Pertinent Observations

Earlier today, I happened to locate back issues of the fourth estate. Started reading it and have since gone on a maajor senti trip. And I couldn’t stop laughing when I wrote that article about Elections 03. Can’t believe I could indulge in that level of slander. However, that was my first ever attempt at writing, so i’m quite senti about that article.

As I ploughed through the fourth estate, I found cue‘s article on Saarang 03 and have become even more senti. Socially that has been my most successful saarang. Though I didn’t make any money in that, I would regard it as my best Saarang so far. Monetarily, however, Saarang 04 was best, when I won two quizzes.

Speaking of Saarang, I’m going next week for Saarang 06. Hope I am able to be more successful than 04 (in terms of performance) and 03 (in terms of socializing).

sniff sniff

The IIMC campus is so far away from the city that we were apprehensive of getting a taxi early in the morning in order to catch our flight back. A couple of friends from IIMC gave us the number of a supposedly reliable call taxi but we didn’t want to take any chances.

I had planned out an elaborate post but have now lost the enthu. Here is what I manage of it.

Toad had told us that we can find some good eating places at Park Street. Reached there by another rickety taxi around 9. Most places turned out to be pubs. There were only a couple of restaurants around. Went to the cheaper one. Turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. However, the paan proved to be good compensation.

Calcutta airport is much better than the private airlines terminal at Delhi. At midnight, there are quite a few shops open, there is a pay phone available and you get something more for the stomach than just coffee. There is also a i-way outlet which is open. And the security guard is very courteous.

After taking care to keep an alarm for 5 am, we sprawl on some sofa sets in the airport. 3 hours of sleep the preceding night and the long train journey preceding that means that the next thing I know it’s 5 am already. And unlike the Delhi airport, there is a buzz already. People are already pouring in. Announcements are on. Some air deccan flights are late. One has even been cancelled. We are happy we are flying jet.

Our flight is on time but we are shocked to see a long line in front of the Bangalore Airport. It’s for the pre-paid autos and we go join them. The guy at the counter (a cop) seems so slow in writing out the slips. Soon there is a traffic jam out there as the queue at the queue blocks the entrance to the airport! Finally a few more cops arrive and ask all autos to put meter and disperse the crowd.

This is so different from the smooth experience one has at teh Railway STation. There, the guy at the counter has a comp and churns out slips in a matter of seconds. They charge a nominal Re. 1 per auto as “maintenance charges”. And the thing runs like a dream.

Coming to think of it, the booth at the station is run by the auto-drivers’ union while the one at the airport is run by cops! It is interesting to note that the unions are doing a much better job of it while we would normally believe that cops would be better at it!

The reasons could be many. One, the auto drivers trust the union representative and simply accepts the price that is put on the ticket. Also, the fact that it is computerised means that the auto driver knows what he is getting into. I have observed autodrivers at the airport arguing with the cop at the booth regrding the fare that is put on the slip. And causing a lot of delay. Then, of course, at the cop-run booth it is a different guy doing the job at different times. And they are not specialists at the job and have to look up the books every now and then. On the other hand the unions have employed full-time booth operators which leads to an increase in efficiency.

Moral of the story – unions can sometimes do good work.

For the record, we reach hostel around 11 and carry the trophy back to my room. Sadly no one notices us. I am so pleased with myself about the performance in Cal that i declare a holiday for myself and bunk all classes.

Had two midterms over the last couple of days. Both administered by the same prof. Both multiple choice questions type. And I walked out of both in fifteen minutes.

No, this time the questions were not repeated from any previous papers. At least I don’t think they were – I haven’t seen the previous papers. However, the nature of questions made these exams in to a big farce.

Yesterday you were asked to define stuff. And given four choices which were, at best, rewordings of each other. All the questions were truly “chimps”. I just extended the Linus sequence to multiple choice questions and did the exam.

Today’s was even better. Most questions consisted of some statement with four choices below it, each choice being a probable opinion on the statement. And you had to choose one of the four opinions. God only knows what the prof’s opinions on these things are. How is it an exam when you are supposed to know what the prof thinks of something? It is ridiculous, to say the least.

And then you have these people here who are singing paeans of the prof saying he’s put such a wonderful exam. Wonderful my foot. There are so many better ways of testing students while not forcing them to study. And the prof makes sure the exam turns into a lottery.

I know a couple of IIMB profs who read this journal. I hope something is done about it so that future batches don’t suffer (now I’m making the motherhood statements). First the repeated papers. And now this kind of farce. I can’t believe I’m spending 2 years and 3 lakh for this!

The taxis of Calcutta are yellow. Jarring yellow from top to bottom. All of them ambassadors. I heard a story that Hindustan Motors has made the commie government there pass an order that no other brand can be used as a taxi. Apparently that is the only way they can continue production.

Needless to say, most taxis (at least everything I travelled in) were broken down. And if I say that the driving was rash, I would be making an understatement. The guy would sometimes overtake by going over the divider onto the other side of the road and then coming back in front of the other guy over the divider. One thing I noticed there was that the driver never switched to first gear! He would start in second gear even with five passengers!

Within a minute of entering Cal, I was witness to a brawl on the street. The taxi in front of ours hit a parked Omni. And that guy came and pulled out this guy and started beating him. We were going in front of a slum and people from there joined in the beating up. And you have the drivers of the other taxis on that road joining the other side! And no one seems to give a damn that there is a huge line of cars that have been held up and soon tehre could be a jam!

And there we are in the taxi, having arrived in cal a whole seven hours behind schedule. We know that the quizfest would’ve already started but our driver is busy beating up some slum guy! Finally he returns and more than makes up for lost time with some real rash driving.

It is 1330 by the time we arrive in Joka, and the finals of the business quiz are about to start. Sehwag, who reached by flight the previous day, has qualified all by himself. Dravid and I join him there. Yuvraj and Kaif are off for “SSS” (shave, shit, shampoo).

The quizzes go on non-stop until 4 in the morning, with a small break for dinner which we thulp at the IIMC mess. The food appeared decent but I guess that was because we were having proper food after a gap of 48 hours. On the whole, however, their mess sucks in comparison to ours. The whole campus pales in comparison to ours. Hostels are bad. Let us not even talk about the loos. Things are scattered around. It is too far from the city. Too many mosquitoes. Of course, there are the lakes and the greenery. Still that doesn’t make up for the bad hostels.

Coming back to quizzing, the biz-quiz goes pretty well for us. The quiz isn’t too great. Some good fundaes here and there but there is a lot of inconsistency. However, I won’t crib since we won that quiz.

The movie quiz is downright bad. Too many sitters. Too many peters. If you miss one question you stand to lose a lot. However, I am proud of my working out “lock, stock and two smoking barrels” from the poster. We come joint third, tied with the other IIMB team.

The sports quiz prelims are non-descript. Sehwag is useless when it comes to sports so it’s upto Dravid and me. Crack some decent ones but we could’ve done better. There is this bad feeling in our stomachs that we might not qualify.

Our skill-sets are reversed when it comes to lit-art. Dravid and I are akin to tailenders in that. Prelims go good for us. Even I manage to crack a few. has done a damn good job of the quiz. If I can be kept interested through the length of a lit-arts quiz (the finals started at midnight) the quiz can be nothing but good! Hats off to .

The finals remind one of the 1975 India-Windies test at Madras. Sehwag is like Vishwanath. Cracks this splendid 97* with just Bedi (Ganguly) and Chandra (Dravid) for company. Dravid hits some sixes though. Going back to his childhood to crack Mahabali Shaata. Amazing quiz on the whole. We win.

The sci-tech quiz is also largely good but a few sitters here and there spoil it. I crack my 144 in that but it is not enough for us to win. We come second to the other IIMB team. However, I am happy I’m back in some semblance of form.

Day 2 starts at 9 am. The India quiz is cancelled because the quizmaster is not prepared! The IIMC chaps come up with an “unofficial quiz”. Decent quiz but it’s hurriedly put together. We miss a couple of easy ones and come 5th. Sports quiz finals follow. Largely good but some sitters spoil it. We come fourth.

There are two styles of quizzing in India. In the south, it is more logical reasoning. Of course knowledge is important. But most things can be worked out. In calcutta, quizzes are more knowledge-oriented. Very little to work out. And they try playing to the gallery. Results in bad quizzes.

The general quiz is open. Done by Gautam Bimani of ESPNStar. Prelims is good. Odyssey level. We qualify. An interesting thing about calcutta quizzing is everyone comes dressed up. There are people in formals. Or party-wear. This, I learn, is because most quizzes there take place in five star hotels or in pubs. Unlike us southerners who believe in simple living and high thinking.

In the finals our man shows his true colors. Turns out to be the “Lawrence of Kolkata” (for details contact Dravid). If you call that quizzing, I can set a quiz in one evening. Go to one website where you find photos of celebrities when they were kids. You have 10 questions. Find another website with photos of star-couples. Another 10. And it was so unprofessionally done. Files hadn’t been named appropriately and gave out the answers. The QM didn’t know properly where the files were stored. Probably one of the worst quizzes I’ve been to. Come last in the finals.

In spite of the reverses on the second day, IIMB won the constructors championship. We had 88 points, much more than the sum total of second placed IIMA (38) and third placed IITM (30 something). We are to be given this lovely glass trophy. By who else but the great QM Gautam Bimani. We take it all round IIMC and take photos with it.

I win a total of Rs. 8000. And more importantly, have another resume bullet point! And I’ll get footage and be a hero back in IIMB. To paraphrase Muhammad Ali,

To make IIMB the greatest is our goal
So we beat the amdavadis, madrasis, kanpurias and bongs
And for IIMB we won the trophy of Gold.
The Greeks said we’re better than the Indian Cricket team of Old.

Tendulkar (fan_2000) pulled out of the tour at the last moment citing Lateral Placement Interviews. So it was just the five of us who were going now. All our well-laid out plans for team selection for different quizzes were now wiped out. It was simply decided that sumo yet so far (Sehwag, Dravid (kodhi) and Yours Truly) would be one team kaif and yuvraj (udupa and ) would be the eternal sunshine of the spotless behind.

Sehwag is too pseud to travel in second class so he didn’t join us in the train. So the four of us it was that took the ardous journey, via madras. Howrah Mail ended up a whole seven hours late, which meant that the quizzes had started by the time we reached.

Indian Railways has this irritating concept when it comes to late trains. They minimize the NUMBER of trains that are late rather than the total delay across trains. Hence, once Howrah Mail becomes late by even half an hour, it is pushed down the priority order and consequently loses further time. There were numerous times when we had to wait in order to make way for a goods train! And there was this occasion when the train started from this vague station in Gultland and I thought it was moving backwards because someone on the platform was walking faster than the train!

Speaking of Gultland, it is one neverending landmass. We would have spent close to 24 hours just traversing the Gult coast. Dravid even suggested that there might be a thin strip of gultland across orissa all the way upto Bengal, when we were wondering when Orissa would start! And contrary to my expectations, most of the landscape were green. The fields looked well irrigated and I see many farmers tilling the land. My only other train journeys through Gultland have been through Rayalseema, which might have given me the impression that all of Gultland is one dry arbit landmass.

Food was a bit of a problem during the journey. Didn’t find decent stuff in a lot of places and subsisted on biscuits and lays. Had some idli-vada at vijayawada (for which they hardly provided any chutney) and some arbit pooris at kharagpur. Somehow got a kick out of drinking chai out of a khullar in kgp.

Then, as one would expect in a second class compartment, there were the usual irritants in the journey. Beggars, peddlers, dirty loos and the like (thankfully no eunuchs though). However, the single biggest irritant was people singing on the trains and demanding money for the “service”.

Recently Abhishek Thakore had come up with the novel business plan of training beggars to sing in trains. This way, they are no longer beggars, he said. Rather, they would be providing people with a “value added service”. In effect, he seems to suggest that by making beggars “sell products” such as their music, everyone would be happy.

However, the whole problem with this is that this service is uncalled for. In fact, it can be jarring at times and can in fact be a pain. Whoever said that music is a universal cure, especially when it is sung by a handful of street urchins accompanied by a drum or cymbals! I would rather pay a couple of rupees to a sad-faced bugger who just sticks his hand in front of me than to someone who would pain the shit out of me for a few minutes.

To put it in milder terms, I would see it as a “service” only if the following points hold:

– The product or service offered is not a pain
– I solicit the product or service rather than it being offered first and me being asked to pay later.

Anyways, despite these irritants, the trip on the whole to Cal was good. It had been a long time since I went on a long-distance journey by second class. I can probably say that the whole thing was a nice learning experience. 🙂

I know I’ve ended this abruptly but I’m way too sleepy now to continue. You can expect posts soon regarding my experiences AT cal and my way back.

During one of those deep introspective sessions yesterday evening, i started wondering which sportsperson i could be like. here are the characteristics I listed out.

— I am highly talented. At least in a lot of stuff I am good at.

— I am extremely lazy. I hate working out (haven’t yet seen the inside of a gym). I hate exercising. I hate running around. This applies to the mind also. I hate studying for exams. I hate spending a lot of time on assignments. I hate practicing stuff. I feel I’m so talented that I don’t need any of this kind of work to do well.

— I am extremely arrogant. If i don’t like someone/something I’m not afraid to give them a piece of my mind.

— I am extremely straightforward, and can sometimes border on the undiplomatic.

— I like footage. I like getting a lot of publicity. And while interacting with the public i can be prone to shooting off my mouth.

— I think I can be a good leader if I am given a dedicated team. However, when there is some bit of dissent, my quality of leadership drops.

— I tend to rely on past laurels to see me through. I am prone to entering bad patches frequently and point out a few of my good performances to justify that i’m good.

— I am not averse to repositioning myself in order to have my way.

— If I want to, I can be quite shameless at times.

And I can think of only one sportsperson who seems to fit all the above characteristics. Of course, I’m not elegant. I’m not too politically inclined. I’m not bong. Well, you must’ve guessed it by now; the sportsperson who I am most similar to seems to be Sourav Chandidas Ganguly.

When I started writing this journal, I used to write around once a month. Each post use to be long-drawn and by itself a complete story. I cared a lot for the quality of writing that went in.

Then, after I wrote my first short post, the frequency suddenly increased. Now, not too much effort was required for putting in a post, so I managed to easily increase my frequency of blogging. However, typically I left a couple of days between posts, so that people would get the time to “absorb” and “assimilate” it.

Internship happened and I would be jobless for long hours. Gave me ample time to write three posts a day. And my classmates who were also interning had enough time to read the generous crap dished out by me. If you see my archives you can see that the frequency drastically goes up for April and May 2005.

Anyways, I then remember this marketing concept called cannibalization. If I put up two posts too close to each other, the second will cannibalize the first, and take attention away from the first, thus in effect killing the first post. So I bring down the frequency to around once a week.

Then I come up with a couple of posts which have a huge readership. One of them gets linked to by desipundit and indiauncut. Now I’m get conscious about quality and reduce frequency further. After a point of time, i see no point in this blog.

Wait till I come up with a “masterpiece” before I publish it? How will I know that a particular post is going to be a “hit”? That is not the way I live life. The only way I know to do it is to just publish as soon as I think I have a piece ready, and let the people decide. It is like the way I play football, or basketball for that matter. Get free of the defenders, make space, collect a pass and kick it in the general direction of the goal. And pray. On a given day, I do this 20 times. And manage to get 3-4 goals in the process.

This is my way of life. This is how I play my football. This is how I play basketball. This is the philosophy I followed in the CAT. Guess the same should apply to blogging also? Anyways, you can expect more frequent posts by me in the next two months.

i’m incapable of complimenting someone if i don’t fully appreciate the magnitude of his/her achievement and believe it is really good.

i’m incapable of apologizing to someone if i think the fault lies with him/her.

i’m incapable of calling up someone and making my point over phone.

i think because of all this i’m losing out a lot in life

My ‘professional’ chess career got off to a start in late 1994 in a state level age group tournament. I became a regular on the ‘circuit’ and by mid-95, won my first packet of money from chess. It was a princely sum of Rs. 80.

Chess requires a really huge amount of mental concentration. You’ll have to simply forget everything else in the world and concentrate on the game at hand. This extreme concentration can be a little taxing at times. It can put immense pressure on you. Even a small deviation can result in nothing less than a loss.

It was towards the end of 96 that i formally retired from the ‘circuit’. yeah, i had attended a couple of rounds of formal chess coaching by then. my parents probably saw another anand in me and had invested a considerable amount already. and then i decided to throw it all away. to show my face only at a couple of inter-school events after this.

The amount of concentration can lead to a huge amount of stress. You start putting too much pressure on yourself. You start losing games from obviously winning positions. You cannot even think or dream of anything else when a tournament is on. You spend loads of time reading books. And at times you develop a really high fever at the end of a tournament and have to take a few days off from life.

IIT sparked off a new beginning to my chess career. On the very first day, I met Ranga who also said he plays chess as a hobby. The rest of the ‘orientation’ was spent playing “blindfold chess”. (there is no chessboard; we both imagine a board in our heads and communicate moves using the standardized international notation) The first game i played with Ranga as we toured the Central Workshops is one of the best ever I played. with hundreds of twists and turns until we agreed to a draw with a bishop and pawn apiece.

Sometimes, when you play a game competitively you lose the love for it. You stop enjoying the process. You start focusing too much on results. You think you have a reputation to protect everytime you play it. You unduly put pressure on yourself. In effect, it stops being “fun” and becomes a chore.

So many classes of Basic Electrical Engineering and other courses were spent in the backbenches playing blindfold chess with Ranga. Used to be great fun. Sometimes we used to carry the games back to the hostel and continue to play it on a board. Glorious days. And then there were these inter-hostel events and some “open” tournament. As I had expected, I didn’t do too well in them.

Once you’ve stopped loving something or someone, its really tough to restart. On a few occasions, with great effort you can convince yourself to give it that one more chance. However one or two jhatkas can be enough to dash all your hopes. You would need an extraordinarily long streak of good luck to have even a remote hope of restarting on your lost love.

Today I went for selection trials for the IIMB Chess team for the upcoming IIMB-IIMK sports meet. I seem to have totally lost my power of concentration. I have this tendency of rushing things and try to get over with the game quickly. And my mind keeps wandering towards other things. Needless to say, I lost both games I played today. Made really obvious mistakes. Felt like kicking myself. And for the record, I’ve been picked as a reserve player.

When I started playing contract bridge four years ago, i made a conscious effort to keep away from competition. I wanted this to be a hobby and not a profession. I didn’t want to kill my love for the game by way of excess competition. I just wanted to be able to enjoy the game whenever I wanted to play it. So far, I’ve largely stayed away from tournaments except for a few at the Tamil Nadu State Level which I took purely as a learning experience. And I still love the game.

Is there a lesson in this?

of late i’m having frequent bouts of extreme depression. sometimes i get afraid that i might do something drastic to myself during such times. and to think i have so much to offer this world 🙂

the thing starts with seemingly arbit reasons and then i’m reminded of a hundred incidents in my life when i’ve made mistakes, including some a couple of hours or minutes back. and crashing down i go.

sometimes just telling this to someone can make me feel a lot better. however, there’s the feeling of embarrasment. it’s not the done thing to crib about. people don’t want to see you cry. they want to see you all happy and healthy and share your happiness. i think of half a dozen people i want to talk to. then feel embarassed (for a different reason) regarding each one of them. and somehow keep it to myself.

i guess similar is the case with the readers of this blog also. a lot of people read this blog probably because they like the way I write and then to feel happy about the stuff i’ve written. hence, a depressed post has NOTHING to do in here.

a couple of times before, I’ve written this kind of depressed stuff here. then somehow try to sleep and in the morning wake up to sanity and make the entry private! however, this time i’m determined to let this stay a public post. let readers form whatever opinions they want about me.

and, for the record, i’ve been on a psychiatrist’s couch once. midway through my BTech. a combination of depression and what my parents called “underperformance in acads”. i’ve been through the 100 question questionnaires that they administered. i’ve interpreted the whatever cards and tried to identify patterns on them. don’t remember much of it except that in one particular card i identified ghosts dancing round a fire! at the end of it all, there was nothing conclusive. was put on some arbit medication for two months. had no effect whatsoever.

PS: they say shopping cures depression. thatz exactly what i did yesterday and bought myself a Kodak C330 Digicam. 4 megapixel. Cost Rs. 11000 inclusive of accessories. pity no shops are open at 2 in the night!