Kismat Konnection!!

I am back to the drudgery and mule work of college life(though i do not doubt that 10 years down the line i w ill recline and sigh contentedly telling my kids how these days were the best of my life...good old days have had the privilege of being at some point of time the diabolical present) and the fall from grace is especially harder because I spent my 2.45 months of summer vacations resting myself to the point that my skin creases at every movement..ok that WAS way too much of a simile.

Anyhow I was attending this Global Leadership Institute organized under the aegis of Goldman Sachs Foundation ,a social entrepreneurship wing of the Goldman Sachs.74 other students were congregated at the GLI and in the words of one of my fellow attendees,Krittika, I "had never met a group earlier whom I wanted to listen to,more, than the company I found there":fantasies ,visions, flights of imagination, resoluteness, they were all there. But besides the (sometimes idealistic sometimes promising) official discussions, we also had lots of free time to imbibe each others culture and more funnily the stereotyping of a whole people. [I read this form of sentence in a novel...].One of the more intriguing queries that I received was regarding the concept of love,marriage and sex [had to use this word...maybe it will bring in more reviews / hits to this blog] in India.

Which brings me to the topic of today's blog : How do I justify/explain arranged marriages to a girl who believes in classical things like love and looks at marriages as "a union of two hearts which beat as one"?

Q:Is it true that Indians marry someone they dont even know?

A:Yes ,quite a few and almost endemically in the smaller towns. The process goes something like this:
1.Discreet inquiries from either side about the job/salary (of the prospective groom) looks ( of the bride)and the family position/caste/social standing (common to both). Everything is third party mediation with nobody being the wiser.
2.Under instigation of the third party or independently the bride's family extend feelers directly.
3.Families talk. Remember the bride and groom have only seen each othe r in blown up studio mugshots
4.Dowry discussion [Yet to see a marriage with no dowry involved and i have seen a fair share of them]
5.Boy meets girl over a cup of tea[Not coffee] . Theoretically both sides can pull out anytime but social rigidity dictates that this is the point of no return.
6.they wed and live happily ever after.

Q:But what about Love ? Doesn't it break their hearts to know that they are marrying a stranger when they can wait for their prince Charming / princess Graceful?

A:Maybe its the tabbooed way we look at the "western" concept of romantic attachments/girlfriends/boyfriends or maybe its the fatalistic cultural testtube environs we grow up in,'Love' as-u-see-it , is not going on endless dates in the search of the One or breaking up marriages at the smallest tremor of incompatibility. Mushy as it may sound, Indian marriages , though far from perfect, usually end up walking into the proverbial sunset. And there is a reason. Divorce is not seen as an option in marriages from either partner. Besides its social contraptions, it also goes against the ethical fabric of my society . And this fact or rather the absence of an undercurrent 'worst case scenario' thinking , couples so hitched together are more intent at making a relationship work than if they wre in a more open society . The incompatibilities dissolve over time and the bonds of family, Love if you may, strengthens. And therein lies the basic fundamental difference between our societies : You[pardon me for slipping into stereotypes but I guess it is justified here ] are commited to FINDING love, We , on the other hand are more into CREATING love out of thin air.

And we ARE good at it.

Q:Will u settle for an arranged marriage?

A:Um....err ...hmm...ooo...haw...How did u like the food?




Disclaimers:I hated the movie.It sucked BIGTIME!
All my observations have been derived from an experimental pool of around 3 specimens.The validity of my conclusions /inferences are highly questionable but since today I just wish to feel good about this world, any examples to the contrary can go to heck (Anybody's read Dilbert?)

P.S.Perhaps I might amplify the third point in the answer to the first question some other time.

Some pics of my mom's garden

Comments awaited :D

Pi:An irrelevant poem(Not Another One??God! this guy is crazy!

Look,there's a series converging to Pi/four
how it does that..well i ain't too sure
but matters it not because its there
to learn to its 10th decimal;what do i care
to spice it up with dollops of technical twaddle
and invite the examiner's ire who ventures in this mire
of nonsense gibberish without a paddle.

Or maybe I could repackage and present
some gobbledegook-ery,
and buff and polish it to hearts content
and write it down in Monotype Corsiva
(with impenetrable symbols that evaluate to 3)

Arbitrary poems

in this post i am going to compose an arbitrrary poem on th efirst proper noun word that comes in my mind.Each poem will be 4 lines long and will speak abt some deep inherent characteristic of life

Hair:
Sitting astride on thy ornate crown
like bountiful crashes of the unruly sea
In its infinitude of enmeshed meshes can drown
a man ,already hitched or free

thy silken strands beckon me forth ;afire
like a pharos on the unreachable moons
and simultaneous the feeling to stop and admire
the casual flick ,the nonchalant caress
by fingers running through vague dunes;

and when the vermilion flourish embellishes;
after your daily dip ;
the parting in your half wet forehead
the heart-wrenching chastity of the sight elicits
despair deluged in the radiance of divine harmony

Importance of Logic

A logically embellished mind is a jewel on its own and its importance can hardly be undermined.A grasp on logic and its attributes enables a person to improve the quality of one's arguments and present his ideas in a manner that they make their point in a strong and effective way.A good idea without a concise and coherent structure of presentation is too feeble to carry along or sway the opinion of the audience,the reason being that the mind will instinctively distrust a statement that seems to be lacking in the principles Life is based on.
Logic also sharpens ones acumen in the sense that the mind learns to perceive and delineate the indistinguishable discomfort one feels on being held audience to a logically flawed but oratorically splendid argument from others.Sharpening ones acumen ,logic is the consciousness that protects you from following blindly wherein your fickle heart tugs you to go;more often than not into absurd positions from a practicality perspective.Loud and overwhelming arguments which normally drowns any opposition to the speaker cannot do the same to logic which can unfathom the points of discussion and challenge if needed the flawed uncogent arguments of others.Moreover it also develops appreciation for brilliant ideas that would be lost for their obtuse exposition because an ordered mind can automatically lower the entropy of a disjointed collection of arguments.
One of the major battlefields for a logicians is against age-old practices and beliefs.It is but apparent how important it is to clear out the muddled cornucopia of weird notion a large fraction of the worlds is riddled with.And the only answer to such occurrences is Logic.Because of its very nature of scepticism in not believing something until it has been proven not only to be factually correct but also inferentially linked,logic can dispel deeply encrusted myths from lesser minds through a step by step elucidation of ideas and counteract the strong psychological and emotional attachment such beliefs entail.

Glorious Food!!Magical Food!

Its 13th september today and I am sitting in my college comp centre ,writing this blog in celebration of my mom's birthday,one of the many essential incidents that forecasted my arrival into this world.And this blog is devoted to the gun-gaan of the most fascinating and alluring super duper chef that my taste buds have encountered in my prolific professional life of 16 years (around) as her main patron and taster.
This is the first birthday(of a family member) that our new microwave is spending at our home and man , will he be disappointed at the state of affairs there.Birthdays ,and any occasion for celebration in general is (by tradition) just another excuse for all of us binging on a particularly delicious preparation that mummy makes for her three stuffed children.Technically only two are her kids(me and my sister); the third is supposed to be her husband but he seems to be as malleable as any other kid with a BIG apetite in mom's hands if you ask me!Be it any occasion (or better still) no occasion at all,there is nothing more gratifying for me than to relax in my family huddle(yes just like the indian team) adn feast on a scrumptious meal of endless delicacies. And more fun than that is actually helping Her around in the kitchen when a singularly huge army of guests descends on our home to taste the elixirs of heavenly delights that She is so adept at preparing.And the joy that is on her face,when she is doing what she does best (beside bringing up her children, meddling in shares,dabbling in serious oil paintings, teaching kids, ...god there are so many thing s she does best but due to paucity of space ,in this monologue i will stick to her culinary skills,the rest wiill be handled in length in space and time they deserve) ,when she is in her Kitchen with her famous karahi(comes in 18 sizes from a teeny weeny one to a huge 3 feet hemispheres) has to be seen to be believed.Its like a godliness has descedned onto her subconsious,her skilled hands throwing incalculable chemicals at an incalculable rate in deeply secretive proportions into the melting pot that is simmering on the workstation. And now behold! for another artistic masterpeice is served on the table ,to be feasted upon ,appreciated and loved .
Though folklore associated with her creations abound in plenty ,some dishes .. dished out by Her have really vreated history,they stand out as legends,some even now being stacked up on the table(Humanity's place of worship) quite frequently,othes,more dainty and fragile ,though no less exquisite have faded out from general memory(Do no worry, fanatic connoisseurs like me still keep an eye on these big Bangs that shook My world and it is my responsibility on behalf of Her worshippers to make sure that She doesnt forget what She believes were Her petty outpourings in a time long lost.....at least my taste buds and my specially equipped aroma- detecting cells do have had on them lasting imprint from such explosions of intense imagination).Since it is hard to objectively judge Her dishes(just like one doesnt judge God's best creations) and also bcoz it is necessary for a judge to say this so as not to ruffle too many feathers (of many a chicken that were slain in this quest),the order in which the mouth watering treats that appear below are in a random order as they come in my memory.
The first zephyr to strike my nasal passage as i sit here in this stupid place is the smoked Chicken.A complex preparation that involves quite a bit of cooperation from daddy involves ;you guessed it smoking raw chicken peices ;marinated and soaked in to a mixture of fresh yoghurt ,umpteen spices and chemical x the await their turn on the stove before being cooked to tenderness over an open fire under the scrutinizing gaze of daddy (who as i mentioned earlier is an expert in turning over peices and painting them over with the spicy mix with the aid of a brush(for god's sake a brush!!) so as to ensure that the poor bird comes out evenly tasty and ambrosial.This could be eaten as such but the real taste arises when this burnt mess is cooked in a thick sizzling gravy that is as special is the marinating mix.The whole effect is to have a dish that has an aroma that smells so very inviting .The taste when you bite into one of the juicy peices (it is so excruciatingly painful for me to write abt this here,the keyboard is wet with my drooling:D) envelops your palate like a cool wind in the sahara.the whiff of smoke strengthens the whole effect and gives you a pleasure that you will find hard to forget it all your life.

Cornerstone of IITK life-1 The 'lib'rary

People who know me wont be surprised when they see my 1st yehi hai right choice baby aha! even though my detractors ,mainly my batch mates would rise up in arms if they hear me saying that the library or the lib as we lovingly call it,is the lifeline that connects the whole iitk fraternity in the onenness that the institute is known about.(Aside(monologue) -if you read my other blogs you would soon realise that i have a penchant for XXX L long sentences and that i am prone to using flowery nonsensical mumbo jumbo to a very pathetic effect).Sorry for the distraction so where was i ...ah ...yes the lib.hum .
Physically the most imposing structure in the academic area ,it is just 4 storeys of racks jam packed with manuscripts and monstrous volumes stacked in never ending rows .Aisles after aisles of nothingness ,there are carved in between plenty of dark corners for dark deeds.these dark deed s are not what most of your dirty minds are conjuring up(yours truly included);those dark deeds are voluntarily abstained from in iitk(this is a separate topic to be dealt in more detail later i can actually write a novel on this).haan..so these dark deeds are the act of committing magai(pronounced magai) on days more than 48 hours away from the nearest exams.The situation 48 hours before an exam will be dealt in length a paragraph ;later..One of the most daring crimes that you could commit here is to go to the library,even for an as innocous reason as getting a novel issued;within the aforesaid 48 hours after a mid sem or end semester exam.Case have been known in which people had been publicly 'branded' a maggu-for-life ,a curse for any wannabe-cool-guy though some pyschopathic maggus take it as an honour and continue with this morality defying stunts many times over:0
The pychopaths are a separate fraternity here,well identified and mostly the object of ridicule for the 'maangbharo sajna 'hairstyle type cool-ies(see the pun see the pun!!what great shakespeare lies beneath me see!!?)though it is usually brushed under the carpet that these are the saviours of the masses in their wings during the biannual mega event that the dean of academic affairs organises for testing the mental faculties of his herd.the lib also has phases just like the moon only the period is less and the changes more stark.when the sem starts, the lib seems to have shed its people,the alleys are huge whispering galleries,'door door tak sannnata aur khamoshi ka raaj.' Anyways this is the time when you can actually study something meaningful .The reason is that first of all you can rest assured wont be a target for maggu hunters because no one can actually convict you of being in the library without himself being caught at 'mauka-e-vardaat'.Since the fear is mutual ,the whole affair would be brushed over by the two guilty parties.

The downside of this phase is that you have a pretty big chance of being held guilty by a fast track court(which in current parlance means ,a group of your batchmates hanging out near the canteen or the phatta fields on your way home to safety ) hurriedly convened to pounce upon any wayward fool who dares to defy their police of making merry till hell freezes over (by which i ,once again refer to the lovely exams i so much covet) :D ...Moreover the lib takes on a catacomb like' texture' so that after sometime the silence;which was so nicely silent the whole time; starts to hurt your ears and you ,at last have to give in to the lure of the latest movie that your friends are enjoying back in the hostel rooms.ALL in all this is a very uneventful time of the year though i must say most reputations are built at this time of the half year.
This was one end of the spectrum ,now i will fast forward to the other extreme end ,the dawn of the END SEMESTER EXAMINATIONS ha ha ha(a loud guffaw)and then a hee hee hee(a sly one).Anyways this is the legally and morally approved time when everyone is allowed ,no, expected to take up magai as a short term course.Just three days before the end sems the throng starts to build up to the final crescendo .Since we are granted 3 study holidays and that the lib opens up round the clock the M word becomes a twenty four hours affair .Every lobby ever nook and cranny is stuffed full of students,intent on making the top grades.the atmosphere is not gloomy if thats what you are imagining .it actually is quite like a village mela(if you have had the chance of going to one.Maintain silence is h=just one of the lib rules to be broken with people on 24 hr duty actually bring pillows to get thru the night ;bringing tooth brushes isn't an unheard of phenomenon ,especially among the bonkers ,eh i beg your pardon,the professional bunkers of the batch.The xerox points inside the lib go up in fumes(not flames that would be way too much for an approximation) with the sheer load of photocopying the 'best notes of the sem' many times over.these notes are actually in more demand than the reference books piled up in the reserved section,obviously none give a damn abt learning something new for their own betterment ...duh...!!!Another thing that leaps to your eyes is the 'bheed' about some tables with people coming out and going in but the size doesn't diminish.you might have guessed these are the hubs of those wronged people ,those maggus,the butt of jokes over the last 5 odd months./These are the stars of the moment,in-demand,their every saucy rebuttals taken as a 'khoon ka ghoont' by the rebuked new comers (new to the lib i mean).Go to the 3rd floor,usually the least visited ones and you will see a full ll blown party up there.I pods ,mp3 players, laptops and habituated flirts(or lassus in our parlance) dot the landscape.There remains no distinction of night and day,people sleep from 7 am to 11 am to come back to duty for another 20 hours.The frenzy during these days has to be seen to be believed,to repeat a cliche.The library stands tall over all of them guiding them through their hurdles never once disappointed during the lean periods,confident in its knowledge that ultimately everyone has to come back to her to seek her guidance in their paths to their glorious future.and there she stand ,beautiful in her own way,never asking for anything but more books that can take her counsellees to the heights no one can imagine,and for a simple coffee vending machine so that the hapless ones dont have to trudge on in the middle of the night to the faraway coffee and snacks shack(ha ha what an anti climax).
On a more serious note Thank you ,Thank you for being there.