Food

Motivated by Saanjh's this post I am going to talk about food or the lack of it in my life right now.Ravaged by chicken pox at an unheard age of 21,I have drastically curtailed the mischievous excursions of my tongue into spicy excesses.Coconut water,milk,sugar,small quantities of tea,coffee,curd rice,chapaties with dal...basically anything without a even a trace of chilly.Bland-distasteful mundane stuff.Under the influence of inadequate spice in life,the tongue has become loose.I had two foot-in-mouth moments in a single day.Serious gaffes.People who have tried eating four plain idlies(without chutney without sambhar) can raise their hands.Nightmares of drowning in a pool of hot scalding, boiling rasam keep happening to me.

Food has meant different things to me in different ages.school was about tiffin-share.Home was about tomato-phobia and puris and aaloo parathas and fruit/vegetable salads on sunday afternoons(to name a few?).I have tried my own combinations too.Honey in tea,Kellogg's Chocos with cut banana and coffee instead of milk(try it....absolute gastronomic heaven).Best thing about food is the anticipation of a fancy meal and the Pavlov's dog like reactions induced by the aroma wafting into your room from the kitchen.Eating great food is like an intense orgasmic experience for me.If I like whats on the plate,I don't usually remember anything after I pick up the spoon.....its all a daze.... but the strange thing is that I don't think about food all the time or even most of the time.Whenever I lay my hands on some good grub,I am thankful to god but if not, then I will eat whatever is available and not regret it and I eat surprisingly small amounts of food. For me,nostalgia is nosy and particular smells trigger particular memories....always happens with deodorants but I am digressing now......

Hostel food is....well...edible and strange.It cannot be put down as downright bad.....but somehow I always get the impression that I am partaking of someone's anger and bitterness.The food is angst-y,usually very spicy and not very conducive to hmmmm...gulping without chewing.The rotis are leathery...how can they not be...its hostel-protocol followed by cooks all over India using telepathic-mind communication.'thy shall struggle with our rotis puling with both hands until your jaws or teeth give away'-they conclude in unison.The warden writes absolute gems when it comes to bringing out the lurking fear of food-poisoning in the student's minds.sample this:
Dear hostel students
mes will be function from tomo i.e on 23/2/07 pooja will be arranged in kitchen at 7 AM on 23/2/07.all students are cordially invited.all the best to all of you.**

Did I happen to mention I am a vegetarian?I have these discussions with my non-vegetarian friends about which is a better lifestyle and I enjoy the anguish on their faces when I pull out my 'animal-cruelty' argument or 'non-veggie-lifestyle-leads-to -quicker-deaths' one but frankly I don't give a damn what people eat and even my not eating non-veg food will not prevent the zillions who eat like they are Eskimos of the far-north .so I am not really very hot on the 'prevention of animal cruelty' thing.There are actually a lot of genuine reasons why people should stop eating meat and I don't want to list them here.If you are wondering why there are so many incomplete loose ends in each one of my posts.... well its because I am a lazy bum and procrastinator supreme so you have to do with what you get........see I am too lazy to even think of a decent ending(I know its not something new ...one does not realize how many lazy people are out there until one gets onto Orkut.)



**this part of the post was in draft for quite some time

I see faith in your eyes
Never you hear the discouraging lies
I hear faith in your cries
Broken is the promise, betrayal
The healing hand held back by the deepened nail

Follow the God that failed.......

lyrics from METALLICA's landmark Black album .The song was inspired by the death of James Hetfield's (the lead singer) mother from cancer; she was a member of the Church of Christ,Scientist and therefore refused treatment.It speaks of his anguish in seeing his mother die without seeking medical help of any kind and it brings out very poignantly the eternal battle between religion and science.Though I do not approve of this particular branch of Christianity,I am a believer.....of Hindu philosophies.'belief' is more of a word which I use out of force of habit,my 'belief' is more of a logical conclusion and my religious beliefs do not conflict with my scientific knowledge.I know I should really do a detailed post about all of this...but my mind is totally numbed by a whole day of Perl programming and SQL querying.The reason I have been thinking about this is that in the space of 2 days I have had two people tell me that they would rather agree to disagree with me than have me speak on length about religion/spirituality.It so happens that most of my closest friends are atheists or agnostic.There is Sam,Deb,my roommate(though he wouldn't admit it),Ankita and of course K. Nikhil if you are reading this....I have never asked you dude...what beliefs do you have?and yes let me make it clear that I am perfectly at ease with what people believe and what they do not.I am not out to convert people to my school of thought.But it sometimes makes me think,why is 'belief' as in religion always equated with 'illogical' thinking and 'stupidity'?

Right now I am thinking about a lot of things at the same time...like how Metallica lyrics so damn always nail the point that they are trying to make,how my life is so freaking turbulent right now, how this sem god has kept me occupied to the hilt,how Bangalore is such a strange place that I can feel neither disgust nor love for it....

P.S:I am a big-big sucker for music lyrics ok?this is the only form of poetry I enjoy.peace.

hand in glove

the silent war of words
caught between lines never spoken
the gaping holes,left after three years
of avoiding the inevitable.
they work hand in glove.


the eclecticism of the superficial conversation
and the purity of the baser undercurrent
intertwine and confuse.
they work hand in glove

years of small talk and running in circles
frustration- depression- rage
turn me into a recluse
they work hand in glove

scarred memories of a smile and the fragrance
of the wind blowing through the hair
of memorable bus rides and loopy earrings
sadden and bemuse
they work hand in glove

the finality of the unspoken verdict
for the frivolities entertained in the mind
of the unfaltering optimism and the desire
to give it your all -one last time
already my muse
with destiny;
she works hand in glove.

the real me(coy?)

ok.1 year on blogger and still no clue to the general public about what kinda fellow i am.well....here goes..

quizzer--filter coffee lover--extremely curious--role play gaming enthusiast--orkut addict--accident prone--unreal optimist--lover of books--fetish hater--teetolar--outwardly humble--inwardly arrogant--early morning riser--wannabe CS theorist and algorithmist--rain hater--admirer of bono,turing and ab lincoln--travel loving tramp-creative--illogical--ex-vedantist--sri-lankan tea freak--sitcom fanatic--pseudo bihari--pseudo kannadiga--bangalore jaded--jolie/keira knightly/rani fan--humorous--hater of metrosexual men--big big literature-phile--anxiety prone--admirer of women with long hair--rushdie/naipaul/asimov fan--loser of keys--never angry--minor claustrophobic--dreamer--setter of unachiveable daily goals--hindu mythology steeped--metalhead--PJ king--ear pain sensitive--humongously flat nosed--loner--horribly attention deficient--expert puddle jumper--very sensitive to smells--nature ignorant--decent tennis player--restless--hydrophile--impervious to weather changes--dilbert/tintin/asterix freak---dust allergic--lover of 2nd class train travelling--people watcher---sarcastic..........and the list will go on.

The picking up of old threads

Blogging after a really long time feels great...feel like a free bird after the dreaded exam 'season'...no more anxious gut wrenching agony of 1.5 day gap between monstrous and obscure papers....had a dream this afternoon....I see vast unexplored expanses of a fat engg. textbook.. everything looks unfamiliar and the exam is just next day and suddenly i wake up....relief floods in...no more exams for atleast 4months....its over.... its over...

the reason why Mr. Psmith features on this post is coz i am smitten (if that is the appropiate word) by this guy's mannerisms/speech/wit...i had not sampled this character of Wodehouse ever before until yesterday when casually browsing through in a book store I decided to indulge in my 'dessert' of a literary meal...Wodehouse.. but didnt want to read Jeeves coz i have already have had too much of him...Psmith was a nice surprise in the sense that this story(Psmith in the city) is not your usual jump-into-mahyem-instantaneously Wodehouse novel but takes the more luxurious winding hill road to the point.its such a great feeling reading P.G.Wodehouse after nearly a gap of 3 years...3 years in which i was exposed to more variety than ever before but came across only a few novels which could make me feel gidily happy inside............ leaving you with a sample of a Psmithism.....

Psmith describing a fight which broke out in a certain meeting:
"By this time the meeting had begun to take sides to some extent .What I might call my party,the earnest investigators,were whistling between thier fingers ,stamping on the floor and shouting 'chestnuts!!' while the opposing party,the bravoes,seemed to be trying,as i say,to do jui-jitsu tricks with me.It was a painful situation.I know the cultivated man of affairs should have passed the thing off with a short careless laugh;but, owning to the above mentioned alcohol expert having got both hands under my collar,short ,careless laughs were off.I was compelled,very reluctantly,to conclude the interview by tapping the bright boy on the jaw.he took the hint,and sat down on the floor.I thought no more of the matter and was making my way thoughtfully to the exit,when a second man of wrath put the above on my forehead.You can't ignore a thing like that.I collected some of his waistcoat and one of his legs ,and hove him with some vim into the middle distance.By this time a good many of the earnest investigators were beginning to join in;and it is just there that the affair began to have certain points of resembelance to a pantomime rally.Everybody seemed to be shouting a good deal and hitting everybody else.Itwas no place for a man of delicate nature, so I edged towards the door,and drifted out.There was a cab in the offing.I boarded it.And having kicked a vigorous politician in the stomach,as he was endeavouring to climb it too,I drove off home" :) :)

I am on a high!

after 17 years of slogging,it finally happened.I got a job.After waiting for so long and making it a central point of my engineering life,The moment has finally arrived-i got placed-and how do i feel-ecstatic? don't know for sure.........

april 21st: I get up and think,god plz,plz let me get placed today-at the same time keeping in mind that at the end of the day,it might just be a dissapointment-a sinking feeling of having blown it...which i had after company W.

the usual flurry of SMS'S wishing me luck arrive.I read up logic design,hoping to make sense in the interview when I say it is my favourite subject! Go through the usual motions and start feeling pretty confident of clearing the written atleast.Start walking to the coll from the hostel with 'sunrise'-Norah Jones in my head.The company in question:A.the seminar hall is choc-a-bloc with the ppl giving the test and already placed 'package enthusiasts' wanting to take a look at A's package.The PPT(pre-placement talk) is precise and excellent unlike W a few days back clearly detailing the growth of an employee from the Juniour Software Engineer level to the senior exec level .The audience is pleased with the pay-package which is much more than T,I and W before it.I sit beside Aniruddha who asks me to give him my unbiased ,frank opinion about T.

The process begins....first is a written round which is a breeze considering that it is mostly pretty basic stuff.Out of the 200 odd eligible....150 get through written round.Then we are given an employment form to fill and an essay to be written in 10 min.After this we are shunted into a GD-group discussion....a 14 member one and the topic is-"should the private and the public sectors join hands to improve bangalore's infrastructure".The GD is fish-market and only 5 of us make it through the round.along with me Akhila and Ashish make it and I feel sorry for Dinesh,Manvil and Suhel who dont make it despite speaking well.I have a quick lunch and rush back to the seminar hall to wait for my interview call.I try to brush up my microprocessor subjects and logic design but fail bcoz of a jack-hammer headache shaking my system..........

I wait and I wait patiently at first then begin to get anxious.....the tech interview+HR interview takes long....I see gaurav get through and then Beena and then Akhila.....get the news that the team interviewing is not asking tech questions even in the tech interview stage...feel confident about my prospects and keep wishing that this torture,agony and anxiety end soon.everyone who completes his/her interview seems to be getting through.....I wait still and finally they call me for interview at 10PM!........

I am let into the interview room and the interview goes like this:
I(INTERVIEWER):sorry to have kept you waiting up so long.
ME: its fine.
I:tell me about yourself
ME:I did my schooling in.....and i m doing my engg. in....... and I like quizzing and reading
I:(ignoring the hobbies cue) do you have a valid passport?
ME:yes, but i don't remember the number.
I:ever had any visa rejections?
ME:never travelled abroad
I:tell me why A in 3 words
ME:global exposure+growth(should have said high performance.delivered damn!)
I:do you have a driving license?
ME:yes
I:which vehicle do you drive?
ME:Tata Indica
I:what do you think is your greatest achievement and why?
ME:my winning the NTS scholarship coz it is a very prestigious schol and blah blah..
I:why did you take up Electronics&Communication engg?
ME:when i joined engg. ,i was very much into and still am into computer hardware and wanted to know what makes a computer work and blah blah
I:It says in your resume that you are an active member of the art of living foundation.what is the art of living all about?
ME:The Art of Living is all about...................
I:thank you.It was nice meeting you.

after the interview i am informed that i have got through the HR round and that i had to be prepared for the tech round.The mood ion the placement cell is relaxed as everyone seem to be sailing through thier interviews.finally after a 10 min wait i am called for the tech interview.

the interview goes on like this:
I:(after the initial greetings)tell me about yourself.
ME: i did my schooling in .... and ....
I: but you seem to have a very south Indian name?
ME:I am actually a kannadiga brought up in the east.
I:you seem to be from M.S.Dhoni's school did you know him personally?
ME:(sensing my opportunity to steer the interview ;))actually he was my sister's classmate.
I:how was he like in class?
ME: he was a very shy person and never use to talk to the opposite sex ;)

and a few more questions on Dhoni....couldnt believe this was my tech interview.....
I:what programming language are u comfortable with?
ME:C
then she asks me some basic questions on c/c++....
I:any plans of studying further?
ME:absolutely none(lied through the teeth!)
I:any questions?
ME:what is the day to day routine of a s/w engg. in A like
she gives me the details.....

I come out.....and I feel pretty positive...all interviews and rounds over....but unlike others.... she(the interviewer) doesnt tell me on my face whether I am selected or not.I wait outside...tentatively,nervously...though there was no reason for anxiety.I am thinking how bad it would be like to get chucked out at this stage.
I sit in the training hall and wait.....then this guy(a member of the organization which is conducting the interview process) comes and tells me I am selected..................shock!!!!!!

fast forward to 1.5 hours ahead:
I am doing 80 on vast empty stretches of JC road and pass through Hudson circle...its strange as i have never seen this place without traffic...my legend-sans silencer,sans headlight&tailights and sans brakes!! looks like a bullet in the darkness.....I am going to MG road to SAVERA...the only restaurant which is open in the wee hours of the night in the whole of bangalore.....and though it is pretty unbeliveable....its true... and shocking!!('some moron actually offered me a job??'-me thinks)and though i know it is yet to sink and the initial euphoria would lead to satisfaction would lead to boredom.....at this moment i am happy, excited and terribly terribly relived.......this is my hour and nobody can take it away from me...........................................................................................