Endsems...

It happens. The nights get chilly. The days get shorter. In a far corner of India people begin to realise their worst fears. Teeth begin to chatter and it has nothing to do with the cold lithe wind blowing in through open doors. People begin to get closeted in their rooms that again having nothing to do with the chilly outdoors. The sports fields lie vacant. The doors of rooms refuse to open even for a minute of Bakar. There spawns an unholy chill inside people. It starts off as an emptiness in the bottom of the stomach, a hollow feeling of nothingness. It is then augmented by a flurry of gut wrenching quiz results. The hollowness rises into the head and the knowledge little as it may leaks out. The frightening piles of notes gathered over 4 months of lectures (taken down by someone else obviously) seem even larger (as if that was possible!!!). Illness seems to strike me just then (How convenient!!!). Desktops of some (read 327) have on a paused movie or soap which is promptly played as soon as someone knocks. " Yaar movie dekh raha hoon !! ". Some others (read 324) keep the doors of their room open while sleeping just to show the world " I'm sleeping .... so now dont say I am the biggest Ghissu!!! ". Why not just say yes sometime ?? Because after all everyone knows the chill that sooner or later creeps up into the head and makes you wonder " Why didn't I start this earlier!!! ". But then its generally too late to recover. But so what!!! Then comes the happy realisation of it being the last week of semester. You realise that 5-6 days more of saying " C**d gayi yaar aaj toh!!! " and you'll be ready to self destruct all over again next semester!!! It's a new experience for me every semester. The 1st sem was more of the try-to-dip-your-hands into-every-bowl-IITG-offers kind be it Techniche Manthan Alcher Inters blah blah only to realise you missed the one the professors had held forth. The second was more of a recovery mission involving a spirited start to sem only to find out that working in Alcher was much more fun. Once Alcher got over it was soaps all the way till the sem self-destructed. The self-destruction of the third semester was mostly niteouts and then sleep out the days. So as I realised I am not responsible for my semesters :D :D its the timing of these things that conspires against you. It just doesn't let you get a good sem in. Live with it!!! Its much more fun this way.

C**d gayi yaar aaj ke paper me !!!!

Alcheringa 09 ..... Its coming

Its coming to sweep you off your feet ....... MI08 its an open challenge :P ;)



Dreamtime is descending on the Northern banks of the mighty Bramhaputra.
Be there ......
Jan 29 to Feb 1

How I got to 4003 ....... a journey through my first year.

Its been like a whole week into the sem now. Classes are now very different. Gone are the days when 5-6 people linked only by the location of their rooms went to classes together. They knew not the others "really" . I mean beyond the others names and where they were from, there was not much they knew about each other. Probably, one more thing they knew about each other during those early days of healthy, good for the world in general fresher-senior interaction, was "frequency" ;) . More than that they knew nothing. They had just entered a world oblivious to the joys of DC++, of LAN gaming, of Techniche, of Manthan and of Alcher. When they came here they probably hadn't seen the varied hues of human nature. They got to see that in these very people, accepted their faults and now are the very best of friends. There is the pseudo-dominant soft at heart insecure guy. There is the one who feels he's always right and won't accept not knowing something even if its staring down upon him with the barrel of a gun pointed at his temple. There's the one who whines at the drop of a hat and yet he's probably one of the most cheerful guys too, Ironic!! There's the one who is too melodramatic in stuff he writes, be it status messages or be it scraps to a certain someone wishing her on her birthday. And there's me, insecure probably, a tad overconfident sometimes, maybe a bit outspoken and too sarcastic sometimes. There's the football, one track mind if I ever saw one ;). But thats all just perception. What counts is the strongest possible bond, that of friendship, the everlasting kind. And it's not that the bond has been untested. Late February 08 saw the bond being stretched to its limit. After that what has been established is that it not going to break. The year saw lots of stuff happening, some mentionables and many unmentionables :D . How some people used to being pretty much the best in anything even remotely related to academics suddenly realised that maybe thats not all they were made for. Some rediscovered the author in them which had been lost since about 6th class i guess. Many others discovered that they had amazing reflexes ...... headshot after headshot ensured that ;) . Some discovered that they could down 650 ml of a pretty dilute solution of ethanol pretty easily. Well all of them discovered that they aren't and never were the best academically. They accepted it and moved on because they still remained better than most. Or maybe they didn't give a damn. And then they lifted themselves up in the 2nd sem and got much better academically. So infact they all did give a damn even though none actually admitted it to the others for fear of being labelled "Ghissu of the Lobby". [This distinction lies as of now with the guy who lives bang in front of me!! ;) ]. And then after 3 months of absolutely amazing fun at home. They returned....... and I got to 4003

The Ruin of IIT's (The Story in Numbers)

There are 1.2 billion Indians

Approximately half of them are supposed to be in the 0-25 age group

that gives us 600 million young Indians

these 600 million are fairly evenly distributed among the 0-25 age group

so about 3/26th of them in the 17-19 age group

that gives us around 69 million indians on the cusp of turning adults

of these only 35% are educated upto the 12th standard level

that leaves 24.25 million Educated indians on the cusp of turning adults

only 40% of these are in the science stream at max

so that leaves 9.7 million Educated indians on the cusp of adulthood who study science

only half of them actually think of engineering as a career

that will give 4.85 million Educated Indian Soon-to-be Engineers on the cusp of adulthood

Only about 30% know their selected branch of engineering really well.

that will leave 1,455,000 Young Indian Engineering Graduates of real calibre

only about 15% go in for higher studies beyond their bachelors degree

that will give 218,250 Young Indian Engineering Graduates Who go in for post graduation

of them half pursue an MBA

that will leave 109,125 Young Indian Engineering Post-Graduates

At the Maximum 5% of them complete a Doctorate

That will give about 5,450 Doctorates in The aforementioned long long classification of Young Indian Engineering Graduates of Some Calibre who pursue and succesfully complete their post-graduation upto the Ph.D level

Of these only 10% will go into the academic field

That gives 545 teachers who are Indian Engineering Graduates of Some Calibre Who have succesfully obtained a Doctorate

But wait i haven't finished

of these only 20% actually teach in India

The Brain Drain is real dudes ..........

so that leaves only 109 blah blah blah ........Doctorates teaching in India

of these lets say 40% teach in IIT's (the "Brand" That's on its last legs thanks to a certain Mr.Arjun Singh)

so that gives us 43 IIT professors every year

Great!!

Problem is that there are going to be 15 IIT's plus ofcourse the All - Womens IIT

So 16 IIT's

That gives every IIT less than 3 new Professors every year

And of course my dear Mr. Arjun Singh do profs ever retire ???

Can an Institution of the level of an IIT (what level people will ask 5 years down the line)
survive on getting just 3 professors of high quality every year ?????


Whew that was tiring

Hope i made my point!!

Her...

The views expressed in this post are not figments of an well-endowed fertile imagination, they aren't even mindless musings as is typical of me...... they just might be true so if "you're" reading this, its for you .....



I feel it, I jest and leave it hanging,
But then, I get that weird choking feeling,
It seems to start with divine happiness,
Coz someone's found a treasure,
But it precedes an empty weirdness.

I can withhold, suppress and bury the pain,
But then it surfaces when I see you again,
Its that sinking feeling of losing something,
For which I have to search in the fragments,
What's left seems useless and false,

The draught of anguish seems chilling,
Because it was preceded by that warmth,
Warmth that can keep you going,
Can keep you glowing on your path of life,
But then the mind takes over and saves me,

What was not to be was not to be,
What is still there , is me………
I'm still there, all the way, whenever I'm needed,
I am not gone yet, I'm only down, not out [;)]
I will follow if not accompany, but I won't leave,

But don't look back, don't look at the road behind,
Don't look out for me, I'll just follow quietly,
I've gotten up after the fall, slightly bruised [:)]
But if you will ever look back later,
I'll be there………right behind, waiting,

Because what once was, was not skin-deep,
It was deeper than you might have thought,
One person's anguish should not spread,
Don't share it because it breeds on sharing,
Keep it to me, and move ahead with a smile!

This is to her..... ;)

00:48

This wouldn't have been a familiar waking hour for me about exactly one year ago. I was then the ideal (what did i just type???) ........ oh lemme cut the crap. Its just that i never used to stay up so late. Boy did this one year change me, now 00:48 may see me one movie into a 3 movie one night stand. Very rarely it might find me studying, cramming for a quiz at 8 the next morning. well whats captured my attention tonight ( apart from an Orkut profile of well..... lets make it a certain "someone" (winky-winky)) is that Germany lead 2 goals to none against the Portuguese .........
aawell make that 2-1 to germany with nuno gomes firing in one from close range.

Well what i found crazy was that for one team who scraped in to lead by two goals over another that played some great footer is.......... well.......... footer :)

well me for one was shocked twice over (thrice??? refer to previous parantheses (not so shocked there)) tonight when germany pulled 2 on portugal in the space of 4 mintues.

Now this blog post is gettin drab and boring which it was anyway going to do in the first place
"Cut"

Well certain multi-personae rolled into one (three personae at last count ain't tht right Arayan?)have been visiting this blog . They asked me if I wrote in prose. Fair question considering the vast amounts of gibberish I come out with from time to time. Maybe its just the fear in their minds that if I write in prose they'll have to just go through gargantuan amounts of complete crap. So to you i dedicate this pile of smelly pong called The Cranial Outbox v2.0

The Great Kaddu Effect

'twas the day before yesterday The Kaddu came forth and spoke,
He warned everyone,
You won't get nothing guys…try now to lift yerself,
Keep lifting urself up, go up up and even higher,
He kept raising the bar 7.5 7.75……who knows,
Maybe today he'll say you need 9.5 to do anything,
Job…………haan 8 ke neeche bilkul nahi lete!!!
MS…….woh toh bhool jao 9 ke neeche!!
MBA karni hai kya??? Lao 8.5 khush ho jao……
Terror in the eyes of poor friends,
Apna kya hoga………….
Slowly but surely he removed any hope of a future,
Placements wud luk hillarious under the Kaddu effect,
2008 2.5% placed
2009 2.7% placed (excluding s___m boys n gals)
2010 1.5% placed
2011 2% placed (Including s___m boys )
Nd then we'll hav Super mess workers,
Super lab assistants,
Super Munims,
Wid cpi's of 8, 7.5 blah blah…………
Lif in IIT-G will be super…….
Everyone in the staff will be IIT'ians
Munim, "jogonna" of chem lab………
Everyone!!

Presenting "the Kaddu Effect"!!

Battlefields of Silence...

I see red. Blinding flashes of it…
Shadows in the dark all around,
Cold war of sorts you may call it...
Bathed in black is the ground,
The false front is crumbling down,
The flame is slowly dying…
How I wish you'd also try to hold it up,
How I wish you'd also try to reignite it,
But you don't seem to want to,
And I can't do either of them alone,
Lemme tell you something...
I don't have any craving for what you aim at,
I don’t wanna be the captain of the ship,
All I want is an opportunity,
A simple opportunity to help it stand up,
We both need to help it stand,
It won't stand by your hand alone,
Neither will it stand by mine alone,
What it needs is many hands,
And it will stand proud and mighty,
Why don't you see that vision too?
Now lets leave him to ponder,
Lets come to You...
Well, He may or may not see it, but You…
Don't You see that I share both of your dreams,
but not your ambitions dudes!!!
I'm not at all trying to block You from anything...
Why do you ride forth in silence?
What have I done? Where have I erred?
Do tell me if you feel the need to…
It seems you just didn't feel the need,
I feel awkward to ask, it is after all weird,
Well it is upto you…if at all you read this,
Then maybe you'll respond…who knows,
I'm hoping and waiting…do try to answer,
Both of you… I'm a waitin'

A Call to Young India

'twas 57 long years ago they say,
I wasn't there to see it but…well…they say,
A nation staggered to its feet then,
It became a Republic…The Indian Republic,

What is a republic? They knew that aeons ago…
Since time immemorial efforts are on…
Many nations tried and now lie tattered and torn…
Our nation hasn't yet gone on that path,

Neither has it become what is a Republic,
Torn by many evils but yet hangin' in there,
India is a resolute spirit but how long will it hold…
India Shining, !ncredible India…they do it for votes,

Not one is dedicated to India, our motherland,
What she needs is the fire in the belly,
It's up to us, Young India, rise and make her big,
Rekindle the fire within you, it's glory time,

Far behind us in the pages of history,
We see an India which was glorius,
Let's relive that India, Glorious India,
The powers that be don't see this dream,

Don't become the powers that be,
Become the power that does,
The power of a dream, India Glorious,
Let it occupy you, drive you, the scintillating flame…Young India…


-The-not-so-confused-this-time Cranium

Silence..............

The silence rose like dark clouds over my skies,
Was it contempt now or had it been eternal lies,
I hope it is just a phase which will see an end,
Or is our friendship now round the bend???

Was it just an illusion of a short time,
Or will it persist and resemble other friendships of mine?
Like the three of us who dispersed to three corners of this land,
And yet we are linked by the bonds that bind,

Will the same happen with new bonds,
Will they stand the test of time??
Or will they crumble like a house of cards,
And will I have to find solace inwards?

Time is a bewitching temptress I have surmised,
She poses her questions much before they're realised,
And if you are infatuated by her riddles,
You'll become me…………..

-La confusa cráneo

A shot at putting my thoughts to words

Risin' up from the ashes,
The spirit wandered free,
It had been a long time since it had soared,
A long, long time………….

It had been given the freedom by its kin,
But it had not yet realised that fact,
It refused to break the shell and fly,
It seemed that it wouldn't ever, but it did,

When it did break free at last,
It seemed too used to its self-induced confinement,
It refused to leap, to fly, to soar,
Like the free bird, like the whistling breeze,

Tis' not that it didn't feel the call of the wind,
Not that it didn't see the glorious rays of the setting sun,
Tis' just that it had decided to ignore the calls,
But it was destined that the spirit was to soar,

From the thing that wouldn't,
From the thing that feared,
From that which refused,
It was meant to move to something better,

The thing that wouldn't mind,
The thing that overcame its fear,
That which gave it a go,
The spark was kindled,

They were just embers in the ashes,
Winds of change blew over 'em,
The embers glowed bright,
The glow was now scintillating,

It had needed only that spark,
That single brilliant pinpoint of energy,
And that spark was you,
It didn't recognise the spark when it was next to it,
But it has recognised it now…………..



-The Confused Cranium