Friday, September 29, 2006

Going Natts !!

Time just flies huh? 3 months have gone by in a jiffy since the start of the
sem.
The 7th sem in the dept has been no different from the previous ones, except
that, its been a li'l too chaat for our liking. But the rules are the same ,
toppers perched on the first few benches scribbling away at will while we doze off
with our eyes open.The xerox process is still followed with the regularity of
an age-old ritual before the cycles ,no matter wat the subject and then we devise ways to mug the xerox copies.
Natts,true to nature, has been going nutts. He is your quintessential gurukul
school master (The ancient "sit on a raised platform under the baniyan tree"
types that you see in those mythological serials).Unfortunately his pupils are far removed from the gurukul system!
Besides being a little hard on hearing, he can be heard only within the radius
of the first 2 rows of benches. Sit in one of the coveted back-benches and you
will be treated to a silent-movie ,characterised by Nattu's sudden modulation and weird hand movements (one of which resembles a bharatnatyam dance move, another which sounds like the karate stance which keanu reeves' takes against agent
smith in matrix...lol)
His new record this sem was a greuelling 2 hour and 10 min session after the
lunch break. He went insanely beserk that day and guys would have wondered
whether they had enjoyed a little too much in the 2yrs in the dept.
Natts takes corrosion . But the first few months of the
sem were anything but corrosion.
He took the whole first month explaining why he was the boss and the virtues of cent-percent attendance(the conclusion: "if you dont atttend guest lectures, your job prospects are in trouble").
The second month was marked by an introduction to good ol' chemistry(his obsession with the Daniel cell is well-known. Good "chemistry" u see... pun very much
intended) .His age-old romance with electro-chemistry, at times, made me feel
that I was back in bhavans college, andheri for a second term. Well, after 2
months of constant belaboring, he came to the point, much to our
relief.Probably he must have seen the subject name "CORROSION" in the time-
table.
Nats has this uncanny knack of chipping in with the most outrageous analogies
and fundaas to explain a certain subject matter!He takes a smooth de-tour
from the topic under focus more often than not , in his quest for "give-n-
take" of information.

Welll.....To give u a taste of it just read the post below this.

Regards

vishwesh

Livin la viva loca !!

The 6th sem and our lab exams were
on.Well, guess who was taking oue viva-voce!!! Natts !
I was the penultimate candidate for the viva session! Excerpts from the viva:

Natts: Come,Sit,(gives me my evaluated cycle test paper which I take instantly
without seeing the marks) What is your name?"
me: (my loudest best) Vishwanath hariharan ,sir !


The name struck him like a thunderbolt. He put down his paperwork and looked
at me.
Natts: Oh! where are you from?
Me: sir, mumbai

natts: mumbai!!oh! where in mumbai?
me: sir ,andheri.

natts: where in andheri? east or west?
me:(now this was getting on my nerves .Even then..) Andheri East, sir!

natts: (pen in hand,thinking wat next to quiz me on, history or geography)
hmmm...Why is it that there is only east and west? Y not north n south?

Gosh.. in these 20 odd years that I have lived in tinseltown mumbai, never has
anyone asked me this and neither hav I been curious enough to know why is
there no south or north.(Heheheh...Imagine borivli south,
andheri north...lol!!)

me: (giving him the impression of a planned, well thought-out answer)Sir, the
railway line divides a suburb into east n west.Sir, thats why there is no
north n south.

(grrr.... stupid answer. "u and ur super-chaat fundaas, vish!!" I thought)

natts:(gave the feeling as though he was thoroughly convinced)hmm..There is a
place called dadar, no? how far is dadar from andheri?

(How far??? Distance in terms of what?? In mumbai ,distance is measured in
hours of travel. But if I tell him that he ll probably tell me that my basic
physics is all screwed up!)

Anyways, I took the safer route and counted ... Dadar,
matunga road, mahim , bandra, khar, santa-cruz, vile parle, andheri.


Me: Sir, 8 stations away! (Perfect!!)

Natts:(His next question, I knew it was coming...hehehe).
How long does it take from dadar to andheri?

me: sir, depends upon whether u trvel by fast or slow local trains! U take
around 15 min by fast and a little more than that by a slow local.

A voice inside my head popped up and said
" Tell him that this is a semester viva voce!! He should be
asking you tech! You hav prepared for 1 full hour before coming here. 1
friggin ,full hour!!!
(Giggling , followed by a smirk)The guy after you (Raavana)has been preparing
for a "tech viva" (Yep,viva voce can be tech or hr, as I had just
discovered ) for a whole lifetime. If he faces the same viva as you, he ll be
heart-broken" Hehehe I coudlnt help but smile at that very thought.

Natts: Okk. There is a new place in mumbai. i dont know whether exactly in
mumbai or not.What is its name.
Me: (wat sort of a question is that?)Sir..er..new place..which place sir??
(heheh..even i was asking him the same question)

Natts: Its a very new place..dont remember what u call it!!
Me: (with a give-me-a-clue expression on my face) Sir ,is it Bandra
reclamation!!

(Bandra reclamation!!! hahahaha...(rollin on the floor with laughter).
"Gimme a break vish, U suck bigtime"! You are probably the only guy on earth
who would have dreamt of bringing up bandra reclamation in a metallurgy viva!)

How the devil did i come up wid that answer,god alone knows!! (It didnt sound
so funny at that point of time...haha..bandra reclamation!!)

me: Sir, is it Navi mumbai(correcting myself), New bombay!

Natts: (liteally sprang up towards me with an expression which
suggested "eureka,eureka!!", smile on his face)
Yes!! new bombay. So ,new bombay it is !!That was the place i was looking
for! It is a new establishment??

Me: sir, it is relatively new compared to Greater mumbai!It is a well-
developed n planned satellite town of mumbai. It houses residential
colonies.Many college have also come up.


natts: hmm..(seeming disintersted in the "residential n college" part)
hmmm...ok So u have 2 parts: greater mumbai n new bombay.What is that greater
mumbai that you said?

Me: Sir,it comprises of the island part of the city.

natts: Where are vashi and nerul ? greater mumbai or new bombay.
Me: Sir, new bombay.

natts:okk! So you have to cross the sea each time you have to go to new bombay.
me: Yes sir.

natts: There is a place which comes on the way to Vashi. I dont know whether I
am pronouncing the name correctly . Its name is mankad i think. Something of
that sort .(Repeats) mankad. Am i right?
Me: (Gotcha, this time!!) sir, it is Mankhurd!!

Natts:(repeating his earlier "spring up" act): Yes Yes!! oh, so the name is
mankhurd! (repeats)


natts" How many stations come between dadar and nerul?
me (Oh god not again):sir, both are different lines.


natts: Oh different lines!! ok ok! which is the line on which andheri comes?
me: Sir, western !

natts: and dadar?
Me: sir on both, western n central, it is sort of a junction!

Natts: There is also another place,(thinks),ya some so... ssomething starting
with S.
Me: Sir, Sion

Natts: sion, sion!!! yes. Its far away from dadar?
Me: no sir, (saving myself another question) sion,matunga,dadar.

natts: (looking much more interested n refreshed now)oh matunga comes after it!
ok!! which is that railway line which runs closer to the sea coast??

(along the sea coast aa??? ...sea coast???
oh achcha,!!! "arre tubelight!! He is referring to the harbour line i think")
Me: Sir, the harbour line!!

natts: "Harbour line!! ok ok!

Natts: I have been to mumbai before also, but I keep forgetting everything!
Me: (listens silently and nods at regular intervals)

Natts: That nerul, there is a big Hanuman statue there, is it not??
Me: Yes sir (Now it was very clear to me wat he was getting at). Yes sir...
....(quickly added) sir, there is also a well known Vedha-paatshaala there.

Natts: (his joy knowing no bounds,he would have got up and kissed my head had
it not been a viva) Oh Yes!!! Yes yes!I have heard a lot about it.

Just when the discussion was at its peak, we were interrupted by an unexpected
visitor, a certain math prof.
I waited outside while they spoke.
When they were done I was called in for the viva once again and this time
Natts fired metallurgy trivia straight away!! (as if nothin had happened at
all before this).
At the end of it he seemed satisfied .

I ended up with an 'A' in this lab, one of the very few ones and (phew..wipes
of the sweat off his forehead)one of the hard-earned ones!!

Regards

vishwesh

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Full-too filmi !!!

The period after the placements has been brimming with movies, movies and more
movies, the cycles nothwithstanding. The cycle tests, I am sorry to say, have
been reduced to a mere "come-sit-go" affair, a la cpc's. Nevertheless, cycles
are good timepass! That the number of cycles has been reduced from 3 to 2 and
the assignments have been given additional weightage has turned out to be real
bad news for the aam student junta( especially meta...booo hoo)!
The Pearl-Lapis lan link was mercilessly chopped off this sem.
But it dint make much off a difference for movie buffs like me, thanks to kaly (long time since he figured in my blogs, huh?). His new laptop and the 40 GB portable HD have, by far, been the biggest toast of the season. The HD has been instrumental in
facilitating the exchange of movies between emerald and pearl.
Out of the countless number of movies that we watched, there were a few good
ones,some not-so-good ones which needed a fast-forward once every 5 minutes
and some others where you could figure out what the story is heading for by
merely watching the first 5 minutes of the phillum.
Heeheh.. one of them, is the latest king-khan hit, KANK.Though it has had people
shouting "chaat, chaat" in various site reviews ,its been raking in the moolah
quite steadfastly. The intro scene of the movie had king-khan playing hockey!!
(if you thought that was the height of topsy-turvy'ness, there seem to be more
weird things around you happening these days, like,say, a certain cow milking,fodder
eating minister giving IIM grads a lesson on management or youngsters these days worshipping gandhigiri instead of 'bhaai'giri!)
King khan so effortlessly flashes that melodramatic expression of his( lips
pursed tightly, head suddenly tilted sideways or looking heavenwards,a subdued
smile accompanied occasionally by that irritating giggle of his) with amazing
regularity, film after film!! Its this expression of his which once prompted my mother to say " Oh, this dude has been doing the same thing since his 'circus' days!" KK seems so confused between life and wife, in this film. What is meant to be a film on serious human relationships, ultimately transforms into a wife-swapping saga. Pooh! (Loy's techno is just hilarious!!)
There was this absolute cracker of a film called "Souten", which ..er.. wasnt esactly oscar-winning.
The story: A certain modern
ruler(something something Singh) who lives in a mahal of his in rajasthan,
along with his babe-wife. Babe wife is bored of life 'coz ruler does nothin
but hunting (sheesh.. I thought there was no water in rajasthan, leave alone
jungles). The ruler has a family friend of his, who's younger bro comes from
mumbai(on a british airways flight), to handle "khaandaani" bussiness! Babe-
wife falls for younger bro's love n lust. Elder bro's wife persuades younger
bro to break up with babe saying " such unfortunate things do happen in youth
(???)". So he breaks off painfully! Then ruler's daughter(another babe,the
daughter of his first wife) comes to rajasthan, on a holiday trip. Thats when
you realize that babe-wife is actually his second wife!
Disaster strikes! Babe2 falls for younger bro's love n lust. Babe2
unmindful of bro's previous affair ,sings duets and goes holidaying with
him.Thats when you start feelin " enough is enough" !!Somehow babe1 reveals
everything to babe2. Babe2 now hates bro, does a fashion designing course in
goa and hooks another dude! Finally,bro wins over babe2 with his love n lust.
Poor ruler gets damn pissed when he is told thatt small bro flirted with
both,his wife n daughter and takes his gun. Problem is inspite of all these
years of hunting, his shooting skills are pathetic. instead of shooting small
bro , he shoots his babe-wife(One of the many bollywood rules when the number
of heroes and heroines dont match: one of them has to leave , hook or by
crook). Families unite ...hehehehe!

Then there was a German film that we saw ( recommended by me to everyone..hehehehe)..not such a good one though, which presents 3 possible climaxes to a story, where the hero and heroine have to make 1000 bucks in exactly 20 min: first climax is the one where the hero robs a mall but he is run over by a truck, second where the heroine robs a bank and is shot dead by the police and the third one where the hero robs the mall and the heroine robs the bank but neither of them die.aaaAArrrgh(I escaped getting bumps from my friends for suggesting such a crap film)!!!!

Notable among the good ones is the Gangster, in which serial kisser Hashmi makes an
appearance. His high-voltage lip-locks(which would have scared the daylights out of the newcomer heroine) are interspersed with occasional glimpses of his acting
skills. The story is good though (and need v say anything about hashmi video songs...lol)!
The other good one was Fanaa, which has Aamir khan constantly buzzing with shaayaris in urdu. A good story and great music has had everyone totally fida on it.
Loads n loads of tamil n english movies came our way!
Moving over hindi,tamil (most of which came in the "fast-fwd" category) n english films, off late, telugu films have become quite a rage among the junta in our wing!

As they say so often in our campus,
"Jobless after getting a job!" (2 jobs in my case)

Regards

vishwesh

Write Back!

Howdy!!
I dont hav a count of how many countless number of times you guys have visited my blog address to see if anything new is cooking up (Its a pity actually, there's no recent vistors' list in here.).

Anyways, Sorry for the delay! No dat I hav run out of topics or issues(will never happen in a million years.) Just that I hav been cooling my heels(literally) after placements.
As we guys so often remark, "Jobless after bagging a job", (oops..two jobs)!Festember, our college fest, accentuated that feeling even further. That my cycles' (cylce tests) results are in total doldrums is also testimony to it! But as they say, life moves on.

By the way, psst..for once I have got a chance to use my penning skills for a more fruitful cause. Yep, TPS, the college mag! No worry,blogging continues as usual!
Hope everything goes along well!!

Regards
vishwesh