Posts

Showing posts from May, 2006

A wonderful Summer Rain

Imagine how much we crave for a rain on a hot summer day. After a sultry evening, when you are enjoying a mug of iced tea, your eyes look heavenward for those lovely dark clouds. And suddenly, your heart fills with euphoria at the sight of a dark lining at the horizon. Your anxiety rises as the clouds rise higher in the sky. The sun plays hide and seek behind the clouds. A cool breeze caresses your cheeks. You are sure of a downpour that is going to happen soon. This was the condition that was there last sunday evening. The past few days were hot and humid. There was breeze in the night giving the feeling of an approaching rain. At least, it must have been raining somewhere around Delhi. At midnight, on sunday, we came out of our lab to go to NESCAFE. It was a junior's birthday. The smell of wet earth gave us the indication that it was drizzling. There was a strong wind. As we climbed down the stairs to the wind tunnel, we could see happy faces down there. Standing in the wind tunn

Vaidya and his friends: At the bus stop

Vaidya went to school in the school bus. Almost all the students preferred the bus as it was a cheap medium of transport. He used to board the bus at 6.45 am from a bus stop near his house. Shekhar also went the same way. So he would give Vaidya a call from the gate. His call was sort of the last moment till which Vaidya could wait. As soon as Shekhar called, Vaidya would be ready with his bag. He was so prompt that he would even leave breakfast halfway. Bus stop was the place where the friends circle of Vaidya grew. The day after he struck friendship with Shekhar, Vaidya was introduced to another friend Raj. Raj was a good friend of Shekhar's and studied in the same class. He lived with his grand parents as he was very dear to them. His parents also lived in the same town but in a different locality. Bus stop was the place where they daily met. Their day started with the gossip of the previous day. While waiting for the bus, they discussed about what happened in school, what they

A terrible day at IIT

The day began for me when I was woken up by Anoop at 12 o'clock at midnight. He says "I am through with the book, now you can start studying it." It was the notes of the Major exam that I had today*. This was the last exam of the semester and that too for a course which was an audited one. Let me briefly descibe about the course and my performance in the minors. The course is aptly titled 'Selected Topics in IEC' meaning 'Selected Topics in (Inevitably) Educator's Control'. Whatever the teacher wants to teach, can be taught under this course name, irrespective of the relevance of the course to the students who are supposed to take this course. That is a way in IIT by which the faculty can teach whatever they want. No prescribed syllabus, prescribed by seniors as 'Not to be taken'. I wont be that harsh on this course. It was a course on Applied Mathematics for ELECTRICAL Engineers. (Now for the benefit of all the readers I am not mentioning the

Vaidya and his friends: In the evenings

That day, Vaidya went to Shekhar's house in the evening. Shekhar greeted him with enthusiasm. He had already mentioned about their rendezvous to his mother. Shekhar's father also worked in the aluminium factory. He used to have duty at different shifts. Today, he was on duty when Vaidya visited their house. Shekhar had 4 sisters. Three of them were elder to him and one was younger. The oldest sister used to study in a college in the city. The other sisters went to a Hindi-medium school in Birlanagar. After getting aquainted with all the family members, Vaidya and Shekhar went out to play. Shekhar had a cricket bat. In those days, not every child had a cricket bat and owning a bat was a matter of prestige. So Shekhar chose to bat and Vaidya took the bowling end. Shekhar was a good batsman and hit a lot of runs and won in the end. (That is just an information) Cricket was the hobby for both of them. So a game of cricket became a daily routine. At 4.30 in the evening, Vaidya would

Vaidya and his friends: The Rendezvous

One afternoon, Shekhar told Vaidya, "Come, let me show you my house". Vaidya attended 4th grade in the nearby school. Shekhar also studied in the same school. They used to return home in the same bus and got down at the same bus stop. Vaidya was the only son of his parents. His father used to work in the aluminium factory in Birlanagar for the past 20 years. Birlanagar is a small township located in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Vaidya and his mother used to live at his native place in South India. Last year, his father decided to bring them to Birlanagar. As Vaidya was brought up in the south, he didnt know how to speak Hindi, which was the local language in Birlanagar. This was the reason he never talked to Shekhar, though they walked back together daily from the bus stop. Vaidya was quick in learning hindi. Within a week, he could converse decently. So one day he started a dialogue with Shekhar. He learnt that Shekhar was also in 4th grade in the same school but in another sectio

Love Marriage - Arranged Marriage - A path in between

This was the original blog that I was interested in. In order to justify myself I had to write 3 lengthy blogs, Evolution Theory , Marriage Now-A-Days and Horoscopes - A mystery . Having proven that using horoscopes is justified from the parents' point of view, the next question arises amongst youth is how to enjoy the luxury of love marriage and still get it arranged. That is, how can we choose the partner of our choice and still not make our older generations unhappy. How can we become "so-called" liberal and still remain traditional. These questions are more relevant to those whose families and society are very rigid in terms of marriage. If your society is not liberal enough to accept a love marriage, then you should either leave them (if you feel so) or should try to find the answer to the above questions. From now onwards, I shall discard those families (resp. societies) which are open to inter-caste, inter-religion marriages. I shall also discard those who are of

Horoscopes - A mystery

After a long gap, I again thought of continuing my sequel to " Evolution Theory " and " Marriage Now-A-Days ". Let me begin with a few comments that I got for the two blogs. Those comments indeed changed the track of the story (not the plot but the screenplay). Here is the first comment from my friend The basic question is "where the horoscopes really that effective?". Couldn't it be that people simply had successful arranged marraige as they had so less options. women were not self sufficient. Men were in fear of the rigid rules of community so had to follow them. If asked whether horoscopes were really effective, I personally dont have an answer. I tried to google it but couldnt find any conclusive answer. Many agree with my friend that horoscopes and predictions are fake. I also tried asking few people who believe in horoscopes. They are of the opinion that horoscopes do work if you follow it. If you try to disprove it, then it will fail. So the tho

LoVe in tHe aIr

I am surprised by what is happening to people around me. Every now and then I hear people getting engaged or married. And all these are love cum arranged marriages. People who were friends for quite some time, are now ready to tie the knot. Is this because of the season? Or is it that this phenomenon was there always? And I never noticed it. I remember a nice malayalam movie that I had seen a few years back. The name of the movie is "Niram". It revolves around two friends, the hero and the heroine, who are very close to each other right from their childhood. The hero becomes jealous when the heroine starts dating another classmate. But he restrains himself from objecting, thinking that he is a friend and should not have any feeling of love towards her. But in the end, when the heroine realises the fact, she comments "Why couldnt you say this to me earlier". The movie actually proves that if people of opposite sex are very close friends then there is high chances of