March Through the Year

Wodehouse did not write a word on the World Wars when they were waged. Such was the insulation of his idyllic world from biting reality. But I say he was able to pull it off only because they were mere World Wars. Ask him to write through a quiz week and not pen a droplet of lament, and you’d have him there. This superhuman task, however, yours truly has taken upon himself. I blogged last Thursday, yet made no mention of the inhumanity meted out in exam halls. I shall now blog again, but will I as much as touch upon the collective agony of the student body? Never. The upper lip is stiff as starch.
To make things easier for myself, let me borrow from my diary and present here a few non-private (hence interesting) entries:

22nd March 2008, Friday

I was sitting just behind the bus-driver on my way to the inst. when a scene right out of a B-movie reeled in front of me:
On a traffic-choked T. Nagar road, an auto cut in awkardly, on the wrong side of the line, and its rider called his counterpart a name. Our driver at once turned the ignition off, leaned his upper half out of the door and spat at the auto. He challenged the other to perform a Lewinsky on him and indicated the relevant spot. The auto-man spat back in an upward direction, his spittle flying out like a fountain. The entire road paused to look on -- I was feeling all nervy at being a part of their view as I was the one nearest to the heated exchange of words (and more). The driver introduced the autowallah's mother into the picture. The other was just mouthing vague oaths. Soon, a passenger or two sought to pacify our driver, and, spent, he finally resumed his position at the wheel.
Eduttha odaney asingamaa thittaraan saar avan was his chant throughout the rest of his duty shift. Whether this preoccupation was what caused him to skip the CLRI bus-stop despite seeing in the overhead mirror a tallish young chap with a moustache and a bag preparing to unboard the vehicle, and deposit the guy fuming with anger at Adyar, remains to be worked out.

12th March 2008, Wednesday.

A day of coincidences, I should say. Two, to be precise.

(i) [.....]

(ii) A rehearsal for the next day's play-enactment was in order and I had to print the script for the same. At about five to nine, I was in the shop just outside Krishna Gate milking the play's hard copy off the printer and explaining my pennilessness to the proprietor and paying him half a rupee less. Picture my shock when I emerged from the store in a hurry to keep the appointment with my co-actors, only to find the bleeding gate locked bike-tight from the inside! I had to take an epic detour in order to make my re-entry... The title of the play? Trapped Out.

18th March 2008, Tuesday

My hatred for Nagi's lab touched its peak today. It, the hate, had been growing like a staircase function week after week, and I don't see how I am going to take any more of it. To make it worse, this sentence happened: What with this week's expt. being an especial tough egg and with Fishy on the next stool smelling of his recent cigarette through every pore in his skin, the last thing I wanted in that sweatshop (figuratively, lol. Remember the AC) was Apoorva giving it to me that TFE is still not with the printers! Apparently Idi Amin is unhappy with an article in specific and with both TFE & The Broken Mirror† in general. Why on earth HG didn't inform us about this blasted delay is totally beyond me. In the evening I mailed the group a scorcher, to which he replied, in part, 'I appritiate the effort whole team has put up.'

I'm counting to ten...

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† Reflections

Collinearity

Two things made my (yester)day:

1, Lying on the frontyard of my hostel:


2, As Dr Ramaprabhu, my E slot professor, read his slides aloud in a tone modelled on short-wave radio newsreaders, and as the hour deepened and the lecture reached a plateau phase, my brain gradually shut down, lobe by lobe. I fixed him, like the ancient mariner, with a glittering eye, and behind this foolproof facade I boarded several trains of thought. I contrived to spend the rest of the lecture in this fashion.
Dr Ramaprabhu stopped.
He returned my gaze, threw his arms up a little and said: 'You're sleeping'.
My trains of thought derailed. Suddenly the world went quiet, time turned elastic. My lips parted in reflexive protest, but I couldn't summon the right words. I felt an acute need for a teleporter. The cameras -- the slot is held in a studio -- rolled in silence, chronicling every bit of it. I saw two doors. One was marked 'I was only listening, sir!', the other 'Sorry'. I was about to open one of them -- I forget which -- when the chap next to me uttered in an undertone: 'Guy-wreck'.
It was a peculiar yet familiar word, and the next moment the mystery solved itself: Gairik Sachdeva, a former course-mate of mine, woke up behind me. I had been sitting right in his line of sight. I exhaled in relief. The professor grilled Gairik, poor soul, with a question or two from the slides, while I inwardly fumed at him (the prof) for his amateur eye-contact skills. If my saviour hadn't called out 'Gairik' at the correct moment, I'd have been cutting a farcical figure in front of a class pursuing all degrees offered by the institute.
Gairik spoke in his defence; in reply Dr Ramaprabhu ordered him to stand up. A confused Bharath Parthasarathy, seated behind Gairik, promptly came to his feet.

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Tomtom

Look out for the March edition. Bother your LitSec.

Hustings

On my door: