Back...

The last four days have been real hectic for me. Starting with my first radio appearance on AIR FM, having my faithful pair of scissors being confiscated at the airport, my apartment search in Mumbai, my train journey back to my insti for convo, boy! I have managed to pick up not-so-good experiences all along :D

First, I was queued up behind a painfully slow talker on radio giving 'economic update'. Next, my beloved pair of scissors that has cut many a hair, hundreds of pieces of paper, not to mention many other things, was confiscated at the airport. Entirely my fault as I forgot I had kept it in my hand bag some three weeks back and forgot all about it. Third, I just found out that I haven't kept any clean change of dress here so I have to maintain a tight dress rotation cycle here. Finally, my search for a flat in India's apple is still unfruitful. None of my classmates are here yet as they will be enjoying their vacations and joining their jobs late. Ah!

Today I realised the extent of the heat in the subcontinent and summer has just started! I pity the British Overlords who had to spend their time here. Wish I was in Shimla, Darjeeling or Ooty now. No wonder they developed their 'hill stations' so much.

With nothing to do here, I finished one book - Jack Welch's Straight From the Gut in less than 8 hours of which 4 were spent in my favourite bed, curled up sleeping. Nothing is better than a 4 hour siesta! Brings in good memories spent at home when I was a kid where the biggest worry were home work assignments, getting up early and exams. Nowadays, kids as young as 15 are killing themselves over over-hyped exams. Not to mention the pressure from the glorified drill-sergeants a.k.a teachers. I still remember and hate to my guts some of the teachers back in school. I was horrified at the verdict of a court that acquitted the moron who pushed a 11th standard kid to hang himself. The school was velammal, where students are akin to prison inmates and the 'teachers' are nothing more than slave-drivers. In the name of 'competition' and 'future', the morons are pushing kids to achieve more than what they can. Getting even 90% in the final exam is seen as the sign of a 'weak student'. The idiots who 'correct' the papers are even more stupid. They just look for a few 'keywords' and reduce marks for each 'keyword' not seen! Just out of spite, in 12th standard, I filled one whole paper with just keywords and there wasn't a complete sentence in any answer. I got 93% in it!! Surprised? It happens only in India!

Exams for some papers here in the PHB insti can be considered a farce at their best. One guy who hasn't attended any class is one of the toppers, people who knew zero about information technology and information systems getting top marks in those subjects, blatant copying in certain papers, etc etc. There I go again, must be the air in this place!

Conservative City

I did not understand why people called Chennai the most conservative city in India. After being on the road for a few days, I think I understand why. You can say the mindset of a place can be judged from the ads. First, the ad which has a male model being only in his bikini briefs with lipstick marks and the tagline 'prepare to get assaulted', which I saw even in cowbelt cities like Bhopal have been 'censored' everywhere here, only the male model covered with thick white canvas. I don't know what, maybe you will get 'assaulted', if you look like that model, or wear that brand of briefs or stuff it with stockings like that one :D Next, advertisements for anything and everything do well if they have a temple in the background or are set in a temple - water conservation, mobile phones, motorbikes/cars, name it. Thirdly, none of the ads have women showing more than their elbows (even ankles are not seen!). I am not complaining against anything. Also, there is a 6 feet tall chick sitting in the cubicle next to me. :)... Not complaining again.

Dad's Advice

Hmm, less than 5 days to move out of this city into Aamchi Mumbai.

My dad doesn't like me wearing t-shirts with messagees on them. To be precise, he doesn't want me to wear t-shirts with radical messages like the ones which talk agains McDonald's, Enron, President of USA, Race-relations, religious messages, etc. If someone can have misogynistic, aryan supremacist, bullshit-apologetic, why can't I have something against it? What do you say of a verse that says women, shudras, buffalos (and something else) should be whipped to keep them in place - manusmriti. Too bad no-one recognises what is on my t-shirts anyway! I also can't have non-religionistic words on my t-shirt when others can write things like 'aum is the sound of the universe' (silence is), 'jesus calls'. Someone took offense when I wore a t-shirt with something closely resembling something else. Bah!

I have been struggling for over 3 months now with my blogrolling code, none of them is showing up... so those coolies ( cool people :D, no offense ) looking for backlinks and the linkwhores pestering me have to wait till I get someone knowledgable to sort it out for me. Why do they want my links for, anyway? Do I have that much traffic?