Airport Encounters

My reader count has shot ominously since the last few days, ever since I started writing about nothing at all, nothing in particular. So its true then, the butterfly chasing, the giving up and then the sitting of the butterfly on thy shoulder story, or maybe I am just that awesome, that very popular but people are realizing it just now.

A few of you might have noticed that, I have begun quite a few posts in a similar way. For those who have- its called blogging license, I can do and write anything I like so just shut up and keep your comments to yourself, and those who didn't-lite lo and read on.

So as the title says, I'm going to relate some of my encounters with the fair sex. But as I am all out of them, just as I was 15 years ago, I'd rather keep it normal and tell you about a couple of funny incidents at airports.

Up until BITS, I had never travelled by plane. Well, actually there was this once when my mom was pregnant with me, but I didn't have much chance to screw up then. Though my 2 year old elder brother more than made up for it, by dropping hot coffee all over the unsuspecting airhostess. 

The first time, was after first year when I travelled by Kingfisher to Goa. I know most of you are smiling, and yes I too was smiling as I boarded the plane. But at the Delhi airport, which was my first look at one, I got into the wrong line and misguided around a dozen people behind me.

I arrived quite early had plenty of time to use the loo. For those who are curious and 'achambit', the best way to see how much money was spent building in a public building is to have a look at the loo, more specifically the urinals. The answer will probably be wafting in the air even before you reach it.

So basically I realized at the last moment, when the guy ahead of me asked how long it would take to reach the Gateway of India after we landed. So I hurried off and was the last in line. We were on schedule, but once I entered I could feel all eyes on me, as though it was a bus that would have left earlier had I not been late. I could hear whispers "yeahi hai woh, saala, jisne late karwaya." The plane had a stopover at Mumbai, and I had half a mind to get down, but somehow managed not to screw up.

The second time, I was again at Delhi airport. This time I had humungous luggage, weighing as much as 3 Kingfisher airhostesses put together. One is allowed 20 kg luggage, excluding hand luggage. When I put my luggage on the machine, it showed 33 kg, and she asked me to pay 900.

900, that's half the cost of the frigging ticket. But she wouldn't budge. I tried a few bargaining tricks, "C'mon ma'm, I am a student. Am going home after a year and a half and besides I don't have any cash." The !@#$% didn't budge, so I had to go back, open up the scanned luggage, and change my main luggage bag to my handbag and vice versa, and get it scanned all over again. It was dreadful, I was in Delhi airport, pulling out pieces of shorts, undergarments, socks and what not, and stuffing them into my so called hand bag.

Now this final "hand bag", looked as though it contained a dead body and I looked like one of those workers at a construction site, carrying around bags of cement. The security guys were all staring at me. One even said, "Bhai sahab, yahaan sirf hand bags allowed hain". Huffing and puffing and out of breath, I dropped my bad with a thud replied, "Yeh mera hand bag hi hai, hand mein hi hai na". 

The fun doesn't stop here. After the half hour wait, when the announcement was of the plane's arrival. I got in line, and the lady security guard stops me, and why? The guy who metal-detects you, and tidies you up later, hadn't stamped my boarding pass. She asked me to repeat the whole fucking process.

I had quarter of a mind, to argue. But the Sherpa lady guard, with a huge bun and a mole under her nose, looked like one of those rakshashis in Ramanand Sagar's Ramayana. So I obediently returned, to behind the metal detector. When I went forward, they asked me to go back and deposit the mobile so it could go through the scanner. Unbelievable! It was as though the bloody X-Ray scanner would scan all contacts, find possible links to the underworld and remove any chances of it being a bomb. 

My worst fear was that, if I sped to anything over a casual walk, chugging along this dead body,  moving against the line, I'd be mistaken for a suicide bomber and shot. Jaane tu ke climax mein saalon ne dikahaya hoga, saale abhi karke dikhao, goli se uda denge.

Now again I was late to board, and again those meaningless stares, "Yehi hai woh, yehi hai". 

Mostly, when you reach your seat, the airhostess helps you put your luggage in the upper compartment. But looking at my luggage, the bag of cement, she didn't even bother. So I somehow pulled it to the top, punched it gently a few times, after all kidney wagairah bachani thi na bechne ke liye. Finally reached, safe, sound and bruised.

No new post here.. but don't dismay

Sorry guys, there's not new post now. I have just updated my "Thank You Note"  http://inconvenienceregretted.blogspot.com/2008/11/thank-you-note.html

Times of Yore

Here I am again. Hope this is not too much trouble, and I hope you're not addicted. Because if you are, I'm here only a while longer, to be gone, not knowing when I'll return.

No, no, I'm not feeling psenti. Just random shit. Btw, my paper went fine. It was more of a test of my writing skill than actual factual recollection. If I write to the point, I'll fill only 5 lines, but its a 10 mark compre question, so I am obliged to call upon all my writing prowess and vocabulary skills and fill in 8 sheets. 

A simple sentence such as, "Valmiki authored Ramayana" is transformed into "According to historical evidence, which surprisingly conforms to local wives' tales as well as local heresay, one is brought to believe, however unlikely it may seem, that the immensely historically and philosophically important scripture of Ramayana, the story of the ideal man and his quest to hold his ideals dear to him, despite all obstacles was penned down by the great writer Valmiki with divine intervention and under the supervision of the Gods". So now you also know why I blog.

Leaving that aside, yes I am feeling a little psenti and spend a lot of time reminiscing. No, not about BITS, that would just bring tears to my eyes. I try and compare how much things have changed since school.

Remember, in school, we were made to wear washed, ironed and spotless uniforms, shiny black shoes with matching black socks, neatly combed hair and cut nails. And now?? Forget wearing clean clothes, I haven't bathed for a week, and my utterly stinking socks are lying right next to me. I have worn this same pair of socks this whole semester-placements, tea party, cricket, jogging and what not. My hair hasn't felt a comb in years, and my nails resemble claws.

Then I remember the note books. ohhhh, just the thought sends shivers down my spine. The books had to be covered with brown plastic covers, and neatly labelled, with an index. Red lines were drawn after each answer, double for names of lessons. The teachers used to correct each book... can you imagine!! each and every f***ing book. I seriously have trouble believing that. And at the end of the lessons stuff like, V. Good, or V.V. Good. The more Vs, the prouder I'd feel. Just a Good was just not good enough. 

And parents!! that part was seriously hilarious... every now and then, one weekend would be open house, wherein parents were called to receive their wards' report cards and hear their class teachers either complain about their son talking too much in class or not paying attention.

The best part was definitely the monitors. Everytime I remember this part,  just ROFLMAO. Each class had a class monitor, the syudent who stood first in class, who's job was to write down the names of the people who were talking... seriously man talking, not kissing or making out, just plain simple talking. And each added instance of talking would invite a cross next to your name. And the punishments, finger on your lips, kneel down, stand on the desk and murga ban. 

How much things have changed, forget having covered and corrected notebooks, or covered books, or even just books. Ab to xerox notes zindabad. Forget the Vs before the Good, as long as you're Av+ you're jumping for joy.

Parents aren't called for just report or rather grade cards. If parents are called in BITS, most come to know of what happenned reading the mess notice boards. Rest of the parents, the same one's who came every open house, could be congratulated if they know one course you're having this semester.

Monitors aren't selected, Presidents and General Secretaries are elected, with all dhoom and dhamaka. The punishments though less severe, are now nightmarish. I'd go through a hundred murgas, I'd kneel and walk like that from C'not to VK, if spared one meeting with you-know-who. 

Summer holidays with the family are now foreign internships. Anything at all to add one extra line to the resume. Talking of Basic Instint was taboo and now Jenna Jameson moans aloud all day all over Bhagirath Bhawan. Hand held video games used to excite, but now even NFS Undercover seems drab.

We have changed, a lot and seemigly for the better. But are you sure? There were meaningless rules then that we blindly followed and now we have this fake freedom, this 'independence' that we so take for granted. Then, we walked on paths that others had laid for us, and now that we're independent, we take predetermined paths to "success". Are these different???

Compre time treat.... my blog

Its a weird feeling, that I am feeling. I used to look hither and thither for good topics to blog about. But surprise surprise, a simple incident like my encounter with the demons of windows and my unseccessful resolve not to get screwed, seems to have generated some interest. Either that or its just Compreites(if you have a better word do tell me) having nothing else to do to pass time, and having fun at my cost. Whatever the reason, I like it!!!

Thus despite having my first and second-last compre tomorrow and not having finished half the syllabus and maybe needing a night out and that too for an unnecessary course like Heritage of India, I shall not break my promise and shall try to make your fuck-ed up day a little more meaningful.. (whatever that means)

Now regardless of how stupid and silly I feel pacing up and down the corridor flipping through a billion photocopied(not xeroxed) notes, I can't help but notice a little of the subject matter, and as far as confusions go this one's a blue whale. (as in a very big one... sorry out of similes)

The course has a large part dedicated to Upanishadic philosophy and Vedanta. Amidst all the crap, there are mentions of an ultimate reality, of a superior being. The Upanishads say that the path to moksha or enlightenment is through knowledge or Gyanakarma. The bad news is this is not Mathematical or Electronic knowledge.. probably CompSci stuff(if you're confused here read my earlier post). Else Issac Newton would have attained moksha 15 times over. No, it's knowledge of Brahmana or the super soul. Retracing a few missing facts, Upanishads have a monoistic theme, implying that they stress on one ultimate reality, as opposed to dualistic, about which I don't know shit.

Basically, you have the atman(the soul), the Brahman(super soul) and nirvana(not the band.. you fucking retards, salvation). So one goes through lives, suffering all along, that it if you call, chatting with you friends on gtlak, owning a MacBook Air, priding over a 1TB hard disc(sorry but it had to come out ok...) and all the fun stuff you do here on earth, suffering. Then one attains salvation, merges with the Brahman and attains everlasting happiness. There is no mention of what this happiness consists of, the course is conspicuously silent on this fact.

If you ask me, it will be like a scene in Mahabharata, in Lord Indra's assembly, with fully clothed (:P) beautiful mistress dancing in the middle, and the guys wearing weird ornaments and multicoloured lungis(a t-shirt would be better any day of the year) all bloody hypocrites following Indra in repeatedly saying "waah waah waah waah" and Narada Muni appearing every once in a while "Narayan Narayana".

Now if you ask me what I like, I'll go with the sufferring here on earth. I mean c'mon guys, when the Vedas were written there were flying monkeys, multiplying arrows, demons who lived for millions of years and still performing tapasyas to live forever, even though every God they please refuses it. Who knows what's there after moksha? What if it all just ends, and turns out to be the matrix. However not true this is, I like my Matrix, even if whatever mess food I eat is programmed by the architect to taste bad.

What of you just find a book on Brahman, gain all the knowledge you need, and then just die on the spot having attained salvation. Worse still, what of you're a virgin. It gives me nightmares. So I am just gonna flip through my notes and wherever I feel I am learning too much, I guess I'll just open up the 'stuff ' folder on D drive. :)

I am an asshole

Reading this title, I am sure most of you would give a sarcastic smile and say stuff like, "Of course, didn't you get the memo" or "Good that you realized it now" or even "I always wanted to tell you so, but I was afraid to hurt your feelings". But it's true, I am and its become apparent the last couple of days.

Now its compre time, and lots of hearts will be broken, lots of tubelights will be properly field tested and many books will receive a battering like they never have the whole semester. During this time, psentsemite that I am, I will be busy filling up my 1TB harddisc and mostly giggling mockingly at anything resembling a non-psentisemite. And to make up for this, I will blog for you. Why? To cheer you up, and what better way to cheer someone up than to show him someone else's misery. Its human mentality, we revel in others' misery. So here goes,

It is common knowledge now, that I have bought myself a 1TB external harddisc. If I haven't, just stare at me for over 3 minutes, the topic is bound to come up. I am, to be modest, very proud of it. Because I have just graduated from a measly one bedded 40GB apartment in suburban Jhoomri Talaiyya to a posh multistoreyed Mukesh Ambani's 1TB residential locality.

But life is a great leveller, and I guess God wished to punish me for all the crap I threw on A7 ites. I get it now man, even God is biased, he likes CompSci, thats fne with me. No hard feelings.

After I opened the gleeming new Western Digital, 1TB MY BOOK, it stood before me in all its glory, and I just didn't have the heart to plug it in my slightly virus infested laptop. So my heart expressed an interest to format it to remove all malware, and freshly install Windows XP.

Mistake number 1. There is no such thing as a non-virus infested Windows running laptop, because its part of a law Newton thought unnecessary to pen down. Everyone knows that, I do to, now...

So gleefully I went from room to room knocking on doors asking for a Windows XP CD. When I started it was a cheerful, "Yaar XP ki CD hai kya". That went to, "Oye XP CD de be"... and finally to "BC XP ki CD de nahin to comp oopar se phenk doonga". And it worked.

Mistake number 2: God loves A7 and by being rude to some of his mistresses, I upset him.

So just like a nice sweet boy, all pure, who's never done anything wrong, who thinks that he's done nothing to upset the almighty I inserted the XP CD and rebooted. A little blue screen, a little formatting, a little sweet noise from my hard disc and a new fresh Windows installed on my sweet little COMPAQ.

I recollected what the next step in the manual was, and remembered that I needed drivers. Hehe, I know what you must be thinking, "Hehe, this dickhead didn't save them before formatting". Well, stop smiling, you're wrong about the saving but the dickhead thing is right on target. I saved them on a pendrive. Now you can smile.

Now most people, would think yeh saala pendrive bade computer ka kya hila lega, but to be crude, bahut kuch. Pendrive laga nahin, ki mere pyare virgin lappy ki maa, behen, biwi, bacche, chachi, dadi, nani, sab saath mein..... chhud gaye. Phuck ho gaya mere saath.

Sab try kar liya, kuchh nahin hila paaya. Jab wing ke A7 waalon ko bataya, sab hanse, koi advice nahin, kuchh nahin, bas saale hanse. I stomped back to my room, having resolved not to give up.

Mistake No. 3, Jab kuchh karne ki aukaat na ho, lite lo, give up kar do.

So I repeat the whole process, this time I am smart. I ask for the best antivirus. Norton 2007, Vista Compatible, I am told. So I take the same pendrive, scan it on a friend's comp, to remove the half kilogram of malware on it, (never seen an antivirus so active, every nanosecond there was a pop-up). Put the antivus setup into it and reboot to reformat. I do every thing right, every bloody fucking thing, and guess what it comes out fine. Happily, I hum to myself, as I start filling up my 1TB. Piece of cake I tell myself :) I put DC on a trillion things, and go to sleep.

Next morning, I get a message, "Your Norton AntiVirus is not validated, uninstall then reinstall". I had half a mind to call a friend, but I could take care of this myself.

Mistake 4, listen to your mind, whatever fraction of it. >= 0.5 is good enough.

So I do as it says, and another story unfolds. Needless to say, if I had any pull-outable hair, I would have pulled them all out. I go around looking for another XP CD, maybe the CD was corrupt. Going through the rounds again, I see that it's not just my lappy, but a plague, all the comps were getting screwed, GENOCIDE.

Finally I get one XP CD, which is even more corrupt than Bihari MP. Then someone tells me that there's a hermit in new wing, all wise and sagacious, with an uncorrupt CD. I go to him, head bowed down, kneeling before him, and the generous all knowing one, bestowed upon me a simple moserbaer CD. Then I realised, there is no secret ingredient, it is all within you.

I insert, reboot and reinstall, feeling and believing from within that this CD will work fine. It worked fine, and I am joyous. On my way to the all knowing one, I overhear someone saying Linux is the best, no malware, no shit, and you can have both Windows and Linux together. I enquired with the all knowing one and he nodded.

Mistake no 5: There is no all knowing, everyone's a hoax. every fucking one.

So I borrow a Linux CD, it was all read and had ubuntu written over it. It looked like a silly little game CD. But I did as I was told. And it was done, I felt joyed, overjoyed even. I restart and what do I see, XP is re-fucked. This time there is no anger, no frustration, only tears. O God, what sins have I done in my previous life. Certainly in this short 20 year lifespan, nobody could have committed such heinous crimes as to deserve this.

Slowly the tears turn to resolve, and I go back anf grab the XP CD, show the middle finger to many confused faces on the way back, and insert, reboot and reinstall.

Mistake no.?? Lite, I lost count. I'd like to quote the alchemist, when you are getting screwed and you fight back, all the universe conspires in helping to teach you a lesson.

Most readers would have given up now, saying, "C'mon he can't screw up this time", but as the title says, I am an asshole. If I had to guess how I could screw up this time, you'd get a treat at ANC(sorry guys low on budget). I installed Windows on D drive, the drive where ubuntu was installed. So now I have 2 drives with Windows XP, one corrupt the other about to be.

Epilogue:

My Computer hard disc has been screwed so hard, so bad, so many times over, that whenever it gets a little, I just kiss the monitor and say, "There, there"

All the XP CDs have been rightfully returned to their owners, the corrupt ones with a skull and crossbones sign on it.

My wingies laugh at me like they were being paid to.

My external hard disc is with Kattu to fill. Apparently he's never had viruses on his computer. Ohh.. if I could just strangle him.

I can't look at myself in the mirror. I am now running XP at the lowest possible brightness, colour...basically everything is at its lowest. Am back to living in my measly 40GB single bedded shack.

The all knowing one doesn't really exist. I just made him up. HEHE.. fooled you!!

Somewhere between those formats, there was even a time my LAN wasn't working, and obb I thought it was a virus. So I reformatted and thinking that my MAC was blocked I went to IPC , only to realize that it wasn't, I returned home to a perfectly working MAC. So to reiterate,

When you are getting screwed and you fight back, all the universe conspires, even people who have no business with you otherwise, in helping to teach you a lesson, by srewing you over again. Like the rebirth and salvation concept.

Lite ra... way too much for today. I won't wish you yest of luck for comprees, 'coz if yo have the time to reach here, either you don't need luck, or you don't give a f**k.