Exam fever

The exam fever in this context refers to 'my strange behaviour' during exams. It is a normal thing when people fall sick during exams, Baggy always does. But its a little surprising when a person develops intense sleeping habit during exams. I am not referring to the disease sleeping sickness (which is a resultant of the trypanosomial infection; mainly found in Africa).
Here I am only referring to a strange fever, which affects a small group of students, causing excessive sleep during exams.
Baggy is not a patient here. But me and smiley surely are. My routine during study vacation is as follows:
- Wake up at 10 am ( as there is no way to continue sleeping with the constant bickering coming from Ranju and baggy reminding me every now and then that my preparation for the exam is insufficient, Friends calling me up to make sure I am not wasting my time).
- switch on my laptop (DC++) to find an array of interesting music files and sitcoms (used to be scrubs during my 1st sem exams, HIMYM during my 2nd sem exams and Gossip girls, X men cartoon, Southpark, 8 simple rules and Russell peters during my 3rd sem exams)
- Constant bickering from baggy, who tries her best to enlighten me every now and also helps me to open my books
- Discussion with smiley, bout who has studied the least.

- sudden urge to write stuff into my diary, or to play music, resulting in careful investment of my precious time on stuffs that I think matters a lot.

- chatting on google talk for hours and hours, till the other person forces me to read.
- and sleeping...................

My routine was so interesting that, by the end of the exams, even baggy started to follow my routine. She got addicted to Gossip girls and also started playing the song 'didi' by milk and honey once in every 15 mins.

When ever I tried to take things seriously, and opened my book to read, Ranju used to barge in , hum a nice tune and leave. And that was it. I continued the song that she left unfinished for the next few hours.

Even on the day of the exam, I never felt nervous or scared ( like Kutti and baggy, who always felt they would flunk, but somehow managed to score an AA or AB ).

So no matter what people say, exam days were the best days of my college life.

the group fight

"They are participating, I heard it, heard them sing" Sallu said as she bustled in. "Wat ?" I asked groggily as I stretched my hand to pick my toothbrush from the lot. It was 8.10 am and the breakfast bell was due any minute. "Oh!! you ll know.... " she replied.
I dragged myself all the way across the corridor to the washroom. Dreamily I was following my daily morning schedule, when I heard 'THEM' sing.
"WHOA!!!! wtf" I said to myself. Wasting no time, I rushed back to my room.
"you don't need to tell ..... I heard it!!!" Chits told me when I opened my mouth to speak. Smiley was still lazing off on her bed. She walked out clueless regarding the discussion that was going on around her.
After a while she walked in and announced," People!! there is a bad news!! They are participating in the competition".
"Seriously yaar.... do u even hear to our talks??" sallu asked her.
"oh so you knew bout it!!" she replied sadly.
" I cant sit here and watch them win this thing" I conceded. "No matter what, but I am not willing to sit and watch our reputation being tarnished in such a ****** way"
"Lets participate too" said Sallu, who loved to sing as much as me."lets sing and win this thing" she said exuberantly.
" Ha ha ha ha, I can imagine us winning if I sing" replied chits in her sarcastic tone.
" same here" added smiley. Ume murmured something in fast malyalam which I was unable to grasp. Then she smiled and left the room.

In the above stanza, 'They' refers to our group rivals. Back in 2004, during our HSE, my friends and I had a fight with some other co hostelers (who were also our classmates), which gave rise to groups within the hostel. The 2 respective groups showed constant antagonism to each other. So it was really important for us to beat them at every thing. Academic performance was not an issue, as chits was the top scorer. And the rest of us were equally good too.

So finally after a long discussion sallu and I managed to convince Smiley, Ume and chits. The competition was on the next day at 4.30 pm, and we had only few hours to practice, as we had practicals that very day and also the next day.

We chose to sing 'neele neele ambar pe', as it was the only song whose lyrics was available at that moment. We practiced for hours in the night. We were so tired that we couldn't get our butts off the bed the next morning. As usual we got dressed up in our regular outfit (some stupid t shirt and jeans) and left for college. The competition was at 4.30 pm , so we came to the hostel a little early from the lab; ie, 4,25 pm. To our surprise all the other teams were dressed uniformly. we were the only odd ones out. 'They' were dressed up in yellow salwars.

"WTF man!!!" I whispered into sallu's ears. "Look at those gals!! How can we ever beat them at presentation".
I had heard them practice the song in the classroom, thought it was a kannada song (and I couldn't understand it) I had enjoyed it.
"We ll just do fine man!!! dun worry" smiley said.
I could feel the tension in her voice though. Chits was conspicuously nervous and I could see her fidgeting next to me during the first teams performance. Ume was quite the whole time.
Amid this whole mess, Sallu found the time to go brag brashly about how good we were when compared to 'THEM'. War, who was the meanest girl from our rival group said something rude in her malicious tone.

I wanted this never ceasing fray to end as soon as possible.

Soon it was their turn to perform. I must admit, they were good. But there was this final year degree's group who had given a terrific performance. Also another group, out juniors who were good too.

We gave our best shot. And were hoping to secure the third place.
We were quite sure that there the 1st place would be given to the final yr degree group and the 2nd to our juniors. Any other groups weren't that great. So the compitition was for the 3rd place.

So we sat there praying for a positive result.

finally it was time. The 3rd place was secured by our juniors. We lost the little hope we had.
"its ok yaar, there is always a next time" I told sallu.

"The second place goes to ........ " we heard them announce.
"Sallu and party"......

Whoa!!! that was unexpected. but we weren't jumping in the victory mood, we wanted be sure that the first place was won by the degree gals. And yes, We were right.

There!!! That made our day, actually our year.............
We were overjoyed. Loved every minute of it. That wasn't our only victory, we surely won the group fight.

The scooba split

hip hop style of dancing has always been my favourite, though I could never successfully learn to hip hop like a pro, it always helped me to buoy my sagging spirit. I never enjoyed the perquisite of learning the art of hip hopping. Though I learnt fascinating varieties of other dance forms, like Jive and salsa, it was Hip hop style of dancing that conquered my heart.

I got a few tips on HH from a flamboyant friend of mine. And that day I shifted my magnifier from music to dancing styles. The tips on hH surely confused me at times. " be blunt with ur body movements" ..... Now 'whats that supposed to mean ?'

Days turned to weeks, and then to months; I never practiced what i was supposed to.

Just a few days back, when I was going through some videos on youtube, I found this group performing hH for a body swaying music. Well I put on my dancing shoes and started imitating their moves. It was quite easy.

I was excited, and wished to learn more. So then I found this video in which a boy demonstrated the scuba split ( a hH move). It was simple, except for the split.

So I tried the scuba move. Continued doing so. I wanted more, wanted to learn the scuba split.
But in an attempt to learn it, I hurt my little finger and now i find it hard to move it (i can still type though).

So no more scuba splits......

The BEP syndrome

For those who are unaware of this syndrome, BEP syndrome is a complex neurological and psychological disorder in the presence of normal cognition in young adult individuals. The symptoms include highly increased mental performance and spontaneous action. the susceptibility to this syndrome depends upon the individual's taste in music.

It was a sad day for me and Baggy. The Black Eyed Peas were giving a concert in blore and we were not able to go there cause we were stuck up with classes.
"Man this sucks!!!" I said as we entered the class at 7.55 A.M .
As usual the First bench students were missing. It was business law class and that was the only subject everyone loved to bunk. So following my daily schedule, I fell asleep at 8.05 after my name was called out for the attendance.
"Excuse me sir!!!" Came a voice from the back. It was 'miss late comer' , surprisingly she was only 15 mins late. I was dreaming about the concert. "Damn it!!" I thought.

I leaned sideways and whispered it into Baggy's ears,"Do you think we can still make it to the concert?". She looked at me with an "I dunno expression" on her face. Somehow I survived the class. The next hour was supposed to be fun. It was my favorite subject, not coz i loved it (Man!!! i hated it) but the lecturer who was taking the class, Rush-me maam, was really good at her work and she somehow managed to make it interesting. She is not just an amazing lecturer but also a very sweet and understanding person.

She entered the class, read out the names of the students from the attendance register, walked to the board and wrote "BEP".

"WTF" i heard baggy murmer. "Is she a fan too?" Wow the class was getting more and more interesting.
"Break Even Point" said Punch bag aloud.
" wat the F*CKIN Hell is that" I asked Baggy. "I have no idea" She replied.

'Its easy yaar, I ll teach you" Punch bag told me 30 mins later. Though those words were supposed to sound comforting, every single time punch bag told me that something thats meant to be hard to understand, was actually easy, it made me more nervous.
Kutti who was sitting in the 2nd row, turned back and gave a an expression conveying "Its gonna be ok, dont worry".
Then the class continued. Rush-me maam repeated the abbreviation BEP more than 50 times. After the bell rang and she walked out of the class, I stood up and asked," people.... I am going to Blore for the BEP concert, Anyone wanna join???" I got an instant yes from Archie and Baggy.
"Hey the concert is at 7.30 yaar. We ll never make it on time." said Punch bag. " I am not going to sit here and dream about the concert. I don't care if we don't reach on time, but i want to go, U wanna come , please do" said baggy. That was the first time I had seen baggy all set up in a mood to do some mischief. She had never bunked a class in her life nor had she done anything like this ever. She was a free bird now that she was staying at the hostel.

" so what??? shall we go ???" I asked kutti, smiley, Bird and punchbag. Got 3 NOs and one yes from punch bag.

So me and baggy rushed to the hostel, put on some hot outfit and went to the near by city(which was 340 kms far from blore) with archie and punchbag. We checked make my trip.com to see if any flight tickets were available. But unfortunately it was way beyond our budget. So finally we found ourselves standing in front of KSRTC bus.

We just couldn't go back to college. Our own classmates would mock us.
"now what" said archie, "It was your idea na. Lets go to Goa. Lets go anywhere, but not to college. It s gonna be embarrassing... F*ck Man!!"
' I didn't force you to come" i claimed.
"make up your mind, the bus to blore will leave in 5 mins" Said punch bag intervening the fight.
"lets go" said baggy. "but..... " i said goggling at her.

"cmon, move on .... get in" she said and we followed her instructions.

We were in the bus. Last seats. Supposed to be an AC bus, but then where was the dust coming from!!!

We spent hours in that bus discussing about the concert. The tickets were arranged and everything was going to be fine, if we reached there on time.

It was 7.30 P.M and we had not reached blore yet. We were some where in the outskirts. I was gazing dreamily at the passing street lights. It looked beautiful. We were all excited.

Finally we reached the ground where the concert was being held. Baggy, archie and I were not acquainted with the city. So Punch bag had to take the lead. We reached the ground, had a nice time.
The rest is history.

We boarded the bus back to our coll at 11.45 P.M. Reached our college at 10 AM next day. We were so tired and messy. Went to the hostel and took a shower. We had to cut our nails to get rid of the dust accumulated in it.

Finally we met up again near the coffee shop outside the girls block to discuss further plans of dealing with our HOD. We took religious advantage and told the HOD that we had to attend some Pooja. Though he didnt believe that, he didnt punish us either.

Thats it!!! tat was my strangest concert experience.

Art work

Earlier today when I was going through all my old college stuff, I found my painting. There was a time back in my high school days when I was amused by my sister's talent. She was artistic; especially with her paint brush. I loved her work as much as I loved her. Her paintings could express itself. I really don't know what that last statement means, but all i want to say is that, she was amazing with a paintbrush.

When I was in 2nd year of my graduation, my sister was working in Mumbai. So we hardly met each other. One evening, I called her up. I told her that I had taken her paint brush for some project designing purpose. "oh nice!! atleast someone is using it. Paint something with it" she replied.

So i sat there in my room, wondering what to paint. And started painting all vibrant colours on the paper. I didn't care what the end result looked like. After a few hours, my roomy entered the room.
"WOW!!!" exclaimed Dipsy. "U can paint".
"Well of course i can" I replied. 'Only if she could see any of my sister's paintings' I told myself.

We pasted the painting on a wall right opposite to the door. so every time someone entered the room they complimented me for my work. well that surely made me happy.

But today, it looks like a childs work to me. Shabby art work .

Dbird and the beach

It was mid july and the sky looked like a magnificent piece of modern art. It was camouflage green with tinges of old lavender, lilac and steel blue. Drizzling rain drops and the smell of wet mud evoked an excitement in the air. It was my first week at the college. And I was already in love with the place. Man loved the ambiance.
It was a Wednesday. We took a longer route to the hostel. Walked past the CCC, dispensary and the basket ball court. My friends were tired and they wanted to rest their butts in their respective rooms. But me n baggy wanted to go to the beach. So we gave our books to those lazy bugs and took a diversion route to the beach. when we walked for 5 mins, we heard Dbird's voice.
Dbird was our classmate. We hadn't seen her mingling much with the others in the past 3 days. but since we had already met her at the hostel on our first day, we knew her. And we had already classified dbird into the 'gal wit a nasty attitude' category listening to some rumours.
"hey tussi kithe ja rahe ho" she asked. "Off to the beach!!!" replied Baggy in her excited tone. "accha.... " she said with a confused look on her face wondering if its a good idea to join us. "hey join us na" I said. She considered the offer for a few seconds and she joined us.

Since it was my first week at the college, i was a little apprehensive about approaching new people. But with Dbird, it was different. she was damn friendly. We walked to the college entrance of the beach. We had to sign on a book before we enter. We cooked up strange names on it. The beach was beautiful. It reminded me of my school days when I used to sneak out with my friends and go to the beach nearby.

We played in the water for a loooong time. And when we stopped, it started to rain. We got drenched, but it felt good. I was glad that Dbird was with us. I realized that first impression is not always right. And learnt that i should never ever believe any rumours .
Dbird was a dynamic person and in the 2 years of my college life, never once did i feel any personal dislike towards her. Thought there were times when there were group conflicts, but as an individual i always admired her.

That was the experience of my first visit to our college beach.

Dissection experience

Though i have many other wonderful topics to update, i prefer to put up this particular one. If there is something that has contributed to my inhumane character, i would say that this experience is surely one of those.

Finally the day had arrived. I was standing outside the zoology lab wit a few other friends who were busy discussing about their new dissection box. Karle was narrating the recent updates on a TV show 'kahin to hoga' to a few enthusiastic listeners which included smiley and sweety. Though KTH was my favorite show (i used to love Ekta Kapoor shows then, mainly this one cause it featured the most hottest guy on the Indian TV , Rajeev Khandelwal, Whose popularity went down when he quit the show), I was not paying any attention to the whole discussion.

I could feel the heat in the air and the smell of formalin was making me dizzy. I was cursing myself. "Why!!!! Why the hell did i choose Zoology over Botony" i told Dipsy. I knew that she was thinking on similar lines, not because I could see the nauseous look on her face, but because i knew that the idea of chopping a rat seemed far ruthless. Dipsy hailed from a brahmin family. but unlike me, she remained a pure veggie. So I also pitied her for what she was about to go through in the next few hours.

I have been friends with Smiley for a long time and I was sure she could handle this experiment with an ease. So my only concern was Dipsy.

Our Zoology lecturer was a handsome young bachelor and most of the girls from our class had a secret crush on him. Ya i know he is smart and handsome, but 'GALS!! He s our lecturer. We are not supposed to hit on him'. My friend Karle, had taken the pleasure to name him Zooby.

I could see all my friends in the White Lab coat. Some were flaunting their coats around like they were damn doctors. 'Grow up people!! the close you can get to a doctor is on your visit to a hospital or if you earn a phd, and thats a looooong way to go'.

So with a smirk on my face i rummaged my lab coat pockets for the chocolate that i had saved for the right time. I always believe that chocolate is an effective remedy for anxiety. So i keep one with me every time. Eat one before every exam. My friends knew that, and so they didn't bother to ask me a piece of the chocolate that i was about to have. I never share chocolates. When i buy one, i see to it that i buy an extra, so that i don't feel a need to share my bar of chocolate with anyone.

After a few bites, i could feel the adrenalin being pumped into my brain. Wow I love chocolates so much. Zooby walked out of the lab and asked us to enter. I had to hasten and gulp the last bite of the chocolate.

I walked towards a table next to the window. Dipsy occupied the seat next to me. The lab was newly built and it looked beautiful. There were pictures of many famous zoologists. Charles darwin, James Albert, Frederic Moore....etc.... I could hear a classmate of mine saying " If it weren't for these ******** life would have been much simpler." His words made no sense at all, but still i turned back and smiled at him and replied "very true".

The lab assistant entered the main lab and placed a piece of wooden plank on the table in front of everyone. Then he placed a Swiss albino mouse (not rat, people mistaken it for rat ) on every single plank.

I turned around to get a glimpse of smiley's face. She looked terrified. We were made to witness a mouse being brutally dissected by Zooby. As we walked back to our seats i secretly wished for some mishap to happen so that our classes get suspended. But nothing happen. I sat there staring at the mouse that laid dead before me. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. Poor mouse. If it were not for me, it would have been alive today. Somewhere living a happy life. Or i would have kept it as a pet. Tears were rolling down my face. Well, something that i tried to but couldn't control.

I could see the box of mice on the table next to mine. It was for the next batch of students. Only if I could sneak in at night to help them escape. Well!!!! these were the thoughts disturbing me at that very moment.

"I would have allowed you to just take your time, but unfortunately we don't have enough on our hand. So I think you should start the procedure" I heard Zooby say. I could see the concerned look on his face. There were few other students too who were finding it hard to start the procedure.

I took my forceps and scissors and made the incision. I was careful enough not to touch the mouse with my bare hands. I had a cut on my hand. But to my surprise, almost all my classmates were using their hands to touch the organs of the mouse. 'Do they even read the safety manual???' i thought. Oh come on .... you are not supposed to touch the experimental specimen wit the bare hands.

Deep was doing the experiment just like me, only using the forceps and the scissors. My friend Babu who was hitting on Dipsy, showed us his concern by playing pranks using his specimen. But instead of entertaining us, his tricks seemed to make us more nauseous.

We had to display the head, thoracic and abdominal organ of the rat. After i pinned the last display lable, Zooby announced," The dissection is not yet over, you are supposed to display the Urogenital system of the mouse too". I turned around to see the look on Dipsy's face. She was staring blankly at the kidneys of the mouse which she had chopped off just a while back. She was angry that she had to do the whole procedure again on a new mouse.

After about an hour, we finished the experiment and walked out of the lab towards our hostel mess. It was a relief to walk out of the lab and breathe fresh air. We were very hungry but we couldn't eat for the next 2 days. Every single time we tried to eat something, a displeasing image of the disected mouse flashed before our eyes. I thought that was the worst lab experience. But I was wrong. Soon we had to dissect cockroaches, prawns, leeches, and Drosophila larva. That was just the beginning to 3 years of misery.

The Imli tree

Back in my childhood days i used to be a ... er.... 'wats d word again ' ... ya .... tree inhabitant. Well actually i used to spend most f my time on trees, either climbing it for fun or for plucking d fruits.

Der were many trees in my school n i luved to climb 20% f dem ...sadly rest were coconut trees.
Me n my frnds used to pluck jamun, chambakai, n also imli .

The imli (tamarind) tree stood at the back of our school building n it used to be everyone's fav. I luved to climb tat tree. It ws sumthin tat made me happy.

The school authority warned us not to climb d trees. But they never caught me at d act.

Dis incident took place on d evening f 14th Aug 1996. well i remember d date really well coz it ws d evening b4 independence day, when i ws in 4th std. Me n my frnd *******, whos shares my nick name, were killing tym doing nothing, after our cls hours. It ws raining cats n dogs.

she suddenly felt this urge to eat imli. so we went out. now d prob ws tat my frnd hd never mastered the art of climbing trees. so we decided tat i ll be the one to climb d tree n she would be the one to watch out for any trouble.... by trouble i mean, any teachers.

since it ws raining.... the branches were really slippery. n my white shirt ws no longer white. I ws somewhere nearing the top of the tree when from nowhere i heard someone shouting. To my surprise, it was the high school Hindi teacher, Mr Mishra. He ws standing under the tree holding an umbrella n ws shouting at me. I cud see my frnd running away . I was scared, confused n upset too. All i cud hear ws " Kaun hai wahaan upar.... Abhi neechay ayiye..... " . but i ws too scared to cum down .... so i waited on the tree for 15 mins, hoping he wud leave. But he didnt. So finally i had to come down.

Mishra sir scolded me for sumthin like 10 mins. I ws really happy tat it ws raining tat day, coz I didnt want him to know tat i ws crying. Den he realized tat i ws gettin drenched in rain n also tat my hands n knees were bleeding. so he took me inside n asked me who my partner in crime ws. I didnt answer his question so he asked me if i had any siblings studying in the same school. I told him tat i had a bro n sis studyin in d senior classes. He took their names n left.

I rushed to the wash room n found my frnd waiting for me. My frnd ws scared. she apologised for wat happen n den started helpin me out to get the mud stains off my clothes. I was nt mad at my frnd for leaving me that day. The first thing tat i spoke to her was... oh forget it... its ok ....
I ws a lil scared but still i pretended to be just fyn.

Tat ws me !!! in my childhood days. When i look back nw .... i realize tat i am no longer the same person anymore.
I ws a sweet kid back den ..... but today .... i am selfish .... hav an ego , n look for a reason to blame others for my mistakes. WOW ..... i wish i cud go back n live like a 9 yr old.

the monkey's tale

first of all i admit the fact tat i am nt sure wat creature we encountered the other day. Whether is ws a langur or a monkey. Since it ws all white n black in colour.... n also had a long tail , we decided to cal it langur.

this incident occured to us (by us i mean me n kutty) last summer during our internship at a reputed oil refinary. Myself, kutty n baggy(who s my close frnd n also my roomy at d hostel) hd rented a house near the workplace. The duration of the internship ws a month so i had borrowed ambu's scooty. Every morning we did triple ride on the scooty n went off to work . We discovered many new routes to d workplace n spent a lot f tym in an abandoned CCD der.

The Manufacturing unit also consisted f many other outlets n covered a vast region ..... *** acres i guess..... :)
once we crossed the first checkpost of the unit.... we had to maintain a speed limit of 20kmph.
Duh!!!! we slowed down only at d places wher der were vid cams, n since we were quite acquainted wit d place in a few days, we knew exactly wher d vid cams were placed. But one day d guard complained tat we weren't allowed to travel trips inside d unit territory ,.....

nw tat ws a prob ..... we struggled a lil to overcum tat prob by taking longer routes to reach d place, avoidin d guards. n we were successful in doin so.

one fyn day .... baggy fell ill n we hd to take her home. d next morning it ws only me n kutti. so we decided to take the shorter route to the unit. for a change we were goin at a speed f 10kmph .... just to kill tym ... coz we were a lil early tat day. from nowhere.... a big branch landed right in front f our scooty. we were a lil confused n shocked...we stopped d scooty n looked up .... there ws a huge langur der.... n for sum reason he looked mad at us.

we just left the place in no tym . after sumtym my frnd kutti spoke " CG.... tat bloody langur tried to Kill us' ...... n in her regular tone she continued ' OH my God!!! did u see tat .... it threw a branch at us ' ....

we had a really interesting day ...... n for sum reason we considered d langur/monkey as our lucky charm. we had few more encounters wit the same monkey .... n everytym its tail seemed to look longer n longer.

well baggy surely missed tat scene .... but thank god she wsnt der .... varna she wud hv screamed n tat wud hv scared d hell out f d poor creature

my bucket list

try ice skating
wear a beautiful gown
straighten my hair
watch bryan adam's live performance
dance ball room dance in a beautifully candle lit room
walk on d beach at mid nite listening to soft music
visit disneyland
ride a swedish warmblood
go to tirupathi
sing in a club for a small audience
walk d ramp
shop in paris
do bungee jumping
also scooba diving
a bike trip
do water rafting