In A Perfect World, All The Geeks Get The Girls

They met in Pittsburgh, home to Carnegie Mellon, that techie school where people spew unpronounceable technical jargon, and University of Pittsburgh, whose students talk about stem-cell research and their cute Carnegie Mellon neighbours in the same breath. They met again through a common friend at a dinner party. He was the kind of guy who fiddled around with computers and had a string of degrees and double majors to his name. She was from Puerto Rico, the land of Corcho Beach and finalists to Miss Universe pageants. She was with an arts background, doing a PhD in Latin American Literature but with a dissertation topic in Performance Art. Yes, intellectuals with esoteric tastes, them. He insists that love blossomed amid discussions of art and not viewings of Miss Universe pageants.

Anywho.

My cousin just proposed to his long-time girlfriend. They are engaged!

My family is going global.

*does crazy Mata Hari jig*


Here are some reactions that this engagement incited:

Random Cousin M - "Oooh! You think she has a cute Puerto Rican cousin my age?"

Random Sensible Friend – "Lets see you emulating him now!" *high-fives*

Random Cousin J – "You think you can wrangle an invitation to their marriage for me? Pretty please? Hardcore please?"

Random Cousin D - "The Sangeet ceremony can have Salsa and Dandia, you know?"

Random Cousin M – "Puerto Rico is a country?!" ( he was subsequently disowned)



A hearty welcome laced with virtual tres leches and rasgullas to you - bienvenido a la family! nosotros le adoramos ya.

The Article They Refused To Publish In The School Magazine

So What Do Teachers Actually Do In The Staffroom?

My article in last year’s school magazine where I expounded on my theories on what students think was met with general low-level mutiny. My contemporaries, juniors and seniors all collectively hauled me while I was waddling my way to class one morning and demanded what I had been thinking when I laid bare a typical student’s psyche in front of the teachers who would undoubtedly be shaking with silent laughter in the staff room. One particularly persistent junior, half my age and half my size (you know, the ones who look so malnourished that UN would have loved to advertise them) stuck her head into my classroom and to my eternal mortification told me that if I considered myself such an expert where people were concerned, then why not write about what teachers did in the staff room? With that, she scampered off. This article, dear world, is dedicated to that exasperating junior who has been at the receiving end of several dirty looks from me throughout the year.

Anyhow, I digress. The teachers. Ah. Yes. You’re in for a shock. They check papers, prepare for their classes and discuss the political and economic scenarios of the world. But we shall not dwell into those earth – shattering aspects of their conversations. Rather, we shall venture into a world where lots of other truly entertaining things happen. This is a particular snippet I heard (without meaning to, of course) between two teachers conversing in the staff room :

Teacher A – “ Which classroom are you off too? ”

Teacher B - “ X-C ”

Teacher A - (voice quivering in anticipation) “ Oh, that class. All the best. I hear they are not much on the disciplined side. Quite rowdy, if you ask me.”

Teacher B – (sighs) “ Don’t I know? ”

Teachers and students have always shared a love – hate relationship. However, teachers talk more about students than the other way round. They may swear by the fact that they like mischievous students, but if you’ve been tagged with euphemisms like ‘naughty’ or ‘troublesome’, then even God cannot save you. Your reputation will have reached far and wide, all the way to the fourth floor staff room. So if you come across a teacher in the corridor who is staring at you queerly, then my friend, run for your life. Chances are she will have heard about the time you splattered ink across the entire first floor corridor. The reality is that they simply love the students who sit in their classes quietly, take notes more quietly and pass out of school still more quietly. However, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Almost every student’s biography, her past and her future life if possible, is laid bare in the staff room for all the teachers to laugh at. From that oh-my-god-I-just-got-a-ninety nine- and- not-a-hundred student to those of do-you-think-we-should-become-suicide-bombers-and-destroy-the-entire-school disposition (yes, I mean you), everyone’s behaviour, antics, marks and supposedly smart comments in class are dissected and inspected in No Student’s Land.

Do you remember that day when you were caught (for the umpteenth time) stealthily opening and proceeding to eat the contents of your lunch box way before lunch period? Not to worry children, even teachers indulge a bit of skullduggery all the time. So the next time you’re caught and reprimanded, confront them about their habits of eating between classes and refuse to hear their contradictions. On second thoughts, please don’t do so.

Previous evenings' parties are also not forgotten in haste and generally the entire staff room is audience to tales about how many compliments the wearer (fellow teacher) received, how beautiful her sari was and how her exquisite jewellery was admired. All this is discussed till the Battle Of The Generations is held where the current generation is unanimously rubbished and praises are sung about the good old times when students (they, themselves) were docile and hardworking.


So this is what teachers are like. Almost human. How did the world come down to this?

It's Not The Heat, I Promise

I ought to have been acquiring kickass skills in underwater basket-weaving or something equally obscure. Instead, I’m procrastinating my days away. I wouldn’t have had it any other way, either; the pleasure of curling up with a fat book in one hand and a toast lathered with jam in another is blissfully divine.

But all this is by the way. It’s time for a little flashback, and an experiment which yielded shocking results.

I began to go a little neurotic sometime at the start of Class X. No problem, everyone does. But I knew I was in trouble when I decided to pretend that I was Feynman, Hawking and Euler all rolled into one. The rules were simple. I was going to listen to one particular genre of music for an entire term and see how it affected my marks. I tried to initiate my friends into The Cult of Wannabe Experimentalists but the teachers had already entrapped them with their speeches of Board Domination and so they refused. Undeterred by the ways of the world, I began my quest for enlightenment.

It is a universally acknowledged fact that to complete your garb of intellectualness you must be armed with a fat Gabriel Garcia Marquez under your arm, a pair of glasses perched on your nose to impart a halo shouting wisdom around you and an IPod loaded with western classical music to catapult you in the highest echelons of awesomeness in front of your peers. Thus, the first term was spent listening to Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Handel. Symphony No. 25 in G Minor gave way to Bouree which was followed by Cannon in D Minor, all of which gave a heady drunken feeling, a sort of high, a pleasing sense of belonging somewhere and...

Heck, it even gave me headaches often. Bah.

I was just beginning to venture into the territory of Vivaldi when the first term results were announced. My percentage had dropped by five to six percent and to add the proverbial salt to my wounds, my brother had scored more than me. All this effectively ended the quest to acquire (and subsequently retain) snobbish music tastes.

Second term now. The Brother was still sniggering. I had to do something. So I turned towards the artists of sixties and seventies for help. The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Pink Floyd, Guns and Roses, Frank Sinatra and Eric Clapton were the order of the day. Lots of crazy Mata Hari jigs and endless crooning to Layla later, my mood improved a lot, but the marks – well, it was a different story altogether. According to a particularly voluble teacher, I had “improved ever-so-slightly (two marks, to be precise) and should be studying for about twenty five hours a day”. My mother grimaced on hearing this; after all, this was precisely what she had been hearing since the past five years or so. There were talks of taking the broadband away and disconnecting the T.V. connection, but all these scheming ploys were brought to a halt amid whining, pleading and threats of hara-kiri from my part.

Third term saw me moving on to contemporary indie rock gods like Muse, Travis, Sigur Ros, Kings of Convenience, Coldplay, Death Cab for Cutie and Pet Shop Boys. Now I tell you, these guys are absolute geniuses. Their lyrics are wonderfully poignant and esoteric, understood only when you’re either (a)a closet emo or (b) giving your boards. Third term results were definitely better but not good enough to take The Brother by so much surprise that he would choke to death. Selections were woefully near and I knew I needed a plan, and fast or I would just have to end up studying.

Disillusioned by the ways of the world, I found peace in a very unlikely source. This is the cue for genteel readers to not read further. I started listening to Eminem. Yes, you can gasp for all I care but you’ve got to listen to his songs. Sing for the Moment will make you want to accomplish your goals, When I’m Gone will make you want to live forever and do something worthwhile. Oh, and please don’t get me started on Lose Yourself – that song's just surprisingly rejuvenating. My optimism swelled and shockingly,so did my marks. The last time I’d done so well was in Class V. It made me happier, perkier and my brother, gloomier. I chose to listen to Eminem throughout the Boards, and at the risk of sounding clichéd – that has made all the difference in the world.

As of now, I’ve surrounded myself with a very agreeable mix of Rufus Wainwright, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, Radiohead and for some godforsaken reason, Soulja Boy. It won’t be soon before long that Eminem will be added to this list yet again.

Overheard

Apparently, this is how Stanford University rejects its applicants :-

"We are sorry that we were unable to admit you to the Stanford class of WXYZ. To be ecologically friendly, you will not be getting a copy of this letter in the mail, and this will be the last contact you will receive from us. Good luck in life."






Sadists.

Physics

I live a sad, lousy life right now. Not that is was exceptionally cheery earlier, but its particularly bad at this moment, hence this Shakespeare-esque Saga.

Shall I compare thee to a Pickbrain Quiz?
Thou art more elusive and more frustrating
Rough equations do shake the earlier-grey-now-fictional cells of mine,
And Boards lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too baffling seem the endless lenses
And often is the temptation to run away, potent
And every diagram is far from fair,
By chance or CBSE’s changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal Boards shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that uninspiring or apathetic text
Nor shall teachers brag thy undistinguished marks
Which thy shall be eternally reprimanded about
So long as Witten can breathe or Hawking can see,
So long lives this, and this gives Death to thee.

Because We Like It That Way

This post is a consequence of an assortment of things. This is because I’ve been reading a lot of stuff by The Other Veda, because there are simply too many people around me who are into rocky relationships at this point of time and are killing themselves over their beloveds, because I feel particularly benevolent towards the species who have the Y chromosome, because I’ve just seen Life Is Beautiful for the second time in two weeks, and because, well, I miss forcing my pearls of wisdom on my blog readers.
If you’re a girl, then ignore this, ignore everything. Go bemoan the lack of Jack Sparrows and Darcys in this regrettablely un-fictitious world. If you’re a guy, then wait *attaches wrists to cufflinks with a satisfying click*, you aren’t going anywhere.You think we don’t know but we do.
We know you like featherheads who have no idea what featherhead means. We know you drool over our best friends when they glance surreptiously at you, adding a giggle here and two there. We know you watch FTV all the time. We know you watch reruns of Miami Beaches in Travel And Living and not just for the sand and sun. Hell, you’d even settle for Rituparna Sengupta in her Trishna garb. Deny all you want. We’re not listening.

But do you know what women want? I’ll tell you.

We like men who can cook. Yes Gordon Ramsay, I want to marry you. Forget about sharing and caring and other pointless fluff like that – if you can whip up inordinately sexy dishes, then we’ll be yours. You can keep that diamond ring and that Louis Vuitton bag, but just pass me that pasta.

Stop running your fingers all through our hair – you’re messing up our hairdo and we are balding. Stop refering to us by all those shady euphemisms that you’ve learn’t from that equally shady dating website you’ve been visiting . Where, oh where is that Sparrowesque sarcasm, that evil glint in the eye and that slightly vicious jab hidden among clever words? Stop being so nice all the time, you’re faking it.We like it when you make fun of us. But not in front of just anyone. The sacred You’re- The-Best-Thing-Since–Cricket decorum must be maintained in front of the aforementioned best friends.

No, we don’t like cricket. We loathe it, to be precise. Our football preferences depend on how good-looking the players of a given club are at that point of time. But we’ll watch tennis with you. Especially a face-off between Federer and Djokovic. Don’t expect us to pay much attention to you at that moment, or any, for that matter.

We’d like you to be aware of what’s going on in the world. Skip the I-love-you-as-much-as-I-love-my-xyz charade and feed us some interesting trivia. Random quizzing trivia like “D.H. Lawrence used to take his clothes off and climb mulberry trees” will also be appreciated.

This is all I can think of, as of now. Oh, and we also like men who wear glasses. Those geeky, rimless ones will do just fine. So if you can cook, then I’m coming over to your place; if you are a sarcastic cook, then wow, you must be taken; if you are a sarcastic cook who follows tennis, then I bet you don’t live in Calcutta and if you are a sarcastic cook who follows tennis, knows his D.H. Lawrence trivia and wears glasses – then back off ladies, he’s mine!

Heroes OR My Last Post Before CBSE Finishes Me Off For Good

You took a horse driven carriage from Victoria Memorial all the way to her home in Girish Park. Then you watched on as she squealed in excitement. You led her to The Grand Hotel in the carriage. Both your faces lit up as the horse galloped to its destination. You were only sixteen.

You were that quiet little kid in awe of her seniors. You rarely spoke. You hated me with all the ferocity you could muster. Dirty looks you used to throw me, too. You’re one of the finest quizzers this city has ever produced.

You always were an emotional fool. You never did what was right for you, broke your own heart with your own hands every single time. But you survived. You’re one of the bravest people I know.

You were supposed to end up in Ashutosh Mukherjee College, become its dean and live unhappily ever after with your fat Bangali wife who would apply two inches of sindoor. I’m sure it was a paranormal consipiracy to tell me how sadistic I was when you got into Yale.

You were dyslexic. No, don’t argue with this one. You were, you were, you were. Now suddenly, I find that you’ve left me way behind. You were the quintessential tortoise everyone warns everyone else about, but nobody believes in it anyways.

You were never opinionated, yet you knew the most. You were that guy whom everyone would point at and say, “you know, he did so-and-so-and-so and some more so’s.” Everyone knew that you would become something. Everyone is still waiting. Problem is, so are you.

You were The Perfect One. You were someone everybody worshipped, everybody wanted to be like, everybody wanted to be around, everybody wanted to be. You ruined it all by taking The Path More Travelled By.

You were the Diva. The genuine, on-your-face woman of the 25^th Century. You don’t intend to make it easy for anyone to understand you. You open at the close.

This post his best left without a cryptic, epiphany – inducing conclusion. Maybe I’ll leave that for You to form.