JUN
2
2005
All these years, my attempts at writing have been pretty sporadic. Except for the biannual essay writing during the exams (my favourite topic in any language being environmental pollution), I rarely used to write anything just for the sake of it.
I remember my first writing attempt, at the age of 9 or thereabouts. The details of the story I had written are pretty hazy now, but it was about a man who buys some food & a milk shake (of all potable liquids, he had to buy a milk shake?!) for lunch, but decides to give it away to a beggar in the end. Quite touching and quixotic, I must say.
The second time was when the class had been asked to write anything, anything at all to fill a page. I wrote this piece about a boy who is feeling pretty bored and lonely in his holidays & his busy parents can't take time off from work to be with him. It ended happily though, with the parents deciding to take the protagonist on a trip to Montana. Montana's spectacular scenery was not the reason why it was chosen (by me, of course) as the destination. White Water Terror, one of Nancy's adventures (from her case files, actually) was set in Montana. Nancy who? Nancy Drew, who else? (How many adventure-seeking girls called Nancy did you know at the age of 12?) Those were the times when I used to lap up all the Drew books I could lay my hands on. At last count I had read around 60 of them and the last one I read was "The Wedding Day Mystery", which I read, believe it or not, 3 years ago. It lasted for an hour and left me wondering how I could have been crazy about those books (My roommate mistook the book to be one of the must-reads I had been raving about & eagerly read through it. Needless to say, he was left with serious doubts about my literary tastes). Well, my composition was pretty decent & the teacher appreciated it. The following year we were asked to do a similar exercise & I submitted the same thing. This time the teacher (a different one, though) ridiculed me saying that I had been asked to write a story, not narrate an incident (Yes, ma'am. What was I supposed to do? Retell the moral stories about the crow & the pitcher or the hare & the tortoise (reminds me of "Godel, Escher and Bach" which I am currently reading - more about this some other time), like I was some 13-year old Aesop? (that is, if Aesop was as precocious as that) ).
Last year I made my third attempt. On a hot Surathkal afternoon, our portly(?) Engineering Economics lecturer (who has the potent blessings of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep) was droning on in our stuffy classroom. Mass hypnosis was already in progress. I suppose it was Venu who was checking out one of Barron's word lists (which incidentally had words beginning with 'M'). In a valiant attempt to avoid being lured into the realm of Morpheus (the Greek god of dreams and the son of Hypnos), I used all the words (15 of them) present in the exercise associated with the list to write a small piece which is more or less reproduced below :-
The adventurer struggled against the miasma rising from the swamp. The death of his companion had been a mischance - an encounter with the ectoplasmic misanthropes of the marshes & the resulting melee - it must have been painful, very painful. But this was no time for mawkish feelings over his dead fellow adventurer. He rowed ahead faster and as he did so, strains of mellifluous music fell upon his ears. Mesmerised by the notes emanating from the trees ahead, he rowed harder. What he did not know was that the music was an auditory mirage created by the evil imps of the swamp. These militants mentored in the dark arts by the Satan himself, were by no means mediocre & were reputed to be extremely meticulous when it came to flaying their opponents. Earlier the adventurer had branded them 'the menial minions of the Devil'. This was no misdemeanour & he would pay dearly for it.
Quite good, considering that my eyelids were in the process of turning leaden.
And that, was a constituent of my extended fourth attempt.
P.S. Hope to keep this going on for as long as I can. Amen.
Tags :
Blogger Days, Humour, Writing
Posted by Rajat @ 10:28 PM
| Comments
MAY
30
2005
I came back yesterday morning. I suppose I was the last Bangalorean to leave NITK. I had a tough time getting a seat on a Bangalore bound bus. Out of the 150 odd buses run by private operators & another 50 or so buses run by KSRTC, not a single one seemed to have seats for Saturday night. Even the Sunday afternoon & night buses had been booked to capacity. The reason for this was supposed to be the summer vacations coming to an end. Wonderful! This was all I needed! Thankfully, some extra buses were added and so, here I am.
I felt pretty bad leaving the place which had been my "home away from home" (Mr.Hosadurga's quote, for which I have this to say - yeah, right) the past 4 years. I could almost hear strains of the song Pal by KK playing inside my head.
Hum rahe ya na rahe kal
Kal yaad aayenge yeh pal
Pal yeh hain pyar ke pal
Chal aa mere sang chal
Chal soche kya, choti si
Hain zindagi
Kal mil jaye, toh hogi
Khush naseebi
How can I forget those high-fives & hugs with which we used to greet each other! What about playing blindman's buff in the lawns, preparing at least a week in advance for the sessionals, strumming guitars, singing in the classrooms (sniff)... Excuse me, while I wipe away these tears (sniff) - my keyboard (sniff) is getting wet (sniff)...
Crash!!!
ROTFL
Before you begin to think that I have slipped into nostalgia-induced hysteria or something similar, let me assure you, apart from a sore throat, I am feeling quite good & would have felt better if there had not been this 'professionally managed' monumental disaster called "Pal - The Last of the KRECians" or whatever it is called (A rafflesia by any other name would smell as bad). This 407 MB, 40 minute video is supposed to be a reminder of our golden days at NITK. This abomination was directed by some local 'professional photographers' whose claim to fame(?) is some Kannada serial. Having watched quite a few of these serials, I can tell you that the hallmarks of an average Kannada serial are these:- no trace of a plot, overacting, facial contortions intended to induce laughter (You end up suspecting that the actors are suffering from constipation & about the 'inducing laughter' part - well, you can't laugh when you are retching, can you?) and a host of other aspects about which the less said the better.
Coming to the plot of the video... Wait! What plot?
Other deplorable elements of the video include glaring spelling mistakes ('thankfull', 'remmber'(?)), the "Mangalyam" track from "Saathiya" being played in the background while a student is praying in the temple (kuchch bhi, haan?)... I can't even recollect all of them & viewing the video once again just for completing this post isn't exactly a prospect I relish - so judge for yourself the obnoxiousness of the said production while I sign off, fuming.
Tags :
Blogger Days, Humour, Life
Posted by Rajat @ 3:07 PM
| Comments
MAY
3
2005
I just finished the last lab of my undergraduate engineering education (I am an optimist ;-)). Well, there is no feeling of exhilaration here, just relief, plain relief. There is also a hint of tired resignation considering that I got partial output yesterday. Moreover I seem to encounter a strict enforcement of Murphy's Law during lab exams - any topic which I neglect to check out is bound to come in the exams :-(. Not that it matters much. In 4 years, I seem to have become desensitized to all such setbacks. I accept everything with a smile, self-deprecating humour & lots of rants.
Tags :
Blogger Days, Life
Posted by Rajat @ 3:49 PM
| Comments
APR
5
2005
I finished Bhuvan Shome - an Akademi Award winning book by Bonophul (nom de plume of Balai Chand Mukhopadhyay), translated from Bengali by Lila Ray. Bonophul's other famous works include Mrigaya, Jangam and Sri Madhusudan.
Railway officer Bhuvan Shome is an old & lonely widower. He is a strict disciplinarian and uncompromising in his principles & values. He expects similar dedication & integrity from others. He goes on a duck-hunting trip near the Ganges. Here he is dogged by bad luck - his cart is attacked by a water buffalo, his boat goes adrift & develops a leak, the birds are driven away by hunters on motorboats, his first shot at the birds ends up nowhere. Whew!! He meets a village girl who helps him out. His high standards give way under her simplicity.
Bhuvan's family comprises of an array of depressing characters with a mother obsessed with perfect propriety, adamant sisters and good-for-nothing brothers-in-law along with their thieving brats (fourteen of them), and above all, an ill-tempered wife. Bhuvan's frustrations are compounded by the unhelpful attitude of the women in the house to his hobbies - painting and later on cooking, both of which are brought to an early end. At this point he takes to hunting. His hunting partners at various times include a conceited Bhutnath, a vulgar Dwijen, Chhattu Sen who claims all credit for any kill and Kartik Mukherjee who turns out to be the perfect scarecrow, for they never manage to kill anything with him around. These parts are written in a tart manner which brings about some relief from the almost constant thread of depressing darkness running throughout the book. I suppose the translation reduces the effect of the book somewhat, but nevertheless it portrays the turbulent post-independence times quite well.
This book was made into a Hindi movie by the same name by noted Bengali director Mrinal Sen in 1969 - I haven't seen the movie though. The role of Bhuvan Shome is played by Utpal Dutt & if you ask me, he is just the man for it. If you have seen the laugh riot, Golmaal, you will know what I am talking about (He essays a similar role there - a man with discipline,integrity & all that and, believe it or not, a strong bias against men without a moustache). Suhasini Mulay plays the part of the village girl who is called Gouri in the movie.
Tags :
A Bookworm's Diet, Blogger Days, Movies
Posted by Rajat @ 4:30 PM
| Comments
APR
2
2005
I was finally able to see the movie Before Sunrise today, thanks to Tejaswi (and his friend from Bangalore). The film is as good if not better than its sequel - Before Sunset (I seem to have this knack of getting to the sequels (of books or movies) before their prequels). Anyway, I had read the script quite some time back. But surprisingly this took away nothing from the actual experience of watching the movie.
Made in 1995 or thereabouts, the movie is about the chance...
Wait! Before you begin thinking that I am going to spoil the whole thing for you by giving away the story, right till the ending and all that, let me tell you one thing - the ending is but a small part of the whole movie, literally (considering a ratio of around 10 minutes to 100 minutes) and figuratively. The movie is more about the journey rather than the destination. So, read on.
...meeting of two people, Jesse (Ethan Hawke), an American and Celine (Julie Delpy), a French girl on a train from Budapest. Jesse is headed for Vienna from where he has to catch a flight the next morning back to America. Celine is going back to her home in Paris. They get talking & soon Jesse persuades Celine to get down with him at Vienna so that they can continue their conversation. Jesse with his spontaneity, cynical observations & rebellious nature and the emotional Celine, a firm believer in the God-is-in-the-details philosophy form an unlikely pair, as they roam through the streets of Vienna the whole day, talking all the while about subjects like life, love, relationships, God and so on. Their conversations form the central theme of the movie. Incidents like the impromptu poem composition, the palm reading session, even the atheist joke in the church serve to bring out the various shades of the characters' personalities. The movie ends with the two parting with a promise to meet in Vienna in 6 months time, followed by the camera showing the places visited by them, but with the difference that they seem subdued & much less lively without the loquacious pair.
Ethan Hawke's portrayal of the very American Jesse is superb. The pretty Julie Delpy, with her dulcet voice & an accent to match is a perfect fit for Celine's role. The chemistry between the two is to be seen to be believed. By the way, the story is supposed to be partly based on the director, Richard Linklater's chance meeting with an unknown woman in Philadelphia.
Tags :
Blogger Days, Movies
Posted by Rajat @ 11:57 PM
| Comments
