What is love?

“What is love? Baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.” Goes that hit song by Haddaway, dance hit of the 90’s. So, what is love? How do you define love?

These are some of the meanings of this magical 4-letter word that I came across via numerous sources:

• A strong positive emotion of regard and affection
• Any object of warm affection or devotion
• A beloved person; used as terms of endearment
• A deep feeling of sexual desire and attraction

Therefore, is love is nothing but infatuation?? Is it entirely physical in nature or that shallow? Isn’t “the greatest thing in the world is to be loved and love in return???” What’s with the hype about it, then? When the lexicon itself fails to provide an accurate meaning of this “term”, where would we turn to, I wondered … time to turn to some good ol’ conventional gyaan gurus…

Poets have written about it, musicians have raved about it. The layman fantasizes about it. Hopeless romantics croon on the subject of it. Skeptics [and people of sound minds] scoff at it and cringe at the very mention of it. Movies, beyond any doubt, make a gargantuan deal over it. I’ve heard people say “hey I loved that girl sincerely for 2 yrs..”, then what happened, I asked. To which he said, ‘Oh, then I married someone else”. Defenders of romanticism will guard their stand stating that love is relative, you would not know unless you experience it, blah…blah…

So is love “Joy”?

When in love you must be:

1. Dreamy eyed all the time
2. Sigh [aanhen bharofy] at periodic intervals
3. Doing slow motion running in Swiss Alps, or similar
4. Lip synching to Sonu Nigam, SPB, or similar
5. Combining all of the above in dreamland.
6. Looking out of your window, stare at the vacant skies with chin rested in palm, with such a zany grin across your face, your peers get psyched out and almost dial Kilpauk, or similar.
7. Some nonsense about appreciating nature’s beauty …[like roses seem more sanguine than usual] which might lead us to believe that all nature lovers are pantaloons, or similar.

So if love is not joy, then is it “pain”?

When in love, one must also be:

1. Emaciated
2. Lose track of eating and day-to-day activities
3. Feel absolute misery when you don’t:
1. Talk to that special person
2. Meet the one you love.
3. And end up looking at their framed photo by the bedside [or the wrinkled copy in your wallet], and your mind takes you across the world to the Swiss Alps where you meet them …[which brings us back to the whole dream scenario.]
4. Lose sleep…[owing to all that dreaming…]
5. Fight with your lover’s parents over monetary issues, or similar …
6. Burn holes in pocket due to splurging of gifts [candy, cards, talk time, etc.]

Allright, head majorly woozy due to info overload … The gyaan gurus have confused me quite a bit, so let me try and précis what I’ve been able to grasp so far …

If (love==one way) then

{

Grow beard, get drunk

Wear torn shawl, sing songs of woe [preferably alongside a flea infested mongrel]

}

else if (love==two way)

{

go to previously enlisted points

}

else

{

Default: dump current object and seek (new object)

}

End if

End sub

Hmmm… that’s about it I guess.

PS: this was just the author’s humorous take on the phenomenon popularly known as “love”. Not intended to hurt the sentiments of the lovelorn readers or those who have been lucky to find true love.

Pottermania astounds !!!

This year turned out to be a double bonanza for harry potter fans. With the release of the 6^th installment of the series coming out on July 16^th and the release of the 4^th book’s movie made version on November 18^th. Goblet of fire has already grossed 141 million dollars and broken the record set by Starwars 3: Revenge of the Sith, only doing it earlier by 4 days. This movie was directed by Mike Newell, whose famous works include the romantic comedy, 4 weddings and a funeral. [!!!!]

As I walked into the theatre, I let go of all expectations. This is because Alfonso Cuaron had done an annihilation of the 3^rd book. Hell lot of haphazard narration, really cruel omissions. Et al. I managed to watch G.O.F on the 3^rd day, but got tickets only for the night show. And what a surprise it turned out to be!!! The 10 ‘o’ clock show seemed to be just like one of ‘em normal shows.

House full !!! Lotsa kids, Plenty of families, gangs of girls and guys. [Primarily young adults]. Only thing, the parents were happily dozing away in their seats owing to a hard day’s work… whilst the children sat in their chair, gazing at the screen, enraptured by the ongoing sequences. Kudos to Mike Newell. I’d have to hand it to the guy. He squeezed in about 700 pages of content in to a 2 hr and 30 minutes movie. Excellent narration, superb visualization, and the triwizard tournament is simply fabulous.

The first task and second tasks were awesome. But if only the sphinx sequence was included in the final task, it would’ve been a l’ll better. The climax is again amazing, but one would have great trouble identifying Ralph Fiennes beneath that hideous make-up. The cast was average, but the 2 bangladeshi girls who played Parvati and Padma don’t seem to look like twins at all! [Even from miles away…]

S.P.E.W, all ‘em elves, Ludo Bagman have all been cut off from the movie as well. But the way the movie was edited was such that no one would feel their absence. [Except for the potter aficionados, of course]. Either way, a person who hasn’t read G.O.F and yet watched the movie, would still make complete sense out of it. [Unlike P.O.A, which was a catastrophe!] My classmates who hadn’t read P.O.A made the biiiig mistake of watching the movie and were like – “What the hell……”,”Can’t make sense out of that crap movie..” and so on. Alfonso Cuaron ultimately succeeded in dampening fan’s expectations of P.O.A. [which is my favorite book in the entire series.]

Chris Columbus had done a laudable job with the first two potter movies, if only he had taken the third as well. Now all we got to do is wait for the final book and the Order of the Phoenix [the movie, i.e.]. Mira Nair [yeeeech!] was offered the opportunity to direct O.O.T.P, which she rejected. Let’s hope someone as good as Mike Newell takes up the job.

Memoirs of Mortal Kombat4

This is an ode to probably “the best arcade game ever”. I’m not much of a gamer myself, but I was quoting the words of one hell of a crazy gamer. I discovered MK4 in the 1^st year of college. [All right, I can hear all you gamers scoff, but games never really enthralled me that much.] I’d never been into games that much before. [Although I did play road rash and midtown madness quite a bit, and this game in which zombies take over an airport and I have to save the civilians… don’t remember the name though.]

“Choose your destiny…” goes a booming voice once you select your mode of “kombat”, be it one-on-one or two-on-two. I always went for the former. It all started sometime in mid 2003, when a friend of my sister’s came over and installed it. It was love at first game, ladies and gentlemen. I punched [or rather hammered the keys] my keyboard persistently, and my clumsy fingers had found a home. [Although if my keyboard had a mouth, it would probably cry out loud with its tales of woe…]

This is the story behind Mortal Kombat:

“Thousands of years ago in a battle with the fallen Elder God known as Shinnok, I was responsible for the death of an entire civilization.

To rid all realms of Shinnok’s menace I waged a war that plunged the Earth into centuries of darkness and banished Shinnok into a place called the Netherealm.

Now after Shao Kahn’s defeat at the hands of Earth’s warriors, Shinnok has managed to escape his confines in the Netherealm.

The war is now being fought once again. Only this time It can be won by mortals.

The Words of Raiden”

Raiden is the god of thunder. Quan Chi, an evil sorcerer, takes the side of Shinnok,an evil god, in order to plummet the cosmos into a never-ending realm of darkness and evil … Raiden and Fugin, the wind god must unite with mortals in this battle for the future of the universe.

Morning, noon and night I played. My fingers would grow numb with exhaustion. But still, I ‘d play, over and over and over again. What joy I felt each time I scored a “flawless victory”. I always chose either Subzero or Tanya. Don’t mean to brag, but I’ve won the game numerous times. [Be it at the novice level, nevertheless… :p]. At each level there was an adversary to win over. Starting from Kai to Shinnok, the evil god. I hated the penultimate fight the most. Having to kill Goro was the most chafing thing in the world!!!! Oh for crying out loud, the damn thing was thrice as big as any fighter, 100 times as powerful and had 2 pairs of hands. But after vanquishing Goro, winning the game is child’s play.

Although it seems to have lost out on the race for being the coolest game to – NFS, Doom or whichever game, I still think MK4 rulez!!!!

You know you are in final year when …

You know you are in final year when …

• The concept of ‘Kadalai’ seems futile to you.
• You start harboring parental feelings for all the members of the opposite gender. [Who are younger, obviously.]
• Your teaching staff are very, very friendly towards you.
• You know it’s only because you are leaving this year.
• You get these sudden rushes to do daring things that you’ve never dared to do before.
• You don’t do those anyway.
• The juniors call you akka/anna and you feel like the lady in the hair dye ad from eons ago. [The one in which she hears the echo of “aunty … aunty … aunty”.]
• When you are in retrospective mood for most of the days.
• When you start dreading the moment you step into the big bad world.
• When you start to worry about pay packages and laugh thinking how you were this worried last when you’d just finished school.
• When the most frequently talked about topics amidst your gang are:
• Who’s going to get married first/last?
• Who’ll have kids first?
• Where you’ll be when you are 25 … or 10 years down the line.
• When you get all choked up on hearing “Musthafa” from Kadal Desam or “Graduation (friends forever)” by Vitamin C.

Another brick in the wall – Part II

This is a précis of the last two years of my school life. This happened to be at a really, really orthodox school. It is one of the oldest schools in Chennai and is very well known in Mylapore. Yes, I am talking about L.S.G.H.S.S.

I’ll never forget the shock I got when I landed there. It was like a parallel universe! Most people I met in the first day barely spoke any other language other than Tamil. And I was greeted with surprise, [most people ultimately never realized I was tamilian too. They thought I was telugu or something]. All sentences sprinkled with a generous dosage of “Enna paa … sollu paa …”. Coming from an entirely different board was a huge setback for me, initially. From CBSE to good ol’ mug and puke, was not easy. I ultimately never understood why I was studying what in any subject other than my two personal favourites, computer science and English. I’ll never forget the immortal first words spoken by my computer science teacher. [“a gombuter iz a gomplex gombinasion of circuts…”.] Most teachers were astonished and wondered why I’d left A.D.V and come here. [for further details, refer previous post.] “Nee yen maa antha schoolaa uttu inga vandhaa ??”, they’d say.

But let me tell you this, while walking into the school premises, one would have the sure feel of walking into a time warp. It’ll feel like you are suddenly back 50 years in time… Starting from the old style buildings, to the amman statue kept on the podium, to the pictures of the ex-headmistresses hung on top of the walls. Everything about the people and the place would let, me say be distinctly Mylaporean. Everything about the school would be informal and laid back. Going by my experiences at the torture chambers earlier, this felt like a invigorating breath of fresh air…

What was most laudable about the institution was the way they let us study. They actually followed “Live and Let live”. [A.D.V could take a few leaves from their book.] So what if you got average marks in one test? You had scope for improving in the forthcoming test right? They never breathed down your neck, tortured your parents by barking orders at them as well. They never made you feel like you lost the world because you fared averagely in one damn test. And also, this school has a very homely appeal. I felt very awkward initially, but I gradually grew to like the institution a lot. Those two years have been very memorable. Most of us 63 students, ultimately ended up in good ol’ engineering colleges. [some in the crème de la crème, some in the usual self-financing]

Most of my friends in the other colleges are settled with jobs as well. Although quite a huge chunk of my friends from A.D.V ended up in super-cool colleges, I am happy where I am right now. No regrets.

Carpe Diem.

Another brick in the wall

“We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control …

No dark sarcasm in the classroom, teachers leave those kids alone…

Hey teachers leave those kids alone. ..

Before you know, you’re just ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL”…

This is the unforgettable chorus of “Another brick in the wall”, the greatest and most remarkable song that Floyd has given to the world. While brainstorming for an apt blog post, this song passed by my thoughts and I was instantly reminded of my wonderful school life… Truckloads of flashbacks and nostalgia. My school, the excellent A.D.V school for girls [name changed for reasons] was supposed to be one among the best in the city. When told that you belong that fine institution, people would always say ,”Wow that is an excellent institution..” yeah, right. What did they know, WTH did they know?

I had every reason to hate the institution, my best friend left the school in the middle of ninth grade to settle in the US [thank god for that] now she’s doing really well in a very reputed university. You go girl.

For those who weren’t lucky enough to emigrate [ppl like me], they were stuck with finishing off school in the torture chambers … School kids all around my hometown referred to my school as CC. CC being Concentration Camp. The institution, in the name of maintaining discipline, broke the student down mentally and shattered the confidence levels of the students to smithereens … studying there was like a perennial stress test. The way they do major bheja fry when you are in 10^th and 12^th, hype up normal 11^th examinations was lurid!!! The favoritism, of course was in surplus. [In gargantuan proportions, if I may add] They chose this trinity of girls who would be showered with participation in all the events, made appointees and basically coroneted as the princesses of the batch. The above average students [basically everyone who was NOT (PRINCESS)] were shunned and given the good old demoralization routine. [Their own share as well as that of the princesses…]

But my “memorable time” at A.D.V school braced me for the real world. How mean people can get and how people should react in daunting situations. A.D.V was also instrumental in molding me to become the person I am today. I realized a few of my talents and was able to nurture them as well. I’ve been blessed with some gr8 friends who survived those torture chambers with me.

It’s been about 5-6 years since I embarked upon a trip into my school’s building. My cousin now studies in the same torture chamber; fortunately for her the insane basket cases have left the esteemed institution. I always leave her at the door. Always. When I drive her to school occasionally, I see the same psychopathic watchman and his barbarous wooden cane, which he beat on the ground to scare the kids. I smirk at the 20 feet, gray doors, which hold a flavor of impending doom about it. My mind is flooded with audio-visuals of my insane, tyrannical, neurotic principal and her cronies yelling, “If you don’t finish your meat, you can’t have any pudding! Don’t you hear me …”? Of course, the nightmare is over. I turned out to be just fine. 5 years down the line I find it repugnant when people are reminiscent of their wonderful school lives … Anathematize the institution, bedamn the princesses, for all I care.

Well, I am out, eating my share of the pudding.

Guess what, I never ate the meat. Ever.

Carpe Diem.

Trinity Teal.

A glimpse of futility post slogging …

Murphy more or less has a huge impact on my life. His laws, i believe are more or less written based on my life and experiences …. Like take today for an example .

Ladies and gentlemen, today was my biiiiigg mini project demo which turned out to be a big freaking blow up, not bcoz my project didnt work, but because the external was kind enough to spare us the efforts of showing him one. Whilst trying to look on the bright side, [very unlike me, but a l'll optimism wont hurt ya], i came to find that my team was not the only one blessed with the same treatment.
Hmm… strange thing these labs, you never know what to expect [marks-wise i.e]. But chronic geeks and nerds are always assured of a perfect score …. Yet another one of the biggest mysteries of the universe, awaiting to be explored.

But, i could not care less. What makes this experience all the more worthwhile is the simple fact that i was able to write gr8 code despite my illness and also , that with every passing moment.. i inch closer to winding up my college life!!! [curtains closing , et al] But instead of feeling all ‘Mustafaish’ about it … the only word that crosses my mind is …
“Whatever”.