STIRRING RESERVATIONS

So finally the IITians have caught up with the reservation stir. Last week a group of IIT students had marched up to the AIIMS campus protesting against the Goverments move to hike up the quota for reservation. All over the campus notices have been put up to join the stir and to save the institute from being 'sold out', even 'defiled'.

"The AIIMS campus seems like a PR extravaganza" one of the guys told me, "They are all there.....all the TV stations, news networks...they have put up a platform upon which sit the pretestors who are on a hunger strike".

Three nights back a candle light march was organized which I wanted to join but well, I had more than couple of things on my plate then.

The sad part of the story is that there are patients after patients who are being sent away from AIIMS and LNJP hospitals; being denied affordable medical services.....I think that kills the spirit of the stir. Granted that reservations can make life miserable for a lot of folks, but do the doctors really get the immediate hit? It is pretty difficult to get convinced that they are protesting for the greater good; and at what cost really?

What further sullies the plot is that one does not really understand how "Hold the Govt to ransom and get them to bactrack" works? I mean is anyone negotiating with the Goverment, talking to them. How do these protestors plan to affect what they want to get done? For if this ordinance is made into a bill, the opposition has already indicated that it would get passed in the parliament. That literally means people you and I elected, people representing us are going to pass this bill in favor of the "greater good".

Organised student protests have a charm about them that is almost intoxicating. I am sure that these protests would yeild some ground from the authorities, but I personally would like the doctors to get back to work. The students can take care of this. There is no point in dangling 'jeopardized medical services' over the Governments head, for that 'defiles' the protests.

A.W.E.S.O.M.E - That's how our Rafting trip was. One hell of an amazing experience and a must for everyone. Started off on Saturday and reached there by afternoon after a tiring journey.

Our base camp had a series of tents just about a fifty feet away from the river. It was totally surrounded by mountains with the river flowing beside it. The lovely surroundings and the scenic beauty mesmerised me so much that I almost spent an hr just watching the entire surroundings while the rest of them were played volleyball. Then we explored the surroundings clicking pics while some of them decided to take a plunge in the river.

We had made a quick a trek to the nearby mountain while the guide tried to scare us with some of his ''encounters with the ghost'' stories. On returning we had our dinner and pulled our beds out and slept under the sky.

The next day started with the river rafting session and it was amazing except for the rowing. It almost paralysed my hands. The rapids were intense and had some weird names ( dunno how people named and remember them ). We rafted almost for 2hrs and reached our base camp for our lunch. From there we continued our rafting which proved to be even more challenging and dangerous. At one of the rapid one guy from our raft fell off and hit the rocks, he was lucky enough to escape it with some minor scrapes.

The body surfing was an amazing experience. I was so excited to get into water that my friends named me "Tortoise - Active in water and lazy on land" (Well, that should give you an idea how lazy I can be). The water was very cold but couldn't keep me off it and swam away to glory in the holy Ganges. Soon we reached a cliff, which was high enough to take a deep dive into the river. Hesitated a bit initially, but after watching some of my friends diving, I decided to dive and the experience was both horrifying and hilarious. But after the dive I could feel a great sense of achievement of conquering my fear of diving :).

Soon we reached the end of our rafting where we packed the raft and brought it to shore. We quickly changed and started off as we had to reach the Delhi-border by 12 in the night to avoid some-god-forsaken tax. The vodka-mixed drinks set off the mood for a non-stop singing session and provided relief to the almost paralysed limbs and also made us invulnerable to the horrible driving of the driver.

POST PARIVARTAN BLUES!!!

I have been able to survive it, is what still amazes me....Maybe I need to get myself a bravery award for just that...Well despite all that, it stumps me to no end that I kinda, sorta, maybe ...definitely maybe....miss it. Maybe its the cutting the classes that our 'work' required of us to do...maybe it was the free pizzas that I got to gorge on.....and yeah, maybe working with Ricky too..(Ricky is short for Rakshit...its technically not short but one of this one and half syallabled nicks that are all over the place nowadays)....take our conversations for example:

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Location: Rakshit Shah's Room, Vindhyachal

Time: Anyday in the February that has gone without a trace

Context: Yeah, me still figuring that out

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Me: Dude, I think we can also change...

Ricky: Chup hoja ek minute...

Me: But du-

Ricky: Chup...I am trying to think...

Silence.....Pause......Longish pause....I light a cigarette and stare at the smoke spiralling towards the ceiling..I try to make shapes out of the smoke. a rabbit, two feathers, a couple of umbrellas...the Gujrathi dude sitting beside has taken the pose of 'The thinking man' and I have reason to believe that he is stuck in some fantasy sequence.....

Ricky: Ok, Pravin, we need to change the background music for the flash file..

Me: Damn, dude, thats what I was trying to tell ya since u went on tha-

Ricky: Chup ho ja..tu abhi chup ho ja-

Suddenly i find myself short of cigarettes and patience ..... so we put on some music and have a small fight over which movie to watch that night ...Afetr all, we had worked for 23 minutes that day ....We deserved the free pizza and the movie.......

"Shining" it was then....

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Hmmm....Lifes kinda gotten pretty slow since then....yeah well....till the next big thing anyway...........

Well i am compelled to write somethin...after witnessing something unfathomable,unbelievable

Even our cricket matches with VG are no fun compared to today's drama:

in this lazy sunday afternoon while surfing the channels and waiting for the F-1 race n season to commence, i saw a scorecard which read 200ish in the 30th over for the lossof 1 wicket.....it was of Australia in the series decider match, with series tied at 2-2.......Ponting and katisch were going great guns......looked like the same treatment we got in the world cup finals was being meted out to RSA.....so changed the channel.......

around 5:30 saw a headline on NDTV......Australia made a world record score of 434/4 surprassing Sri Lanka's 398......was unbelievable stuff......Ponting made 164 of 105 balls...9 sixes....thought Ponting was at his prime....his consistency and annihilation power is even better than Tendulkar(hated myself for thinking like that.....but wat d heck....sachin is getting out cheaply while every other is making centuries like anything)......seems like Australian machinery is chugging again.......

so while surfing channels stopped on ESPN( u might b thinking that i don't have anything else to do.....but it's holiday time)...S. Africa were scoring at around 8 per over in the first 8-9 overs.....smith had started to blast away......some real power hitting was on.....so was hooked to the screen....gibbs was carrying on run a ball.....and gibbs was hitting a boundry every over....and they were sustaining the run rate....even increased it to over 9......by 25 overs it was over 220..I hunched something big...and a match was at hand if wickets did not fall......but they did.....smith fell......gibbs took over after getting to his 100......every over has some sweet 4's or cracking 6's.......around 30 overs and S. Africa had scored 281.....but still needed 156 of last 20 overs....looked easy with gibbs on crease......he was blasting balls beyond boundry....world record for no. of sixes and fours in a match was created...... but gibbs got out....bracken bowled a few good overs.....kallis and co. got tied up......couple of more wickets fell...kallis and kemp got out.....last 8 overs 81 runs to win with 4 wickets in hand.... 4's dried up....no 4 came for about 48 balls when the need of the hour was atleast one 4 per over besides singles.......but then J Wath and Telemachus came good....Wath hit 2 consecutive sixes....telemachis also chipped in....and then it was a fairytale ending....Boucher kept his nerves....last over...2 wkts in hand....7 runs to win...hall hit a 4 and then got out....3 balls ...2 runs...1 wicket with last man ntini on crease....match had again twisted.....but history was made....and S. Africa chased 434............the bestest ever match....FANTABULOUS..........was nerve wrecking even though i was a neutral party.....GAWD it was some match........

PARIVARTAN COMETH!!!

February 25th will dawn with the birth of our labour of much love..."Parivartan'06" . Till that time, there will be more posts on this blog to keep you tuned into the process of making it happen. Check this space for more.......

DSOTM

What I think of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of The Moon”

(For the uninitiated DSOTM is one of the greatest records ever produced…by anyone…check out Rolling Stone if you don’t believe me)

OOH! What a name—“ Dark side of the Moon”----OOH! Groovy huh?!!!!

Yeah, well it is.

When I wrote about this record coupla years ago for my college mag, I tried to be insightful and all, comparing the title to the dark “unexplored” side of the human mind, to lunacy, perhaps.

Yeah, it may well be so.

In the sense that it was meant to be a pot shot at that their ex-frontman who went either crazy or dead cos of it (what’s his damned name anyway?).

But more than anything else it topped the charts everywhere; in fact it set some kinda record at the Billboards---“ the record to stay longest on the charts”----Groovy indeed! It must have definitely been something.
Yeah it was. It was a bloody good marketing ploy that hit the bull’s eye. And it was pretty simple. On one hand we have a band struggling without the genius of its original frontman whom they kicked out cos he was wasting all their moolah on drugs and pussy. Then the poor s.o.b. actually goes nuts. So what do they have left ---- less money, no genius-like talent and a legend slowly building behind their backsides abt that talented, crazy, ex-frontmanly bugger. Hmmmmm, so what do we do now? Methinks it was some producer who figured it out.

Very simple really:
Pinkus Floydus simply take a few of their old numbers, rewrap them with decorative lunacy paper and insanity ribbons, stretch their original space themes to the same effect and yeah, did someone notice those special effects “I am not mad, I am not HAHAHAHAH”. And if that weren’t enough, they go buy some tapes and record cash registers (“We want to make money”, remember) and actually even name a song “Money”. Yup, that was what it was all about. Money, honey.

Not that these guys weren’t talented and all. But not more than the commonplace psychedelic-experimental,“dozen a dime” outfits who were strutting themselves on every street of the planet in the crazy 70s.

Just because the poor things didn’t have a history or a brilliant marketing manager.

Yeah, well, too bad.

Long live Pinkus Floydus.

After my habitual 10:45 pm lunch/dinner I had engaged myself in the highly engaging and intellectual task of cleaning out my mailbox and chanced upon Pravin's mail with a link to this blog.... having no pressing cinematographic appraisal committments on my schedule for the night ... and sensing the opportunity to waste copious hours of time in pointless procrastination & chips-munching I embark on my maiden virginal trip into blogland.

Just a few links to break the proverbial ice and start off:

http://freehost22.websamba.com/vineet/main.htm
At the risk of seeming totally self-involved and narcissistic (wtf, as if I care), the first website I made, while in the 1st year of my extended 4 year vacation..oops btech.. basically an exercise in modesty and altruistic restraint.

This site is basically a place where talented unsigned/indie musicans from the world-over publish their music. A pretty eclectic mix... great if you ever felt like broadening your musical horizons...oh yeah the mp3s are FREE
http://artists.iuma.com/

Innovative concept... this site is again great for anyone interested in music... (aren't we all ?)
Type in ar artist name... it shows you a graphical map of similar artists.... great when you're trying to find new acts that are similar to your existing tastes.... check it out for yourself.
http://www.musicplasma.com/


Excellent community of creative people online... artists, painters, designers, skinners ....the works... some astoundingly talented people display their work here... if art is even remotely interesting do yourself a favour.... treat yourself to deviantart.
http://www.deviantart.com

I'll finish up tonight's literary excursion with a post with a bit of history to it (...yeah i'm gonna ramble...just imagine a senile old relative of yours spinning one of those unending pointless yarns...at least you can choose to ignore me...

Hmmm... that didn't go to well.. now that I've lost the solitary soul who was actually bothering to read...

Its a site I developed intially as a hobby to house a few of my PC game coding and design development files. To my surprise people were actually interested in some of it. The gist is that its grown into a pretty damn popular gaming website.. in fact the biggest website on the net for this game... it basically mods EA Sports Cricket 2002 & 2004. If you're wondering wtf a "mod" is...move on... probably not your cup of tea... if you have a passing interest in Cricket games or game design and development maybe worth taking a look...

http://cricket2002.sportplanet.gamespy.com/

oh.... by the way did you know when a bulldog and a shitzu ( its a dog... for the uninitiated) mate the pup is called a bullshit ?

Later....