Golden GC!!

a small piece of news, of no value to anyone who was not in IIT-KGP..

RK Hall has won the golden GC, the first by anyone for 17 years.. i.e Sports as well as Soc n' Cult.. well done boyz, everyone else, read and weep baby, read and weep!!

am on a really sentimental trip after reading that news.. days and nights of blood, sweat and tears seem vindicated, and at the same time rewarded. :-)

village studs

continued from yesterday's post about the stars of the village.. for one to be a stud (or studette).. a few things were compulsory:

• have a high GPA (CGPA in kgp lingo) - the stud must be the kind of person who doesn't feel the pressing need to attend class or labs, yet will have assignments done and submitted just before the deadline, and will only be seen in the proximity of books the day before the exam, where he/she will score outrageous marks.


• play some sport at collegiate level - the more sports the better actually, but the stud would have to be playing for the college team in some sport. during practise will usually look uninterested but at the time of need will step up and do the business.


• excel in social and cultural activities - the stud would have to be a star in at least a few of the following: dramatics, music, debate, elocution, choreography, creative writing, art, illumination activities.


• be an integral part of SpringFest - this was the annual college festival, officially 4 days of revelry and music, but with over 4 months of long nights and hard slog in behind the scenes work. at the very least, the stud would be a member of the Steering Committee.


• be respected among his/her peers - the studs would have their opinions sought on all sorts of wide-ranging issues, from how long the ragging period should be this year, to what should the hall budget be for the annual farewell. also, all prospective college election candidates would seek them out for their blessings, and proudly bear the label 'stud-approved'!


• have an 'in' with the authorities - blessed with smooth tongues and slippery dispositions, the studs would time and again be called upon to keep the profs at bay, and disciplinary committees would be convinced by their golden words that indeed no social evils pervaded the corridors of the residence halls.


• be good-looking and/or very charming - a good sense of humor is almost secondary for the stud, as he can win over people with his charm and/or looks. his entry into a eating place or a hall would be followed by a general hubbub and pointing of fingers.


• have a girlfriend (boyfriend for the studettes) - usually the studs went out with the studettes, or the 'item numbers'. it wasn't difficult to tell them apart. the studettes would be seen gallivanting down Scholars' Avenue (the main thoroughfare) drunk with their boyfriends, singing the entire The Doors repertoire, while the 'item numbers' would be hanging on to their studs for dear life, staring into their eyes dreamily.


• finally, the stud would have some sort of flaw - this was very important in perpetrating the legend. our hero would have to be afflicted by something that would taint his perfect image, but not enough to make him 'one of us mortals'. this could be anything from chain smoking, getting over a bad relationship, binge drinking and associated hell-raising, fits of depression.. you get the point.

the stud was never a shy retiring person, usually basking in the limelight and very visible. and like with all rules, there are exceptions to these, and they prove the rule. they know themselves.

village people

so last time around i showed you a glimpse into life at the village.. this time i'll tell you about the village people themselves. for those who missed it, the village in question being IIT Kgp.. and the people being the inmates. inmates you might think is a strong term, but life there at its worst is so inhospitable that the stress and the related dramas make life in the POW camps seem a not so distant reality.

certain monikers coined by the press about these inmates have been blown out of proportion, and led to fill the innocent with awe, the innocuous with admiration, and the insipid with disgust: "cream of the country" and "braintrust of the nation" among them. it is true that this just might be the hardest group of colleges to get into, with over a hundred thousand applying for some five thousand seats or so, but any honest IITian will tell you that they are not much different from any other engineering student.

i'm sure there are lots of folks out there who work much much harder than we do, and probably are more intelligent too. so yeah, i guess what makes us different is how we handle situations that are thrown our way.. which basically means we try a little harder to goof off work and still look good about it!

this is no way takes away from the achievements of those who went to IIT and were focused on their studies, and are now in positions of responsibility all over the world. i applaud them. but they are only a small percentage of the lot. the majority of the bunch go in there knowing that it'll smooth their path into a lucrative future, and getting in was the hardest part, and things should only get easier henceforth. sometimes this attitude hurts IITians when they go out into the world, because suddenly no one thinks they're the bees knees and a honest day's work has often become a forgotten concept. either that, or i had really been hanging out with the very wrong crowd in undergrad!

anyways, beyond all that, we had our fair share of characters too.. theories of group behavioral dynamics confirm that even in a group of similar individuals, some will excel and some will fail, some will take responsibility and some will be led, some will study hard and some will drink hard.. and the best part is that even the smallest population units will show this spectrum of characteristics.

from these pools of uniformity often there shone some stars.. people labelled as 'studs'.. all-rounders of the highest calibre, who studied, worked and partied with equal aplomb. i saw my fair share of studs in my time, and they served to inspire the masses with their deeds of daring. and as with all heroes, if they had a slightly-flawed character, it only served to enhance the legend..

more on the studs tomorrow.

village memories

trudging to the lab this morning through the inches of snow, i find myself remembering the days of yore. actually, the days of undergrad. i studied in an eastern corner of India, a place called Kgp, that would be glorified beyond belief were i to call it a village. the campus was it. everything outside the campus was the way the British found it when they landed in the mid-1800s. they too left it the way they found it.

of course, i exaggerate.. but only slightly. most students did their to-ing and fro-ing on bicycles, as these represented the optimum cost-benefit anaysis. within cycling range were two very important landmarks, which seemed to have made progress towards development. not strangely, both these establishments sold alcohol.

establishment no. 1 was Waldorf restaurant. despite the lofty name, let it not deceive you into images of grandeur. Waldie's was a chinese-operated joint, in a pretty grimy building, with dim yellow lighting and tired fans that turned slowly. they lost their liquor license soon after our freshman year (i solemnly swear i had nothing to do with that), but the food remained excellent. a lynchpin in that menu was this dish called "half-fried chicken". i know the name is dubious, but it was basically half of a poultry animal of the chicken vintage cut into bite-sized pieces and fried. much much better than KFC, and even now tears come to my eyes and my tongue flops around in my mouth as i type the name.

there were ways of getting over the Prohibition there though. the head-waiter (i use the term loosely) there knew of my affinity for rum, and thus whenever i ordered Pepsi, my 'cola' would come already half-poured in the glass. later on we realised that if we tipped him heavily, we could just bring our own alcohol to the place.

the second establishment was the Park Hotel. again, i urge you to not go by name, as this was no Michelin-star wielding kind of operation at all. but it was new, and had an air-conditioning, which actually only served to recycle the cigarette smoke-laden air back into the place. the food was passable, but a few beers down the hatch made it downright enjoyable. the company was well-pleasing though, for all the riff-raff of the campus would show up.. Park on friday night was like a status symbol. it was well-pleasing because there is nothing more enjoyable than knowing your table was always booked, and when you would get there, the table would be cleared away and stocked with cold beers and red-hot tandoori chicken. yum yum.

the real fun would actually begin after dinner and drinks. funny thing with alcohol is, the more you drink the thirstier you get! so the drunken walk back wheeling the cycles uphill back to campus involved a detour to the humble home of a fine upstanding citizen who went by the name of Venky. as befitting the purveyor of untaxed (and therefore cheaper) alcoholic products, he had a big dog and a little garage. since Venky was a fine upstanding citizen, he slept early. so we had to climb the gate and knock on his door to wake the fellow. but the aforementioned dog was moody, so when he rushed you as you clambered over the gate, one couldn't be sure whether he was welcoming you or trying to decide which part of you was the meatiest.

usually a biscuit or a "good boy, down boy" would do the trick. i think dogs sense a oneness of soul with me, and let me live. then would follow a communal digging out of pockets and pooling together of banknotes and coins from deep dark recesses where the sun don't shine and the rain don't pour. hey, it's money, and it buys alcohol. let no more be said.

like the three wise men of the Bible, bearing the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.. errm, alcohol and other 'herbs' actually.. we would return to C-313, the haven for the weary and the den of iniquity, as someone so rightly pointed out once. at which point the revelries would begin, but that is another story, for another day!

RSF!!

ok.. going with the dark and gloomy day outside.. it has been decided that the time has come to pour vitriol on some certain RSFians.. savals valsa kumar chakkamadatil (aka Agent T aka 'tawla') - if you are online and available, please do us the kind favour of replying, and not signing off when ppl msg u.. u see, i don't really care, but koshy and abi will kill you - you do NOT want Kommando and Lambz getting mad at you!! And then there is our food engineer, pinku - dude.. it's really no point having a cellphone is it man?? i think we used to get to speak to you much more when you did not have the cell!! since you never respond to any other form of media, i guess i will try this way - bunty is in buffalo from 2-11 july, and ranj from 29th july to 14th aug, and arul is flying in on 1st aug, so if you could do us this great honor and maybe come up for a few days? we shall remember this favour that you do for us with everlasting joy and happiness as to how blessed we are! in fact, while we are on this degradation trip (for fans of jerry cantrell, i sincerely apologise! especially to you abi..) arul, where are you!! how was your trip to bangy? and how are your bevy of beauties.. dude, we eagerly await with bated breath!!

went for Thursday at the Square with ashish and mimi.. dudes.. all of u who missed this.. eat your hearts out.. cos magna-fi and fuel just simply ROCK!! magna-fi are opening in every leg of ozzfest this summer, and fuel.. well, fuel need no introduction.. ('hemorrhage-in my hands', 'down', 'shimmer', 'bad day', 'falls on me'..) it was simply mindblowingly amazingly good shit!! and guess what.. that was not even the best part!! the hot chicks there, and the even hotter chicks who were body surfing.. niiice!! yum yum!!

went to Bobby McGees with sank, nats, mal and vipul to watch lakers get their yellow asses bitch-slapped all over detroit after that.. sad game.. and then ashish and i had the inspired idea of going to Third Base.. good call!! met kelly there (she was off-duty today).. i finally got kelly's number today!! :-)) and met her bf too :-(( met her friends dodi and alisha too.. hmm.. dodi(sigh!!).. both ashish and i have gone bonkers over her.. despite her being married 6 years and it being her 29th birthday on saturday.. happy birthday dodi!! kelly has promised to hook us up with some friends of hers if we show up tomorrow.. now we have an excuse to go to Third Base tommorow!!! as if we ever needed an excuse to get hammered!! kelly was really sweet; she ended up putting on her tab two beers and i dunno how many shots for me .. there were these pineapple rum shots we had.. dudes and dudettes.. u so wanna try this stuff out!!!

now that i'm good and hammered.. i think it is time to quit this blog while i am still ahead of myself!! g'nite people!!