2006/11/02

Different Feather

It is time to account for the 'non-typical' in the blurb of this blog.
I do not mean that everyone else in IITM is the conjugate of what I enlist here, but that in all these counts I belong to the minority...

{Update on 30.04.2007: The blurb of the blog at the time of this post's publication was 'An insight into a non-typical IIT-ian's times'}

I do not play Counter Strike or Quake or any other LAN game.

I do not listen to heavy metal music. My eardrums are not exactly in great terms with Linkin Park, Pink Floyd, Eminem, or anyone else who's slipping my mind for the moment.

I've been to Minar only once, that too only for a tired cup of tea, though the place is right opposite to my hostel.

I give my best at the mess. I out-eat my counterparts and very seldom waste the contents of my plate.

All my shirts and t-shirts have sleeves.

I tidy my room. Sense of neatness is a genetic disease I inherited from both my parents, who are dirtphobics of an annoying degree. And whenever they visit my suite, they vie with each other and sweep and scrub the floor to dazzling point.


I call my fellow students by the name their parents gave them. And whenever somebody beckons me with my insti-sobriquet 'Psycho' or at times 'Despo', I snap back, 'Call me Nirmal.' And if, on a later occasion, he still cries 'Psycho' to gain my attention, I pretend not to hear him.

My ever-changing desktop wallpaper is never a human, and most certainly not a woman in a bikini/ monokini/ no-kini.

I greet familiar professors good mornings (or afternoons or evenings).

I call my Tamil seniors 'Akka' or 'Anna', even behind their backs. Yet another bad habit home has infused into me.

I have purchased nothing that bears the IITM logo or brand. No hostel or department or insti or Shaastra or Saarang t-shirts, no IITM caps or tracks, nothing. Not even the notebooks in Gurunath. For the first two semesters I managed with virgin notebooks (I had preserved them unwritten in school), and for the current (third) semester I use notebooks I had stolen from Quality Control sector in the shopping complex (popularly known as Central Workshop).

I am not from Andhra Pradesh.

I am not in orkut.

I do not speak the IIT tongue.


If you can find anything else non-typical of me compared to the mean IIT-ian -- pun intended -- I invite you to opine on the comments page.

14 Obiter dicta:

Blogger Srinand couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

man! u can make the ugly sound good.... :P

12:34 pm  
Blogger Mahitha Payardha couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

2:57 pm  
Blogger Mahitha Payardha couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

The ugly , the good , the beautiful, rise above the usual!
Look around with a wider eye and for that mater a broader mind , let live and live!
Bother not to pick the differences ,
we've eyes and a brain to go with to get everything the way right!!

3:01 pm  
Blogger Marlin Jar couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

I'll be glad if somebody can explain the songbird's comment.

4:52 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

1) you seem to be stuck up with this orkut thingy.
2) just four years pa, try using that lingo though i dont have any idea of how it sounds.
3)ya, i still dont understand how eardrums can ever withstand that rock music.
4) u dont need notebooks, u can make it up with pamplets distributed for adds in chennai.
5) mess food, we nittians starve for good food and u ppl enjoy?huh.

12:18 pm  
Blogger Marlin Jar couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

This comment has been removed by the author.

12:31 pm  
Blogger Marlin Jar couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

1) So is everyone.
2) Sorry. One doesn't think twice before speaking in the lingo to someone who doesn't know it. It's a subtle form of bragging about the insti brand.
4) Thanks for the idea. I'll implement it in the next sem.
5) As though YOU would relish good food

7:35 am  
Blogger Poornima couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

Hey... Eminem is a cool band... Some of his songs are thought provoking :)
Anddddddd... although you might use the lingo, you enjoy it don't you :P

11:39 am  
Blogger Marlin Jar couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

Guess you meant 'although you might not use...'.
There are only certain words in the lingo I enjoy, mainly for their versatility. For example, 'pseud' and 'RG' can be used to mean so many things. 'Put' fits in neatly before a wide variety of words: 'put mug', 'put fight', 'put crash', 'put fundaes'...Srinand extended it to 'I'll put water and come back', 'Put me lift to the class', et cetera and et cetera. I hate 'max' used as a suffix to nouns, and of course I wince every time I hear 'Put its the mug' or 'Time are there'.
Eminem might be cool, but my arteries are clogged when I hear fast and loud music.

12:30 pm  
Blogger unni krishnan couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

Thambi!! lol da!

4:09 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

sir,
it is with a heavy heart, i ask your eminence, who is the proudest abberration in the intitution, to come join the club!
u try not to be a typical iitian in our midst, or sir, we would not regret to inform when you return to your conscious self, why u lost it in the first place.
if you do follow this very "simble" rule, u could perhaps become the chairman of our, 'proudly NON-IITians' club.

4:28 pm  
Blogger Marlin Jar couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

Disrespected under-secretary,
You instil in my head the seed that sprouts to horns. It is my sincere desire to hold the office of chairman of your vain (or proud, as you would put it) club and destroy it, as did the Trojan horse, from the inside.
I have grown to dislike the term 'non-IIT-ian'. I feel like slapping anyone who describes himself/herself with that word.

2:46 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

There are times in a man's life when he can no longer ignore the stupidity and ignorance of his fellow human beings, well atleast not all of them. It is with the purest and best motives at heart that i regretfully wish to inform you that:
1>Eminem is NOT Heavy Metal \m/ , NO not even rock, he either raps or craps, i forget which....
2>The only way Linkin Park would be heavy metal is if they went back in time and rewrote the definition of heavy metal ...
3>Pink Floyd is Psychedelic rock --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_rock

And hence unavoidably not metal. Just how loud can a bunch of chaps get when they are high on dope anyways?

oh btw nirmal hope the project work is comin along well ;)

11:55 am  
Anonymous Anonymous couldn't resist being opinionated thus:

Dear Anonymous,
There are times in a man's life when he can no longer ignore the stupidity and astonishing superior attitude of his fellow human beings, well at least not all of them. It is with the purest and best motives at heart that I regretfully wish to inform you that:
(1) I perfectly know Eminem is not heavy metal. I was forced to listen to him everyday for two years, and I have heard all his raps thanks to my brother.
(2)I very much know Linkin Park IS NOT heavy metal.
(3)I don't care what Psychedelic Rock is, but I am completely aware of the fact Pink Floyd is a rock band and not heavy metal.

I have inferred one thing from your comment, Mr Not-So-Anonymous. That is, I only need to write 'I don't like roses. My eyes are not exactly in good terms with jasmines' for you to patronize by saying 'Jasmines are not roses'

4:47 pm  

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