Ghonchu talks on the telephone

Ghonchu entered his office for the first time. He saw a glass door in the distance which seemed closed. There was no gate-keeper and no apparent way to open the door. He walked towards it with trepidation and wondered how would he enter. However, as he went closer the door opened on its own. Unnerved but relieved, marveling the tech-savvy organization, he entered the office.

After entering, and completing some formalities, Ghonchu went to his new cubicle and looked around. 1.5 meters high, it gave him the protection and freedom to do whatever he wanted. However the drawback was that he couldn't see anyone (read girls) passing by.

He sat on his desk and looked around. A number of things were lying on the table - the computer monitor, a telephone, a water bottle etc. Impressed, Ghonchu praised his company for taking good care of the employees. Nobody from the adjacent cubicles was paying any attention to him. He opened his favourite website : www.orkut.com.

Within 10 seconds of opening orkut the telephone rang - trrrrng trrrrng. Ghonchu jumped one foot on his chair and looked at the telephone as though it was a snake. Ghonchu's train of thought went as follows :- "This is a very techy organization. They know I opened orkut.com which must be banned. They are calling me and going to scold me or worse even expel me."

Ghonchu quickly closed the website and looked at the phone hoping it would stop on its own. However, the telephone continued to ring, trrrrng trrrrng. With shaking hands, Ghonchu lifted the telephone.

The ringing stopped soon after.

Ghonchu said 'Hello' in a quivering voice.

He heard a 'hello'. After which, there was a silence for 10 seconds. Ghonchu thought they were deciding on what punishment to mete out to him.

After another 10 seconds, Ghonchu mustered enough courage to then say 'Yes?'.

He heard, "That cannot be done. It won't work."

Worried, Ghonchu said, "It worked for me, but I am sorry. I won't do it again. Maybe your site-blocker didn't work properly."

The reply came, "What? No, even that isn't possible."

"But, orkut did open."

"See, if you add this feature, it would mean a lot of change to the code. That would be difficult. The entire thing would have to be rewritten."

Ghonchu blinked in perplexity, slowly as realization hit him, he cautiously got up, saw the person in the next cubicle talking on the phone. He sat down quietly, kept the phone back on the hook and reopened orkut.com.

Interesting...

A couple of interesting things which I observed at my office :-

- Whenever, people around here wish you to look up something - they say 'bing' it. On a couple of occasions, it was actually a conscious effort, something like 'goo..bing it'.

- Recently, during a presentation, the speaker gave an example of what might go wrong with a program. His words were as follows - "Let's say a program crashes. A program like uh..uh.. google talk may crash" .. and so on. Again, the pause was palpable.

Interesting though :-)

The end of the beginnning

I seem to like this title as I wrote a previous article with the same heading. However, this time it is about a different topic. Well, so-to-say my student life has ended. Can I call it the end of the first phase in my life? Probably yes, 23 years are done and dusted and so is my education with a couple of degrees.

How do I look back at these years? With nostalgia? Relief? Happiness? Sadness? Probably neither! Just a trace of melancholy as I look back upon those happy years as they passed by. Happy because I was always happy as a student. Time to move on?

Unless I suddenly decide to do a PhD which seems unlikely, I am going to stay in the corporate sector for some years to come. People who have been there tell me all sorts of things. Some of them are already fatigued and bored within two years, others are happy with the pay check but there isn't a zip in their tone when they talk, some others crib about the work they get and so on and so forth. Everyone is happy (however you may define happiness) but none of them are enthusiastic about what they are doing. I try and remember the enthusiasm and expectations in their eyes when they went out into the industry a couple of years ago, while I went to IISc. Two years down the line their tone surprises me a bit. Will I suffer from the same fatigue an year down the line?

Another thing which I have heard is that the industry sucks all your innocence out. You need to learn to be diplomatic, to lie, to be able to wheedle favours out of your superiors and all such stuff.You can't be frank and honest or rude if you want to. Well, I never did such things and have more often than not said what I wished to. I still intend to try and retain that. How will it all pan out?

Lots of such questions and the answers are yet to come. Time will hopefully answer these questions.

Ghonchu drives a bike

Ghonchu saw an opportunity to impress Sweetu. He had learn to drive a bike from his friend Shanu. Shanu was out of station and had left his bike keys with Ghonchu. Ghonchu, even though not very confident of his driving skills decided to take Sweetu out for a ride. He phoned Sweetu and asked her if she would take a ride on the bike. Being free then, she accepted his offer.

Ghonchu made a rush to the bike which was parked at N-Block to pick Sweetu from girls' hostel. He tried to start the bike. The bike refused to start. After n failed attempts where n ->infinity, the time consumed was five minutes, the spectators watching him trying to start the bike increased from zero to ten; Ghonchu realized that he hadn't put the vehicle in neutral. After doing so, and having to endure the smiles of ten people, he tried to kick start the bike again. The bike sputtered to life and became dead. Ghonchu's phone rang. Sweetu scolded him for keeping her waiting. Ghonchu sputtered through out the conversation after which the line went dead. She would wait five more minutes for him.

Ghonchu cursed the following- Shanu for having chosen a bike with kick-start; his audience of ten people who didn't seem to have anything better to do and himself in case he got late. His audience started whispering amongst themselves. Two of them exchanged money. Ghonchu thought they had a bet as to whether he would be able to start his bike or not.

After n more failed attempts where n → infinity raised to the power infinity, one of the audience, an angel from heaven came to him and asked him to get down. Ghonchu mumbled, 'this bike isn't starting' and got down. The angel from heaven started the bike with one strong kick. Ghonchu thanked the angel while the two of the betting syndicate started arguing whether this was allowed by the betting rules or not. Half of his audience left in disappointment thinking that there was nothing more to do in life except research.

The other half optimistically waited. It wasn't daily they got such a treat. Ghonchu was yet to drive the bike so they waited. Fortune favours the patient. Ghonchu started the bike in first gear. Slowly and steadily the bike picked up speed. Two pedestrians walked past Ghonchu as his bike picked up speed. After swerving one of the pedestrians, and nearly trampling the other, Ghonchu successfully made his way to girls' hostel. His audience had a few more laughs and went on its way to do research. Some of them pitied the person who would sit behind him.

This extremely lucky person – Sweetu had nearly given up hope that Ghonchu would ever come. Suddenly however she saw Ghonchu coming at a distance. The events unfolded as follows (from Sweetu's point of view) – Ghonchu came closer on the bike. He lifted one hand and waved. He lost control of the bike. The angle made by bike and the ground became 60 degrees having originally been 90. The angle then became 0 degree in a split second. Ghonchu and his bike were on the ground at the same point with Ghonchu underneath the bike. His spectacles were lying 10 feet away.

Sweetu lifted the bike off Ghonchu, told him coldly to get up, sat on the bike, started it easily, and drove Ghonchu to the Health Center.

Of IPL and its divisive nature!

As a regular follower of English and European football, I happen to know of its divisive nature and the bitter feelings that it rouses. The fans there go totally berserk on winning or losing and taunting the opponent fans is one of their chief pleasures. This has lead to riots/stampedes and what-nots in the past in Europe. In Spain, in fact the ways of Real Madrid and Barcelona are so different that the fans of two clubs call themselves as two separate cultures and simply can't tolerate the sight of other. Even at the country level, they find it rather difficult to unite themselves and support the others' players playing for the country.

I followed the IPL in new hostel last month. I realized that in block 2 there is a clear cut division – bengali supporters sit on one floor while the others sit in another. This is because some taunts went overboard and nearly led to a fight.

In the IPL final last month, things went out of hand. The telugu group went totally mad and jumped up and down, created a huge bedlam, hit stones on tables to make noise, taunted the other few Bangalore supporters. Forget the rights of other hostelers. The Bangaloreans retaliated when they got an opportunity. Finally, when the Deccan Chargers were clear winners, the Bangalore supporters quietly walked away.

If this is the case in IISc, what is the scenario outside. I wonder if we are going the same way as Europe. In an nation already fractured and fragmented by 101 other conflicts of religion and other issues, I wonder if IPL is the best thing that has happened. It might be the best thing that has happened to Indian cricket but what will its impact be on India in the long run?

Of cynicism, Howard Roark and more cynicism ...

I read the Fountainhead recently. My conclusions -

• It is a very heavy book and it hurt both my wrists.

• It is a very heavy book and gave me a headache after reading it.

• It is a very powerful novel, whether you agree to it or not, it gives you a lot as food for thought.

• It hurts one's self esteem a lot; I found I have a lot in common with Peter Keating and none with Howard Roark.

• I feel unworthy of even doing a review of this book; it seems similar to analyzing the 'The Gallant Gallstones', a futile book written by Lois Cook. Ayn Rand subtly or not-so-subtly mocks fun at such frivolous people who try to analyze books and incorporate them in their own lives.

• I felt as though every thought or question I had for the book, was answered then and there itself.

• Normally, I am indifferent to philosophical books unless I am in a disturbed state of mind. The fact that this book affected me is a testimony to its power.

Also I read this blog post recently. Enjoyed it a lot; for its tinge of cynicism. All in all, I feel quite cynical right now towards a lot of things.

I attended a meeting recently where I was the youngest. Without going into details, it was about trying to do something. Is it the case, that as you grow older you tend to ramble a lot? That was the conclusion I came to. The people in that meeting were all wonderful, they had vast experiences and were genuine. However, they talked on and on about what they had done, rather than what needed to be done. Some of them told us what they didn't like, what was actually the problem with the system!! ; and bored me to death, apart from irritating me as well. I listened and listened and listened. Also, somewhere it made me feel cynically like one of those people who sit under fans, ACs comfortably and casually discuss what should be done. That is a pity...

This does away with my cynicism. I am not proud of this post.

PS : If I try to be too cynical, after re-reading the post, I found that I did exactly what I mentioned. Narrated my own experiences, rambled on.. and told what I didn't like ... Either cynicism is making me too clever, or I am falling prey to my own criticisms.

Ghonchu speaks Kannada

Ghonchu was standing in the queue for tea-board. He was feeling sleepy and wanted to drink a cup of tea. While he was waiting, a couple of girls joined the queue behind him. After overhearing their conversation, Ghonchu figured out that they were talking in Kannada. He decided to try and impress them with his Kannada knowledge.

Ghonchu quickly revised all the Kannada that he knew. He knew the word 'madi' from a sign-board he had seen once - 'scratch madi jeeto gaadi'. He also knew the sentence 'Kannada gothila'. However, he suddenly remembered proudly that he had learnt counting in Kannada from one to nine - ondhu, yeradu, mooru, naalaku, aidhu, aaru, yelu, yentu, umbatu. He decided to show off his Kannada knowledge by asking for yentu (eight) tea-coupons.

When his turn came at the counter, he asked for yentu tea-coupons. The shop-keeper was counting the money given by the previous customer absent-mindedly said 'yeshtu'. Ghonchu stood perplexed. He thought his kannada was flawed and maybe eight was called 'yeshtu' and not 'yentu'. He replied 'yeshtu'. The shop-keeper looked up and again said - 'yeshtu ?'

'Yeshtu', Ghonchu nodded promptly now convinced that he had come to the correct conclusion and mentally praised himself for doing so.

'Yeshtu ?', asked the shop-keeper again , now exasperated.

'Yeshtu', replied Ghonchu, also getting impatient and exasperated.

The shop-keeper now held his head in his hands. 'Yeshtu ?', he asked again now looking like a drowning man who clutched at a straw and found that it was broken.

Behind Ghonchu, one of the girls interrupted and asked Ghonchu, 'how many?'

Ghonchu turned and seeking sympathy, he said, ' eight, but this fellow doesn't understand !! '

The girl moved over to the counter and smoothly said, ' Yentu tea-coupons. ' Then she told Ghonchu, "Yeshtu means how many .'

Ghonchu was left clutching his yentu tea coupons open-mouthed with a similar expression to a person who had put more sugar in his coffee thinking there wasn't any, and later on found that all the sugar was at the bottom.

Ghonchu and Sweetu

Ghonchu, Peechu, Cuteu, Kemchu and eight others went to the hill station Munnar, for the weekend. For those who are unaware, Munnar is in Kerala and is considered one of the best tourist spots in India.

However, Ghonchu was indifferent about the ten other people on the trip. His attentions were taken up by Sweetu. The problem was that Sweetu and Ghonchu barely knew each other and therefore she paid no attention to Ghonchu. Ghonchu decided he would have to impress her by doing something drastic.

His opportunity came when they arrived at a place where there was a large rock overhanging a lake. Reaching that rock was risky but Ghonchu decided that he would go to the rock and dive into the lake. The group members had split into smaller groups and Sweetu was shopping nearby with two of her friends. Ghonchu was disappointed that Sweetu would not see him diving but his razor-sharp brain – one capable of doing research in IISc, hit upon a solution. He decided he would have his picture taken while he would dive into the water.

He handed the camera to an elderly lady standing nearby and requested her to take his photo while he was in air diving into the water. After teaching the lady how to take a picture, he made his way to the overhanging rock. After numerous scrapes and minor cuts, Ghonchu neared the rock. His last barrier was a four feet jump to the rock. The minor problem was that if he missed the jump he would be injured badly. The thought of Sweetu’s glowing face on seeing his diving photo made him decide to risk the jump. He jumped and successfully reached the rock. His mission was all but accomplished. He waited to catch his breath and imagined Sweetu’s affectionate look after he would show her the photograph. He gave the signal to the lady in the distance to get ready to take the photograph.

Ghonchu dived into the water, swallowed a lot of it and came up gasping for breath. Since the water wasn’t deep, he came out only half-drowned. The elderly lady came over to him and happily handed the camera back to him commenting that the picture had come out nicely.

In the distance, Ghonchu saw Sweetu and her friends and rushed towards them dripping wet all over. Sweetu’s first reaction on seeing Ghonchu was “eeeeeeeeeee”. She failed to recognize him for a second. Ghonchu’s enthusiasm undampened, he told her proudly about he had dived into the water from the rock. Sweetu stared at him as though he was insane and thought why someone would want to do such a thing. However being polite, she took the camera which Ghonchu was pleadingly offering. She pressed the button which showed the last picture taken. Her expression changed. From thinking Ghonchu was insane, her face now showed a totally straight and non-committal expression. Ghonchu thought she was impressed but did not want to show it. With the same straight face she handed the camera back to Ghonchu. Ghonchu looked at the last picture taken.

It showed the rock, the lake and a splash of water at the place where Ghonchu had gone underneath.

Ghonchu, his Soul Mate and the Professor

Ghonchu was tired and upset. His assignment to Professor Strictu's course was due (it was 10 minutes to midnight) and his code wasn't working. He had a brainwave. He decided to ask Professor Strictu by mail for an extra day to complete the assignment.

The next day, he entered the lab after lunch. On checking his mailbox, he was relieved to see that the Professor had granted his request albeit reluctantly stating that this should not become the norm ... you should maintain deadlines and other such nonsense.

He sat down to debug his non-working code. He opened the terminal and wrote './run benchmarks'. The terminal said Segmentation Fault. The same had happened the previous night; Ghonchu being the eternal optimist had hoped his code would have corrected itself overnight while he was sleeping.

After half an hour of tinkering with his code and cursing Professor Strictu 36 times during that period, he wrote './run benchmarks' again. The terminal said Segmentation Fault again.

Frustrated and thirsty, Ghonchu decided to drink a glass of cold water. On his way to the water cooler, he saw a beautiful girl. Suddenly, Ghonchu's eyes told him that the girl was speaking to him. Ghonchu's ears told him that the girl was asking him if there was any place on campus to eat something. Ghonchu decided that he would have to drink a cup of hot tea to quench his thirst. He heard himself saying that he was on his way to Tea Board and would love to escort her.

Ghonchu, his code already forgotten, walked jauntily to Tea Board along with his soulmate. He had fallen in love on previous occasions. However, despite having fallen in love 17 times previously, he felt this was the real thing. Some people might say Ghonchu could give Bingo Little a run for his money.

However inevitably, a calamity was waiting to happen. At a distance of around 50 meters, Ghonchu spotted Professor Strictu coming towards him and on the same side of the road. Ghonchu cursed Professor Strictu for the 37th time in forty minutes and thought of his options :-
- Ignore him totally
- Just wish him 'good afternoon' and walk past
- Hide behind his soulmate

Problem with option 1 and 2 was he remembered his code and the Professor's mail about adhering to deadlines. He knew Professor Strictu well and knew that he would derive a sadistic pleasure in stopping Ghonchu and asking him about his assignment. Option 3 wasn't feasible.

However then he suddenly spotted bhOndOO walking towards him on the other side of the road at a distance of 20 meters. With the cunning of a jackal, Ghonchu decided to crossover to the other side, talk to bhOndOO on some pretext, greet the Professor from the other side of the road and then catch up with his soulmate later on. He told his soulmate he had something important to discuss with bhOndOO and asked her to carry on to Tea Board where he would catch her.

Ghonchu executed his plan to perfection and started talking with bhOndOO keeping one eye on the Professor. As the distance between them grew closer, Ghonchu smiled (more like baring his teeth like a wolf) at the Professor. He then realized that the Professor was paying no heed to him. Surreptiously, he followed Professor Strictu's line of sight and realized that he was busy staring at his soulmate.

The Professor passed Ghonchu and bhOndOO without even noticing them and continually looking backwards at the diminishing sight of Ghonchu's soulmate. With evil thoughts, Ghonchu cursed Professor Strictu for the 38th time in forty five minutes and compared him with a poisonous snake.

After the poisonous snake had passed, Ghonchu got rid of bhOndOO quickly (who was unaware of all that passed), and quickly rushed to Tea Board. His eyes searched for his soulmate and finally found her already walking away from the Tea Board with a packet of Kurkure in hand. The distance between them was already 30 meters and increasing.

Dejected, Ghonchu gave up the chase, walked back to the lab and started debugging his code.

Am I getting older !!

I always had the impression or the belief that myself and others of my age are still quite young. So, more often than not, it is a pleasure to indulge in pranks, make silly, nonsensical jokes and what-nots. No need to behave in a mature manner, that maturity and thoughtfulness (assuming of course that I possess it) preferably lies underneath the facade of childish playfulness. However, I recently have had train of thoughts which led me to think otherwise.

A few days ago, I chanced to look upon an old Maths notebook of 11^th standard. To digress a bit, 11^th and 12^th standard were the only times I really studied and evolved as a person. Credit goes to my school but mainly to my coaching institute – Vidya Mandir Classes who gave me an experience worth a lifetime. Those lectures about life; the amount of intense study, sometimes upto 12-14 hours a day which were accomplished without a grudge or a thought- why am I doing this.. those days really left me with a lot of poignant memories. They were inspirational. Period. I never needed to or had the will to work as hard again, neither during my BE, maybe a bit during 1^st semester of Masters. So to speak, I always held 11^th and 12^th standard as the point in my life from where it all began. Those are the days I always held as the start date to calculate anything...

But now looking at that notebook of 11^th standard, I happened to glance at the date of a class. It was 9^th Dec 2001. 8 years (7.5 to be precise) ago. That suddenly seemed like a long long time. And yet as I glanced through that notebook, I remembered things as though they had happened yesterday.

In another incident this weekend, a 17-year old kid (notice the way I call a 17-year old person a kid) scored a wonderful match-winning goal for Manchester United. I looked at him, and thought, not so long ago I used to dream to do something like that. Not so long ago, I dreamt of hitting a century (even double would do) in a world cup, scoring a goal or two in football, winning a grand slam ... and so on. I am sure everyone goes through such fantasies as a teenager.

At twenty three and a half, questions like 'am i getting older' shouldn't ideally be going through one's mind. But those reminiscences left me with this feeling. Dreams I had, things I thought happened just yesterday actually happened a long time ago; 8-10 years ago. Those years in between passed away without my realizing it.

Maybe all this is like a moving window. Maybe two-three years down the line, I would have forgotten school, and would remember things starting only from my BE and so on.. I certainly hope not. Yet again here I remember a comment in Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix by Dumbledore : “Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.”

I certainly hope I never I commit that mistake.

Of course, all these are just random senti thoughts; it could just be the case my food didn't agree with me today, or I got up on the wrong side of the bed; which led me to write such stuff. Tomorrow I will get back to my nonsensical normality.