The melt that was inevitable

This article stirred up the memories of those times of my addiction to cricket. Hours were spent watching, many more hours were spent discussing. Much of this addiction had to with that exhibition match that is mentioned in the article. I distinctly remember Abdul Qadir laughing at Tendulkar as he looked a complete novice the first few deliveries he faced. And then started the most ruthless decimation of the bowling attack which became his trademark for years to come. What elegance, what style, I was completely bowled over. Somehow his emotions seemed to permeate through TV, that fearless determination, the self-belief, that desire to be in the driver's seat and yet there wasn't a touch of arrogance or ugliness in behaviour when things didn't go his way: just a supreme being.

Change of sport

You know your loyalties have had a major shift when your youtube search is for tips on double handed volley rather than how to screen and roll. 

If you are also in search of that elusive killer volley......... here are a couple of links that I found really nice: this one on how to keep the back swing to bare minimum and the next one on watching the ball till it impacts your racquet and keeping the grip soft.

Flavour of last week

I still remember on our farewell day at school, most of us had come equipped with a little diary. A diary with multi-coloured pages with some cute picture lightly printed in the right bottom corner of each page. As we sat together as a class the very last time, these diaries circulated and their pages filled rapidly archiving our emotional outpourings for years to come. I can still recall how I struggled to write something on each diary that was short but personal, that captured the essence of my interaction with that particular diary owning friend of mine, thinking that with some of them perhaps this would be my last interaction. Finally when my own diary made it back to me, I flipped through all the messages, the only message that I can still remember, "Life is an ice-cream, enjoy before it melts." "How cliche!" was my reaction then but now I see the point. You got to identify the ice-cream like bits of life and enjoy them because the melt is inevitable. When the servings are in short supply, you can make some of your own ice-cream like moments.
  
There has been a relapse of the banana-ice-cream craze. The latest flavour: bananas and oranges.
Two of each fruit. Peeled, chopped and frozen. Here is how they look after coming out of freezer:

A spoon of sugar per fruit. Zip in a blender. Pulse it, so that all pieces break down evenly.

Though avoid blending till it is perfectly smooth, some chunkiness is highly recommended.

Cyclone ke side effects

Backdrop:

1. Due to heavy rains, the schools are off and RRJ, therefore, in RRS's office
2.  A conversation a long time ago about what does a PhD student do and how long it takes to finish etc.                         

When RRJ and RRS were walking back after lunch in the canteen, one of RRS's student (J) crossed them.

J: When mu is increasing rho is decreasing.
RRS: How is that possible?
J: Really! I will show you later.

Then J goes for his lunch

RRJ: When something is increasing, it is decreasing! How is this possible?
RRS: Not possible
RRJ: That is a problem. Answer should be found
RRS: Yes. He is the student. He should find the answer
RRJ: Then one more year. 6 years then. Which year is he in?
RRS: Third year.
RRJ: Only third year. Then maybe not sixth year.
RRS: Yes. He will finish in 5.
RRJ: What is his problem?
[RRS describes the problem]
RBR: Not fully understood, but ok.....

A bit late in the day

But we finally got around to watching 'Fiddler on the roof'. An old musical released in 1973 but was an instant hit with the viewers of age ranging between 7 and 76.

You know.......

..... you are back to base when:

• The first step you take outside the airport is in a puddle.
• Hair goes back into its frizzy mode by the time you reach home.
• During family breakfast you have the privilege of viewing  an intimate scene between two monkeys right on the window sill. Aaaarrrgh!

Blissful times

"Having the Korean soup that you made for me when I was ill, I realised you may not be the best cook but you are the best man for me" said the pretty bride. Listening to her vows it was hard to miss the sight of groom's family glowing with pride and unanimously voting her to be the best person for their much loved son/brother/brother-in-law/mama.

So there we were in Korea, far away from home, much happy celebrating a beautiful event very close to our heart, totally floored by the warmth of our Korean family, enjoying the awesome Korean food between sips of sweet Soju.

If complete happiness exists its soul was in Seoul last week.

Pink or bloo?

Wedding in Seoul!

Among the choices for the movies to rent today, the special one is 'Old Boy': a Korean movie. You see, we are in the mood to embrace everything Korean as the countdown has begun for the day when I will be dancing on the streets of Korea 'aaj mere bhai kee shaadi hai, aaj mere bhai ki shaadi hai.' 

Book shelf

What does our bookshelf tell about us? That we need lot of self-help, and we give it in our case the top shelf. And since the universe seems more often than not to be working at stirring up my irrational beliefs, the most recent addition: 'A Guide to Rational Living', has been a critical one.

Scene1: Father prepares maggi for the child while mother looks on, thinking about the wonderfulness of life in general in spite of the soreness of her stiff neck in particular. In two minutes, the plate with steaming noodles arrives from kitchen, and with in seconds of being placed on the table, gets an accidental push from the ultra-cool-and-super-careless child and lands with a loud bang. Parents look down at the splattered mess and notice in their split vision,  the ultra-cool dude's horror stricken expression. The child unaware of the recent conversion of his parents to rationality was waiting for the hell to break lose like it always does in such situations. But to his utter disbelief one of the rational beings took a gentle u-turn back to the kitchen and put the water on for making another packet of maggi while the other rational being started getting the paraphernalia together to clean up various states of matter gracing the floor, all the while massaging her sore neck.

If you are looking for the path from being neurotic to born again rational, this is the book for you.

Accidental learning

Rather expectantly a huge monkey pushed open the door into my class this afternoon. Looked at the 40 odd students on one side and looked at the Fourier series expansion scribbled on the board on the other. And pulled a bored expression on his face, that if not exactly would translate close enough to: not every closed door need be opened.

Leading the flock

...... another laugh inducing stunt by Putin.

Life on a hold

Finally the manuscript on which we had been working for the longest of times was submitted last night. Experiments and simulations, getting them to work together and in harmony had been awfully hard. Was lucky that the student working on this problem has excellent attitude and wasn't getting hassled by the several iterations that we had to go through to get somewhere with our understanding. It is hard when the student comes back to you with a long face saying, "mam, it is not working" in an accusatory tone. It invariably shifts my focus from the technical problem to the attitude problem. Thankfully it wasn't the case this time and we are still on friendly terms. I know I do make a heavy job of writing and this time took nearly two and a half months of non-teaching time to write the paper but it was quite exciting to tie it all together in a storyline that we believe is a good one. Right after submission, however, I wasn't as confident because we have submitted to a rather prestigious journal in my field of interest. Not entirely sure if we have been over ambitious in our choice of the journal but that we will have to wait and see. I am overly attached to this work so I am sure people finding faults with it will surely hurt my ego but at the moment I am happy to get on with other things which had been put on hold for all this while. Our term, meanwhile, started two weeks ago. Teaching a new course this time. It is a course on numerical methods, enjoying it but lecture preparation takes much longer and often I am up late night wrangling with epsilon and delta. This is the type of the course as a student I would have stayed clear of but as a teacher since I have to go through the details I am finding it not as bad at all. It helps immensely to have an expert in the immediate family with whom I can argue back and forth to clarify my doubts etc. Classroom strategy: maintain aloofness. No heehee or haha, only epsilon and delta.

The saturday bake

For us it was more out of necessity than anything else, that we started baking our own bread. Now every weekend, typically on saturdays, that is one of the most satisfying aspect of mornings: rise and bake. It helps to have this particular batch of active dry yeast which has been consistent in doing its job of actively doubling the dough. Next the dough gets a good doze of pounding until the air is all punched out, it is rolled into a loaf  and pinched at the seam before getting dumped in a lined tin. Some time is given for the loaf to double up again and just when it starts looking all pompous and puffed up,  it is shoved inside the oven that has been kept hot and crackling ready. The oven door of course then has to be banged shut if the whole bread-making process is to be experienced at its therapeutic best. By late morning the aroma of freshly baked bread fills the the entire house, can't believe it is me who is saying this because  I used to find such statement hugely 'naika'. But I can be pardoned because then I used to be naive and yet to be breadly-wise. The acquired wisdom though is yet to include a good technique to slice it thin without losing half the bread in form of crumbs. Is it a special knife or is it the timing after the bake or is it just practice? Any ideas? Otherwise of course we live on hope that is internet :).

Dumpling soup for the soul

You perhaps know how it happens, in the grocery store you spot something which was not in the original shopping list and then suddenly all you can think of is how to incorporate this item in your next meal. A bag of frozen dumplings was the item that day.

Rather than the usual frantic search on the internet for recipes, this time it was a quick consultation with younger brother over skype. His acquired experience in east-asian food was put to good use in making of this dumpling soup.

Recipe:

Ingredients: 3 cups of water, 1 green chilli, 1 tsp ginger, 1-2 cloves of garlic, 1 small tomato, 4-5 tender green beans, half tsp pepper and salt as per taste.

• Boil 3 cups of water. 
• In boiling water add thinly sliced green chilli, ginger, salt and pepper.
• Next add the beans and diced tomatoes
• Finally add frozen dumplings and let it boil for 20 minutes

A study in rabbits

There is a thorny bush near my study where lives a family of rabbits. Every now and then they sneak out of the bush and show a glimpse of their rabbitness. Some of the moods that I could capture:

"Oh this sodding English weather!"

"Can't complain too much though.... gets me my grass."

"We are all ears.....did I see an Indian lady peeping through the glass door?"

"On your marks, get set...."

" .... and go!"

But my favourite is the next one, early in the morning I caught this rabbit facing the sun and letting his ears down, a picture of peace and contentment:

"Time for my Surya Namaskar."

Carnage- the movie

Absolutely love Emirates for their superb in-flight entertainment. Saw some lovely movies this time but 'Carnage' was just right for the mood. Sharp and funny, it is a very engaging movie about a meeting between two sets of parents whose children have had a fight in the neighborhood park. In relation to the incident, the mothers of course  take themselves very seriously and want it all to be discussed in the most civilised manner but what ensues is a series of conflicts between parents, between spouses, between men, between women, between the men and the women and so on. The women appeared to be torn between who they want to be: good citizens of the world who care, and who they actually are: cold, manipulative and judgmental. Men of course behaved the way men do, trivialising everything in a very manly way. The whole inter-personal dynamics is hugely entertaining.


This Roman Polanski film is a brilliant commentary on modern life, how different people have chosen their own ways of leading it and how each of them is most critical of the others interpretation of it. 

Of mothers and sons

Today was just one of those weird days. My mind was mostly at another place where a person whom I absolutely adore was getting operated, but I had these bunch of evaluations (12 of them) to conduct in which the time had to be maintained, questions had to be asked, some quick judgement on the performance had to be passed etc. etc. The hardest part was watching my own students make a really sorry presentation of their decently good work. At the end of it I was sitting in my office feeling so dejected when the sms came from her son that she was out of the operation theater and everything seemed to have gone alright. It was a big relief to see that and I immediately felt incredibly guilty to be thinking about anything else.

Back at daycare RRJ was least interested in being picked up for a drop to cricket because through some clever scheme he and 3 others had managed to get the permission from the rather strict principal to play cricket right in front of the daycare. He wanted to finish the game before heading to the other place. The principal teased him, "what have you got in your body, look like a skeleton, haan?" "I have got cricket in my body, maam." The kid shows sparks of brilliance at times. He lights up my darkest of moods effortlessly even if 90 percent of the times he is the primary cause of the dark mood.

Scorching

The heat in Chennai is rapidly setting itself up for the shift to its top-most gear as the agni-nakshatram starts on May 4 (I think). But that is hardly a bother because at the moment it is the scorching pace at which the deadlines have been approaching which has me reeling. And I am not even the one who is running this universe!

Art of sprouting

When the going gets tough, which it has been getting in the past couple of weeks, at the top of my list of coping strategies is to have a good helping of super foods. And at the top of my list of super foods are sprouts. Grean-mung bean sprouts. Full of nutrients, easy to make at home and the best part is for all their goodness and convenience, they don't taste bad. In fact with a little lime and salt they make a very tasty snack. Now, while the process of sprouting is fairly simple, I have been trying to optimise the  process steps to have: usage of regular kitchen utensils, no cloth-shoth jhamela and minimum handling. The last attempt worked out beautifully and a batch of absolutely gorgeous sprouts was obtained. Here are the steps:

• get a vessel (V1) which as the shape of a bowl
• get a smaller vessel (V2) with lid (L2)
• soak the amount of bean that you think would fit the space that is enclosed in V1 if it was covered with L2. I usually soak the beans in the morning before leaving for office
• in the evening, drain the beans and put them in V1
• cover the beans with upturned L2 and push the L2 down until it snugly fits V1
• next put upturned V2
• now holding the V1 and V2 turn the whole assembly up side down
• put a weight on the V2
• before sleeping slowly retrace the steps and rinse the beans and bring back to the final configutration
• do another rinse in the morning and put it back again

By the evening, sprouts are fully grown and ready to give you a perfect pick-me-up snack!

School year-book picture

Just look at the picture here (without looking at the name written below), can you recognise her?

Troubled waters

Our institute is at present having a fairly open and heated discussion on the policy that the hostels must have for the students who reside with in the campus. The institute being a residential one has a fairly large population of students and therefore having any new rule or getting rid of an existing one affects many. So far if you weren't part of the hostel administration you hardly got to know anything and it was all a large happy family in which the unhappiness was neither expressed loudly nor was it given much importance. The administrators decided based on what they felt was the right thing to do and others had very little choice in the matter but to follow as told because it was all for their good. From the sequence of recent events it seems like the turning point was the idea of having an open discussion between students and the wardens of these hostels where the students reside

• big question was asked in the open forum "I am 21, what is your problem if I am having sex with my girl friend or whoever in my room?"
• then there was a spate of emails between the wardens lamenting the generation gap, the callous parenting which hasn't conveyed the value of touching feet of elders to their children, the student's demand for privacy, the students wanting to do whatever they want, the fraction of students having the risk-taking behaviour reaching critical limits, the possibility of students talking about alternate sexual preferences, the audacity of students to ask questions in an open forum etc. etc.
• next the email-thread gets leaked to the national newspaper and makes headlines
• this preempts the disclosure of the content of the emails by one of the wardens to all within the institute and with in minutes the inbox was flooded with reactions and reactions to reactions.

These discussions often bring out so much about people especially when they are in a position to control. In the name of feeling responsible, it is so hard to not want to impose your own moral value system and accept that it doesn't mean anything to others. And it is so easy to dismiss others concerns and decide what is good for them.

In all this, it is totally understood that to run a system, in this case the hostels, you do need a set of rules which by and large should ensure safety, hygiene, reasonable food and an ambiance where people with diverse interests can co-exist. But beyond that any policing in relation to personal conduct seems rather oppressive. What students do is their responsibility and if we fear the worst all that we can do is to make them aware  of the possible consequences that bother us. I think most of us are hard-wired to protect self-interest, and this instinct needs regular tuning by facing the consequences of what we do or what we don't. Over protection or over control by others, I feel, can often lead to either suppression of that rather vital instinct or an all out rebellion.
  

Terrific Ts

T1: Trikona asanas, highly recommended. Did feel silly and stiff on the starting day but now it being a few days, not so bad. The triangles are finally taking their shape.

T2: Tawa naans, highly recommended again. Will put up the recipe. Simple, easy and fast.

T3: Tea, it is just the perfect blend. Every day two times, god bless my father and his tea connections.

T4: Tennis, had awesome games last two evenings. Was glad to not mess up with the approaching shots, which has been my pet unforced error. It is a great feeling to be able to hit the ball where you want to. Looking forward to reaching the stage when I can hit it with the power I want to. Totally loved the doubles games last two days but am eager to check out if I can give a serious fight to my doubles partner in singles. Have been following some expert advice on youtube videos, I am sure it is going to show but that will have to wait for another day.

Giant pandas and small windows

"There is only a narrow window of opportunity: female pandas have only about 36 hours a year during which they ovulate and can get pregnant, so catching them both in the right mood is crucial. Luckily Tian Tian's last few shreds of dignity – the zoo has dropped proposals to use artificial insemination to ensure a pregnancy – remain intact for this year at least."

Full article. So Yang and Tian have another 10 years to make it happen, apparently China lends giant pandas for a million dollars a year fee for a 10 year period and with a clause that any cubs born during the period are property of China! Some scientist to make sure that the 36 hour window is well utilised have gone as far as showing panda-porn and giving viagra! I am not making that up, check it here.

Spot the tree

Sitting in our balcony it feels as if one is in a tree house in a jungle. The view includes a huge N tree, several Ashoka trees, one Coconut, a couple of Palm, one J (I think) and a little bit of the huge Banyan tree that is on the side of the building is also visible. N and J?

Letting it go

When is a good time to accept that your child is very far from being that little blob of mass with an alien face who needed every minute of your time but more of a grown up individual with a mind of his own? And if anything he needs from you, it is to stop breathing down his neck about every single thing. About TV, about food, about sleep, about studies, about time to leave home, about time to return home, the language…. oh the list is too long.

While RRJ takes  my (our) nagging quite sportingly and continues to be our good friend, I am a little tired of myself being this person who is not able to respect the notion of independence that RRJ seems to be developing at a rapid rate.

About ten days back during his exam week, RRS was traveling, that particular day it was already dark outside, time was well past seven, RRJ was nowhere to be seen and I was wandering in the street telling myself, "he has had it." After a few minutes I decided to check his friend's home in the next block. There I got to know he didn't come back with them. Walking back towards home I saw two thin legs and yellow bat walking up the stairs. I decided to wait and see what would mr. grown up do when he finds the house empty. I heard him opening the bolted door, "hello……. hello, Amma?" then there was silence. Trring… my cell phone rang in my hand, I had no choice but to pick up. "I am back. Where are you?" The guts! Where am I? Anyway as I walked up the stairs with each step I regained my cool and in the most mild manner possible told him that it was too late and I was worried and perhaps in the next hour he should bathe, eat and study for the exam next day. He didn't argue that there was no need to take bath or study. Later in the night while going through the grammar book I learnt a few things, like colours are actually adjectives and not nouns! And in the last page of the book I learnt a few more things:

D. Write five sentences about your mother.

1. my mother will cook nicely
2. my mother tells me the right things when I have fever
3. my mother tells me the right things when I have my exams
4. my mother works in IIT Madras
5. my mother is a 'nise' mother.

I was just so happy to read those sentences. Each of those, I know exactly what he means by them. Collectively, don't they seem to be talking about a sensible, calm and collected person. Perhaps from some angle I do appear like that. Or perhaps my son is indeed so grown up that he knows where what not to write.

Cross-shabds

1 across
Didi had two points to make to the ousted minister (6)

1 down
Stumbling a grid with help is what she (maybe he) does (8)

Non-dairy icecream

In my quest for recipes which are non-dairy, easy to make and great to taste, I never thought I will come across one for an ice-cream. And yet in an email from my father was a link to just that. Diced overripe bananas. Frozen. And finally zipped in a blender. As simple as that and it is absolutely unbelievable how overripe banana which used to be considered good only for baking or binning transforms in to this very ice-creamy avatar. We have been having it almost everyday and RRJ's favourite is the one flavoured with fresh strawberries (well, we freeze them prior to blending).

Life ka formula

I had a bit of a jolt last month when I had to visit the doctor after a week long dull headache. Thankfully the doctors didn't find anything serious but the fact that they thought that it was a stress headache and prescribed some stress-medication has caused much anguish and perhaps even more stress ever since. Who me? And that too now? I feel so sane, so content and so insanely happy, surely the internal stress meter had it got all wrong or perhaps not.

Just today, the theme of discussion in the class was fatigue in metals and how people over the years have tried to characterise it by identifying the key parameters and coming up with expressions which describe the experiments reasonably well. The key parameters were words we use in day-to-day life, like stress, strain, fatigue, endurance limit, life etc. etc.  As it was about time to wrap up the class I thought it was about time I did a dimensional analysis of life and arrive at the formula for stress in life that would be simple enough and yet captures the essential features of the phenomenon. So right after the class, on a sheet of paper some serious rocket science was done to identify the key parameters that affect the stress level, and I came up with these:

1. f: the fraction of ideal that meets one's approval. So if there is an ideal ice-cream. If one is happy with something that is just 10% of the ideal, f=0.1. If it takes only the ideal to satisfy, f=1.0. I feel as a kid one's f is usually low, and rapidly increases with age.
2. n: number of people one feel responsible for. It includes every one for whom one feels one can do something to improve their situation, be it immediate family, team members at workplace, or the person living in some part of the world who is dying of starvation while you are throwing away some food to empty the fridge.
3. m: the number of people who appreciate your efforts in general.
4. p: the level of details that your plans have in a scale of 0 to 10. The more you want to control the more you feel stressed.

 After some more rocket science, the final expression was narrowed down to

The more picky you are (high f), the more people you feel responsible for (high n), the more you want to control (high p) all lead to higher stress. And after all that if no one appreciates your efforts, no matter what you do the stress tends to infinity!  Ouch!

So does my formula work for you? What are your controlling parameters? Tell me and become part of m!

Ode to joy-I

Sometime during the discussions on bone mechanics with my student this idea, which seemed so perfect at that time, took its final shape that if bones can be easily cut using a wire saw then why can't I use it to take off a little material off the nut of my guitar. I had been pretty convinced that what lied between me and a fluent guitarist is not the ear for music, or agile fingers but the gap between the strings and the fretboard of my guitar. The wire saw was central to the solution.

Most efficiently the student got a wire saw issued on my name, and I headed home pretty determined that it was about time that the guitar was made more suitable for learning music. The sight of me with the guitar in one hand and a saw in the other perhaps perturbed RRS a little but it was easy to ignore the gentle murmur he let out about how I was about to destroy a perfectly working guitar. I took out the guitar from its case and laid it on the bed, and started to unwind the first wire to be able to access the groove in the nut. TONG. The wire recoiled, it had broken at the beaded end! The source of the gentle murmur registered the sound and nodded to my elaborate explanation about how I had tried to unwind thinking that it is a right handed screw and how actually it was anything but that because when you hold the guitar and tune you do it with left hand and all blah blah blah. Having the guitar already 10% injured even before I got down to sawing off stuff did dent my initial enthusiasm to some extent. And after sawing the nut a couple of times the name of that tea we used get in Kanpur 'Runglee Rungliot' flashed in my head which apparently means 'this far no further'. 

I packed the saw back into my bag-pack telling myself to be wiser about anything students do efficiently.  Really, just because your guide tells you to get a wire-saw, should you? When will they ever learn to think independently and have the confidence to question my judgement but there was no point what was done was done and immediately the net was accessed and a shop was narrowed down and we headed for getting the guitar fixed. To be contd.......

Akele hum akele tum

Tonight we raised a toast of mirinda (in my case spiked with a little rum) to our success in pulling of a week of RRS's visit to south america without compromising on any of the activities that make a regular week for the remaining two of us in Chennai. Above all we made it with a grand and frankly speaking unbelievable score of 7 for 2. 7 for the number of days and 2 for the number of 'fusses' as counted by RRJ so no chance of fudging that data. Only one trump card, an IPL team jersey, was used.

Just a month ago I was sipping Mai Tei in Hawaii and stating the obvious to myself "US is just too far, not just geographically but also the life one leads there has absolutely no connection with the life we lead in India. It is still not that small a world. And while it is great that it is the home of my siblings, but it is also sadly evident that what future holds for us is a virtual bond that we will share through photos, skype and emails about our respective lives which will make less and less sense to each other as time moves on. But that is life so embrace it and head home to people who are part of the everyday present." Up on landing, there was my present, waiting for me holding each others hand, the little face leaning side ward to get a view of me and on eye-contact breaking into a smile that just makes me the happiest person on the face of earth. And on reaching home the door being opened by my beaming parents who are also now a frequent part of my present. It is all for real.

Coming to the point, the score in my absence was 7-8. So you see, RRS arrives tomorrow morning little knowing the absolutely stunning upset pulled off by the underdog parent.

Welfare?

Feel completely outraged by this enormous tragedy that is unfolding in Norway for the past eight months and that too in the name of child welfare. Such an extreme measure that of separating family members and for completely laughable reasons cited like changing diapers on bed, feeding with fingers and children sleeping in the same bed with parents! This not only shows insensitivity but also insularity of the highest order. And even if such ridiculous rules have to be in place can't the system provide some counseling to the parents first before taking the children away. Imagine being allowed to see your children once a year till they are 18 years old! This is one of my pet peeves against the western world, they take the value of doing things as per a fixed procedure just too far. It works with machines but controlling human behaviour to the minutest details, in my opinion, takes away the very freedom that they swear by every minute.

Favourite moments of life.....

....... that I have no memory of.

Page turner

I wouldn't wish the worst of my enemies a page-turner in their class. A member of that rather annoying species who are so utterly bored in the class that for the entire duration the only activity that interests them is to turn the pages of their notebook as if it was a page-turner.  Sadly enough I had the misfortune of having one in my class last semester who by the mere act of turning pages rattled me no end. Hate to admit but instead of ignoring PT, I became totally obsessed with PT. Has PT come today-oh there is PT-hmmm maybe today's class will interest PT-oh no PT is at it again-turning pages-damn! There was hardly any class that gave me the natural high that I so crave for. In short, the semester was a complete disaster for me and I was much relieved to see the end of it.



Imagine my horror when I found PT registered for this semester's elective. Why would PT want to ruin another semester of mine? Why? Why? Why? I prayed to concerned authorities up there and things seem to be working. While I am really happy that PT hasn't turned up in the class yet but fear lurks in the mind as neither has PT taken the permission to drop the class. Happened to talk to a colleague in whose class PT had surfaced for a day and needless to say the colleague was a bit ruffled wondering why would anyone turn pages of a notebook that is totally empty. Long semester lies ahead.

Are deewano..... Mujhe pehchano

Loved Don-2 immensely. From start to finish. Superb action, fun dialogues, SRK was super cool and PC has never looked better. Om Puri and Kunal Kapoor were a bit off mark but the rest of the cast was just perfect. Totally convinced that I like Farhan Akhtar in his directorial avatar the most.

Driven by reminders

Most politely and using the tone that I think is just appropriate my phone is back in the business of reminding me of what has to be done and when and patiently wait for another ten minutes before letting out yet another gentle reminder of the task undone. So the year couldn't help but take an energetic start because getting things done does that to you. And at the moment the plan is to let this state of unstable equilibrium persist and not perturb it with thoughts like 'Life is not all about getting things done. What about look out of the window and stare at the bumble bee, buzzing its way into the hollow of a broken branch to take a short rest before taking a bumbling flight into nowhere' and all that crap.

Cricket front has been excruciating painful lately, just last night I was arguing with father that the series so far hasn't been half as bad as he is making it out to be and of course Clarke and Ponting chose to slap three centuries on my face today. To the big man: what is with this leaving the ball and yet connecting! Happened at least three times in the limited time I saw. And getting bowled! Is something weighing on the mind, I hope not a ton! The only good cricket news has been "Amma, we finally played cricket in school today." "Oh, they allowed?" "No, we just used the volleyball as the ball and our leg as the bat". There you go, we have resourceful cricketers in the making. If there are any worries then they are the discouragement  these budding cricketers meet from parents who have had enough of the imaginary matches that take place in the house. They are tired of hearing the ball bouncing of the walls, followed by a screeching appeal which if met by the imaginary finger going up is duly celebrated with fist pumping and all the offensive gesturing but when the appeals are turned down much glaring at the umpire takes place. Sometimes for close calls the UDRS is invoked and then the replay is played. Oh things can get pretty intense out here. Some times the said parents are not half as bad as they can be, they sit at the dining table, apparently busy with their tea etc. pass each other an approving glance at the extraordinary catch that was taken and enjoy the imaginary game immensely. Until the reminder sets off.........