Snippets from Down Under!

Its been exactly 3 months since I landed in Brisbane for this all too short one semester exchange program to the University of Queensland. Lifes been certainly a whole lot different here… By now I’ve become used to a lot of previously ‘alien’ things… Even become accustomed to the cool and at times chilly climate… I’ve certainly learned a lot academically and – in a very different context to the normal narrow-minded usage of the word – spiritually… What once was the yearning to go back asap has slowly and desperately turned into the unwillingness to leave… Its not because Australia is a great country, at least not greater than my very own India… Its not because Australian’s are mostly – excluding those radical elements present in any civilization – extremely friendly and easy going… Its not even because of the relative ‘cheapness’ of good quality booze… It is definitely because for once in my life I feel as though my life is going somewhere… Somewhere good… Just because surprisingly here I work!… Work hard!… For academics!… There I said it… I STUDY!!!… That one thing that is taboo for a respectable high school or college going youth in India to do!…

There’s a lot to say about the last 3 months in Brisbane… Here’s just a few random snippets straight off the top of my head…

DRUNKEN Performance!

Ram, Ramyaa (a friend we met here at UQ) and I were wandering around the City this last Friday night… Reached the Cultural Centre… Sat on a bench by the riverside… Chatting… A random Aussie couple stop in front of us… DRUNK… “Do you happen to have a couple of ciggies mate?”… None of us smoke… “Oh sorry to disturb you mates… Having a good night?… Off to the Valley?… Party hard!…”… Sure mate… “What’s your name”… Ramyaa… “I’m -forgot name-”… Handshake… “Anyway since we disturbed you I’ll entertain you… Wanna see me do a one handed hand stand?… Watch its awesome!…”… Proceeds to jump onto his hand in an attempt to do it… Reminder: DRUNK… Attempt 1… Fails… “Oh w8 a second mate”… Attempt 2… Fails… “I’l get it this time”… Attempt 3… Attempt 4… Well you get the idea… Change of tactic… “I’l do 1 hand push-ups for you”… 1 push up… Grinds out a second… Half completes a third… “Woooohooooo…”… No prizes for guessing – the girl!… “Oh… how was that mate… Had fun???… We’ll cya around ya… Take care… Grab a couple of beers mate!… Cya”… Hi5’s… Walk off!… “Ah lets go from here”… Ramyaa JI!… Ram and I follow rather reluctantly!…

Temple of FOOD!

The next day… Ramyaa JI now nick-named ‘MOMMY’ by me because of her very ‘motherly’ and ‘apt’ behaviour meets us at Indooropilly to take us to a ISKCON temple in Graceville… We go… Free Indian Food!… Of course we’ll go!… Chat chat all the way… Temple… More a house!… A BIG house… India means overpopulation… Even in Brisbane we stick to our roots!… I couldn’t even get into the large room where the idol was… Not that I cared much anyway… Still… Inside… Singing, dancing… Full on… We call pentacostals mad!… Check your premises son… We wait outside… Patiently… Something’s smelling bad… Socks!… But outside something’s smelling awesome… The food!… An uncle tells two guys around my age something… Points at Ram and me… They come to us and say something… With all the noise and my rumbling stomach I hear only one word… “Khana”… Alright lets go!… Ram walks off with them… I ask Mommy to come along… “I wanna just see the idol once before eating”… “Alright… look a few people are coming out… You’ll be able to go in”… “Oh ok… I’l be back in 1 sec ok?”… Right on!… We go out… We see… This…

Ram will get his ‘punya’… He served food at a temple!… Mommy n I… Feel bad for all the ‘punya’ Ram is getting!… We wait… We hungry… We wait… We hungry… We wait… Wait too much… We eat… Rice, dal, aloo mutter (?), chutney, sweet, pakoraish type thing, ‘traditional’ drink… All yummy!… Seconds… Eat eat eat… Ram joins us after all the ‘punya’… Eats… We have a laugh… We leave… Busstop… Wanna drink!… Ram goes home gets Jack Daniels pre-mixed drinks… Brings it to Mommy’s place… Ram n I drink… Chat… Watch Aussies struggle early on vs Windies… Go out… Hot Chocolate from Wild Beans… Deserted Busstop…11 PM… Chat… 12 30… Leave for home… Chris Gayle thrashes 27 off Brett Lee… Celebrate!… Sleep!…

Everything Goes Wrong followed by HC at 3 AM!

A few hours back… 7 PM Sunday… Bored… Out to Pig n’ Whistle… Alkira Busstop… W8 10 minutes… Long discussion about Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent and Anarcho-Unionism… Bus passes by!… W8 15 more minutes… Pig and Whistle… 1 Jack Daniels… 7 80… 1 Jim Beam… 7 70… Too costly!… Sunday!… Both of us stop at 1 drink!… Think we’ll get drinks from the Beer, Wine, Spirits shop and head home… Midway through decide to get a pizza, go home and watch Good Fellas… Walk back… Indroopilly busstop… W8 4 bus… Ram decides to take a leak… 2 busses come and go… Ram gets back… W8 15 minutes… Bus… Wrong route… Get out at Toowong… Wait for return bus that passes through Taringa… Bus due at 8 50… 5 minute w8… We w8… 8 50 changes to 9… 9 to 9 12… 9 12… disappears… Next bus 9 20… Hop on… Get down at Taringa… Dominoes… Decide on Pizza… W8ing to order… Counter guy… “You’ll all have to wait for 30 minutes. The Oven just broke down”… Great… Hungry Jacks it is… Walk… Its open!… Yeah!… Whooper Burger, Large Fries and Regular Cappuchino… Sumptuous for 8 dollars… Walk back up the hill… 5 minute w8 for bus… Back at Indro busstop… W8 another 10-15 minutes… Ah the lovely 444 Moggil Bus!… Get home… Watch delayed telecast of F1 Turkish GP… Button wins… Federer wins French Open… Online… 2 50 am… Bored… Ramyaa JI online… “Heh watsup”… “Bored”… “Lets grab a coffee?”… Ok… 3 am… Walk… ‘Enter Sandman’… “Sleep with 1 eye open, Grippin your pillow tight!’… Wild Beans Hot Chocolate… Pics session… 5 am… Walk home… ‘Dirty Little Secret’… “I go around the time I choose… Just to waste my time…”… Turn into the driveway… Frog croaks… Loud… Races forward from 120 to 200 – Heart beat!… Get home… Online… Blog… 6 57 am… Awake… Peace.

- Bibinhio

 

Fucked!

No… not literally… so if tat’s why ur reading this then buzz off and watch ur porn vids…

Anyway… as I was planning on saying… I’m fucked royally with work! and that 2… work 4 academics! Damn… i thought the Brisbane trip was supposed 2 be… well… a trip!… But no… 4 the 1st time ever in my life i’m actually workin my balls off, thinking whatever brain cells are left in my head off and actually doin all this 4 my studies!!!… the damn frustration i feel after copy-pasting assignments is not there… the damn indifference i feel after receiving the marks for those assignments is also not there!… i’m working… and i’m liking it!

this is what i’ve been doing…

from 2 to 8 in the afternoon yesterday i was up at the fryer library poring over four months of The Hindu in microfilm from late 1956! this is after i’d spent 4 hours last saturday on the same thing! i might still have to go back to print a picture out that i missed! damn!

today… after gettin up at 4 30 am 2 watch the champions league final which unfortunately (but deservingly on the performance of the day) man united lost, i went off to keep an appointment with dr. jobling (my oly movement & society prof) at 10 15… that led to an impromptu phone interview with well known sports academic and writer richard cashman… then after a 1 hr lecture i spent an hour poring over the official report of the 1956 melbourne olympics down at the olympic center here at uq again!… then i came off to the library internet zone 2 chill… saw the reply to a mail i sent from the editor of indianfootball.com… good site check it out… neway there was a link to their old site that had quite a few details i’d requested and hoped for… that got me started and i ended up checking out a lot of journals, books and related material that jobling and cashman had suggested… end result… i spent another 1 and a half hours working online when i’d planned to take a break!… now i’ve got around 8 documents downloaded in pdf… got 2 go read them!!!… plus check out 3 books that i found interesting and might help in my project… and go through the 1956 copies of the melbourne age…

finally i forced myself to go to the wordpress tab that i’d opened close 2 2 hours previously and write this post jst to take my mind off things… but heh… look wat i’m blogging on again!

oh and btw… tats just 1 project i’m workin on right now!!!… that’s due on june 4th but i’ve got an oral presentation and a group sponsorship proposal due on june 5!!!… and as i was just going thru my calendar on my mobile i realised that there’s a ‘bonus question’ philosophy assignment that i’ve to hand in tomorrow!!!… just gr8… philosophy… a bit more thinking on abstract things conjured up by people with no other job over the centuries that make no hell of a difference to any1 is just wat i need right now!… it is 4 just 5 extra marks but the tough marking here means tat i need every mark i can get to muster at least a ‘d’ or ‘c’ even after struggling hard!…

after june 5 come 2 LONG essays for political ideas due on june 12 and philosophy due on june 15… i really loved doing my last pol ideas essay even with all the books i had 2 refer 2 and everything… wanna do a better job this time… and watever i might have sed in the last para philosophy is still fun as well… only prob is time!… 4 once i’m hopin 4 more than 24 hours in a day in order 2 b able 2 study!… god wat an irony!…

and just 2 add the icing to the ‘work-hard’ cake there’s the international journalism exam on the 16th!… but at least then it’ll be over though…

till that glorious 16th of june!!!… may the devil help me!…

P.S – the project i’m working on for my olympic movement course is on the 1956 indian football team that came in 4th at the melbourne olympics… i’m tryin 2 figure out whether that achievement was a fluke or not and the general findings so far indicate that it was not a fluke and that football was the common-man’s game at that time!!!… now if anyone knows of any article, news report, blog post…yadda yadda yadda that’ll help me figure out what happened after that then please do… also any news u think that i might not have about the 1956 team would also be greatly appreciated… if nothing else pls answer this poll for me: http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=o2×4hz893agn8er602459

 

Power off revisited in ‘light’ of Earth Hour

27th Feb 2009, 8-9 PM… Manipal went black!

This wasn’t an anti-globalization or anti-terrorism or any such type of movement. It was just the 12,000 odd students of Manipal uniting as one to answer the call to stop excessive, reckless and ill advised consumption of electricity. The 1000* strong crowd that marched all the way across Manipal during that hour that day was a further emboldening testimony to the importance of this message and cause that the students’ of Manipal Institute of Communication (MIC) have brought out through this event. The fact that it was held as a part of a now international level communication festival, Article 19 is of further importance as it is the media that should lead the charge as far as spreading this message is concerned and these young students of media who had come down for the fest could very well be the pioneering think-tank behind such a movement.

For those readers who know this author as a volunteer for this event and might now be thinking that this is just an article of glorification, you are very much mistaken. I have heard and read people saying that the whole event of Power off was just a publicity stunt. To them in the politest manner I can muster I say no! Had close to a hundred volunteers (out of an MIC total strength of 300 odd) not actually believed in the message and worked to attain the goal of spreading this message, then as the cliche goes, this event would never have been a success… For looking back at Power off today in light of the much hyped Earth Hour; what a paltry crop of 100 students (though admittedly backed by a strong college in MIC and a helpful university in Manipal Uni.) achieved that day in near total darkness is indeed a resounding success!

I am currently in Brisbane, Australia. Australia – the land down under where the first ever instance in human history of such a concept of switching off power for an hour, happened in Sydney in 2007. After extensive online, television, radio and print publicity of Earth Hour 2009 backed by the World Wildlife Fund, with an estimated 1 billion people supposedly switching off their electric appliances around the world, the Earth Hour when it did happen down here in Brisbane, was pretty much of a let down for me. An anti-climax if you would have it. At 8:30 PM on 28th March, when the world was supposed to be plunged into darkness, my friend Ram and I were in the heart of Brisbane city. And except for a fabulous pianist playing some absorbing music and a famous singer delighting the audience in the middle of the mall, there was no other sign that Earth Hour 2009 was actually happening at that time. Admittedly, from my position on the ground hemmed in between tall buildings I couldn’t see the entire of Brisbane. Admittedly the MC of the event did clarify that the mikes, PA systems, laptops and all other equipment used for the 1 hour gig were being run on battery. Yet, the single striking fact that around the beautiful stage decked up with candles, lights were shining brightly in all shops, building rooms, apartments, offices, strip clubs, pubs, and so on seemed to suggest to me that this message of Earth Hour was definitely not being spread at all.

Still the next day I see detailed news reports on TV and in the papers of how the world with Australia at the lead and Queensland especially prominent ‘plunged into darkness for an entire hour’! The only clip of any pay part of Queensland being ‘plunged into darkness’, that was being repeatedly shown on all channels was of the huge Wheel of Brisbane in South Bank going off. Why this giant wheel which requires so many lights at night to make it look palely whiter than a ghost everyday is first of all beyond reason to me! Switching off a ‘monument’ that wastes ton loads of electricity every day and calling it a step against climate change… As in my musings in the last para I beg to use the word HYPOCRISY!

Looking at Power Off for an Hour from this light, we achieved a phenomenal success. Granted Manipal is a very small place. But still the Earth Hour was being run by the WWF. They had the backing of 84 odd countries and the states, corporates and others in each of these nations. They had unlimited resources in terms of money, publicity opportunities, work force and the like when compared to a fraction of one of the smallest and often looked down upon colleges in Manipal! While Power off was not without its hitches we did manage to get all the general lights off, all the lights from the colleges to go off, all the houses and hostels to switch off and most importantly, all the shops as well! Yes, there were the couple of dark (or in this case ‘lit’) horses… Yes there were the few billboards that did not go off… But these minor things should not stand in the way of realising what was achieved on that day! Yes, MIC-ians had gotten Manipal to follow… MIC-ians had managed to land Rahul Bose… Most importantly, MIC-ians had managed to spread the message of energy conservation to over 12,000 students, another 8,000 faculty and administrative staff and a huge section of the local populace! We don’t have the facts to say that energy consumption in Manipal dropped by 12% in a year after this event (as the publicity for Earth Hour states)… At least we don’t have that stat yet… Let’s see if we can dig something like that up!

It would be fitting and apt at this point to stand up and salute the army of volunteers who worked tirelessly for this cause. To all those girls who pushed, punched and kicked a thronging mob to ensure they did not get out of control! (:D) To all the guys and girls who brain stormed, ran around and finally pulled off this event after over 3 months of planning and 1 and a half months of campaigning. To Rahul Bose for being the face of the event. To Bijlee for being the ‘light’ behind the event! To Union Bank for making the event financially possible. To all the Manipalites who switched off their power and joined us as one on that day. To all who still switch off their lights and fans every time on leaving their rooms. To all who put their laptop on sleep or shut it down instead of having it plugged on 24X7. To Manipal University for their invaluable support. And finally to MIC for providing us a vista to explore our thoughts and talents and come up with such events. Here is a toast to Power off for an Hour!

One last word:

MIC is the BEST!

- BiBinhio

* 1000 crowd is not an official number. Just the author’s estimate and includes the volunteers as well.

 

TRULY International!…

Sitting in the Article 19 room, looking around at all the charts, posters, banners, pamphlets, maps and lists plastered across the walls, my gaze comes to rest on the white chart paper adorned with orange hi-lighter strokes all through it in neat rectangular stabs. A few black and blue scratches add emotion to this chart that contains the name, college and place of each of the 110 odd entries for this years’ Article 19. A closer look also tells you that around 19 of them are international entries from places as far west as Los Angeles, USA and east from Manila, Philippines. Entries from England, Scotland, UAE and Egypt also mean that Article 19 this year is spread over 4 continents! Great news especially as this is the 10th year of this fest, the first ever core communication college fest of the nation. 

If anything comes a close second to grabbing my eye it has to be the Rahul Bose poster and the road map of our march for Power Off for an Hour. If all the work and tension of pulling off an international communication fest wasn’t enough, we had to heap more stress onto our shoulders by taking up the cause of conserving electricity thorugh Power Off, an event where the entire of Manipal will switch off its electricity for one hour between 8 and 9 P.M. on Feb 27. Actor Rahul Bose will lead a march around Manipal during that hour, with jam sessions and more entertainment planned at the end. A one and a half month awareness drive through signature campaigns, pamphlet distributions, helpdesks and more has resulted in over 2000 people already signed up for the march. Student power should come into the forefront in Power Off!…

Prahlad Kakkar’s ad workshop is posing problems of a nice kind to deal with for the organisers. With over 60 students from TAPMI alone conforming their interest to take part in this workshop along with a large number of MICians, finding a big enough room to hold the workshop requires some effort! But as I said earlier, this one we are happy to deal with!…

Mr. Bijlee had a day out on the 9th at KC with a huge crowd gathering around to see our street play on conserving electricity. The mini power off at MIC on the 10th also went off quite well. Director M. V. Kamath switched off the power for one hour between 4:30 and 5:30 and the students had a bit of fun with a jamming session without electricity with the band Exile. All in all, with 8 days to go for the start of A 19, we look set for a mega event. Do come by if you are in the vicinty doing nothing. And even if you are doing something, you can still come by because at the end of the day, it will surely be worth it! Guaranteed!

 

Of Depression, OCD’s and so on…

All the expressions of the written word or all the meaningless garble of the French language or all the bottles of God’s patented bitter drink or all the rain filled summers in God’s own country cannot wipe clean the dungeons of deep depression into whose calamitous gripe I tumbled headlong, seemingly lost, with nothing but darkness to lead you on in meandering circles of gloom and hunger to feed on you like an incessant raven determined to tire out its prey and with an unwavering addiction of self-hate and self-inflicted pain… Whew! I feel better after that…

God only knows why and how I got this depressed to start off with… At least that is, if God exists. But the surreal realms of unjustified depression that I’ve fallen into recently makes a cause for the existence of God seem more plausible. After all, only someone with SUPREME power can cause you to feel that bad! It is when one really starts to hurt in life that he feels the BEAUTY of God! I mean, thousands of people have and continue to die every year over the CAUSE of Jerusalem, terrorists butcher and blast whole populations for the GLORY of whatever God they represent, fresher and more gruesome diseases spring up every day to take a good swipe of healthy human blood and yet the one thing on everyone’s lips is God is GREAT?!…

Scores of thinkers, critics, philosophers and so on have made these observations before me but one thing I just can’t help but think has been mostly overlooked is this: Does God, if he does exist, really care? I mean who is God. The God we are taught of is not just the creator of humans but also of this world, universe and everything else. In that case God cares for humans just as he cares for every other of his creations. And what have we, the great ‘developed’ homo-sapiens been doing? We have destroyed entire portions of our planet, driven into extinsion innumerable other beings and every day continue to do a million things to harm this beautiful planet that would drive any extremely powerful, inordinately lenient, all-understanding and endlessly caring SUPREME, EXALTED ONE into wanting to take one big bazooka and start blowing head-size holes into the guts of each and every one of us! Maybe the gunmen of the Deccan Mujahideen were indeed God’s own soldiers showing us the way to go ‘make this a better world’ for everyone else!

Writing all this has indeed released a bit of my pent up depression. When I started this post and gave it the title ‘Of depressions, OCD’s and so on’, I had the beginning of the first line and a couple of very different ideas in mind. But it so happened that this exercise resulted in the above. At least now I hope I can go and sleep.

P.S. The OCD part – I’ve realised that whenever I get depressed I get obsessively freaky with tidiness and cleanliness. I went through an ordeal of cleaning up my pigsty of a room two days back and still get a tingle down my spine when one of my friends come and mess it up in however small a way. I feel this stupid compulsion to ensure that everything is spick and span and in place and nothing is however minutely out of place.

 

Living in a pigsty and other November stories…

November 30:

After a fuck all day yesterday when I felt I was stuck somewhere between a volcano’s erupting mouth and the barrel of a terrorist’s AK 47, today I woke up to realise that for the last month or two I have been living in a pigsty! No… I’m not dreaming or hallucinating… I have seriously been living in a pigsty!!!… Clothes, books, chocolates, food, bottles, gum, locks, pens, cream, paper, posters and every other imaginable piece of trash was heaped, pile upon pile in my room, with a good coating of dust over all of this and still I slept in that room on my bed without ever even opening the windows to let fresh air in! Right now though, I am half-way thorugh on the path towards salvation!

Pretty soon the sty should become hospitable for pretty girls as well!

November 28:

It rained today. Yes, it RAINED in November. Also had a Media Organization paper that I still dunno y we were taught. Oh, nearly forgot… Wore a girls top for the first third of the day! (Y?… read on!)

November 27:

Second day of exams… Visual communication… did not study a single word. Got up in the morning to find I have no notes. By the time I got the notes transferred on2 my laptop, the power went off. My laptop duly followed 2 minutes later. Tried 2 take a bath… no water! By the time I fetched water from the landlord’s time had sped ahead like Michael Schumacher at his peak. Tried 2 go 2 colg and study… nothing happened. The result… an easy exam!…

Today’s fortune – There is no need to study for any examination in MIC!

That night ended up going to Swathi’s, Pavi’s, Sahana’s and Arpana’s house to try and study MO. Pavi was sick – conjunctivitis, fever, body ache – the full deal. Stayed over at these aunties place without their ‘aunty’ of a landlady knowing. That is how I ended up wearing Swathi’s top at night! Went out next morning armed with excuses about when and y I came to their place… none was needed however as aunty didn’t spot me!

November 25:

I love studying with Swathi. The entertainment she provides while we try to tackle some shitty academics is just mind-blowing! This is what she does at 3:56 PM in the library (yes I even wrote down the time), as we are trying to somehow finish the Magazine Journalism portions…

Afternoons and Swathi normally mean – SLEEP! After finishing 1 out of about 11 sets of notes she decided 2 take a small nap in the common room. So after this she is trying to read the notes while half asleep…

“In photographic terms framing refers to how adequately the picture fills the space available for it: we are not talking here about any CONTRACEPTION for hanging the pic on the wall…”

The original word was ‘contraption’ btw… There is some vintage Swathi reading for u… . How much I laughed at that time…

November 23:

Pavi’s happy birthday (!) and my TOEFL exam in M’lore…

Stayed over at Goutham chettan’s hostel the previous night. TOEFL on the whole was easy but this incident really pissed me off… I am 1 question away from completing the listening section and heading out for a 10 minute break. Just at that moment the mouse stops working… I cannot get it to move… Then the invigilator dude stops my session and transfers me onto the next computer where I have to sit and listen to the boring 3 minute lecture again just to answer 1 qusetion to which I already knw the answer!… PISSING OFF!

Later at night we plan to meet up at 8:30 at Basil to celebrate Pavi’s happy birthday (!)… Shaz and me get there by 8:45 hoping we are not too late… We find that noone has come. 2 minutes later Ram arrives and 15 minutes later Raga… So an informal GS meeting happened before finally at around 9:15 the great madam’s arrived!… It seems that they had slept off!!! Grrr…

November 20:

Swathi and I are coming back from Kerala in the Garib Rath. My ticket was with Swathi and she was only boarding from Ekm so I ended up having 2 take a RS. 227 ticket till there in addition 2 the Rs. 514 she had already taken! GARIB RATH indeed!…

Guys in our compartment got drunk… Swathi and I are sitting at the door (shhh…don’t tel my mom!) when 1 of those guys comes out, takes a looooooong time 2 wash his hands, all th while complaining about us and askin whether we can sit there! As the guy who was standing there and with whom we later ended up talkin said… ‘What the hell is ur problem man?’…

November 9 – 19:

Bored in TVM!

November 6:

My b’day!

At midnight – cake and stuff at naim’s… loved the surprise… not so much the kicks!… (but its hard to say who came off worse… the guys who kicked got their legs screwed thanks 2 my bones!)

Was late for class and got greeted with the b’day song…

Yell shoutout in the eve and cake thereafter in common room… They tried 2 play all smart but did they really think they had me fooled???!!!…

Dinner at food court… Amazed by the number of ppl who came… thanks to ashwin and every1 for settin tat up!

Then surprise at night in my room (or at least was meant 2 b so!)… Sreya and Gayatri got into my house and got Sunny and all 2 lock it from outside… Sreya called me at arnd 11 and asked me where I was and asked if they culd come over 2 my place… I began 2 smell a rat… I came home expectin them 2 b there but the locked door threw me off track for a moment… then sunny let the cat out by tellin me they were upstairs…:D

So up I went makin as much noice as I culd… opened the door… no noice… steps inside and at that second Gayatri dropped somethin and made some noice! Blunder-fool only she is! I went into my room and saw light comin from the kitchen… I peek around the door frame and I see these 2 standin their lookin at each other… They didn’t see me until they turned around and then they (not me) got the fright and surprise of their lives!…

But still I loved what they did… Got me a cake, a handmade (long and beautiful) card, chocolates, decorations for my room and a lot of love!… Thanks a lot!

November 5:

Monica gives me an advanced b’day surprise complete with a cake and candle (sizzling brownie at Saiba!). Anisha and Monica also gave me a tissue paper card which I opened the wrong way and spoilt a bit of the fun but was still lovely! Thanks guys!

 

Life as I know it presently…

Hmmm… Wanted to have 1 post every month this year. Didn’t have a proper post in June or July… but then I did start a new sports page and stuff so i guess that counts 4 somethin! Right now I’m at my new house in Manipal using my friends new laptop and accessing the net through our new Airtel landline cum internet connection… Lots of things are new I guess but lots more are still the same and that i guess again is the beauty of life!

Not to get off on a very philosophical note let me just tone things down a bit. I’m a senior in college now and that to be frank is a bit putting off! Every time a junior passes me by they suddenly get all nervous like and say somethin stupid like ‘hello sir’ and shit like that and i’m like ‘What the *uck ppl?’… Who asked u 2 call me sir and stuff!!!… Neway the thought process of being a senior itself has not shrunk in let alone being called sir!

One year in Manipal flashed by so suddenly that i’m a bit lost now 2 recount all that happened in our 1st 2 sems. I remember as in a dream the orientation ceremony and then going to Malpe on the first Sunday that we all reached here and then the Expload event conducted by YELL and taking part in extempore and debate and then the first real thing that I clearly remember is being back home in Trivandrum 4 3 weeks in the beginning of September, down with typhoid. I went back and still managed to gel right back in I guess and then football practices at Endpoint took more out of me than the rest of my coursework combined. Still we ended up loosing to KMC Mangalore 4-0. They were damn good but i also have to say that we played quite decently at least in the second half. Then life again becomes a major blur punctuated here and there by stuff like Article 19 pre-events and the Movie Goers’ Club, the Decennial Year Celebrations and other such things and stops this time at the 1st sem exam time in December. Actually that massive blur of 2 months stops some 10 days before our exams began in mid December and everything that took place in those 10 days also happened in Trivandrum.

I reached home on Dec 4 and the day was quite eventful as I broke up with my girlfriend!… I really wasn’t faced by this… i dunno y… and after 3-4 days i got 2 knw the real reasons y this happened and stuff. It seems a guy was after her life like everything and doin crazy stuff and in the end her friends got involved and she started liking him. Fair enough, but if everything had ended their then life wouldn’t be life would it [:D]… Before I came back to Manipal on Dec 14th or something we were back on track again and things looked quite rosy!… That is until I came back from Manipal after giving my exams and met her on Jan 2nd at Style Plus. After that things slowly started slipping again and it was quite obvious that it was just a matter of time again. And meanwhile 2nd semester was on and work for Article 19 and MMSC (our 2 national communication fests) were in full force. Yell week was also held and Utsav was also drawing near. I took the initiative and saw to it that a fair number of us participated at NIT-K Incident as well. Campus rock idols also happened somewhere along that time and so did MIT Revels. I came home during Easter and the second break up happened… (Funny how life is always busy in Manipal but real ‘life’ incidents always happen at home!) This time around i guess it was quite mutual… and the reasons were quite the same again and though i still liked her a lot, to my credit i didn’t go and call her after that. She did call me a couple of times and we did talk quite normally but then that was abt it. By March end with A-19, MMSC, Utsav and all other such events being over, life was virtually at a standstill. Exams were looming in early May and the month of April seemed to drag on quite a lot with nothing much happening. But then work for our class play Macbeth started and i took up directing just to remain involved with something and that occupied most of my time.

Macbeth was staged on May 3rd and I came back home (again!) on the 4th. I stayed at home for about a week and that Sunday i got a call from her again and pretty soon i understood that she had broken up with that other guy. We talked quite a bit and i came back to manipal that night and things just seemed to drift for a while. I came back home and got bored to death for the best part of 2 weeks as all of my friends were having their exams and stuff. Finally sometime in early June i started talking to my ex again and we have been in touch ever since then. Don’t ask me where this is going coz quite frankly, I DONT KNW!…

My parents, bro, sis and me went on a 10 day Singapore – Malaysia trip in late June. Had lots of fun and lots of really memorable situations too (not necessarily happy). Came back to Trivandrum and went and helped out with LA Fest (our inter-school cultural fest) for a couple of days. Screwed my left ankle playing football in the process. Right now as i’m typing that same ankle is bandaged up thanks to a recurrence of that injury which led to a ligament tear. I came back to Manipal on the 21st and started living in this new house. Still lots of tidying up to do. Am sports rep of my class again and am already sporting a sporting injury!… Still find it a bit hard to believe that I’m a senior here. 1 year passed by so fast that apart from these memories that i have detailed, i can hardly remember anything else clearly.

Right now I’m feeling what the hell is the point of this post! I have no clue really… just a lot of time to waste! Its been 2 days since i started writing this post. Felt like writing when i started but for many reasons could not complete it then. Then the whole thing with my leg came up and this just drifted away from my mind. Now I’m just finishing this post rather mechanically because i started it and that’s all. Feeling very hungry. Its 12 o’ clock on a Sunday and i haven’t eaten yet!… Oh shit I’ve got medicines to take… Better be off!!!… Got to do something about food…. Cya….

- BiBinhio.