Its time.

The time has come. The blessed week that I have been waiting for since the time I stepped onto the campus. The campus that gave my the identity that I shall have to bear for the rest of my life. Be it on an identity tag, a marriage advertisement or an obituary. Its become utterly inconcievable how I hated this place when I came here.

Its time for all the farewells, after some well meaning ( yet, ill constructed) description of me and a momento to commemorate my successful completion of my "duties" at this place I will be dutifully asked to go my way, while the well oiled machinery goes back to preparing for another set of farewells.

As of now there are just about 23 days left on campus for me. But, I am not sad, sadness is not the feeling exactly, neither is it a sense of loss. Its just one of those feelings which are so empty of any kind of thought or idea.Every time I look up at the insti building or the workshop, the labs.I don't know what to think of, whether to feel sad or happy or grateful and by the time I feel I have captured the feeling, its gone. Its like those hazy dreams we have and they slip out of our memory even while we try to get them back desperately .

All the courses I studied, all the articles I wrote, all the plays I acted in are just colourful strokes on the fast fading canvas of memory. I have no idea how much I would be able to retain.

The people I met, the ones I hold dear and the ones I love seem to have become so close now thats its time to go. Every minute takes away another precious effort to perpetuate that abstract stroke on the forgetful canvas.

I guess I will never know the feeling, for i don't know how to feel it. Perhaps, this is how we are all supposed to feel for our farewells. Or maybe I am just too scared of saying, "Its over".

Happiness!

Now this is a very wierd thing to appear on my blog, but even the most cynical ones can't help feeling happy at times. This is one of those days when everything seems to be going on a right track. I have cleaned up my room to a certain degree of satisfaction, have cleaned up the mess in my life almost completely and have read the best peice of romantic fiction till date, the place where Howard Roark tell Dominique Francon how much he "loves" her and vice versa. Peice of art, one doesn't read this kind of stuff very often, does he(incorrect english?!)?
now i would love to write about real life characters like Ellsworth Toohey, even though everyone who has read the book tells me that there cannot be a real life person as manipulative as our dear elsie, but we know better. Now why did i say "we"? because i am not the only person who has been in touch with a real life Ellsworth Toohey..there are people who have been in touch and have refused to be influenced. And if Ellsworth Toohey can be real why can't we have someone like Dominique or Howard....i am sure even they exist and are there somewhere , away form the acidic influence of the Ellsworths, untouched by the unwelcome criticism of the illiterate hoodlums who hate anything out of the ordinary.
I am happy and that is the bottomline....i have got almost what i wanted and at this moment i cannot ask for more. But again happiness too huge an achievement and every time i feel happy about something, some voive from within condemns the very need to be happy. Very wierd but very much like myself.
Obscure, eh? But then, where is the fun if everyone understood everything?

Durga Puja!

The best four days of the year for any bengali. This time however there were just three. And it got over so bloody fast. When i think about it now, its only a feeling of a distant involvement that engulfs me. I don't want to make this sound like an account of how the three days went like a third standard essay we were made to write after we got back from the puja vacations.

Being extremely busy in all the four days, getting to know so many people, getting close to them from different angles and suddenly the whole thing ends. After the fourth day we are suddenly thrown back into the mundane day to day routine. At times i get so pissed off with myself for having abandoned my routine to enjoy these three/four days. But then, its the most logical thing to do.

In the end however the sense of being in a huge void prevails. Don't know if it happens to me only

Is this the way one should live?

How You Life Your Life

You seem to be straight forward, but you keep a lot inside.You say whatever is on your mind. Other people's reactions don't phase you.You tend to have one best friend you hang with, as opposed to many aquaintences.You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren't attainable.

How Do You Live Your Life?

Another one of my great narcissistic quests..this however isn't as ego boosting as the last one and i am not the type that tries different combinations of responses to get an "ego inflator" (Now thats a term i had to invent for there isn't anything in my present vocabulary that fits the need of the hour) . If the great predictor thinks this is what i am, the so be it :-(

The unshakable!

Apparently there was a tremor some time around 9 :30 a.m. I didn't feel ANYTHING!! Can't believe i missed an earthquake! was sipping coffee in the I.C when it happened, anyways, nice thing...junta will be talking about it for sometime.
Nice indication of how jobless BITSians actually are, i came to check mail in the I.P.C and i find my mailbox filled with mails that said, "Did you feel the tremor"?...now thats either extreme concern or utmost vettiness (really sorry to use a non english word..but the word is more BITSian than any other language!)
Anyways, at least the quake ensured that my mailbox got a fresh lot of mails ;)

I even have a hidden Talent !!

Your Hidden Talent

Your natural talent is interpersonal relations and dealing with people. You communicate well and are able to bring disparate groups together. Your calming presence helps everything go more smoothly. People crave your praise and complements.

What's Your Hidden Talent?

Check out this site...its nice to while away time in the I.P.C ... caters perfectly to the ego boosting needs of the narcissist :P

The war within

Do you ever fight with yourself? I do. For specific reason though...

no, disagreement with each other's views is not a reason any more. For we (me and myself) are in a state of perpetual discord over what we think or want to do. The fight starts when we end up agreeing on something. Sounds wierd does it? Thats because i believe a very old saying which goes, "If you got it without any pain, you got it wrong!" and if myself agrees with me so easily there must be something wrong. Wierd belief but it works....

Only the other day, we almost agreed on a girl without a fight...no, we ACTUALLY agreed...and God we were so wrong!!

Who wins the war is immaterial but there has to be a war...probably the only time a war in itself is useful and not what comes out of it. The whole thing might sound pretty absurd...but really can't help thinking this way

finally...retribution

This post is surely gonna be a vague one, nevertheless i really can't do without it. There is this idea of devine retribution which i believe in. It implies we get what we give, and i believe its true for everything in life, be it financial dealings, emotional treatment or even academic performance. Whatever you do will be done to you someday in some form or the other in some way or the other. Whats different about this idea is the fact that its not the same as saying," You Reap what you sow."And this is no declaration from a pessimistic idiot, i have seen it happen to me . The only thing that separates a human being from getting what he deserves is time, but time is not know to be very well behaved, eh?

Back to the future

Long back there used to be a trilogy of movies by this name that used to be repeated shamelessly on star movies and like an idiot i used to sit and keep watching them!!

Come to think of those days now, i really feel those idiotic days were the best ones that i have lived. Imagine spending all your four years in college thinking of making a great job and then after you've made it, sitting and asking yourself what next?

Most of us are really not pricked by the question, but i seriously find it very disturbing. That question never seems to let me live in peace. Wasn't this what i had always wanted...to have a safe and secure future and get along with life nicely? Once we get to figure out our futures, the question keeps coming back, its like a mocking voice constantly whispering, "You've reached till here, What next?"... And once you know what next. The recursive process continues...

Half way through...

After the beginning came the end...no wait..its not that easy ,is it? after the beginning of the placement season, one just waits to make a high paying job and start dreaming about how he's gonna spend the first few thousands he earns...that is, one just waits for the end. But what fills in the agonizing gap between the two points is what actually matters.

Dozens of white shirts, ties and black trousers are thrown into the process which is followed by hours of waiting patiently ( at times anxiously) outside the door of some interviewer of some company which might just be interested in you. Then comes the interview where you are made to understand how little you know and how nicely you have wasted the best three years of your life. The process is fine, as it is universally accepted...but is that one hour spent behind a closed door in front of an interviewer enough for him to judge how smart you are?

I don't know..its just a question that keeps haunting me....

The beginning of the end

Finally back to campus for the last semester of being an undergrad. And i have everything i need. A nice dark room in a sheltered corner of the hostel, just one hour of class every day...the greatest amount of free time and the freedom to realize every wild idea. Yet those bits and pieces of fantasies which were shelved at different times of my life, to be executed in the utopic leisure of psenti-sem seem to have suddenly vanished from the registers. a deep sense of uselessness prevails.
Every morning i see people running to classes, while i take the most lethargic walk to the bathroom. there's absolutely no hurry and hence no purpose in life, at times i wonder if this is the kind of psenti-sem i was looking forward to..

what the hell!!

we are in the middle of the final exams and every evening there is a bloody power cut ... not that i am dying to study, but i have to do something about my grades. however much you work through the semester, these last few days will have to demand something extra..at times i really feel like running away to some wierd place and earn just enough to live by the day... this looks like too much to handle.
boring life,crappy subjects and a feeling of nothingness constantly haunts my peace, rather, whatever little bit of it is remaining. at times death seems to be the only way out, but even death requires a little bit of courage, definitely more than it takes to live like i do. a constant search to do something better and a constant question killing me "by parts". are we here to do what we are supposed to do..or are we to do what we want to do ?

The Concept of God

I have a senior who once won a prize at a paper presentation contest for a paper of the same title as that of this posting. I thought he was an idiot to have wasted time thinking about God or even trying to conceptualize Him..oops is it Her? We Hindus have made life difficult for ourselves, even when we think of God, we have to think of Gender!!

As i grow older i keep coming in contact with people who have God in different capacities in their lives... as for me, the Concept of God is very simple. He ( chauvinistic that i am, i would always like to imagine God as He!) is there, and i am there. We both do our own work, mind our own business, He has nothing to do with me , neither i with Him. However, we don't disrespect each other, neither do we have anything to hate each other about and if ever our paths cross, i am sure , He will win because he is much more powerful than i can ever be. And i shall call it my bad luck and move on in life. As for Him helping me, its totally His will and popular opinion has it that God helps those who help themselves, hence i feel there isn't much importance of a prayer in our daily life, after all a concious effort towards achieving what we want should be enough to make God try to help us, isn't it?

The last editorial...

This is the last editorial I worte as the editor of the newsletter we bring out at the University...Its full of my own frustrations at not being able to report some of the more important things because they would cause "adverse public opinion" !! (as our Dean would put it):

The end of yet another year. It feels like it was only yesterday when I sat typing my first editorial. And here I am drafting the last one after what now seems like a haze of activity. There's nothing worth writing. But people say, the editor always has loads to write. But believe me..There isn't much. The usual, "I am thankful to my team for being one of the best that the club has seen for quite some time"...but that's more or less implied, after all, what is a press without some really dedicated members?
We tried to give you a glimpse of everything (except a few) that has happened on campus, in the last year. Hope you've enjoyed reading them as much as we enjoyed getting them for you.
We did have about ten issues this semester and we covered quite a lot of print space. However, I always felt that the purpose of being a press club was never truly fulfilled, to tell you the truth we are crippled, not by the scarcity of matter, since anyone who has been in the press will know there is enough and more stuff to write about, but how it will go down with everyone is our concern, BITS is a little world and we just can't afford to sound too critical! The freedom of press is nice to think about ,but right here on campus, we have a little problem with its degree!
Jokes apart, I really don't feel too bad when people make rockets with our issues, its very much a part of its life cycle (provided , the previous steps have been taken care of!), even the best new papers end up on the pavements! This might seem too wide hearted, but we obviously can't expect people to treasure our issues as much as we do.
Life of campus goes on and within a couple of weeks it'll be time for another batch of BITSians to move out in search of their destiny. All that remains to be said is, we'll be back in the second week of August, till then ,enjoy your holidays!!

~Ed (one last time)

The day,as it went!

Woke up in the morning at the buzz of my cell phone and rushed to the bogs. Returned to the room and studied for a few minutes before rushing to gobble up an omlette dripping of oil and a couple of slices of bread along with a tumbler of coffee..The test was really BAD..and hence all classes following the test were conveniently bunked an the rest of the day was spent in wing in front of a computer, involved in the extremely enviable business of chatting!!
A glimpse of the life of an engineering student...