Archive for the 'Life etc.' Category

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It snowed!

Published on November 19, 2008 in Life etc., Tagged and Weird things. 7 Comments

It seemed a normal enough day today, when I went out to the bus stop just outside my apartment to catch the “Greek Village” bus to my work. It was 12.30pm. The temperature was around 40 F(5 C) when I last checked.

I went out. It was really colder compared to yesterday. I had to wear my gloves to save my palms from getting numb. There was the familiar and boring whoosh sound as cars and trucks sped by.

Then it suddenly turned into a dreamland. A hint of something white! What looked like tiny cotton pieces falling from thin air! It was snowing!

This was the first snowfall I have witnessed in my life; I was beaming, and I could keep my composure well within limits, although I did that Bill Murray-ish strut, which was a visible indication that I was so excited. I have never been happier in several months. So I just decided to share my happiness with my poor blog, which I have been neglecting since I started my grad studies.

I couldn’t take a video of this historic moment, but history will repeat itself, so I’ll take a video and post it the next time it snows.

Now, I have a tag from the one and only Miladysa – a tag called Random & Weirdly Meme. It is a bit weird that I keep getting tags about weird things everytime, but everyone is allowed to be weird once or twice, so it is not really weird to be weird.

The rule is to share 7 facts about yourself – some random, some weird.

#1 – I saw snow for the first time in my life today. (What else were you expecting as first fact?)

#2 – One of my favorite hobbies while in school was inventing nicknames with my cousin to bully my younger brother. I can remember about 20 different names from the top of my head now, but I’m sure there were more. My favorite one must be NKVKMKM, which had a very interesting full form. I won’t disclose it here.

#3 – I used to steal buttermilk from the refrigerator as a kid. The habit hasn’t died till date. Even today, I prefer drinking buttermilk when nobody’s watching.

#4 – I scored an almost high 28 on an online Asperger Syndrome test, but I don’t believe it.

#5 – I am really (unbelievably) bad at Cricket. I can’t play well, and I don’t follow cricket.

#6 – I’ve been using the same wrist watch for 11 years now. And I don’t even like it.

#7 – Weekends in Raleigh are boring because I don’t have a car, and there’s no public transit on weekends.

Now tagging 7 people is the part I don’t like. So I tag everyone who reads this. :P

In the Wolfpack

Published on September 10, 2008 in Life etc.. 5 Comments

Three weeks in Raleigh and two weeks into classes, and I’m blogging only now. It’s not that I’m too lazy. I’m getting too much of work. Anyway, I’ll try to summarize about all interesting events from my flight from India to present.

Double Trouble

Chris Tucker (Carter) accidentally punches Jackie Chan (Lee) instead of the Chinese goons.
Carter: Sorry man!
Lee: [Holds nose painfully] Carter!
Carter: Y’all look alike, man!
- Rush Hour 2

The flight from Mumbai to San Francisco was uneventful, except for two three facts.

1. There was a lady who sat in the window seat in the same row as me. I chose an aisle seat, as I wanted to walk every now and then. She was trying to talk to me in Telugu. I told her (with a smirk which was brimming with arrogance) that I am a master of 5 languages, listed them and asked her to talk in any one. But she wouldn’t speak in any language other than Telugu. Finally, I had to resort to sign language. But the Jhansi Ki Rani that she was, she wouldn’t give up, and preferred talking in Telugu to sign language. I wondered how this lady was able to travel alone to US, not knowing any language other than Telugu. I gave up and tried to ignore her. But she was hell-bent on talking to me and kept nagging me. I found an easy way out of this. I would sheepishly grin and nod for whatever she said. (without, of course, knowing whether she was asking something, or swearing at me!) How I wished my brother was around, because I’m pretty sure that he understands a bit of Telugu! (for reasons no one knows)

I got the answer about 5 minutes later. She was traveling with her niece, who got transferred to the middle seat from some other seat, as it was empty. They had got two seats far apart and wanted it together. I learnt from the niece that the lady had been asking me if I would switch seats with her niece all along. Now think how stupid you would have looked if you just nodded and grinned for that question!

2. I saw too many face resemblances in the flight and in Shanghai, that my head started spinning. I saw, sitting across the aisle, a guy who looked strikingly similar to Manoj Night Shyamalan, a point which I didn’t hesitate to tell him, as we talked during the layover in Shanghai. I saw a girl who looked like a brunette Mary Pierce. I saw a guy who looked like Masi Oka (The actor who portrays Hiro Nakamura in the series “Heroes”), in Shanghai.

But the surprises were not yet over. I almost lost my balance when I saw someone who looked like ME!!! As I recovered from that shock, I realized that I was looking at my own reflection in the lavatory mirror.

3. I finished another reading of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the only book that I carried to US.

Good Ol’ Roseville

Nothing interesting happened over the course of my 10 day stay at my uncle’s home. Both my uncle and aunt were working overtime because of their workload, so I was all alone at home most of the days. One interesting thing was that I was feeling completely comfortable on this visit to US. It didn’t look awe-inspiring as it did in my first visit. Maybe the novelty had worn off.

In Raleigh

Finally I was in NCSU. The campus looked good. They have a very good transportation system, called the Wolfline. (NCSU folks are called the “Wolfpack”. So most things here have some mention of wolves.) The night time bus service is called “Werewolf”. And there is a dance coaching going on, called “Dances with the wolves”. Nice, huh?

However, Raleigh downtown disappointed me. It looks so sleepy that I don’t wanna visit that place again.

Hike!

One thing I really wanted to do after coming here was learn American Football. Not that I had any intention to increase the number of bones in my body or decrease the number of teeth, but I thought it was cool. I got the chance during our international student welcome dinner. It was fun, except for the dinner! Being a vegetarian, I hardly had any options; all I had were garlic bread, fruit salad, a snack with fried cheese balls with jalapenos inside, and coke! (That’s not too much, by my standards). Each person could register for one “fun game”. I signed up for American Football without even checking other ones.

We set out to the lawn outside after dinner. There were two American students to teach us. It was fun big time. I was in the offense, and unfortunately I was one of the linemen. (or whatever they are called.) So my job was to stop the guy in defense from reaching the quarterback. You couldn’t get a tougher guy for the job, mind you! So there I was, being tackled ruthlessly. I fell down couple of times, and I even tackled one. But he turned out to be one on my team. But it indeed prove that I was strong enough.

After that, we went in, sweating all over, for the next round of sweating, which was called Line Dancing. Let me tell you that I’m a dud at dancing. Singing on stage, and rocking the stage is an art which comes naturally to me. But I can’t dance to save my life. However, the line dancing concept made a dancer out of me, and I really enjoyed it. Don’t ask me to dance now. I forgot.

Carrot Heads and Paisley Eyes

As if we hadn’t had enough, there was this ECE/CSC bash on Tuesday. But unfortunately, the welcome bash was washed away in the rain. It was raining non-stop, killing all the fun. To top it all, the only vegetarian food that was provided was salad. SALAD!!! Why the hell was I wasting my time eating salad? And they had icecream. Yeah! As if I’m crazy enough to have an ice cream during cold weather. Apparently, I am crazy, because I did have ice cream. After that, I quickly escaped from there in a wolfline bus. The only thing worth mentioning is the moment when I was taken aback when I suddenly saw a guy with what looked like grated carrots planted on his head. And I’m not exaggerating. It was orange.

I won’t say much about the paisley eyes. I saw them the next day which was otherwise bland with boring lectures. I think I’m smitten.

Hitch

One day when I was returning from my part-time job, there were a couple of people shooting something with their camera. And they were shooting 5 second videos with students as amateur actors. They would choose the best ones around the country and use it in their ad. And they were giving free T-shirts to whoever agreed to act. All you had to do was say a smooth pickup line. They had a list of lines, including the Hitch dialogue, “I noticed it just now, but you look a lot like my next girlfriend”.Now who wouldn’t want a free T-shirt? So I jumped in.

Here’s what I said, “Is your last name Gillette? Because you are the best a man can get!” How’s that for a pickup line?

That’s about what happened here till now. Oh yeah.. we had another party for Indian students. I’m overwhelmed! A major disappointment was that the release of Half-Blood Prince is postponed to July. Plus, I’m in love with the songs of Rock On. One of these days I will sing “Sindbad the Sailor” with our band.

Behold the new hairdo!

Published on July 25, 2008 in Life etc.. 9 Comments

As the wind was riffling my hair, I thought….

What the hell? I hate wind riffling my hair.

PS: This is what I meant when I told Rain Tree that I experiment with my haircut!

PPS: Someone asked me whether I went to Tirupati when they saw me. I replied that I went to the local barber shop :D

And the reason is…

Published on July 4, 2008 in Life etc.. 8 Comments

I just remembered about my blog which was gathering dust. It has been more than a month.

Anyway, I wrote in my last post about quitting my job. The reason for that is something which I had been contemplating for more than a year. I am following the footsteps of some of the fellow bloggers in my blogroll and going to get Permanent Head Damage.
Well.. it’s a different field, in Electrical Engineering, but you got the drift.

I will be traveling on 23rd of this month. 10 days at my uncle’s home in Sacramento, CA. Then I’ll be back to academics at North Carolina State University. Wish me luck!

There was a reason I didn’t mention this earlier. I thought I’d better wait until my visa is approved.

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying my 2 month vacation in Palakkad.

C’est La Vie

Published on April 22, 2008 in Life etc. and Trouble Trouble. 8 Comments

I got a topic to blog about (Finally, after more than a month!)
And quite obviously, it is about another round of troubles. For some reason, I often find myself in trouble through the most bizarre ways.

It all started when I went to HDFC Bank to pay the fee for a US Visa Interview (VI). I filled up my name as it should have been (and I thought it was, until 5 seconds later!) in the passport. But the snake eyes of the clerk, who matched it with my passport, found out that I had written my name wrong. According to my passport, I had no Given Name. My entire name was my surname. So I was wrong about my name all along. He told me that if I don’t fill up my name as in passport, there will be a problem in my VI. It was all weird since I have once traveled to USA with this passport, and by giving my name as it should have been. Evidently enough, my B1 visa had my name correct. The Given Name field indeed was Deepak here. It was funny that nobody had noticed that till now. I failed to notice the discrepancy for a whole 9 years.
The clerk suggested that I write my name like in passport in all matters henceforth. I didn’t think so. I didn’t want strangers to call me Mr. Deepak Ranganathan, and my friends to call me “” (I don’t know how to pronounce a nullity of characters)

I told him I’m not paying the fee. He asked me the quintessential question of modern day bankers, “Why Sir?”

Like in
Telephone caller: Hello sir, we are offering an excellent personal loan for you.
Me: Not interested
Caller: Why Sir?

“I’d rather change my name in the passport before scheduling the VI”, I replied.

So I was here in Palakkad, for a vacation of 10 days, one of my mission objectives being the change I have to make in my passport. The lesser objective was to be a couch potato at home, which would have succeeded, if not for the constant power cuts which made sure that I moved around so that I didn’t sweat.

On Tuesday, I set off on my crusade to the passport office – a grueling journey of 3 hours in shaky buses with little padding on the seats and not enough room for your legs. It was close to 10am by the time I reached there. The queue was already a gargantuan slithering python. Slowly it moved until there were about 10 people ahead of me. It was 1pm. Closing time already. We pleaded and cried to the lady at the counter. It was just a matter of 12 more people. She was ruthless when she asked us to come back the next day. After having so many trysts with trouble, I should have seen this coming. I start to wonder if a little optimism is a dangerous thing. It seems like that to me. Murphy’s law is a fundamental principle around which the world revolves.

The next day, I caught the 5am bus, so that I will be in the forefront in the queue. Luckily enough, I was about 20th (!) in the queue at 8 am. The counter opened at 9am, I filed my application by about 10, and I was told I could collect my passport back at 3.30pm. I had to kill time till then. ( Wandering aimlessly in Malappuram was better than a bus journey to and fro) I had my breakfast, then went to an autowallah and asked him to take me to any cinema where a good movie was running. Unfortunately (again!), there was only one where a morning show was there. The movie was “Malabar Wedding”. I hadn’t even heard of it until then. As my luck would always have it, the movie was a bore, except for a few scenes which were humorous. There were like 10 people in the entire theater.

It was about 2pm now. I went back and waited in the passport office. By 4, I was back in the return bus. Later that day, I couldn’t sleep on my back, nor could I stand up. My buttocks hurt because of 12 hours of journey in the last two days. My feet hurt because of hours of standing in the queue. But, as a consolation, I got my passport corrected.

I’m not frustrated by the whole incident. I think I have found an equilibrium with the whole trouble-seeking phenomena. Nowadays, I just blog about the trouble I faced, with an air of a connoisseur carelessly using French terms to philosophize. Sigh! That’s life!

Quarter Century

Published on March 4, 2008 in Life etc.. 17 Comments

Enough said!

Right is back

Published on November 27, 2007 in Life etc.. 15 Comments

I am partially back in action. A successful surgery at Hosmat and I am back in Palakkad now, to take rest. But being the internet buff that I am, I couldn’t ignore the call of my PC and the internet. So here I am, typing with one and a half hands, a quarter of a bone less and 13 stitches in my inner elbow.

I had quite some revelations about my conditions as well as about some of my friends through the course of this recent development. First of all, this was not a cyst and was some other “benign lesion”. It was nevertheless harmless, because, well, it was benign. The doctors just removed the head of my radius bone instead of grafting a bone from somewhere else. That spared me another cut in my body. Anyway, I had my surgery on Friday, hand was on cast for one day, I was discharged on Saturday evening and a couple of the nurses were pretty.

I was feeling a little underweight because of the piece of bone which was removed, but it was quickly compensated by the weight of the minuscule facial hair which sprang up in a matter of 3 days. After discharge, I came back to Palakkad, supposedly to take rest, but I’m taking everything but rest here. That includes taking pills, taking occasional punches from my brother for bullying him and taking food with my left hand. I have become adept at eating with left hand of late. Guess it is only a matter of time before I become ambidextrous.

I got bored easily, watching the idiot box, so I decided to clear my backlog with mails and Google Reader. But I was flabbergasted when I saw the number of unread posts in my Google Reader. It was a tad less than 100 in 5 days. Now I have to work hard to read all those. Plus I have a pending tag.

Another important thing that I found out was who really cared about me. I found out that some people who I thought were friends, were not my friends, after all. Honestly, all that would have taken to show some sign of concern, was a phone call. I’m not whining here. I’m just thankful that there was one good thing about my condition – I could separate the wheat from the chaff.

A series of unfortunate events

Published on November 13, 2007 in Life etc.. 6 Comments

Thursday, 8th November – 0600 hrs
So I was taking a break from work for 11 days. Let’s just call it a vacation at my native. My agenda – Diwali on 8th, Kalpathi Ratholsavam over the next week, and a visit to Chelakkara, my mother’s native place, after about 10 years.

This has been my most expensive trip home so far. I had to take a flight to Coimbatore and my dad came about 50km to pick me up. The reason – No train or bus tickets were available as it was peak time. Forget peak time, you won’t get tickets to Kerala even on normal months. I remember seeing 93 seats available on the first day of booking (that is 60 days before the journey date), and it quickly went into wait list in 15 minutes. Traveling from Bangalore to Palakkad (or to any part of Kerala, for that matter) is a pain in the butts, mostly because you have to take a bus (because there are only a couple of direct trains) and your butts will indeed be painful by the time you reach home.

Deprived of all cheaper means of going home, I thought of taking my car. That would be a drive of 7 hours. But my mom thought that was a bad idea (Read: “Forget it! You are not taking your car alone for such a long distance.”) It almost seemed as if she sensed that I was in Diesel Mode of late. Diesel Mode is the term given by my friends to my random rushes of adrenalin wherein I drive my car like a race car driver when I find stretches of road where there is not much traffic and there is no risk of people crossing the road, for instance the Inner Ring Road or the Mysore Road. The name is derived from the role of Vin Diesel in The Fast and the Furious. Anyway, my mom said “No car. Period.” So I took a flight, shelling out about 2000 bucks more than what I’d spend for a train ticket.

The flight duration was 1 hour. I was wondering why it took so long, given that it is not even one third the distance between Bangalore and Delhi. I made up a theory. Coimbatore was so close that the plane would have passed Coimbatore and gone further South by the time it gained altitude. So it had to turn around to land in Coimbatore.

Mathematically speaking,
Optimum Altitude/Rate of altitude gain of the plane < Distance to Coimbatore/2*Ground speed of plane

The flight was supposed to be uneventful, but as it would always be the case with me, it was eventful. The event was that I got two free sandwiches and a coffee from Kingfisher. The “unevent” was that I got those not in the flight, but in the airport, because the flight was delayed by 2 hours, owing to the shortsightedness of the Coimbatore lads. (They said the visibility was only 600 feet and they couldn’t see farther than that. This is called shortsightedness or myopia.)

Thursday, 8th November – 1100 hrs
The 45 minute journey from Coimbatore to Palakkad was uneventful, except for the event that I immediately sensed it when we crossed the state border to Kerala as it started getting bumpy due to potholes in the National Highway. Anyway, the journey was over in a jiffy. All I did was talk. I talked to my brother, talked to my dad. Funnily enough, they didn’t talk to me much. My brother said I didn’t give them a chance to talk. One of the few things that I remember my dad saying was, “Watch out… there’s the bull temple.” There was a Shiva temple with a huge bull statue by the Highway. And my dad and mom always made it a point to say “Watch out… there’s the bull temple,” as we used to pass by. You’d usually get bored having seen it so many times in life. But not my parents. My mom may even ask to turn back to have a look, if she misses it by any chance. (I don’t know whether this has happened any time.)
Thursday, 8th November – 1230 hrs
As I reached home, I had to add something else to my agenda. Designing the system that my brother was doing for his final year project. He didn’t know what the hell a design was. He would say he has done something and I just have to refine it, while in fact he would not have done anything. He would ask me about UML. Don’t ask me what UML is, because I honestly don’t know anything about it. When I tell this to my brother, he’d just ask me to tell him whatever I know. He sounds like a Project Manager at times. I get annoyed, but he gets a backing from mom, “Help him da. Who else does he have to turn to?”
“Oh right.. Engineering is a subject like the Hindi you teach. It is so simple that a Electronics Engineer can solve the doubts of a Computer Engineer.”
“I would help him if only I knew.”
“But I don’t know either”
My brother interrupts, “Look..you just have to draw a component diagram, explain each module and their interactions. I’ll take care of the rest.”
I ask, “What else is left for you to take care of? Correcting grammatical errors?”
My brother says, “No. MS Word will take care of that!”
I roll my eyes.So I was not spared this time either. My brother was bugging me when I wanted to rest in peace. Not inside a coffin, mind you.

Friday, 9th November – 1800 hrs
Diwali went on with some minor attractions like me showing off by lighting crackers in my bare hand and throwing them to burst them in the air. The next day I went to a concert in Kalpathi. I and my mom decided to walk the distance. By the time we reached Grandma’s house, I was really thirsty. No points for guessing the reason. I was talking all the way. You’ve heard “Walk the talk” but I apparently believed in “Talk the walk”. The concert was not very impressive, so we returned home soon.
Saturday, 10th November – 0900 hrs
The next day was a turning point in my vacation and in writing this post. I was not finished with half of my agenda. But as fate would have it, I’m forced to wind up this post midway. I don’t remember what went through my mind when I decided to take a couple of pull-ups in the bedroom loft. That I am not very heavily built, and can take only two pull-ups at most, is a fact which I forgot. (On second thought, this is what was going through my mind when I did that act which can be deemed extremely unnecessary and foolish.) I pulled myself up; when I reached the pinnacle, a piercing pain grew in my right elbow, and I immediately let go. I was literally slithering in the bed due to excruciating pain for the next 2 minutes. After the pain subsided, I noticed that it still was extremely painful whenever I twisted my arm. I was not able to eat with bare hands; I had difficulty in brushing my teeth. I was horrified. What happened to my right arm? I went to the hospital, and found out from the doctor that a cyst has developed in my elbow. It was probably there for some time, but the pain developed when the bone was exerted. I have to get it removed through surgery. I’ll get admitted soon. The doctor advised me not to type, but I wanted to publish this post, although it is incomplete. So I changed the title and am posting it now.I will update after my surgery. This is a very minor surgery, but please pray for me.

Homecoming

Published on October 29, 2007 in Life etc. and Memoirs. 17 Comments

For records, this post is delayed by at least 20 days. Talk about being lazy!!! Sigh!

It is a magic held by any undergraduate college. When you visit your alma mater, you cannot but have that heightened feeling of nostalgia.

NITC

I went to the college where I learned so many lessons of life, the most important one being how to live. I passed out of college (luckily, never “passed out” in college) in 2004. That’s more than 3 years now, so there were only two people in the college who I knew personally (Or, better to say non-academically) – Dhanaraj, once my senior, now a faculty, and Paro, who’s a student there. Well. I met another guy I knew – Ravi. I was perplexed, because it was a canonical impossibility, but he clarified that he had a back paper in final year, and was still in campus because of that.

Oh…the back papers. I remember I had escaped narrowly in a couple of my courses – all those ones without any mathematical problems – Computer Organization and Architecture, Digital MOS etc.
So this was more like a professional visit, (I’ll disclose the reasons, if fate permits, at a later time) but I still couldn’t resist a stroll around the hostel area, and around the library, computer center and DB.

One thing I noticed was that NITC hadn’t changed as much as I thought. The impression I had in my mind, after the news given by some fellows, was exaggerated. It was a welcome sight. There were a couple of new disciplines, a few new buildings, a few modified ones, and everything else was more or less intact. As I strolled around, old events kept flashing in my mind. I’ll try to reproduce them here. It’ll at least make this post more readable. :)

As I entered, I saw the gates which were not there when I was in my final year. (I had seen the pictures from Ajith’s blog though) Inside, the Rajpath looked the same, except for the fact that it was well paved now.

The Rajpath with a new look

 The Rajpath…with a new look

It was a Sunday evening in August. We were returning to campus after a weekend visit to our respective homes. The pavements were so slippery with moss that people seldom walked on them. However, Antony was not among those faint at heart. I warned him, “Don’t walk on the pavement. You’ll slip”. He shoved off my warning with an air of nothing-can-happen-to-me. 5 seconds later, he fell on his ass.

Back in hostel, the others were narrating this incident to Dinesh, when he told, “He seems to have a black tongue. Two days back, the same thing happened to me, and 5 seconds before my fall, Deepak told me that I will slip.”

I got infuriated, “Come on, man. You fell because it was slippery, not because I said it was slippery. Grow up, man.”

I saw the new Central Computer Center building. Again, I had been misinformed that they had built it on the basketball court. I used to think what a pity it was, because the court was close to my heart (or something close to that) as I used to play basketball (or something close to that) every day (or something close to everyday). But whoever said that, was wrong. The basketball court was in tact. However, to my alarm, I saw buildings coming up in the football ground. Where will they have the Monsoon cup from now?

Football Ground

Where is the Triangular Notice Board?

FBG…Triangular Notice Board….gone…all gone

As I went through the Main Building, I was in for another shock. The Triangular Notice Board was gone! It was where we all used to vent out our feelings.

Monsoon Cup 2003.
Badshaz (Used to call ourselves “Bad”shaz, for an air of superiority) were the reigning kings. Just on the eve of the kickoff, we stuck one poster on the triangular notice board.

First year – Semifinalists
Second year – Runners up
Third year – Winners
Fourth year – We need competition!

February 15th 2001
The day after Valentine’s day.
A poster read:

Henceforth, we will mourn every February 15th as the Broken Hearts’ Day. This day will be dedicated to all those hapless souls who no girl cares about.

I went to the department, met a few professors and then, Dhanaraj. We had a lengthy chat, which was mostly enlightening for me. I learnt that Papachan and Mamachan were still open. It was another wrong tidings given by someone that Papachan and Mamachan were closed because of bad business as all the back gates from college were sealed now. Also, someone had told me that the Kattangal economy had crashed due to the sealing of the gates near the D Hostel, which meant that guys had to go all the way to the front entrance and come back to go to Kattangal. But living up to the true NITC spirit, they are still taking the pains to go that extra mile. That means that there are as many motorcycles now as there were bicycles at my time and as many cars now as there were motorcycles at my time.

As usual, we had bunked our 9 am class and sitting in Mamachan having breakfast. We were having a heated argument. (For those who don’t know, Papachan, Mamachan and Chechi were the local hotels)
KK: Papachan is the best. The food is so delicious.
Me: Chechi is better than that. The food is incomparably good.
KK: But Chechi is not clean. Nobody can beat Papachan at that.
Me: Papachan will take a lifetime to bring you food after you order. You’ll die of hunger by the time he brings food.
KK: Grrr..
Me: Double Grrr…

Ragam 2000
Mock Press competition was under way. The guy was enacting Jackie Chan.
Guy from audience: What is your purpose of visit?
Jackie Chan: To visit Papa-chan and Mama-chan.
(Although, I felt that this question was a pre-planned one, the answer still was amusing.)

I went running after my purpose of visit, which took almost till lunch time.
Had lunch from canteen, since I didn’t feel like walking to Papachan, with my heavy laptop.
After my lunch, I decided to take a stroll. The first place that came to my mind was D Hostel – The lair of the famed D-Tops, and of course the Wallstreetguys (Contrary to popular belief, the name has nothing to do with Wallstreet, nor is it related in any way to economics!)
The hostels were changed, but D Hostel was in tact, although it had lost it’s trademark dark-red colored walls. I sat below the mango tree outside for quite some time, relishing my moments there. I went in to visit my room. It was locked.
Outside, the 4′s Arena ground was still there, with all the nets and all. 4′s Arena was a kind of mini-soccer, played with 4 on each side, and slightly modified rules.

4′s Arena Final
Fierce match. Rain-soaked. (And I think it was floodlit) I was watching that from behind a goal post. That was my first mistake. I forced myself to the forefront of hundreds of viewers. That was my second mistake. I was directly in line of Sameer’s shot. That was my third and final mistake.
Since this was a small field, it was more like Table Tennis; you needed to have a good reflex. Sameer mishit his shot. The ball was above the bar by a good 1 foot and it was coming straight at me. I was not fast enough. The ball hit directly in my abdomen. I had this burning sensation in my stomach for the next 3 hours. My T-shirt carried a patch of hexagons and pentagons for the rest of its life.

I then went to MC, which brought out another nostalgic feeling of ordering Bread Pakoda and Tea at midnight. Now that I check my camera, I realise that I actually forgot to snap the MC. How could I do that?Anyway, I returned, tried to finish my business, but couldn’t, so I went back to city, came back the next day and finished my business. By evening, I was back in Palakkad, mission accomplished, and with a truckload of renewed memories.

On the quest of the Deathly Hallows

Published on July 22, 2007 in Harry Potter and Life etc.. 14 Comments

I’m falling into a state of depression. I can’t believe the last book of the Harry Potter series is out and I have already read it. I just can’t take the idea that I won’t get the chance to wait eagerly for the next book.

Being a faithful follower of Harry Potter, I won’t spoil any of the plots of the book. I thought I’d just mention how my day went on 21st Saturday.

I pre-ordered the book in the bookstore nearest to my apartment, obviously to reach home as soon as I bought the book and start reading the book. Unfortunately, the earliest opening time anywhere in Bangalore was 6 am. And, to my dismay, Crossword Indiranagar, where I was to get my book was to open only at 7 am.

So, me and KP decided to go at 6.15 am and wait outside the store. The others were not interested in Harry Potter. We left them to their pathetic life devoid of imaginations and fantasies. (Take no offence if you are reading this, guys, but your life is really pathetic, trying to spoil the plot to us with snapshots from a traitor which came on the internet on the previous day, and jeering and calling a spell casting as a mere stick rotation)
But typical to the nature of bachelors, we started off 15 minutes late. I was wearing my favorite Harry Potter T-shirt and shorts. By the time I parked my car near the shop, it was already crowded, with a queue of 30+ people. I felt a tiny bit of guilt for not showing my fidelity. I should have reached at 6. I should have been in the front.

That feeling faded away soon when the shop was opened and the first group of about 10 customers were let in. From then, it was a feeling of longing. A part of my brain even thought about gatecrashing, throwing the receipt to the counter, taking a book and running out. We couldn’t get in for another long 30 minutes.

I got the book, took a bookmark from the counter and started reading the book on the scene(until KP collected his copy and came outside). I was engrossed wholly in the book even as I walked towards my car. I heard someone call out, “Take your time, dude. You have all day to finish the book.” I grinned at the group of people sitting near the pavement, waiting for their turn to get inside.

We drove back, I parked my car in the most lopsided manner that could be possible and rushed to my apartment. I continued from where I had stopped. By 10.30, I had finished about 100 pages. KP, being a voracious reader, was thrice as fast as me. I skipped breakfast, and went for lunch only because I was really hungry. I even considered taking the book to the restaurant to read it while having dinner. I had already lost about 4 hours because I fell asleep afternoon after having a heavy lunch. Throughout the day, I was interrupted (to my great annoyance) by a number of phone calls. I never received so many phone calls in one day. It had to be this day! Sigh!

I finished the book at around 2am, had a quick browsing of the internet and started my reread. I won’t tell anything about the story, but I’d say this is one of the best books in the series ever. I’d say third best after GoF and PoA. The book is really fast-paced, and we are in the thick of the action from the first chapter itself.

Ecstatic though I am after knowing (or living, rather) how the saga ends, I also feel strangely depressed. It is as if someone has abandoned me in the muggle world and I don’t know the way to get back. My only hope remains in the two films that are remaining. Nevertheless, I can only feel grateful that I lived in the times of Harry Potter and Joanne Rowling.