My turmoil with Facebook

Do you know why facebook is that popular?

I don’t . Im on a mission to figure out. But somewhere I end up at a brick wall. See, on one hand they say Facebook and its likes was the reason the Middle East turmoil grew into a revolution, but on the other hand I watch a guy update “BRB, need to pee”

Yeah yeah I know. It’s easy for films to be promoted, for events to be organised, for discussions to be held. I also know it’s the first place you need to visit when you switch on the lap, the first place to update your status after ditching your girl, and the first place to say “Im vettiiiii( Tamil slang for Im not doing anything interesting).

First things first, what is this POKE

You poke me? And then I poke you back. And from that I infer that you are a living person something like CAPTCHA?

Everyone’s got this new Facebook. There was a new Facebook previously that everyone hated because no one likes change. But now a new Facebook has come with the “Timeline” just like in twitter.  In user interface design, a subject which has no future in Anna University syllabus we learnt a principle KISS- Keep It Simple Stupid. I see homepage and I’m thinking what do I look at? Newsfeed, ticker, chat, lists, groups or 23 lame Stories.

Facebook and me have this big bond.

I have awesome friends. We go a long way back in school. First we fought a lot. Physical, verbal, virtual, you name it and we did it. Then in one major twist of fate, cupid no wait cupid’s partner Friendid struck us and we became like best buds. Pictures, hangouts making up for all the lost love. There was even a time when we used to go every single day to the beach ( not me, I would catch pneumonia ) just to meet up.

That was what like years ago. Then one fine blue day, a friend posted a single update about a stupid little silly thing regarding a man who might have no relevance in our lives in a few years from now, a man stupid enough to hold the whole country at ransom about passing an Anti- corruption bill while thousands of people are dying from hunger. So this other friend comes along acting like the old man’s prodigy and doesn’t approve of it. After a hundred comments of “***** you shut up “ and “bastard, your life sucks more than mine ” ,all hell breaks loose.

We used to play this ‘kaa and palam’ thing.’Kaa’ would mean showing up a thumbs-up sign signifying cutting off friendship whereas ‘palam’ signified entwining your pinkie finger with the concerned person meaning  that you are friends again. This fight reminded me of those days. He would not speak to her because He didn’t. Another ‘he’ would secretly speak to her for old friendship’s sake. Another he would try to reason with everyone and say stop behaving like idiots.

Then there’s this thing called EGO, it’s a pretty big thing around here. A simple sorry could have done it , but no .What’s life if you don’t complicate things ,right?

There are 3 kinds of situations when you get involved in a fight. First, you are wholly/partially at fault but too stubborn to apologize. Second, you aren’t at fault but you prefer waiting for the other party to come talk first. It’s their mistake after all. Third, you care two whoops about what’s happened. Just go talk. Respond if you like or just get on with it.  

We’ve all been in that place.

Current situation: I think I’m surrounded by Benjamin Button’s clan. I could have been a little influenced by this behaviour now that I’m actually dedicating a post to this insignificant topic. Coming back to the fight, we played the Cold War epically for 4 months. Some people were too angry to think straight, some didn’t know there was a problem in the first place and some didn’t fucking care. I don’t blame you, I wouldn’t too.

Things are fine now. At least on the outside. Now I’m going to get all mature and say “Never judge a book by its cover”. By fine I mean, my friends still put up pictures to show that they can have fun without “them”. TIT. 

TAT would entail putting up pictures just to show they can too.

I started off writing this post wanting to abuse Zuckerberg for coming up with the Facebook but now that I see , its not his fault at all. He’s just smart enough to cash on the dumbing down of people. Im going to be hopelessly optimistic and wait for the day when people stop obsessing over comments or how many Likes their DP gets and just MOVE ON.

M.E

I'm not going to talk about me, so you don’t have to run away.  Mayakkam Enna . I waited for three weeks,got rave reviews from friends and then decided to give it a shot.

     There are 3 main shots in the movie

1.  Photographs
2. Scotch/Wine/Brandy whatever
3. Hero's cry me a bucket 

INTRO:

Starting is nice only. Gang of friends staying together in Sundar ( one of the friends’) house..  Hero’s parents die so friends take care of him and his sister. Super-strong friendship and all that. Hero wants to make it big as a wildlife photographer and come on National Geographic’s cover page. Till that happens ,he makes friends and sister pose with sunlight rays effect for  Effect . Now they paid Richa and Dhanush equally im guessing. So before long, Sundar decides to “date”  Yamini(Richa something ) and introduces her to his bestest buds. The fact that he had liked a girl and asked her out without telling irks them. So many green-green words emerge from karthik’s mouth. She gives him one tight slap. That time itself full story falls into place.

VILLAIN

Madesh Krishna as villain enters the scene.Hes this big famous wildlife photographer who Karthik begs to be made as assistant. No matter how much he humiliates him, karthik decides he is his God. Madesh makes him take beautiful bird pics which he takes credit for. Parallely, Yamini grows more fond of Karthik. She dates Sundar but wants to be Karthik’s girlfriend. Sundar is the typical kudigaraan. He loves his girlfriend and his best-friend but in the end they stab in the back and hook up.

HERO:

He dances well,has sung 2 brilliant songs. Sema acting also. First Madesh yells at him, so he starts crying. Then he kisses Yamini in the heat of the moment. Again he starts crying. He’s confused about Yamini , he starts drinking and crying. He runs away ,clicks photos ,comes back and starts crying. When his picture wins national award for Madesh,he starts crying and breaks his head.

Now he goes slighta mad, starts drinking,crying,screaming ,hitting his wife and gets her aborted accidently.  Now Selvaraghavan (directorji) realises that audience wont sit for more than two and a half hours. So he decides enough crying and makes hero drink his one last beer.

HEROINE:

Yamini looks great. She knows tamil but talks the peter English . She loves slapping people she loves.  Everyone in the gang has the hots for her (guys I mean).But she says no to potential  new husband saying “ Don’t aasai pattu for other people’s wives”.Virtual slap on the face.

Twist le she turns out hero in the end. She sends hero's elephant pictures to every magazine in the city.Kumudam prints one and Karthik boy starts working again in the jungles of Africa. By the fate of the Lord one original old picture gets nominated for  Photography’s best award which he obviously has to win.

Tada.

First don’t leave your useless husband. He might just hit his head again and show your picture on international television. Second, go marry your friend’s girl-friend. Its half your work done. And last, grow a ponytail. Best thing about the movie.

Love me, please.

Long long ago so long, I used to study in an awesome school. That was the phase when we hated boys and vice versa. It became so bad that the teachers came and requested us, yes the girls to reconciliate with the boys. We ended up chasing up them up till their haven, i.e the loo in order to make friends. Never happened till the end.

                Then suddenly things changed. The “I think I like her” and the “crushes” began.  We would randomly put two and two together and tease them to death. Some of them actually developed into actual relationships, so thank me.  Some changed schools, some people liked another person ( worstu heartbreak ever) and some just remained , well a crush.

                As we grew older, things got more fun. Go out. Have fun. Get bored .Move on. The cycle continued verbatim.  Then things got serious. Girls would drink 10ml of Allout mosquito repellent envisioning suicide because of some boy she adores but doesn’t even know she exists. The poor chap, he would have done nothing wrong but now has a potential girlfriend on the side-rails. Boys would mouth the cheesiest of dialogues and girls would fall for it. Both parties knew it was flattery, but who cares when it works right.

                Today my cousins are all being crossed off the bachelor list. Friends have found their soul-mates, one even got married recently. I hear cinematic dialogues “If I don’t marry him, then I shall never marry ever”. Rekha style. Then there are those who finalise marriage plans with their respectives but break up after the lamest of fights the following week.

Typical day.
Boy B wakes up, sleepily sends “Good morning honey” hurriedly to girlfriend G.
That’s rule number 1: No morning sms means half an hour of G screeching “You used to text me all the time. Look what happened to us now.”

B forgets his thickest of friends and spends 3 months travelling by bus to save for G’s birthday present. And on the D day, she says “You don’t love me anymore! You didn’t even get me nice presents.”

Gets me reminded of that hutch ad- wherever you go,our network follows. The more submissive partner gets to be the pug.
Then culture.You aren't Brahmin. How will we get married? You will eat actual living things ? Your father will have a heart attack if you run away and get married.Ah the Indian sentiment chappa .
                                    Friendship in the name of love or companionship in the name of commitment.People make that mistake. These committed rascals even call up every other week asking if their "poor " single friend has found someone.But research shows that staying single might just add 10 years to your life.No tension ka policy ,mamu . And unless its that 4 letter word that everyone says they are in deeply in, its really just not worth it !
                                     

DAY3#Fun things to do when your college slams an indefinite closure on you

DAY 3

First thing running in my mind when i wake up - Last day of that Awesome breakfast and Dinner.

Today is Jaipur sightseeing day.

We set off stomach bursting towards the old part of Jaipur and learnt why it was called the pink city. Some phoren prince fellow was visiting Jaipur and we being the ever-sweet, guest loving country that we are( we let the British rule us for how many years?) decided to paint all the buildings pink to welcome him to the city. I guess they still follow that rule, cause even the new buildings in that area are painted pink .


The Hawa Mahal - for the ladies to look out and see whats happening without disobeying the purdah rule

From here we went towards the Amber Fort. I think thats the single best thing about Jaipur. From the elephant ride to the actual fort , i think it was spectacular. The elephants used to go on countless trips to leave visitors at the entrance to the fort but since one elephant fainted due to exhaustion the Govt stepped in and made it mandatory that each elephant is allowed only 5 trips a day. My elephant-driver nicknamed his elephant Ferrari , obviously you ll know why. He would have overtaken atleast 6 elephants, i held on for dear life but it was a lot of fun. 

A lot of Jodha-Akbar scenes were shot here. Aishwarya being carried away to be married to Akbar  is along the above road. The sword fighting scene is inside the same fort.

One of the gardens inside the fort- everything is symmetric and beautiful

One can spend the entire day inside the fort. The maternal house of Jodha bai is here and all the houses have holes to allow the women to have a look at the proceedings of the day without venturing out. We next saw the Jantar mantar. It had a whole lot of physical instruments indicating time and day which didnt make any sense to me and i doubt the guide knew what he was talking about. 

Anyway this was what i was tallking about - something about the stars and all. Physics and me -no connection

The Jal palace in the middle of the Man Sagar lake in Jaipur . Some hotel has bought it and plans to convert it into a resort type place. Looks majestic, guessing it'll take a fortune to stay there for a night.

Got so interested in the mughal history that i bought this book at the Airport .Its the first of the series chronicling the lives of Babur, Humayun and then Akbar. Blow-by-blow account of their lives , it was worth the read

Brilliant time .Met some great folks there.

 My phone tricked me.  Airtel somehow welcomed me to Andhra Pradesh when i landed in Gujarat . Still trying to figure how that happened.

Cheers :)

DAY2#Fun things to do when your college slams an indefinite closure on you

DAY 2


The next day we set off for Ajmer. Got up comparitively late, had the usual brilliant breakfast and set off with Bhagat Singh ,our driver. Now Ajmer is around 130 km away from Jaipur. The plan was to reach there around 11a.m and then do the Friday namaaz and leave

We reached and found a guy to help us out with the chaddar. We entered the dargah through the back entrance. I didnt quite understand why, we took an auto through the smallest of the smallest roads of India to reach one of the most holy renowned places of India

The main road leading to the Dargah super-crowded

I don't know how we got through that alive but getting into the Dargah and getting out was no mean feat. I got a little help from a small kid who appeared out of nowhere and shooed people who were coming in the opposite direction to make way for me. I couldn't even thank him, he just vanished after that.

A pot that cooks 4800 kg of food- just imagine how long that' ll take to cook

After doing our chaddar formalities , we had to do the prayers. Now ladies and men never pray together. Its always the women behind the men so that the men can't see the women ,and i mean literally. So this meant we had to find place for ourselves. Now first we found place to sit. Then they shooed us away saying that men had to sit there. That happened for every other place we sat at. Finally exasperated we walked out of the place and waited for the men to finish. Now , the jamaat prays on the road surrounding the mosque, so again the shooeing began. Finally (this is the last finally) we waited near the corner of a road.

Despite a bomb blast , scores of policmen waiting at the entrances and the bomb detecting entrances , its no big feat to bring in a bomb into the dargah. I had a huge handbag and all the policewoman did was to customarily open the bag and thrust it right back at me. No one seemed to follow the no camera, no mobile phone order.

What i learnt out of today:

1) Never go to a religious place on a Friday afternoon;

2) India is developed Yes, but not in every state. Ajmer looks like what Chennai would look 25 years ago.

3) Kudos to the dargah for handling unbelievable crowds like that. I dont know what they do , but they do it well .

4) Filth, pigs, dogs ,cats, impoverished people,diseases like encephalitis  - This was the real India.

  Had a mouth-watering lunch at one of the dhabbas. Simple but Yummy.

  Tired but Happy. Mission accomplished

DAY1#Fun things to do when your college slams an indefinite closure on you

DAY 1


It started off innocently enough with a small protest within college. It ended up in a 3-week long, well-publicized shutdown for no valid reason.

What i got out of all this was a well deserved holiday to JAIPUR.

The plan was initially only Jaipur and Ajmer. Once we landed there, our aWesome driver told us that 2 days for Jaipur alone would be a waste. So within that 20-minute drive from the Airport to the Hotel we decided on going to Agra ( jlt) 

Next day morning we set off on a 232 km drive and i did what i am best at, #Sleep. Yes, spectacular buffet breakfast+ the most comfortable Innova car + a non-bumpy drive is equivalent to the most boring lecture in my history of dumb subjects studied.

My first time seeing this masterpiece and it came as a complete surprise. Seemed more like some giant had just placed his beautiful little toy on Earth . I still can't believe that we( as in our species) actually built it. Pinch me.

We caught hold of some photographer who made us pose in THE most atrocious poses ever . Forget holding the top needle of Taj, that's olden style. Latest styles include the romantic gazes, the high jumps, the shy-bride look, the easy-chair look, the-i-am-thinking look and the-oh-wow look.Its difficult to give that intense look or even look your normal self when they ask you to look a certain way, so i ended up trying not to show all my remaining 28 teeth and looking quite the looker:p Sparing you the agony and not putting them up.

From here we rushed to Fatehpur Sikri. Without a guide ,going there is basically useless because everything looks the same at first sight. My dad told the poor guide that i didnt know Hindi ,so the poor thing had to make do with his rehearsed English speech about Akbar and his wives .I have to commend on these peoples English speaking skills, for their livelihood they actually learn an entire new language. 

Akbar's Diwan -i- Khas where Akbar would sit in the middle and his ministers from various religions would sit in the four corners

Akbar seems to have been this real cool guy. He had  many wives. But then the wives were of different religions Hinduism, Christianity and Islam etc. He provived different palaces for each of them and the architecture that he built was a mixture of each culture . The result was something brilliant. There was a palace which had been painted in blue and the paint was still intact despite hundreds of years of wear and tear

The Panch Mahal with gradually diminishing height of each of the 5 tiers

The Buland Darwaza which is one of the largest gateways in the world which is 54 mts high

The tomb of Salim Chishti 

Wonder of the world and also on the UNESCO World Heritage List  #bEautiful Agra

Soupy little Situation

CLICK THE PIC TO ENLARGE

Now MIT isn’t your average typical engineering college( not arrogantly boasting)  . No no , I don’t mean that because Abdul Kalam senior studied here … not because every 3rd  topper  gives a speech on SUN TV that he/she wants to get into the prestigious Aeronautical Department notwithstanding the fact that they have absolutely no idea why they want to join it in the first place.

                                              No, no. Oh no.Why because we did this and ended up dissed in the face.

Zipping it up.

@$^%&^*&**^

It’s the life saver when conversations with interesting people ( …) turn quite treachourously to “What else? “ and “Then ?”

It’s what keeps me occupied in the life-threatening lecture of all times

Its how I stay connected to 20 people at the same time

Its how I manage to keep my phone bill payable with that last Rs 20 top up

Its how I get answers to god-knows-what-answer-my-teacher-set-for-an-exam!!!

THIS isn’t just me ! This Is thousands of youngsters across the country cursing !

THE TRAI or  Telecom Regulatory Authority of India is one hogwash of a body that has absolutely zero sense

How is reducing the SMS numbers to 100 going to curb the spamming of individuals .

The fundamentally fucked up Indian mind must have come up with that one.

ME

The average college –goer, the i-hate-exams kinda student, the last bencher, the movie/music/masti lover, the curser-of-anguishcausing-professors, chaat fanatic - All rolled into one that’s me J

Three years plus of doing INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY and doesn’t seem like theres anything new up there in the knowledge zone apart from a little C /C++.

A job without a degree yet = one semester with no pressure !

Life’s pretty bliss at the moment. Touchwood. Change the Freaking Head and I can survive this year of college flying high !!

WE MISS YOU STANLEY SIRRRRR!

We miss your silent walk down the Admin stairs with your eyes fixed on the ground

We miss your cute, little, old-as-gold scooter in which you ride off into the sunset

We miss the way you never made being Dean a burden on us.

We miss how you never abused your position to directly torment us

We miss NOT having the right to cut/bunk/sleep in hostel whenever we like

We miss your non-interference in every small goddamn thing that students do

We miss you giving the hostellers the Uber-like freedom that MIT hostels were Wild for

We miss having the liberty to take bath in the hostel anytime we like; whether its 8:45 in the morning or 8:45 in the night.

We miss taking that last train, running, huffing and puffing to class, 15 minutes.

We miss you Sir

Please come back