White or Brown?

A little extra melanin and you are doomed. Probably end up comatose after being stabbed by a screwdriver, or buffeted by the authorities on charges of breaching peace. Racial discrimination is not something new, only this time it seems to have transgressed all limits of tolerance. While a 25 year old fights for life in Royal Melbourne Hospital and others get battered for peacefully protesting against the malfeasance done unto them, one asks an extravagantly blatant question, why?

As we waited in that hall with its walls decorated with pictures of the Taj Mahal, we stood a little appalled, a little disappointed. It could be called favoritism to some extent, only that the beneficiaries of this nepotism were the ones whose skin color was markedly different from the denizens. The authorities were more soft-spoken to the former, offered them seats first and obsequiously listened to the their complaints as to how foreigners are charged more than Indians for beholding the same view of the wonder in marble. I deride them not for their being such sycophants, but for their being so biased.

And what do we get in return for our hospitality, for our "Athiti devo bhava"? We are the first ones to be given the pink slip, to be thrashed in the ribs whenever a bomb goes off somewhere and to be marked in case the uncolored ones have nothing else to do. All our supposed protectors stand mum, while we pay for being colored.

I apologize for any misstatements, but confirm that the bellicose tone was completely intentional.

Back

Life without the internet is dismal. This is something we fail to realize when in college - while we are incessantly busy cursing the extremely sluggish net, we innocently ignore the fact that absolute absence of it could be an even bigger bane. A week of deprivation and then a switch to high-speed wireless is like a blessing.

Which also means that I would raise my level of activity (from the current mark of null) on this blog. However, it is difficult to surmise how much readership I will get, considering that most of my readers are college acquaintances, who have this habit of transgressing into hibernation mode once back home. Nevertheless, I will try and post more, and of course, read more!

Hey, Google!

This one has been bothering me for quite some time now, so I thought I would bring it up.

Many of us own multiple Google accounts. Now, with so many applications of Google doing the rounds, it is in every way possible that we may link some of these applications to one account and some others to another account. For instance, this blog was (initially) linked to the email id deepakmaloo007@gmail.com. I own another account, with the id maloo.deepak@gmail.com, which is the more frequently used email id. Now suppose I am logged into the latter, and I decide to post something on this blog. When I have to plug in the Bond-inspired id so that I can sign into my blog, Google signs me out of maloo.deepak mail box and I am unwillingly redirected to my 007 id. Quite frustrating.

What Google can do is that it can put together some application that will identify that the two (or more) accounts belong to the same person, and enable him/her to use them (or the applications associated with them) at the same time, thus doing away with the inconvenience caused.

By the way, I sent an invite to myself (maloo.deepak) to contribute to this blog, so that I can blog without being signed out of my mail box. That's why on the left you see two contributors - me and me!

Waiting for Google to react...

A Confused Soul

When is this "recession thingie" going to end? Should I go for an MS right now? Will I get a waver? A scholarship? An RAship? Or even a job at the end of my post-graduation?

Or should I just do an MBA from some Indian B-school? What are the prospects after doing an MBA? Am I even interested in such a career?

Or should I just take up a job right now? Wait for this slowdown to get over, and then go for an MS? Should I go for an MS at all? Will I even get a decent job? Is 3 lac p.a. enough? Will I not earn more if I join my Dad's business? Then again, isn't joining him like killing my own dignity?

STOP. Got to stop thinking so much. Got to smoke it away. Got to just let it be. Got to live my life.

Love Story - by Erich Segal

I might be disagreeing with many, but that's how it is with me. I just didn't find it good enough. The book was gifted to me by this close friend of mine who claims to be totally in love with it. It is supposed to be "for someone who is in love, or was in love, or hopes to be in love." I do not know which category I would fall into, but this one definitely isn't for me.

Bollywood plays a major role in my not liking the book. The story is remarkably similar to a Mallika Sherawat flick (ya!!) - Khwahish, if I am not wrong. The movie itself is extremely disgusting, with the makers trying to woo the audiences by replacing the theme of true love with one of lewdness and skin show. The fact that I saw the movie before reading the book just didn't work in favor of the latter (or me).

The style of writing adopted by the author lacks grace to some extent. I would any day prefer a romantic by Sparks. Incidents seem to end abruptly, and one is always left with a feeling of incompleteness, as if something is lacking somewhere.

Nevertheless, there are extremely witty dialogues, like when Jenny gets the Harvard jock to ask her out for coffee, and well described scenes, like the two of them getting married in the most unconventional manner. Readers who follow modern authors can relate to this one well, I suppose, with the F-word and other abuses doing regular rounds.

All in all, it's worth a read if you are unemployed, and feel that you are going to be unemployed for some time to come.

Those 4 years!

This should not end. It really should not.

I don't remember a time when the bathrooms in BITS were so crowded, or when people spent >10 minutes in front of the mirror, grooming their hair. They abandoned their boxers, bearded down and suited up! That random guy even took out his new Jockey inner for the day, albeit realizing that there was no way people would come to know of his efforts.

And why all of this? To mark the 4 most memorable years of our lives. To capture the faces of those who have made these years so special: those who have been with us through thick and thin, those who have made us laugh and made us cry, those who have loved us and those whom we have loved. 

But are we doing justice to these years and these memories, through this ritual of having batch snaps in our 3rd year, when we barely realize how much all of this would matter to us after we leave this place? I am sure that most of us wouldn't prefer coming back to Pilani sometime later, but it's not about the place, is it? It's about those sessions in Sky where we shouted at couples - "stop kissing". It's about the drama we witnessed when the blogger cum lover was set up with his girl at T-lawns. It's about the time when we lay on the marble in the temple staring at the stars, thinking nothing at all. Lastly, it's about what we have learnt here, however meagre we might suppose it to be. 

Commemorating all of this through such a batch snap is just not justified. We (me and a few friends) feel that we should have a proper convocation, where the entire batch comes together, with their families and near ones. Imagine the feeling when you get to throw that graduation cap in the air, or when your family sees you dressed in those handsome black robes. And when filling in the yearbook too. We are ready to come back to Pilani to savor these feelings. 

We wish to know whether you are in for a convocation as well. Kindly drop in a word expressing your opinion.

The Notebook - by Nicholas Sparks

Right at the outset the narrator claims - "The romantics would call this a love story, the cynics would call it a tragedy. In my mind it's a little bit of both..." Again, the synopsis at the back of the book includes a comment from the Daily Mail - "Achingly moving... will have you weeping for the joy and tragedy of it all."

Agreed, it'll move you and it'll make you weep, but calling it a tragedy is something difficult for me to digest... it's a tale of unadulterated love, held in place by belief that's undeterred by the tricks played by destiny on human life. It's about believing in miracles - that science can't explain, only love can. And the tragedy that they talk about... in a sense it's a blessing in disguise for the protagonist, who gets to fall in love with his soulmate over and over again.

It's basically about two lovers, Noah and Allie who meet after fourteen years and discover that they have fallen in love again. The later part of the book takes you some fifty years ahead, where Allie forgets with every sunset her identity and her infinite love for Noah, and the latter reads to her every morning from a notebook the story of their life without, of course, telling her that it's 'their' story. And attempts to make her fall in love with him, everyday.

And in the end, makes the miracle happen.

All in all, one of the best books I have read in a long time. I would give it an 8/10.