Where I respond

I have been called caustic and it has been claimed that I have been acting weird. I will now respond to these scurrilous allegations.

Um...

Fine, I have a caustic sense of humor, but in my defense, I am caustic only with those who know that I am never serious. But since it seems that this is being construed as meanness, I shall cease to be caustic towards those who want me to cease and desist.

I shall be all polite and respectful and boringly bland.

Sadly, this seems to make people believe that I am acting weird.

Vicious circle, what?

Incidentally, I do not ACT weird.
I AM weird. There is a not so unsubtle difference between the two.

Back to the vicious circle.

Hmmmm…

That’s no fun.

So if I’m trapped I might as well go down with all guns blazing
.
On that hopefully ominous note, I shall change the topic.

Semester drags on, and by and large it is far less fun than summer.

I have started programming in Java again. Three cheers. I had forgotten how much fun that is. I’m hunting for that elusive job, which will help me get out of Nowhere, Pa. As I said before, lots of money and very little actual work.

While on the subject of jobs, congratulations Ameya on Intel. Back to Bangalore after all this time away. Now by my calculations, Kaushik and I will be the only ones away from the gang, and since our resident plutocrat is in Madras, which is three hops four skips and half a jump away from Bangalore, I am the only one away. On the subject of people being away, Inder, have a great time in Germany. However, since Inder refuses to read my blog, he will never read that.

On the subject of congratulations, congratulations Chinmay , on the candidacy. May we get drunk again, and have another serious conversation.

I think I’ll rewrite the infamous “Manifesto” , one of these days and for a change, I will try to follow it.

No, Really I will. Trust me. I will. No kidding.

Disappointment. I might not be able to make it to India in December.

To those who know, I’m looking for a spear gun to hunt all those pesky sharks. Preferably a weapon that will inflict upon them a long and painful death. Or like the crossbow from Halflife.

Heh. That would be fun. I’m sure Kaushik remembers me potting him from across the warehouse/storage area in the Stalkyard. Incidentally, I lost that map only twice, out of all the times that we played. Here’s to the wastelands, with Kwai and Inder screaming for someone, anyone to defend the flag and Kaushik coming up with inspired defense strategies.

An extract from the removed post, the unposted post from that memorable early morning blogging session.
“
Running on fumes.

Ran out of fumes.

Stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Objects in the rear view mirror may be the cops.
”
On that note.

The Rajneesh vanishes in a puff of smoke.

Where I let go

Blog removed beacuse of what I think is unfair criticism. heh heh.

I do agree though. Fair criticism. Thank you.

Where I am in the Bangalore of the mind...

Time to wax nostalgic again...

A few days ago I sent out a mail to the gang asking them to recollect stuff from the four years of undergrad, the good, the bad, the horribly mutated.

Attached below are everybodys contributions. To most people, this will make no sense since I do not care to expand or explain. They shall be as I received them, and as we remember them.

Me:
Net4U, Bun Puffs, Splendours and Chetaks, Chana Bhatooras, Chillis comp and Ameya's Helmet.

Kaushik:
Well dhimant and Yes Lunch
Chilli and me singing Supra Jyotsna
Dhannu and Basant
Me fooling Amey to go the wrong way in NBA
Dhimant feeling up Aja's leg in KFC
Me going to KFC 4 straight days
Rajesh Whistling
Inder asking directions from rajneesh's place to my place

Ameya:
as a continuation..
a)inder not finding my house after coming there for 2
continuous days on his own
b)cracking KSS jokes at night...
c)the cricket in florence school ground..
d)our experience with dr.amarnaths energitic biscuits
after the cricket
e)half life taking almost an year to complete and
every1 contributing to the shooting while chilli
controlled the movements
f) chillis and rajneesh escapades with princi

Inder:
Kerosene xerox
Light a match stick in the exam hall, enough kersone on everyone's hands to set off a small explosion

Me:
Tomato bhath/bath at the canteen, ameya giving talks to the juniors, kaushik
in workshop clothes 7 days a week.

Dhimant:
What about surfing the net on chilli's shell account?? Downloading pics
based on the file names and getting a bang out of it.

Chilli:
Tantrums:
1) Dhim swearing at the Sympony manager
2) Kaushik saying "fatty is getting fatter" and Rajjo walking away from us
3) Rajjo waiting for his Salisbury Steak at Nilgiris. We teasing him, and
him walking out yet again.
4) Dhim going "Adhalla aagallaare!" at the auto driver
5) Inder slapping the auto driver

Excuses:
1) Kaushik not able to go doubles in his Kinetic coz of some tyre problem
2) Rajjo not staying over at my place coz of coughing!
3) Akshai not coming for a movie coz "we didnt call him earlier!"

Jokes:
1) Evergreen It jokes! :)
2) In toto, auto

Misc:
1) Kaushik getting a gross margin of 10 bucks on a single visiting card
2) Ameya running over the dogs of bangalore
3) The mega treat by akshai, dhim & ameya which had madhav, sandeep, nair,
etc. And they didnt even know that ameya was part of the hosts.

Rajesh:
1) A to Z shop where we used to stop by for a Juice after the exams
2) Chilli being very modest abt the exams and maxing out every sem.
3) Dhimanth's book filled with the practised question and answers.
4) Rajneesh's wild playing of Basket ball in Malleswaram grounds leadin
to breakage of his glasses.
5) Word game in the class and chilli findin the answers in record time.
6) Kaushik's permanent tent in the Basket ball court in college.
7) Multiplayer games played during the college fest. Especially Capture
the flag, when everybody started shoutin in the Electronis lab.

Where I try to write...

Nothing happens when semester starts. Everyone is busy. I have been behaving more obnoxiously than usual.

But keeping in mind my large and clamouring audience, I have decided to share with you, gentle reader, my stage for a science fiction novel.

The planet shall be an anamoly, an aberration that cannot exist. It will be as large as jupiter, but it will not be a gas giant and it will have standard earth gravity.

Why so large you ask?

Well you will find out later.

It shall be populated by multiple intelligent species. One of whom will be humans. Another will be hamsters. And a third will be large, slow-moving chocolate bars.

Um...

I was kidding about the hamsters.

I have not named the planet yet.

It shall be called RII for the time being.

Thats about it.

More later.

Um...

I really do not have time to waste. I wonder why I do this.

Where...

I have burnt it out of me.

I think I will survive.

Where semester has started

Semester has started. No courses. Only a colloqium (gulp) and my thesis (double gulp). Four more months and I'm out of here gentle reader. The Rajneesh is ready to enter the work force again. Preferably in a job that pays a lot of money and involves very little actual work.

Yup, High hopes.

It's happening again. Now, that semester has started, time will speed up. I'll sneeze and it'll be December. My time here will be done.

Here's to getting drunk.

The cat was arrested in New York.

Where i couldnt think of a subject...

I did think of calling this post, "Where I am alive to write about it...(Part 4)", but I decided against it.

It's been two weeks since New York, and life has settled back to normal, or as close to normal as it gets. Well actually a trifle boring.

Saw just one movie, Alien versus Predator. The Predators won. Kind of. Watch the movie. It was not as bad as I expected it to be.

Daya should be in Bangalore about now. Meeting my parents. I wonder if that will set off any explosions. Hope not.

The apartment is finally clean.

The part of the blog that is below this statement was written a week after the part of the blog that is above the part of the blog that is below the part of the blog that is above. Chilli, your favorite prof.

Saw another movie. "Open water", and now I will never go scuba diving ever.

A short and sweet post.

Later people.

Where I am alive to write about it...(Part 3)

And now the concluding part of our epic saga.

When you last saw them, our intrepid hero and his companions had just returned from a second night out in Manhattan. The task that lay ahead of them was two fold, dropping Divya off at Newark International Airport and getting back to State College.

We woke that morning, a tad late. Just an hour and a half late. I got just four hours of sleep. After being woken by Daya and getting directions from him, we set off on what would become an epic journey.

We reach Newark Airport completely incident free and drop off Divya at Terminal A (Delta Atlanta). And then we leave for good old' State College.

We reach it without incident four hours later.

Um...

No.

We reach State College, seven hours later after just a few minor incidents.

So there we are. We've just left Newark Airport and we actually make it to I-80 incident free. I was hungry so we decided to get something to eat. The first detour we took got us lost in the wilds of New Jersey (Surprisingly New Jersey does have wilds). We end up at a really desolate lawyers office where a secretary and a cop point us back to the freeway. Well, the secretary gave us the correct directions; the cop gave us the wrong ones. He did follow us and then give us the correct directions.

The next detour we took resulted in us reaching a PNCBank branch, which was convenient (My bank, so could go to the ATM). Now we have money but still no food.

The final major detour for food was then taken (My grammar sucks and I'm pretty sure that I am mixing up tenses with, for lack of a better phrase, gay abandon). We reach this nice, friendly deli place off I-80. Good food, egg and cheese on rolls and a Danish. That’s what I had. And a cup of coffee.

Well…

Um…

How do I put this?

No way of sugar coating it.

The car caught fire.

Smoke was pouring out from under the fucking hood. I kid you not.

Stepping back a bit.

Breakfast being eaten. Nice. Pleasant conversation and company.

A guy walked up to my table, points to the car and asks if it’s mine.

Hmmm…Lets do this as a dialog.

Mustached Guy(MG): Hey, is that your car?
Me: Yup.
MG: I think it’s on fire.
Me: Whaaaaaa!
Me: Running frantically outside.

Actually I did not say that. I did that.

Back to the story. The car is on fire. And then a bunch of guys appear from nowhere. They pop open the hood, remove the burning clumps of grass. Pour water over the smoking innards, close the hood and disappear.

The fire incidentally was clumps of grass stuck under the car from Friday’s incident. They decided to catch fire for some reason on Monday.

The fire is out. We go back in. Finish our breakfast. Fill up on coffee. And leave.

That was a rather inadequate narrative, but that’s the best that I can do.

Well, the rest of the trip was really pretty eventless. Made a lot of rest stops on the way because I was so sleepy, drank heaps of coffee, ate lots of chocolate and stayed awake.

Thirty miles outside of state college, I smashed my right thumb in the car door. Just to make the drive back more challenging.

That’s about it.

Dropped the car off at Enterprise. Didn’t have to pay a cent. A bit of advice gentle reader, if ever you rent a car, TAKE EVERY POSSIBLE KIND OF INSURANCE.

The saga ends.

The cat is in Manhattan.

Where I am alive to write about it...(Part 2)

As promised, the rest of the epic weekend.

When we last saw them our intrepid hero (that's me) and his inept, helpless companions (that's my inept helpless companions) had just left JFK. And now the story continues...

We left JFK at two thirtyish and promptly got lost in Queens. So I asked some dudes for directions and finally got pointed towards Manhattan (The directions pretty much were, go straight and stop at the river). We drove over some bridge and managed to get to Manhattan at threeish. The view of the skyline from the bridge was breathtaking, or so I have been told, since I had to keep my eyes glued to the road and could not see the skyline.

Well, it's three in the morning. We are in Manhattan. We have no place to stay and I realize that we are pretty much out of gas. Yes, a nearly empty tank. Yay.

We then decided that it would be prudent for us to get some gas. And this is the US; getting gas should not be a problem should it? This country is in love with the automobile, isn't it? Small hitch. There do not seem to be many gas stations in Manhattan. As a matter of fact, I am now convinced that there is only one gas station in Manhattan. Again I get directions to the gas station from some kind late birds. The place naturally is as far away from our present location as possible, without actually being in the river. After a lengthy struggle, which involves me trying to navigate the one ways and having Divya (person picked up at JFK) hop out and ask for directions from a deli we finally arrive at the gas station.

Naturally the guy in charge at the gas station was a desi.

After a minor struggle to figure out how the pump actually worked, we filled her up and were off on our merry way.

Um...

Not really.

We still did not have a place to stay.

So, we begin the search for a place to stay. Both my passengers are now comatose. We drive up and down Amsterdam Avenue looking for a cheap hotel. Notice the emphasis on cheap. A guy at an all night deli told me about a cheap hotel. Unfortunately his accent was so thick that he might have been telling me about his granduncle's back pain condition for all the sense he made. Another guy at an all-night cafe told me about a cheap place called the Amsterdam Inn.

Ended up there. The cheapest available room cost a hundred and fifty bucks a night. We left.

I finally broke. Called Chinmay's friend. It was now five in the morning. He arranged for us to stay at a friend's place on 109th street. And that is where we finally ended up.

I dropped off the passengers and then spent 10 minutes hunting for a parking place. Made one abortive attempt at parallel parking and then gave up. Finally found a spot on Cathedral Street. Parked there. Before that I was pulled up by a cop on suspicions of being a terrorist (The car had a temporary sticker and permanent plates, which is highly suspicious, I do agree).

I finally hit the sack at five thirty, and sleep the sleep of the dead until I wake at eleven thirty.

We then made another stab at the Amsterdam Inn. The cheapest room is still a hundred and fifty bucks. We decide against it and I make a call to Daya and we get to crash at his place.

We reach his house in Summit at two after I drive the treacherous route from New York with crazy drivers driving at insane speeds. One small deviation, when I missed an exit but we found our way back, and ended up in Summit and peace.

We leave by train for the city a few hours later. We take in Times Square, I was amused a great deal and we arrived back in Summit at three in the morning.

The next day we left for Manhattan again after a smashing brunch provided by Daya. Roamed Manhattan a bit, had to restrain Anusha from going into a gay bar and took the Harbor Lights boat ride, which was truly fantastic. Had dinner at a truly expensive Mexican place and ended up at Times Square again before we returned to Summit.

The conclusion and the exciting fire in the car, in my next post.

Um...

I also wish to reiterate that I did not start the argument on the train.

Where I am alive to write about it...(Part 1)

Well, here we are again boys and girls. Been sometime since we last met. A bit has happened in the interim, and as the title says, I am alive to write about it.

It was a blustery Friday evening when a passenger and I set out to New York City in a Nissan Centra. We reached I-80 relatively incident free and were going on our merry way, when I drifted off.

Yes, gentle audience, on I-80 West at a speed of seventy miles an hour, in the fast lane I decided to drift off. I drift back into semi-consciousness and notice that I am on the grass divider. That's no big deal. All I'm supposed to do is to drift gently back onto the road.

What I instead decide to do is panic, (Why? Coz it seemed to be such a good idea at the time) and slam on the brakes.

Not a good idea.

Not a good idea at all.

Well I then promptly lose control of the car and it spins and does a complete three sixty a couple of times before coming to a stop with the front bumper against the railing in the service lane on the opposite side of the freeway, which is I-80 East. Notice that the car managed to miss the traffic that was coming down the two lanes at seventy miles an hour.

So there we are.

In the service lane. Perpendicular to the road. A couple of old men stop their cars and tell me to get mine out of the way, because I could still get hit. So I backed onto the road (Notice I was not thinking clearly.) and drove to an exit where I cleaned the car at a car wash and continued to JFK.

Got lost a couple of times on the way. Took a few wrong exits and ended up in some really bad neighborhoods in Newark, but we finally reached JFK. I did have to drive through Manhattan to get to the airport and that was great fun.

Well the car was pretty badly fucked. The air conditioning was destroyed and the steering column had this disconcerting tendency to vibrate when I went above sixty. And occasionally the gears would not shift properly from neutral to drive.

So we finally picked up the person from JFK and...

Well the weekend in Manhattan will be described later.

So will the drive back, when the car caught fire and I was falling asleep…
That’s it for now folks. More later.