopeful beginners,

I've been where no-one's been before,

Learned secrets from writers and cooks

All with one library ticket

To the wonderful world of books.”

- Janice James

The central ambiguity.

33 days to go...

The story.

Once upon a time, there was a business who ran a business conglomerate. He was getting old and wanted to pass on his business acumen to his son and introduce him to the business clientèle. He came up with a plan- to arrange a business party. He told his son about the party and that he can invite a person, exactly one person, of his wish. 

The son chose to invite his friend. This friend was from an economically poor background. /On the day of the party, the son was looking forward to the party and his friend. Fifteen minutes before the party was set to begin, the friend walked in, poorly dressed. The son was startled and asked his friend why he was not in proper attire for the party. The poor friend told him that he had given his suit for laundry but that the laundryman had failed to deliver it on time.

And I break the question to the students- If you were the businessman's son, what will you do at that point? 

Most of them (read as 'Almost all') had an almost similar answer. While one student tells me that he will give the friend a new set suit, another tells me that he will allow him be a part of the party and that his attire doesn't matter. It is at that point that I will introduce my friend, Keyser Soze, to the class and give his answer- if I were the son, I would have asked him to get out of the place. If I were a diplomatic person, I might have done the same in a polite manner. (Oh, diplomacy is just going around in circles and circles. You will still be at the same starting point.)

And then I give them what the 'psychometric test' concludes:

Those who gave the friend a new suit, those who let the friend be a part of the party without bothering about the attire are people who are 'emotionally driven'. The folks who drive the person away from the party are those who are 'goal-driven'- the goal is to obtain familiarity with the clientèle in the business. 

One part of my work as a Verbal/Soft-skills trainer is over. Normally the class is filled with so much energy. The 'psychometric' test ensures that the individual energies are packed into one ensemble. The result is that I gain the attention of the class. 

Over tea with the fellow soft-skills trainers, we discussed the same question and the topic funnels down to a Goal-driven person. Just then, you want to introduce a new variable- Selfishness. 

The same story might have been used by one of the teachers in school to indicate a selfish person- one who is motivated by what he thinks will be beneficial for him. The kid who forgets that you should also jump into the not-so-fitting shoes of others and think about their side of the same story. We proceed to brand that kid as 'selfish'.

As we grow older (and forget what naivety of thought is), as we forget the art of questions, we are conveniently buying the idea of people being 'goal driven persons'. Suddenly, the imaginary appraisal forms in our minds give him the top rating.

Wasn't that kid who refused to offer you the extra pencil he had 'goal-driven' because his 'goal' was to ensure that he finished the exam without any hiccups on the stationery-front? Suddenly the most loathed kid of the school days has become the 'most focused and ambitious person' who will dream and achieve big. Why? The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Speaking about psychometric tests, take this and wonder what you did: 

http://higherperspectives.com/relational-psychology-test/

The Violin (Mis)experiment

86 days to go..

It was during the school days, while watching (yet another) ‘Sachin tribute’ video that I came across some beautiful music. It took me a week and some more days before I found that it was a composition by Ludovico Einaudi. All I could make out from the music was that there was violin involved and that the violin got me involved too. A few years of being high on Pink Floyd and Einaudi ensued. But the attraction for violin never ebbed.

It was during one of the depressed days of the first semester in college when I decided to stop being worried and become awesome. And then it dawned on me, the perfect springboard to that would be Violin. I wanted to be the next Einaudi or maybe at least the next Yuvan Shankar Raja with his copied Irish countryside music. Summoning all my sources (Google), I tried to find the best violin in town that wouldn’t earn a straight ‘no, I’m not buying that for you!’ from dad. After a bit of negotiations when I turned a salesman for violin in front of my dad, when my dad had to listen to all the stories of Ludovico Einaudi, Irish songs, Ilayaraja with a ‘when are you going to stop this lecture’ look, he had two options in hand. Either put up with the salesman-pitch-son or find peace. He chose the latter and decided told me one day, “I’ll get you a violin under certain strict conditions”. Curious to know what they were, I egged him to elaborate. “You have to get proper tutelage. So find a right teacher. Practice at home when you are alone, initially. It will be peaceful”. Unaware of the things he implied, like when I install new software, I agreed to all terms and conditions put forth.

The next issue was buying it on a perfect day. After dad proposed the day of ‘Saraswathi poojai’ as the day I get my hands on ‘OMG! Violin!’ I agreed and we reached a consensus. It is an auspicious day to start anything new, the day when Kindergarten schools would mint money for a ‘noble cause’ and new Yuvan Shankar Rajas will create their first piece of (distasteful) music.

I found a nice teacher although I was not always on the right notes. He welcomed me with a promise to allow me perform at the yearly musical show of the academy. Motivated enough, I used to carry the violin to the classes back and forth like a soldier carries his solemn gun. Two months went by, the horse-hair on the bow gathering dust regularly. The C sharps and F sharps would make me feel guilty before I go to sleep. One day, as the teacher, was trying to help me out with the majors and minors, I had the big picture in front of me- I would never major in the art. Semesters went by, Saraswathi poojais came when the Violin was kept in the forefront during Navarathris (causing huge embarrassment every time someone asked me to play it) but the ‘Violin-touch’ never came.

To make the Violin find some purpose in the concrete dwelling, I lent it to the family’s female Ravi Varma so she can draw it. I hoped she would paint a picture of me holding the violin and in high tones. But the violin had its revenge- she painted the violin with the background of a thick bush- indicating the dust it was gathering day in and day out.

I’ve discovered the truth. Dad had told me, “Practice at home when you are alone, initially. It will be peaceful”. He probably meant his peace. Maybe the teacher, in promising a chance during the music show, forgot to add “If you still keep coming” to his promise. Maybe, I should have symbolically bought a veena instead of violin to earn the goodwill of Goddess Saraswathi. Now, I will probably do a dubsmash with a violin audio and try removing the ‘dubsmash.com’ watermark out of the video.

P.S. Violin for sale. The above statements would go a long way in indicating that it is a ‘new piece of equipment’.

Office times in Bangalore

86 days to go..

November 2014, when I was stringing through the Statement of Purpose to apply for universities, Siemens Industry Software Limited made a quick round of Internship recruitment in the college. I don’t know if it was the lack of choices or luck, I was one of them selected (which I got to know a month later. A month, at that point of time, felt like a lot of time). To get at least an internship, after interviewing with 7 companies and writing numerous first rounds felt good. 

Add to it a 3 month training program in the college to ‘groom’ me to be an intern-recruit in Siemens and weeks of straggling with the final year project and not knowing if I’ll be allowed to go ahead with the intern, there I was, in Bangalore in the first week of March. 

By that time, I had got a few admits from universities and was naturally inclined to tread the software-job without much seriousness (even otherwise, I was lazy). On the first day of the internship, after the boss walked me through the project assigned to me, I wondered how it would be to finish the project and walk away with a spring in the step. The amazement didn’t last long. I was given the task of configuring and introducing a new module into the software- a cakewalk for the techies in the office, a walk on the bed set on fire for me. When I tried to install the software, I bumped into a lot of problems with the computer throwing new cards stating ‘I simply won’t let you get along with me so quickly, dude’ every now and then. By the time I courted the software into submission and figured out that installing a piece of software with license was an ‘Achievement Unlocked’ moment, it was already a month and my team was behind the schedule like North Indian trains during winters. 

That’s when I learnt the power of connections and networking the ‘Ouch, it hurts’ way. Having stayed in office the entire day, I would still be lost for ideas. That’s when some programmers who simply didn’t find reason to go home would oblige to my SOS calls and stay around to help me make some headway. During the times when I was a few hours away from a solution for the project, the ‘Project presentations’ in the college would be rescheduled at the last moment. I would run around like a hare trying to get a train ticket back to Coimbatore and all the momentum would get washed away.

My team reached a dead end at the end of the first month, the half way stage. That’s when we decided to abandon the sinking ship and take a different route. Within 2 weeks, we had one module of the project up and running, thanks to the gracious amounts of help from our mentor and the innumerable trips to the pantry to refill the hot-chocolate cups. I spent a few nights in the office too, pushing myself home after sunrise and catching up on long lost sleep. The software-bull was well and truly tamed by then. 

The last two weeks were spent making mad runs between Coimbatore and Bangalore trying to douse the fire in the final year project and the Internship project. By the time the third review in the company- a conference call review with 16 people on the phone and my PC shared across cities- was over, the college project was over too. When the fire was doused and the haze surrounding it cleared, I had no doubt that I learned a lot in terms of work ethics, what I should do (from others) and what I shouldn’t do (from me) and having ‘that’ corporate air. And the people in charge of the pantry had learnt their lessons too- stacking up a lot more sachets of Hot Chocolate and Lemon Tea.

A little faith

88 days to go..

Another topic was passed across the table- 'A little faith'. Initially, I didn't find the thought process to go about it. I removed the impulsiveness of writing, sat back and went into retrospective mode. That's when, I realized that 'a little faith' is interspersed with almost everything I do.

I walked into the TNEA admission hall, 1 more seat left in the Production Engineering Department of PSG Tech. As the numbers trickled down slowly, the heartbeats went up so high and the one thing that probably carried me across the finish line was 'a little faith'.

I jump into a town bus (certain topics are contagious) with 'a little faith' that there will be an empty seat. I get myself a ticket and wait for the conductor to issue the change with 'a little faith'. Oh, and I have 'a little faith' the bus will be on time to the college and that I'll get the first hour's attendance.

When I have a train to catch, I'm eternally late for it. So I go to the station with 'a little faith' that either I'll be on time, or that the train grinds into a halt at a nearby station and is late. In the train, I have a little faith that a little rendezvous with 'a perfect match' will happen or that I will get the tastiest 'molagaa bajji' in my life.

As a kid, I will peer deep into the bag that Amma brings home with 'a little faith' that something to eat will be hidden. If not looking into the bag anymore is a criterion for 'growing up', I will be forever a kid. I will munch into the Lays packet for a while and will inspect all corners of the empty packet with a little faith that there will be one more piece of chips left to devour.

I go into the exam hall hoping for an easy paper, wait 'impatiently' on the results day and calculate the GPA, all with a little faith. When a favourite company comes in for recruitment, and at the end of a mixed bag day, starts announcing the people whom they've picked, I have a little faith that I'll at least be the last person called out and recruited. I apply to universities, pay a ransom in the name of application fees, console myself telling me that everyone has to pay the ransom, and submit it with a little faith that the University will roll out an admit.

I might sound preachy, but a little faith inevitably keeps the scene rolling day in and day out. I might not find that empty seat in the bus, I probably will never walk into the 'perfect match' in the train, there might not be an extra Lays packet and the company may not offer me a job, but there is always a little faith. Aasai. Nappaasai. Peraasai.

Multiple Personality Disorder

88 days to go..

What comes to your mind when you come across 'Multiple Personality Disorder'? As a boy who grew up consuming entertainment from the 'rise the price, lower the size' TVs of 2000's, it reminds me of Anniyan. Slightly literary folks might point to the Sidney Sheldon book 'Tell me your dreams' as one that comes to your mind.

Recently, over a conversation with my friend, I chanced upon this disorder again. Disorder, really? From the medical, psychological forefront, one would agree that it is indeed a disorder. But how does one view it personally? More specifically, what do I feel about it? 

Everyone has Multiple Personality Disorder, according to me. What differentiates one from another is just the way one carries himself with such traits. The way I speak with a bus conductor (old topics are contagious) is different from the way I speak to my friend. Is it me adapting to differences in circumstances, people and the like, or is it the multiple personalities in me responding when their turn comes? 

I feel, that it is the multiple personality disorder that differentiates us from the sheep (I don't disagree on the physical standpoint). The honourable Viva-Voce examiner asks a question and it elicits different responses from me and the guy sitting next to me. Sometimes, I have to stretch the neck and tell the patient examiner that I want to correct myself. Ain't there a small change of personality at that point of time? 

We are sheep ourselves, aren't we? When I want a bonafide certificate, I turn to the one who recently got it and ask him to get me a photo of the same. During UG, when  I wanted to complete the assignments, I asked the topper and carefully printed his words in my sheet, avoiding 'errors'. The high school teacher tells me, "If you don't have those three words in the paper, no marks for you!". So I carefully make sure I build a story around the three words as a response. Then, I become a sheep. When I became the class representative (reality check: Disasters happen), I became a donkey, carrying things around and alike. There are just too many cloaks that one dons over the course of an hour, a day, a week and so on. Does it deserve being called multiple personalities?

When an individual professes something and doesn't follow it- hypocrisy, to be exact, does he suffer from MPD? Did I suffer from it because I kept typing Multiple Personality Disorder and now, I wanted to type MPD? Can traitors, betrayers and turncoats be naturally diagnosed with MPD? Let me just extrapolate and ask if politicians come under the ambit of MPD? 

To me, Multiple Personality Disorder is a trait that everyone possesses and it is the game changer that defines an individual. Without it, we are just rudderless in the vast ocean (and for modern folks, in front of a TV without a TV remote).

"Remove everything from an imperfect life and it'd lose even its imperfection"- Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami.

I'd like to call it a case of Multiple Personality to keep everything in order. 

The lazy bus rides.

91 days to go...

Bus rides have been a cornerstone during my college years. I owe my frequent jogs inside the college, in the morning, thanks to them. It all started a month before I joined PSG Tech when the college was the venue for my BITSAT exam. After the exam, my friend offered to drop me. He ended up dropping me in Sungam, a place with shady public transport to my house, in a parallel direction.

I went to college by bus on the first day and four years later, for one last ride back home too, ID card in tow. My friend, Harish, had an interesting start to his 'bus days'. He was prompt to get down at Peelamedu, but not his bag. It got stuck between the footboard-rajas and he ended up running along with the bus for a while before the stuck bag got undone. It would turn out to be the start of a truly boring day for him... and for many of us too.

With my fellow companion, Srinivasa Raghavan, we would discuss hopeless things in the world. Calling the seven girls of my class the seven wonders, recalling in detail all the assignments we didn't complete, discussing the potential hotshots of my college, we wouldn't miss much. The long queues to get the bus pass at the start of every month tested my patience. But it was all worth it.

On nice days, I would be one of the four people on the bus, the driver and the conductor inclusive. On odd days, when I took a particularly famous (or infamous) bus 16B, I'll be one of the innumerable people jostling for space, oxygen and a bit more. The conductor would coolly remark, "Nee kaal vecha edathula rendu per nikkalaam paa!" (Two people can squeeze into the place where your leg is), These conductors, with their belief that the center of the bus is a black hole and can suck in any number of people would go to the extent of making someone walking near the bus-stop get in.

Conductor: "Hey, where do you need to go?"

Random guy: "No, not this route!"

Conductor: "This route will take you everywhere!" and showel him in.

Every other guy will get disgusted with the crowd and breathe out... on the person standing next. And the next guy, and the next guy. I'll remind myself that not only yawning is contagious, this is too.

On a particularly irritating day, a random old guy with an obsession for giving lectures would remark, "Yenpaa college ku bag kondu pora" (Why do you carry a bag to the college?"). I would wonder what to reply, then think the better of it. The conductor would sometimes look down upon those with the bus-passes like we are about to steal his whistle and leather-dust bag. Some conductors would ask for the bus passes just to sign them, like the IPL captain signing a match ball for a clueless guy chosen by Vodafone.

On weird days, I have run to find a place in the only empty seat on the bus and realize that the guy sitting next to you is high. People, drunk, telling the world is going to end, the tomato prices are increasing, the quarter prices are increasing, the sub-standard side dishes he got at the TASMAC shop and the like. One guy chose to ask about who I am, where I come from, what I do, and remarked, "Enna maari irukaadhe pa! Nalla padi! Padichu munneru!" And I let it be.

I haven't always been the right guy in taking the buses. Once, I took a wrong bus, ended up going to the outskirts and realizing it only when a song playing on the phone ended and the conductor was calling out the name of an unknown place. On one occasion, I took a rather ungainly route to the college, passing through two lakes, numerous foreign birds and covering a distance thrice the distance to my college. Sometimes, school kids with bags double their sizes would get in and the conductor will have a field time pulling their leg.

During certain romantic days, I would encounter one of my crushes on-board the same bus. On that day, you will despise the conductor for disturbing you as he issues tickets. If the bus gets crowded during such times, the entire society will earn your wrath for making conspiring to block your point of view. Some days, I have encountered drop dead gorgeous people on-board the bus and wondered how the entire universe is conspiring to get us to choose the same route, same time and most importantly, the same bus. Some days, I'd see an old person, vacate my seat for him and feel like a boss. There have been days when I've dropped 500 rupee notes and some 'God sends' have stretched and retrieved the cash for me. Likewise, I've done the same too. And I've wondered sometimes if 'Good Samaritan-ship', so to call it, is also contagious. Certain things I've realized during those lazy trips:

1. Think twice before you iron your shirt, you will eventually have it crumble when you get down.

2. It is not a bad idea to wait for a slightly empty bus. Patience is a virtue learnt while waiting under the hot sun.

3. Never put a song on your phone speakers as you listen. The number of people who like the song will be more or less equal to 1. Worst case scenario, 0.

4. Interesting things happen on lazy days. And when you expect interesting things to happen, those are the days when you are on the footboard.

5. You will have to fall off the bus once or twice. Then you learn that you are an idiot and you adapt.

6. If you give 50 bucks and ask for change, you will be looked down upon. If you give a 100 rupee note or sometimes, a 500 rupee note, the conductor will shoot this look as if you are a terrorist.

7. If you ask for change in return, the conductor might sometimes behave as if you asked him to hand over his lunch. If you do the same and offer him a one rupee coin, you are exempted from the above rule.

Summer or winter, good or bad, jam-packed or empty, bus rides are rich with experiences and have provided me a plethora of perspectives. And buses are such a great leveller- divided by schools, colleges, bank-balances, companies, social classes, religions, but unified by the conductor's yell, "Change illaama edhukkuyaa bus la vareenga!"

Anti-Engineering stance, being a rebel and being noticed.

97 days to go.

Circa 2011. As I started my years in college, this was all over Facebook and a website on ventilator called Orkut. "Engineering has made me unfit for anything in the society. There was a barrage of jokes on Engineering Mathematics. Engineering Graphics was the coursework equivalent of Hitler. I had shut myself in a shell during the first few months, India was losing badly to England (4-0 whitewash, hands down except Rahul Dravid) and hence, my instincts to come up with a new Facebook status were tied and dumped into the bottom of the sea. I would realize a year later that this trend of foul-mouthing about Engineering, blaming it for making one's day frustrating was not a one off. This drudgery was trying to be a wannabe rebel and jump onto an instant springboard for toothless fame would not be a one off and would peak at specific instances of the year. The first few months after joining the first year and during the semester season.

And all this while a determined few, pencils and books in hand, sat down to grind through the basics and set a platform for the next few years. Some got themselves busy trying their hand at sports. Some sold their capabilities in the hope of getting noticed by various clubs and associations. Some walked slowly behind tutors because they had unfortunately raised their hands first and become the Class Representatives (no one volunteered to be the Class Representative ever since. Some precedents are meant to be dumped then and there). They went unnoticed then. 4 years later. They would rise like a phoenix, unperturbed and fly into the orangish, bright and elite horizon.

Where did the rebels go? To temples, to numerous interviews and to Facebook to provide occasional blockbusters about R S Aggarwal not helping them much and some more anti-Engineering chants. They were on par with their version of R S Aggarwal. There always are rebellions of the hopeless kind. Like this, for instance.

Some more days. Many more notes.

9th May, 2015.

99 days to move from Coimbatore to Wisconsin* (Terms and Conditions say hi), possibly. There might be things that I want to remember, things I want to remove the veil of. 99 days are good to do it, I feel. So let me make my feverish pitch. This blog will be serve as a home to my observations, thoughts, anecdotes and some more things under the slightly hot sun. Let me cut the slack and serve the cake.